This is the week that was: DJ Marketing
It’s been an exciting week here at Earnest. Plenty of pitches, some exciting wins and a flurry of results from our most recent campaign (not to mention Earnest putting on his birthday hat to celebrate turning four years old).
Luckily we left our content fishing line out during the whole escapade and have pulled together the best of the best for your reading pleasure. Enjoy.
Warning of the week
The Google algorithm is a strange old beast – no one really can claim to keep up but over the last six months there has been more discussion around how content is now the most important thing when it comes to search. It’s going to be your knowledge that keeps you ahead in the SEO game. This interesting article from exploreB2B looks into how Google Penguin, the algorithm put into place last year, has changed SEO for good. It’s no longer about clever use of keywords to boost your rankings (although this is still important). Guest blogging, quality (not quantity) of content and good old social engagement are the big things search experts are going to have to get their heads around to stay ahead. Interesting stuff.
Infographic of the week
We have never really liked content that talks about itself. ‘The ultimate whitepaper on how to write a great whitepaper’. ‘Not to miss webinar on how to run a webinar’. It all seems a bit strange (and pointless). This infographic, however, bucks the trend. Not only is it beautifully designed but it gets into the nitty gritty of the science behind why infographics have led the content charge over the last two years. Take a look.
Planning lesson of the week
Everyone knows planners love a good buyer persona. They are not just there to bolster the pitch slides (although they do a great job). In a time of increased personalisation and the increasing need to stand out from the crowd, they are the fundamental tool for shaping your marketing strategy to reach the right people, in the right place at the right time. But when they go wrong they can be more harm than good. Eric Whittlake this week gave a review of the common mistakes he has seen made time and time again when it comes to drawing up personas and what we can do to avoid taking our strategy down the wrong road.
Dubious connection of the week.
It’s becoming quite a regular in our weekly roundup, but often a dubious connection can link to an important point. Found through the brilliant BBH Labs twitter feed, this article from Marketing magazine tells the story of one advertising execs (turbulent) journey into the world of becoming a super star DJ – learning ultimately there are some lessons to learn for us marketers from playing Jackson5 and Tina Turner back to back. Know your crowd, be spontaneous, surprise your audience and most of all create a seamless journey for your prospects. Who knew clubbing could be so mind opening?
Good news of the week
Is that nothing is dead. Well, marketing channel wise. A reaction to a recent blog post on the death of email marketing in B2B, this week we argued in our blog post that no channel is useless as long as the message and creative are right for the audience at that time. What us marketers must start with is the context of our message and our recipient and build the channel strategy around that. Liberating really when you think about it – all options are open.
Creative inspiration of the week
There are endless blogs we could reel off that keep our creative juices flowing, but this week a Tumblr showcasing some of the best images from the National Geographic took the biscuit. There are some real gems in there – a personal favourite being a 1966 shot of Neil Armstrong training for his space mission. Go on; delight your eyes for ten minutes or so.
So that was the week that was. Let us know your highlights.
The marketing graveyard has shut up shop
A blog post on the death of email caused quite a stir recently.
The point was a fair one – B2B marketers are focusing on email marketing when in fact they should be keeping up with the latest marketing trends.
There was even evidence to back it up. The author explained that “of the 300 odd slices of spam, about 60% had personalised the email with my name. About 10% of them had my name spelt incorrectly, left blank where the data merge had failed and one even said ‘Dear Do Not Email’”
That’s not very good at all. But does it mean email marketing is dead?
‘Surely not’ was the resounding answer from those enthused enough to engage in the debate that followed.
The general consensus and argument put forward was that powerful, effective, compelling messaging can be used in ANY medium. As long as you have the engaging creative and a ‘valuable’ call to action you should be onto a winner (taking into account previous brand preference of course). Get that right and it doesn’t matter if you are using twitter, email, DM or good old press ads – you will get results.
The author’s response was clear – the times are changing:
“If you asked your kids 5 years ago how they communicated with one another, they would have said email, sms and the telephone. Ask them now. And there’s my point. E-mail’s future is limited. Not only is email saturated today, the new generation entering our workplaces don’t use it. Simple.”
Well unfortunately, no – it’s not that simple.
You see if you did ask your kids (and by kids I am assuming they are not currently in the ‘face squashed against the tube door mopping your sweaty brow with your tie’ world of work yet) the no, of course they won’t use email. Why on earth would they?
At the same time they don’t sit in front of a screen all day with the need to correspond with a variety of people in a formal way (I assume)
The point is it’s everything’s contextual.
The way you communicate, the channels you use, the messages you focus on – it will work for some, it won’t for others. It depends on their context and the context in which they experience your communications.
Let’s take social media as an example. A tsunami of expectation has built over the last four years that social media will ultimately replace all marketing. Our audience will shut down their email, chuck away their newspapers and wile away the hours engaging with brands on twitter.
We know social can have massive effects on a campaign, we know social is great to engage with clients and potential customers, blimey we even run campaigns that have social as the focus (if that is the right answer).
But again, it all depends on the context.
Take for example the very non B2B example of deodorant and body wash. In this market studies have shown that social media influence is close to zero – but that doesn’t mean it’s dead, it has just been used in the wrong context.
The problem is, as a B2B community at large we seem to be living in a non-contextual vacuum – focused on a ceaseless obsession with channels (and not answers to problems)
We blog about channels, we debate the role of channels; we share our best use of email, twitter, DM. But rarely do we talk about innovative answers to difficult questions.
We are giving a very dangerous generalization about the role of different media.
All this means we fail to really resonate with our audience. We focus using channels and messages that may or may not resonate with them at the time. Working backwards means often starting with the wrong answer (and giving marketing a bad name.)
In the word of a great blogger: If the message is right, who cares what screen people see it on? If the message is wrong, what difference does it make?
So what is the solution? Well it is all quite liberating, very simple and much more fun.
Start with the problem and look at it in several different ways.
Think about your audience, think about their business, and think about your product.
Think about the offer, the pricing, the naming, the creative, the big idea.
Then (and only then) think about the channel. Is email right? Is an app right? Who knows?
The good news is – no channel is dead. Nor will it ever be. It just needs to used in in the right place, at the right time.
Of course many will disagree with this post. Believe email is dead. DM is dead. Advertising is dead. Social is dead.
But then again “Nobody ever got famous predicting that things would stay pretty much the same.” Did they?
Peak performance and happy endings in B2B marketing
The smart chaps at Decode last week issued their quarterly science update entitled ‘The peak-end effect’.
We, as marketers, know that leaving customers with a positive impression across everything we do is pretty important, right? But how exactly do customers evaluate what a positive impression is?
By tracking the facial muscles or skin resistance of some willing members of Joe Public, Decode was able to show that our brains constantly evaluate everything that we experience and perceive: positive or negative.
The fact is our evaluation varies from moment to moment. And this is where it gets interesting: our lasting impression isn’t formed by us calculating some form of average of those experiences, but based on two very important parameters: the peak and the end.
The more intensive the peak (the most positive experience) and the more positive the end, the better the overall experience. So you could say, it pays to leave a good taste in the mouth.
Decode proposes that peaks can be generated by surprising the customer with something unexpected and pleasurable that generates a positive peak. What’s more, you can save the best ‘til last – the peak can be the end if appropriate.
What does it mean to you?
Now think about how these principles can be applied to the way you construct your campaigns and even specific communications.
Perhaps it’s including an unannounced VIP speaker on your event bill to thrill your audience? Or sending targeted prospects a highly engaging direct mailer delivering something out of the ordinary? Or directing customers through to a personalized online video that’s got that wow factor?
Bear in mind it’s not only the first impression that counts – but also the end. Making it all the more important for marketing and sales to be joined up. Do you want your lasting impression to be some poorly informed sales executive rocking up to the meeting you’ve secured with that hot prospect?
And the principle of ‘peak and end’ even applies to specific tactics: The ad, the video, the research paper. How can you design each communication to deliver a positive impression?
Content marketers take note. Think about how much damage you’re doing by getting people to come and download your all-singing, all-dancing informative guide, only for them to find it’s the same recycled corporate claptrap they’ve heard time and time again. You may have peaked way too soon.
So want to deliver an experience that sets you apart from your rivals? Use the ‘peak and the end’ to your advantage – and we’re sure it’s not just your customers who’ll benefit from the happiest of endings.
This is the week that was: Stick your neck out
As the summer holidays draw to a close and the world stumbles back into their routine, we have happily been beavering away – harvesting the best of the best from the field of content online.
Here are five of our favourites:
The simplicity of difference
Dave Trott really does have a way of words. His most recent book, A master class in out-thinking the competition, tells some fantastic tales of how brands think outside the box to stand out from the competition. In this week’s blog Dave talks about the very simplicity of the need to be different. Whilst first sounding blindingly obvious – the risk behind popping your head above the parapet seems something some businesses are not quite ready for. Well worth a read.
Surprise, surprise
As organisations get to grips with the world of Big Data, our obsession with analysis and efficiency is going into overdrive. However, as we strive for perfection in our processes are we beginning to lose the ever so important element of surprise? This week salesandmarketing.com talks about the importance of surprising and delighting your customers and how ultimately it may be more effective than all of those efficiency means put together.
Playing on your emotions
Us B2B marketers find it very easy to see ourselves as in a separate camp from our B2C counterparts. After all it’s not shampoo we are selling – these products could completely change a business and the working practices for everyone in them. For this reason we seem to focus on the rational buyer – focusing on selling features that make it best fit for a business. It’s clear, however, emotions have a huge role to play in purchasing decisions. Sherry Lamoreaux this week discusses the emotional triggers in the buyer/seller relationship, explaining that 50% of a buyers experience is based on emotions. The old saying rings true – ‘Business people are people too, they just happen to be at work’
Personalisation in marketing – raising the game
<Hello John>, as you well know personalisation has reared his (often ugly) head in all manner of campaigns. But as technology evolves the sophistication the ways businesses can give the personal touch in their communications has really ramped up. This post shows us where personalisation is best used and the three big benefits it brings – and important message when you take into consideration that only 19% of marketing departments say they are doing it well. Thought provoking stuff.
Digital reaches the top of the tree
‘Digital’. A word that has represented forward thinking for the last few years. A dark art to some, the be all and end all for others – but certainly one that is begging to make waves. This week McKinsey published results from a survey on the place of digital marketing within the business. It seems ‘digital’ has now made it to a strategic priority – with C-level execs wading in to give some backing to big data and digital innovation in particular. So are we seeing the tipping point of digital becoming part of everything a business does? Let’s wait and see.
So that was the week that was. We would love to you to share your best bits.
This is the week that was in B2B: It’s back in business
Summer is well underway. The British weather has returned to business-as-usual. The client and agency world is busy preparing its annual autumnal campaign binge (beware b2b buyers you won’t know what’s hit you). And surprise, surprise, ‘This is the week that was’ is back due to popular demand (i.e. our planning director told us to pull our finger out)…
Marketing science lesson of the week
Here at Earnest we’re all for B2Bers getting a little more scientific in their marketing efforts so we were delighted to see a recent blog post by the good people at HubSpot. The post looks at how the key principles of human psychology can be applied to take content from good to amazing. Covering everything from the concept of ‘reciprocity’ (essentially if someone does something for you, you naturally want to do something for them), to the role of social proof, the recency illusion and commitment, it’s well worth a read. Derren Brown eat your heart out.
Cool video statistics of the week
Big thumbs up to Brendon Cournoyer at Brainshark for highlighting the role video can play in improving search performance. His ‘6 cool stats’ blog post features some compelling facts to make video naysayers sit up and listen. Like the fact video is 50 times more likely to get organic page ranks in Google than plain text results (source: Forrester). Or the revelation that video search results have a 41% higher click through than plain text results (source: aimClear). Sound insight we think to inform any content marketing strategy.
Infographic of the week
Ever wondered what it takes to be a successful CEO? Check out this new infographic from Forbes looking at the DNA of Fortune 100 CEOs. Rather worryingly they’re not a hugely diverse bunch – predominantly white, male and on average 57 years old. While the vast majority are educated to degree level, it’s interesting that engineering degrees are more common (just) than accountancy degrees. But arguably the biggest surprise is that just 3% started out as marketers. Yes, 3%. Still got hopes of becoming CEO? We recommend a career change – fast. Become a bean counter, engineer or even a soldier and the odds look more in your favour.
Gamification madness of the week
Sick of your smartphone? Like taking a few risks? Then you need the new Android app – SMTH (Send Me To Heaven). The principle is simple: throw your phone in the air – and if it doesn’t smash to smithereens you can enter your score into the leaderboard. He who throws highest, gets to top the leaderboard. He with butterfingers needs a new phone. Try explaining that one to the boss.
‘Stupid plug for the competition’ of the week
This week, we’d like to big up two fellow agencies – madness we know. First high five goes to Base One for their buyersphere report – looking at how and why b2b buyers buy. We say report, it’s actually a series of reports – and very thorough to boot. Interesting fact: 21% of information hungry buyers download presentation decks from Slideshare, only half that number watch a video. (There you go research is full of contradictions). Our other high five goes to the nice fellas at Velocity, who are proof incarnate that SlideShare works. They’ve published an internal document exploring the dynamics of the ever tricky client/agency relationship. Read and enjoy it. We did.
That was the week that was. We’ll be back with another missive this time next year. We mean next week. Make yours a good one.
Better the devil you know
Why breaking into new markets is tougher than you think.
Last week the latest series of the Apprentice came to an end. Lord Sugar, former proprieter of Alan M Sugar Trading and other such jewels in the crown of British industry, pointed his finger and uttered the words: “You’re hired.”
The biggest shock wasn’t his Lordship opting to invest in Dr Leah’s chain of cosmetic clinics though, but arguably the front-runner who fell the preceding week – one Neil Clough.
For those of you who gracefully chose not to watch, Neil looked like he was contender number one. He had it all – the nous, the ambition, the motivational speeches, even the ability to refer to himself in the third person. But he lacked one essential thing, the business plan.
His grand idea was to break into the online estate agency market – despite it already being dominated by a whopping market leader. And for all the feedback, boy would Neil Clough not listen. The result, a teary eyed Alan had nothing else to do but fire him. Because despite the barrow boy exterior, our Alan knows his stuff.
Breaking into any new market is tough, especially when there’s an 800 pound gorilla to be reckoned with – and especially when you’re a humble start-up.
Even if you’ve got something different and more compelling to offer, chances are it’s going to take some pretty hefty, or very smart, marketing activity to steal market share.
Why we fear what we don’t know
The thing is human psychology is not in your favour. The vast majority of us have a predilection for the brands we know and trust.
Why? The scientific explanation may come from a social psychologist called Robert Zajonc – who through his research demonstrated a phenomenon called the ‘mere exposure effect’.
Essentially, he proved that people tend to develop a preference for things simply because they are familiar with them.
He observed that when we’re exposed to a novel stimulus – initially it elicits a fear and avoidance response. Think about it, back in the days we were roaming around the jungle, you’d have to be mighty wary of something you hadn’t experienced before – or risk losing your own pointy finger.
But Zajonc showed that with repeated exposure, the novel stimulus causes less fear. So much so that after repeated exposure, we even begin to react fondly to the stimulus. Better the devil you know, you could say.
Importantly, what Zajonc acknowledged was that this takes place in a split second without us even knowing – what he calls conscious cognition.
So everyday, despite our best intentions to try the new café up the road, give that new agency a go or chat to the new people who’ve just moved in up the street, we decide to put it off for another day for fear of losing our fingers.
Okay, a little extreme but you know where we’re coming from. It makes sense though doesn’t it?
The brands we know, for all their faults, mean less risk. And the bigger the brand, the less the risk – making it harder for an unknown upstart to tempt us away.
Sir Alan knew that. Neil Clough didn’t. But that’s why Sir Alan’s sitting on a rather substantial fortune.
That said, do all have-a-go start-ups fail? Definitely not. But that’s for another blog post, another day.
B2B Summit Crunched
Everything you need to know from the people in the know. ♯b2bsummit
400 B2B Marketing professionals, 34 expert speakers, 4 workstreams, 2 keynote presentations, 1 unmissable day in June
We came, we saw, we crunched…
The grass is looking greener on this side of the fence
42% of B2B Marketers are more confident of delivering improved results in the next 12 months versus 33% of B2C Marketers (James Smee Purestone)
But B2B marketers need to adapt as the way people buy is changing…
The B2B buying journey is starting online – more than 2 out of 3 buyer journeys start with a Google search (Jason Bell, Amaze)
60% of the sales cycle is over before a buyer talks to a sales person (Kieran Flanagan, Hubspot)
Welcome to the consumerisation of B2B…
We are all receiving information through constant jumps between personal and professional networks – blurring the lines on where we are happy to connect with brands (James Smee, Purestone)
Where it’s all about engaging B2B buyers emotionally…
What they want:
- Make me look good
- Teach me something
- Entertain me
- Impress me
- Give me a moment
- Give me an experience
- Market with me not at me
- Do not sell to me
- Talk my language
In the way they want to be engaged…
Mobile is a primary business tool for 56% of B2B audiences, rising to 73% for under 40s (Jasper Bell, Amaze)
Mobile is shifting everything – keep pace with your changing audience. (James Smee, Purestone)
All this matters because
If you really understand the customer – you win (Paul Higgins, Talk Talk)
However, take note
B2B buyers say only 1 in 10 sales conversations gave them the value they wanted (Graham Wylie, Decision Point)
So inbound and/or outbound?
When it comes to inbound and outbound marketing – don’t completely turn off one tap, as you won’t be able to turn the other on fast enough (Steve Kemish, Cyance)
Everyone is going content crazy
Great content is the best sales tool in the world (Kieren Flanagan, Hubspot)
Like Coca Cola, think liquid content that can work everywhere (Jasper Bell, Amaze)
There are two types of story: man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town. And it’s true even in the world of B2B (Scot McKee, Birddog)
If it’s all about educating your audience, why isn’t eLearning part of your content marketing strategy? (Amanda Philips, Volume)
Salespeople spend on average 40 hours a month creating their own content for presentations – and 90% of what marketing give them is discarded (Graham Wylie, Decision Point)
99% of people are content consumers. 1% of us are content creators. How can you turn 100% of people in your business into content creators? (Scot McKee, Birddog)
A great tool to help you track interaction with your content – Tynt: A tool that allows you to track who has copied and pasted your content, and where it has been shared (Steve Kemish, Cyance)
Time for a re-think?
Content should drive campaigns instead of campaigns driving content
Content creators beware
3 sentence ideas are being turned into 36 page eBooks. Microsites full of the obvious disguised as the profound. Video interviews that might as well be subtitled Yadda-Yadda-Yadda (Jasper Bell, Amaze)
Quality is everything
Keep the bar high. Put out good content. F*** frequency (Maria Burnee, Dell)
We’re in a content arms race. Soon there’ll be a massive content standoff, then a treaty to ban production of new content (@philaslehurst)
This social thing isn’t going away soon
Social networks will eliminate email (Scot McKee, Birddog)
The three key tricks to social: Listen. Engage. Sustain (Maria Burnee, Dell)
But bear in mind…
The lifetime of a message on Twitter is 17 minutes (Maria Burnee, Dell)
A great tool to help with your social activity – Findpeopleonplus.com: The place to search for and connect with the who’s who on Google+ (Ian Duncan, Media Co)
We’re still struggling to measure real results…
Success is hard to quantify and even harder to track (Sam Papi, Reading Room)
But some measures are better than others…
If you can’t change how you behave, it’s a bad metric (Maria Burnee, Dell)
If you really want to stand out
Don’t forget creativity as it’s the thing that separates your process and plans from everyone else (Paul Higgins, TalkTalk business)
And brand matters more than ever
Be a brand that people want to spend time with (Kieran Flanagan, Hubspot)
Telemarketing is 5x as effective if your prospects know your brand (Sylvia Jensen, Eloqua)
The only way you can truly run an integrated campaign is if you have a system to pin it all together (Paul Higgins, TalkTalk Business)
If there’s only one thing you take away…
Just do some stuff. Take the first steps. The worst that can happen is you will feel a bit stupid. The best? You begin to revolutionise your marketing (Paul Higgins, TalkTalk Business)
That was the B2B Summit 2013 crunched
Washing up like a true B2B marketer
It’s funny how so many business-to-business marketers take themselves so seriously. And ironic, how the world at large doesn’t.
Unfortunately, B2B seems to have an image problem. But the thing is, it’s never been a more exciting time to be on this side of the industry. Fact. And there are lots of them.
That’s why we produced our follow up to vital statistics for b2b marketers – providing a veritable feast of new statistics for our counterparts to digest.
The aim: to capture the B2B zeitgeist, helping people make sense of what’s really going on out there.
Our guiding principles: to make it useful and capture the charm and element of surprise we’ve built our brand around.
It made sense to create an infographic to support the film. And slightly less sense to produce tea towels featuring the infographic. But then again who doesn’t want to learn about the big shifts in B2B while drying the dishes.
B2B marketing boring? We like to prove otherwise.
But this isn’t just about us – there are a whole host of facts and stats hidden away that we want you to share to help B2B marketers at large.
Introducing…the great tea towel giveaway
Over the coming months Earnest will be giving away one Vital Statistics for B2B Marketers Tea Towel a week from here on in until stocks run out.
All you need to do to get your hands on one is simply tweet @earnestagency your best B2B marketing statistic featuring the hash tag: #b2bvitalstats
Each week we’ll send one lucky tweeter a Tea Towel to do with as they please (suggestions welcome in the comments section)
So make yourself a cuppa, get tweeting and we’ll help out with the washing up.
The big barriers to big data for b2b marketers
Metrics. Measurement. ROI
Three little things responsible for marketers across the world waking up in cold sweats at night.
The thing is being a b2b marketer is not easy at the moment.
Your customers’ buying behaviours are changing, industry experts are shoving social and digital myths down your neck and worst of all your CEO is losing patience with woolly results from marketing campaigns.
Then came along big data. The measurement super hero. Ready and waiting with his team of insight tools, analytics experts and reams of spread sheets to give the answers marketers have been yearning after for so long.
However, as was clear from a recent debate hosted by ABBA and IAB, there’s a sticking point or two that is shadowing marketing from the shining light of insight
Issue one: The baffling complexity of the systems
There is a plethora of systems that can help marketers gain insight into their customers, and their campaigns. The likes of Eloqua, Silverpop and Hubspot shine a light on what prospects are doing and how they are interacting with your business. Who is visiting your site? What are they looking at? Where are they in the buying cycle? Unfortunately, to effectively use these systems your business needs highly trained and skilled specialists. The truth of the matter is the skills gap is huge and until this problem is fixed and marketers are fully educated and trained to use them, useful data insights will remain locked away.
Issue two: The sales marketing divide
During the debate it was clear one old issue remained a sticking point for businesses – the sales/marketing divide. The entrenched frustrations that exist between the two departments ring true as ever when it comes to big data. The crux of the issue is that sales don’t think they are getting the right insight and information about the prospects (and whether they are in fact a warm, qualified lead) and marketing often doesn’t get feedback, information and insight into what is ticking the right boxes for prospects to shape future communications. Until we begin to see unity between the old foes, businesses realistically will never see the true value of big data.
Issue three: Technology is not the answer to all marketing woes
There was a clear theme that came through in the heated discussion. Marketers, struggling to connect with an ever changing customer, believe that big data is the answer to all their woes. And sadly it is not. The data can shine a light on your customers, their issues and how they interact and respond to your campaigns – but without the right messaging, creative and strategy in place from the start activity is ultimately set to fail. Sadly big data is not the medicine for bad marketing.
Issue four: Balancing insight with intuition
While big data is relatively new to the world of b2b marketing, comprehensive data and analytics have been used to make big decisions in sport for years. Particularly in Formula 1, managers are forced to make split second decisions based on hard data that sits at odds with their gut feeling. The question is; are b2b marketers ready to question their current tactics if the data says do the opposite? Are they willing to target a whole new audience if insight says their purchaser is changing? The data can throw up some challenging questions – but who is willing to face up to them?
It’s clear the future is bright for marketers, and the reams of data and insight will only help maximise the effectiveness of marketing activity. But until these barriers are conquered, big data will remain the baffling beast it is today.
Earnest about B2B 