Marketing measurement: The new terms of engagement

Delighted to be a guest on Agent3’s “Agents of Change” podcast.

I had the chance to discuss the pressure on Marketing teams to demonstrate contribution to business pipeline and new customer acquisition.  Such demonstration - or attribution - then calls into question the measures that are typically put in place around Marketing, including the term ‘Marketing sourced.’  Particularly when success is often measured in relation to lead generation.  

The answer, I propose, lies in measurement of engagement with buying units, whether that be net new account buying units, or engagement within existing strategic accounts that opens up opportunities to cross sell and upsell.  Businesses need to move away from an obsession with ‘give me leads’ and instead measure marketing on demonstration of supporting sales and partner team account goals with impactful customer programs and insights.

Thank you Agent3 for having me! Give the episode a listen!

Old tech, new tech : The song remains the same

Another day, another disappointing Virtual Experience. Before we get too excited about AI and the Apple Vision Pro, lets remember we're still struggling to master the old tech.

After spending an inordinate amount of time perfecting my avatar (who knows why for a one hour event) for this virtual "experience", I've just spent a few minutes running around a virtual world "emoting" (i.e. jumping, clapping, cheering) and failing to access any content in what is clearly a business event. What is this, 2003?! Pass me my Linden dollars.

So before racing on to that new shiny thing, let's just get really good at what we have already. I know its not easy but the new tech will not make this any easier.

#marketing #b2bmarketing #innovation

Creativity is alive and well in Las Vegas.

U2:UV

A multi-media experience in the awe-inspiring “The Sphere”. Almost impossible to put into words.

Art, science, music, immersive, overwhelming, intimate, emotional. The future.

And proof that people buy experiences. 40 sold out shows, premium ticket prices, high merchandise sales. The bar is raised.

And don’t believe these “consumer” events don’t impact “B2B”. You can’t hide from what’s going on out there. No more text emails, clunky web sites, dull social posts, lengthy white papers and bland events.

Think about the experience. And understand what your customers are experiencing the 99% of their day they aren’t dealing with you.

#creativitymatters #experiencesthatmatter #b2bmarketing

Contemporary Issues in Marketing

Enjoyed talking with a group of 3rd Year Business Management Students at St Mary’s University, Twickenham on "Contemporary Issues in Marketing".

Whilst there are many challenges, most have been constant for decades (understanding the customer, building a point of differentiation, being smart on channels, sales/marketing alignment, etc. etc.). So thinking of "contemporary" issues was harder than I thought! I came up with five:

💥 Consumer Choice - the war for attention / consumers having infinite choices at their fingertips in milliseconds / how the customer controls the purchase journey
💥 Channel complexity - so many choices, so little budget / cutting through the digital noise / the yearly rise of new channels
💥 Sustainability - consumers demanding greater brand transparency on DEI, ESG & sustainability
💥 Skills - marketers needing to be much more multi-faceted across business, creative, data & program management
💥 AI - no presentation in 2023 is complete without AI! Those who embrace AI will win over those that don't

There are many more I could've added, I'm sure. Let me know your top 5?

Lots of great questions from the students too on ethics, politics in marketing, B2B vs B2C. Great to see such an engaged group. Thank you Lucy Timms for the invite!

How To Fail & The Power of Vulnerability

Its very rare I say I was blessed/honoured/fortunate to attend an event, but last week's LinkedIn event in London was quite simply transformative. Featuring guest speaker journalist/author/podcaster Elizabeth Day (big fan!), "Chatham House" rules prevent me from sharing too much detail.

Elizabeth's podcast "How To Fail with Elizabeth Day" celebrates the things that haven't gone right. Interviewees explore what their failures taught them about how to succeed better. And often those failures are being shared in public for the first time, with many being highly personal.

This neatly dovetailed into how as leaders we need to be authentic through sharing failures or vulnerabilities and indeed being more open. Some thoughts :

✨ sharing personal experiences (very hard for us Brits!) only strengthens your professional relationships and makes you a better leader

✨ embrace failure & celebrate how its made you better (which 99% of the time it does)

✨ failure will happen and its fine. (Reminds me of telling my son, new to cycling, that you WILL fall off some time and you WILL get a mech failure or puncture. Its all good, embrace it!)

✨ at work, don't be afraid to say "I don't know" or "I don't have the answer". Infallibility is ok!

Finally thank you to Fredrik Borestrom Luke Phebey for the invite and to Josh Graff for hosting. The organisation, venue, food and company were outstanding. Josh - you have a second career as an interviewer!

And if you haven't already, check out Elizabeth's podcast. Great guests, often deeply moving stories but with moments of great humour!

#leadershipdevelopment #authenticleadership #vulnerability

How to build an elite ABM team

Thank you B2B Marketing for inviting me to talk at the Global ABM Conference in London!

Always great to catch up with familiar faces and get inspired by my peers.

For my part I spoke on "How to build an elite ABM team" (their title, not mine 😀 ).

And whilst elite is an aspiration, I could certainly share some key ingredients for high performance based on my experiences at Adobe, Yext and VMware. Four thoughts:

🌟 Account selection and planning is the new handshake between marketing and sales. It's the greatest opportunity to be set up for success and for marketing to be in the driving seat. Setting criteria is key for accounts to enter the program. Not all accounts need marketing love.

🌟 ABM demands a new set of skills and success is based on marketers becoming a business partner not just an execution centre of excellence. Customer understanding plus understanding business objectives is vital.

🌟 ABM needs to be part of a Go-to-market strategy, not just a cool thing marketing can do for our customers. Top down sponsorship is key.

🌟 AI is not the answer (technology very rarely is). But keep on top of the oportunity and encourage your teams to experiment (but behind the fire wall!)

Thank you Joel Harrison Richard O'Connor for the invite. And to Will of Momentum ITSMA for providing some supporting research data.

And good to meet/chat Ceri, Paul, Matt, Ilvija, Andrea, Louise, Pippa, Rachael, Marina!

Photo : Paul

Does B2B Marketing Needs Don Draper?

Loved taking part in True's "B2B Marketing Needs Don Draper" podcast series, discussing the connection between brand and lead generation in B2B marketing, scaling strategies while maintaining the human touch, and the impact of CMOs coming from a brand and creative background.

But most importantly, we discussed why there's never been a better time to be a B2B marketer. Madmen may be an era for the advertising industry to reminisce on, but now is the golden age for B2B marketing!

Thanks to Nathan Anibaba and Richard Parsons for the invite!

Check out the episode here: https://lnkd.in/gJm4c9rV

#b2bmarketing #b2b #marketing

A little light (yet deep) reading

Summer may be behind us, but I'm sure we've all got time for a little reading inspiration 📖 . So I was delighted to see this recommended reading list from several VMware leaders 💡

My personal contribution was "Deep Work" by Cal Newport - a thought provoking read on how we should all focus on activities that maximise our expertise vs being distracted by more "shallow" tasks (spoiler alert ⚠ : if what you spend most of your time doing can be automated or taught to an intern in 90 days, make some changes. Fast!). Written a few years ago, its never more relevant than in today's AI-driven world.

Also, loved the wonderful range of recommendations from my peers, from Kahneman, Dweck and even Murakami 👏

Enjoy!

#vmware #vmwarelife #bookrecommendations

Why Creativity is Core to B2B Marketing

Creativity hasn’t always been critical in B2B Marketing – but it is today!

Thankfully, long gone are the days when simply getting your product or service in front of a prospect was deemed good enough. But that means we have to be at the top of our game creatively, every day in everything we do.

I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation with Joel Harrison, Editor-In-Chief at B2B Marketing Magazine, which covered a huge range of topics.

Want to see more? You can find further excerpts at https://lnkd.in/eE9cUEAq OR, better still, if you’re an Propolis member, you can watch the complete series on the Propolis platform.

#cmo #b2bmarketing

Secrets to Scaling B2B Tech

Great to chat with Dom Hawes of Selbey Anderson and Adam Greener from Digital Radish, on the Unicorny podcast.

The big topic is how to scale a B2B tech business.

In the conversation, John explains what you need to think about when building an integrated revenue generation engine and they discuss first and third party data as the feeder for your engine.

The team also talks about the importance of place in marketing and what is happening in the talent market right now.

Listen here.