If we hadn't copied the Honeymoon , we wouldn't get the Flintstones . If you hadn't copied the Scythe of Bilko . There's no Top Cat . There's always been this history across all industries of yeah , a little cheeky , little wink at you . I know this is quite the same , but it's new , I promise .
Hello and welcome to the Marketers of the Universe podcast . I am your host , hayden Woods-Williams . I'm a digital marketing team lead here at Brew Digital , and I'm here today with a good bunch of great content . In today's episode , we are looking at digital marketing strategy and where you can uncover your quick wins .
For example , did you know , according to a piece of research from Metris Group , less than 10% of organizations actually successfully execute their strategy ? We're going to delve into why , and if that's actually a bad thing or not . We're then going to follow up that conversation with a little debate between the team .
We are discussing whether B2B marketing has an originality problem . Are we all just copycatting each other ? Is there really such a thing as a USP anymore ? That is definitely sure to be a pretty good chat . For now , though , let's get on with the podcast . Our first section today is a continuation of our quick wins series .
We are looking this time at digital strategy . As I mentioned in the introduction , only 10 of organizations are successfully executing their strategy .
I think that's really interesting , and I've got rich harper , who is our head of digital marketing services , here to talk with us today about what you can do with your strategy , whether there are any things that you can implement that are quick wins and what needs to be in a strategy , and if you actually need one , because 43% of teams in B2B businesses that
are growing do not have a marketing strategy . Wow , rich , what do you think of that stat that says that 43% of B2B businesses in the small to mid-sized section don't have a marketing strategy ? That stat , by the way , is from a company called Exposure Ninja in a research report .
I'm not shocked , to be honest . However , exposing in a research report . I'm not shocked , to be honest . However , just because I'm not shocked by it doesn't mean that it is not right . The problem is with companies is that the pressure is on , especially small to medium-sized businesses .
The pressure is on to bring in sales , to bring in leads , to bring in revenue , and the first thing people do , I think , is just turn to channels that they think are going to do that . So we often see people say let's just turn on some ads .
The problem is with our strategy is you don't really know what your end goal is , and what I see time to time companies doing is the immediate pressure is we need customers , we need more sales leads , let's turn something on .
They put a budget towards it , they test it for a small amount of time and , because they don't know what the end goal is , they very quickly realize that actually some of these channels will sap your budget very , very fast and they haven't achieved what their goals are .
Ie , they haven't got enough leads or they haven't converted any customers and they haven't achieved what their goals are . Ie , they haven't got enough leads or they haven't converted any customers and they turn that activity off and then they jump to the next piece of activity .
It's like getting in your car , turning on your sat nav but not giving it a destination . So you just start driving in one direction and then you go . This isn't the way I wanted to go .
So you get to a roundabout and you turn around and you go down another way and then you're constantly just taking turns , not knowing where the destination is and aimlessly driving around .
Yeah , I think I know what your answer to this question is going to be , but do you think that a marketing strategy is a must have , or do you think companies can get by doing what you just said a minute ago In my ?
opinion , even if you're a small business I've worked in small businesses before we always had a strategy and we would set that strategy at the beginning of the year . One of the biggest things I've made a mistake doing is putting that strategy in place .
You get to the start of the financial year , you write your strategy , you create a lovely document , you pass it to your CEO . He's happy with it . It's almost then like that's a tick box . It's done and then it goes in the drawer and you refer to it the year past oh , did we achieve what we set out to achieve this year ?
A strategy shouldn't be a tick box exercise . It should be a live document really that you are referring to consistently , a live document really that you are referring to consistently . You set those objectives at the beginning of the year . Those objectives should be long-term .
In my opinion , you should have that growth target , those revenue targets in mind , but then kind of pull those long-term targets into short-term goals , and I think that's the best way of doing it . Goals , and I think that's the best way of doing it .
On the other side , some companies can succeed without a fully robust strategy , but I still think you need a plan or some goals that indicate the direction that you're going in .
Yeah , I mean arguably , if you've got goals , you've effectively got the start of a strategy . You're talking there about long-term targets and short-term goals .
How do you think that a business can look at those business goals that are maybe set out by the CEO and turn them into marketing goals so that they are achievable in the short term , so that they're realistic ?
Yeah , it's about breaking them down . We've just done a big exercise within our own business and we work with companies on doing this . Set yourself those ultimate objectives , or OKRs , kpis , however you want to label them up , call them like your champagne targets . These are the big things that you want to achieve in this year .
But then take each one of those objectives , break it down into key results . One of our big objectives this year is but then take each one of those objectives , break it down into key results . One of our big objectives this year is around revenue . Most companies likely is that they're going to have some sort of objective around revenue .
That's your big champagne target . Ultimately , that target may take 12 months to get to . You might even have a five-year target that you've got to get to . How can you then pull that target down into key , measurable results ?
That will help you know that you're moving towards that big goal and not always leave that big goal so far ahead that it just doesn't feel achievable .
Looking at one of the things you said right at the start of the conversation , around pressure from sales pressures to bring in sales pressures from CEO , around pressure from sales pressures to bring in sales pressures from CEO pressure to bring in revenue , how can marketers who are working in these businesses , whether they've got a strategy or not , how can they
ensure that they are getting the right buy-in from the CEO ?
or the sales team . Making sure you have that alignment with sales and other areas of the business is crucial , because if you don't have that alignment with sales and other areas of the business is crucial Because if you don't have that alignment with other department heads , you could be working towards different goals and objectives .
I think the biggest thing there's always going to be pressure from sales and marketing . The best businesses thrive when they work together rather than against each other . Get other people on board and explain to them . I think marketing is seen as something that's relatively easy and it's like well , yeah , just turn this ad on or just do this and it will work .
The reality is it's not that easy . It's not that simple . If it was , we could just turn ads on and flood our businesses with inquiries every day . It's not how it works . It's about that value exchange . How can you provide something that someone is looking for or how can you provide a solution or solve a problem that someone has ?
I think that's the fundamental thing , and marketing do a great job at understanding some of those pain points and solutions . Through market research and stuff like that and we've talked about this on the podcast in the past you can do market research and stuff like that . We've talked about this on the podcast in the past .
You can do market research and you can do all of that stuff , but the salespeople should be your best friends because they're speaking to customers every single day of the week so they know what the customer's pain points are . They know the issues that the customer's facing . They're providing solutions from a sales perspective .
So just being aligned would allow you to then make sure that the messaging up front at the top of the funnel and some of that awareness building stuff is aligned to what the sales team are doing at the bottom of the funnel when they're trying to convert customers . And I think that's the biggest takeaway .
I know it's something that's going around for a long time about sales and marketing and people calling all sorts of weird things for a long time , about sales and marketing and people calling all sorts of weird things . Someone in a previous company used to call it smarketing , which was slightly fringy , but hey , it kind of worked . It's better than males , yes .
So yeah , top tip is be friends with your sales team . Don't work against each other . Same goes for any salespeople listening to this podcast . Don't blame the marketing team . How can you work closer with the marketing team to help you hit your goals ? What are they missing ? What are they not doing ?
That's causing friction or not causing you to get enough leading through the door . Work together .
The ultimate goal should be a shared one , and I think one thing that's often forgotten when it comes to the marketing function is actually marketing yourself , internally as well as externally . One that we've picked up recently within Brew Digital is actually communicating what we are doing in the marketing department on a weekly basis .
Just a short update every single week , also having an update to the wider team every month , and what that does is the things that you're doing and the things that you are delivering on a weekly , monthly , yearly basis suddenly start to be noticed by the other teams across the business , and that means , instead of working in a silo , you start to bring in
opinions and questions from other parts of the business , and I , for one , have definitely found that to be really , really impactful Marketing is a communication department right .
So if the marketing team can't get communication right , then what hope are other teams going to have ? Tell people what you're doing , Tell people about campaigns you're running , Tell people about the activity you're running .
Integrate and align I think is the biggest thing we spoke on the last episode about how , in our social media quick win section how your employees are your biggest influencers Well , actually to build in as part of your strategy , those sales people have such big communities on LinkedIn and on social channels , so having that communication opens up those opportunities as
well . We haven't necessarily broken down what goes into a strategy . I think that's a totally different conversation . But what is one thing that you think listeners should go away and implement within their digital strategies ? That is going to quite quickly have a positive impact on performance .
First and foremost , have a goal , have an objective . If you don't have that goal , whatever you do after that is going to be pointless . There's multiple things that can go into a strategy . We probably haven't got time to go into it now , but for me , the biggest mistake I see companies make is that they don't know what they're aiming to achieve .
Or what they're aiming to achieve is we want more sales or we want more revenue . That is not a goal . Make that goal a smart goal . Make sure it's specific , measurable , achievable , relevant and timely . You don't need to have a five-year business plan . You don't need to have 12-month goals .
If it's the next three months that are the most important thing to you , then that's fine , but at least know that at the end of these three months this is what we aim to achieve , and then you can work back your plan from that being realistic is really important too .
yeah , there's no point with any campaign or strategy or plan setting a target that is unattainable and , at this level , one that's too easy .
So I think you have to find one that's a good balance of the two . I think targets are there , give you guidance . The problem with setting a target that isn't achievable is then it becomes a bit of a morale sapper when you go well , we didn't hit what we aim to achieve this year .
Equally , there's not much point in setting a target that's so easy to achieve that within the first month you're like hey , we've hit that revenue goal .
woo , I think another place that I always find interesting around building a digital strategy for clients and one thing that I think is often overlooked is looking at your competitors and , being honest , I work with companies so often who look at their competitors and they're like , oh , they're rubbish . You know , we're so much better .
People can read the bullshit meter . You can say you're the best company to anyone . They can go and do their own research and realize you're probably not . If you look at your competitors , look at what they're doing well , look at what they're doing better than you . Look at what they're doing different to you and then see where you fit into the ecosystem .
We actually attended a really interesting conference a few weeks back in London run by LinkedIn , called Be To Believe .
Interesting conference a few weeks back in london run by linkedin , called be to believe , and in that conference they they spoke about how 81 of businesses who are going through a buying process know before they even start the process that they'll go with a brand that they are reckoned that they recognize .
So they'll choose at the end of the buying process a brand that they already knew . Beyond objectives , look at what your competitors are doing . Work out where you sit in the ecosystem .
Your point there about being honest about it . I've been working with a startup CRM business . They have a property CRM tool . I've been reviewing some of their copy and stuff recently and they're making kind of bold statements like the world's favorite CRM tool , the world's number one property CRM software . This is a startup . They've got a handful of customers .
At this point in time there's absolutely no way they can proclaim to be the world's number one property tool or the world's favorite tool .
None of those statements are based in any sort of evidence and also kind of just make them sound a little bit dumb because when they go out to the market , people know they're new to the market and they're just not going to be believable from the offset . So it's not about beating your competition by being the best or being number one .
People don't always pick the number one and ultimately be truthful . Look at what the competition are doing , exactly like you said , and if the competition is doing it better than you , fantastic , they're doing it better than you . Just understand that . Actually , maybe that's not an area right now that you're going to win in .
We've spoken about setting realistic objectives . We've spoken about honestly looking at your competitors . Is there any other quick wins that a company can do right now to have an impact , or do you think that kind of summarizes ?
it . Look at your product and your service . What problem does it solve ? That's the first thing that you should be asking is how do you solve a problem for your intended customer ? If you can answer that , that's a great starting point .
So we're onto our second topic for today's podcast , and I'm delighted to have with me Mark Bundle , our senior email marketing manager , freya Wilcoxx , who is our digital marketing coordinator , and rich harper , back as our head of digital marketing services , and the conversation that I really want us to dig into right now is one that we've been talking about a lot
in our own time and we just wanted to delve into in a little bit more detail .
It's around does B2B marketing have an originality problem , and what I mean by this is is there anything that you can do that makes you stand out from your competitors , and is it actually possible to be successful by thinking about something new , or do you just have to copy what everyone else is doing ? I'm going to start with USP unique unique selling point .
Is it a real thing anymore ?
if your product doesn't have some kind of usp , you're probably going to struggle . It might not be massively innovative and earth shatteringly different to competition , but if you're not doing something differently , chances are you're not going to last for very long .
Um , I mean , you can be apple and just upgrade the size of your device every year and people will still buy it , but that's because they spend massive amounts on brand building and having the iphone as an original product and having the usb of that .
But now I think you have to have something unique , or at least something that's not available right now , otherwise it'll struggle you could take learnings from b2c with usps and stuff like that .
If we're talking mainly b2b , I'm going to use it . We've talked about it before , um , that they get quite a lot of coverage because of what they're doing . But liquid death don't have necessarily a usp . They are a water brand that sell water , the same as evian , the same as buxton . You know , ultimately , what's inside their can or their bottle is just water .
However , what they've done differently to the other brands out there is rather than have a beer bottle with some mountains on it is they've clearly distinguished themselves by looking at other categories , other industries , and positioning themselves like an energy drink or an alcoholic drink .
How does that work ? I'm going to interrupt you here . Yeah , really , like it's all . We've mentioned Apple . We've mentioned Liquid Death . These are both B2C companies . What we're looking at here is B2B . Do you have these examples in B2B where companies are trying to stand out and be ?
different . I think it's harder to find them in B2B world , and that's why I was using that simile to B2C . It's actually B2B . Brands can take learnings from what these disruptors are doing , because yes , there is . Oh , you know . Let's go to the title of this section . Does b2b marketing have an originality problem ? I think the answer is yes .
There's a lot of rinse and repeat of what other businesses do . It's never a bad thing . We talked about in the past looking at your competition and seeing what they do and replicating it . I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to be taking inspiration from what other people were doing If you're truly going to win .
There's a strategist that I follow on LinkedIn called Will Poskett , and he talks about fame being the biggest driver of growth , and that's true if you're a B2C business . And if you're a B2B business , how are you going to create that fame if you're doing the same as everyone else ?
and I think there's a lot of conversation around brand at the moment in b2b and being the best known .
I'm still not sure if I agree with you both on the usp , though I think you know you look in a b2b world of software and we're working with a client at the moment to look at intent tools and effectively you've got eight different intent tools that are being assessed . Every single one of them does the things that we need it to do .
What makes one of those tools stand out ?
I'm going to throw this over to you , freya I think a lot of it comes down to how you market it .
Marketing definitely does have an originality problem , and Forbes actually recently came out with a really interesting article about how it's getting worse with the use of AI and how the new golden rule in B2B content marketing is human-made content , that's , original content written by humans .
Because we are becoming more and more reliant on ai to give us ideas and , at the end of the day , if everybody's using ai , we're gonna get the same sort of answers at some point .
So when it comes to your sort of b2b marketing , original ideas are the way to go as for us , as ai has definitely made that worse people doing the stuff the same , because it creates sound boxes . Social media algorithms will say you've liked this thing , is more of this thing . So all you see is the thing you've already seen . You don't see anything new .
And if you apply it to the marketing , yeah , it's gonna create these little . Here is the thing that worked one time and and we're going to repeat it ad infinitum because that's what the models have seen , so that's what they know .
The more we do rely on AI to be that cheat code to do things faster and quicker in the content space , which is what all marketing essentially is the more it is going to have an originality problem . It's going to be like Freya says doing stuff that's original , human and different . That will be the differentiator .
But then , as we use ai and search results and that looks at the same algorithm , who knows , maybe you still need to pick up on those same boring trends everyone else is doing .
I'm going to say something that's potentially a little bit aggravating to some people , in that I think ai within marketing , for the majority of marketers , is used because they are lazy .
I think it's not used because they have a reason , or if they probably thought out a way of doing it , it's because they can't be bothered to actually go and do the research themselves , and I think that is a problem .
Yeah , agree , there's a writer whose newsletter I subscribe to , anne Handley .
I mean , it's the only newsletter I actually subscribe to because they're good and it's all about writing , and it's a big advocate of do a draft , write a draft yourself , then get ai to help you , because that way you've put the human in first and the human is the basis of it , whereas I think a lot of people will go we need something fast , we're under
pressure to get this out , and they'll just use the ai to get that first draft out and then they'll tweak it and that puts the robot first and the human second . So , yeah , no , I agree with you . I think it's .
I mean , lazy might be harsh , I'll go with time pressures , I'll be nice , but yeah , it's definitely not being used in the way that I think people can make the most out of it I hadn't even thought of it like that , as in using the robot first , because I've never used the robot first .
I've always done human content and then put it into AI to check , and then I still make tweaks if I think it sounds too robotic . So I'd never even considered the idea that people would use it like that , and I think if you used it the way that you explained , hayden , then maybe it is .
But using AI doesn't equal lack of effort , especially if you're making tweaks before and then after to the content that AI gives you .
I managed to turn this into a conversation about AI within the first five minutes . So that is the the constant thing in in marketing at the moment , isn't it ? And actually , you know , going back to the USB , is that not the thing that everyone is trying to say ? That is their unique selling point ?
It's like we're an AI marketing agency , we're an AI business tool and , frankly , I think it's all a little bit bullshit , but that is my opinion . We've spoken about this originality problem in B2B . Trends come through from the Gen Z sphere , come a few weeks months later into the business to business sphere .
When it's dead , let's be honest , and business is jumping on it . Does it matter that these businesses are copying stuff they see in B2C ?
They're copying other things that they're seeing B2B businesses doing yeah , for sure , and nothing should be a direct copy of anything . If you don't have original content , then you can't really brand yourself as creative or innovative . But I think for a while .
If following trends is what you need to do to get ahead , then that's fine , but don't follow trends forever and lose sight of your brand . And also , no one should be really copying anyone . Take inspiration , for sure , but their work looks like that because it aligns with their audience and their target audience and not yours .
So take inspiration , put your own spin on it , but make it your own and make it something that your target audience wants to see .
We're creating pastiches of these original pieces of work that are just slowly getting shitter as they go along . It's like a race to the bottom of B2B creativity .
I think the issue when we are talking about originality , though , is how much stuff these days is truly original , and I mean that there's some very creative work going on .
Obviously , there's a lot of stuff that works and resonates and successful and wins awards , but I think we need to be careful about calling stuff original , because I see stuff I wouldn't say is original , but it's taking an idea and progressing . It don't copy and paste what other people are doing .
Take inspiration , apply your own kind of branding and creativity to it , but don't get bogged down on trying to come up with something brand new , because I've been in that before .
I've been in creative meetings and you sit there and you're like we need to come up with something fresh , something that no one's ever done before , even to the point of trying to name businesses and stuff like that . You sit there for days putting names in .
You're like that one , that one's great , that resonates , that really fits with our values , blah , blah , blah . Quick domain search You're like , ah shit , someone's already got it . It's about how we interpret something that we've seen in the past and just make it that next bit better .
Yeah , I guess we're getting a little bit philosophical and mark will come to you in a second . But you know we've focused a lot on being original in b2b . How do we be rich and actually , do you actually have to be original ?
no , and actually you know what ? That is a great link to what I was going to say . Anyway , plagiarism , which is kind of this , copying is , is nothing new . I mean , even back in 1996 the simpsons did it . They had an episode where itching scratchy was plagiarized .
And they stand there in the courtroom and go like if we hadn't copied the honeymoon , which we didn't get the flintstones , if you hadn't copied sergeant bill guy , there's no top cat . So it's like there's always been this history across all industries of building what was there before and kind of going , yeah , cheeky little winker .
Yeah , I know this is kind of the same , but it's new , I promise , and I don't think that's ever going to change . So no , it doesn't , you don't need to be new , I guess . You need to be aware . You need to if you're going to build on these things .
You need to make them like fraser earlier , or make you relevant to your business and your audience as well . So it's it's old but new .
Just toying a horrible old cliche look at other businesses in b2b , look what doesn't .
Just because your industry does something and it's rinsed and repeated and copied by every other business that's going doesn't mean that by looking outside of your industry at something relatable or not even relatable and going , that really worked for them but why did it really work and then bringing that into your own creative could be your .
Your way then of being original within your sector , because that's the other thing that sectors stick to what they know . And what happens I I find as well you know from a recruitment perspective we're probably all guilty of it slightly is you build your experience in a sector and then you stay in that sector for your career .
So what you did in your last company you then do in your next company and your next company and your next company , and actually companies are recruiting going . You need 10 plus years in the tech industry rather than going hey , what did that guy from automotive do ? That was really cool . That could actually work for us .
Think of outside you hate that that term , but outside the box . Look at other other businesses that are successful that don't .
That may not necessarily be in your niche yeah , I think outside the box is a terrible thing , isn't it ? I've just bought a ps5 and I'm really interested in the space next to the ps5 . That's a fucking stupid thing to say , wouldn't it ?
put your gen z audience right there .
That's your gen z hook a lot of what we're talking about here is things that we have found out in our research and experience , but actually we haven't really dug into any examples .
Does anyone have an example of when they've kind of fought outside , outside the box gone I said it as well uh where they've fought originally for a client or for a brand that they've worked with ?
yeah , I , literally I can think of one , and it wasn't me personally . It was , uh , an email designer I used to work with and he had the concept of if images were blocked on these particular emails , that he'd cut the image up into so many different pieces of different sizes . If the images were blocked it would still form the pieces behind .
It would still form an image . So it's an image of space at that point and I've never seen that done anywhere else and that was really original and that did actually help the conversion rate on those emails when the new game went live . So that was really cool .
But otherwise it's tough to think of something genuinely original that's not just like a new take on an old favourite .
In that case , I'm going to change the question a little bit to one of two questions . Do you have examples of B2B companies that are smashing it right now , or can you think of any campaigns where you have directly copied another company doing something and seen massive success ?
emrush is always my go-to when I'm talking about like b2b social media . Their social media channels are so consistent and so tailored to each platform and yet they always somehow manage to make tiktok content work on instagram and Instagram content work on LinkedIn , and if it's not super original , they put their own spin and their own branding on it .
It works really well . They take ownership of their mistakes as well , which is really refreshing . Um , recently they had a typo in one of their SEMrush enterprise banners at an event they just had and they actually made a whole video on it poking fun about showcasing how to everyone can make mistakes , and it was a quick fix and it got really great engagement .
And whilst showcasing your mistakes isn't necessarily original , the way they went about it was really refreshing and , in turn , got really good engagement . Also , the person who runs their tiktok and their instagram . I could pick him out of a crowd , chris . I'd recognize him anywhere . He's iconic and their brand presence is just great . Chris deserves a raise .
What I can think of at the moment just off the top of my head , and I think that these guys have definitely copied . But Hootsuite I've been seeing a lot more recently on social media . It's like they've gone out and brought the Duolingo bird and just painted it blue and it's just in all of their content . But their content is always relevant .
They've got people who are interesting and engaging on their videos and they're entertaining as well , and I think those kind of three things in B2B are going to help you stand out .
In defense to Hootsuite . I think they predate Duolingo for quite a long time . So I think Duolingo not Nick's Leatherbird , not the other way around . But yeah , finding properly original things in B2B is hard .
Damn . Bray has just pointed out to me that the Hootsuite bird is red . I like .
Canva's marketing at the moment . They're using that , tapping into that guess like user generated type content . Like you know , they're asking the question to the user . I see I think it's a couple years old , but their campaign about what will you design today ? And then positioning their tool , they've done really well . Recently .
I think there was a stigma around canva being like it's for non-designers and it's for the serious designers use adobe and tools like that , whereas actually Canva has done a fantastic job at promoting themselves as a really valid online alternative to Adobe software that is a lot more cost effective yeah , I'm by no means a designer , but my degree was centered around
using Adobe products , but I still reach for Canva first because it's much more user-friendly .
I did my CV , my portfolio , all of that I did through Canva rather than Adobe , even though I do love Adobe products and actually Adobe's doing really well at the moment . A friend of mine works for Adobe and one of her user employee generated content like one of her adverts actually popped up on my TikTok for you page the other day , which was quite funny .
As this is a podcast where our probably not so unique selling point is that we always try and sum it up into things that you can take away in action , I'm going to ask you , all three of you , the question how do you stand out in B2B ? I'm only going to give you one sentence to answer me with , purely because of time restraints . Let's start with Rich .
How do you stand out in B2B in one ?
sentence Look outside your sector for fresh ideas .
No hyphenating or extra long sentences there . That was a statement and a half , freya .
Make everything your own and make it memorable , so people can see other companies and still go oh , so-and-so did this , and be reminded about you .
Nice , that's a sentence that you get told off in primary school for connecting three sentences in one and Mark finishing yourself .
Make it obvious what customer pain you're solving customer pain you're solving .
Sadly , that is all we have time for today . Thank you so much for listening . We hope you found some useful snippets in this session , particularly for your strategy and being a little bit more original . Do go and put them into your own marketing strategy if you can . We love that you've made it this far for you to listen .
We do love making this content and would love it if you could recommend the show to a friend , a colleague , an enemy , whoever . Make sure to go and check out our past episodes , subscribe on whatever platform you use to listen to your podcasts and we'll see you on the next one . Thank you , I've been hayden and these are the marketers of the universe . Bye .