birddog

B2B Digital Marketing – The Next Stage

I can’t decide if I’m feeling like the first stage of the Apollo space rocket is breaking away and I’m ready to hit the big red turbo-boost button, or if it’s a bit more like waiting in the trenches for the command to go ‘over the top’ and get shot in the ass, again. Digital can do that to you. As we approach the end of the Financial Year and the start of the next one, there’s a lot of planning and forecasting going on.

Some progress has undoubtedly been made in the last six months or so within the B2B digital marketing space. The frenzy for dataficating everything and monitorization of funnels and tubes and pipelines and all things relating to grids and templates has mercifully eased off a bit. The dawning realisation that demand gen tools are exactly that, tools (like all the other tools that went before…), not a total panacea for digital marketing, is a blessed relief.

There’s more interest being expressed in brand strategy again, “How do we say this differently? What can we do to stand out from our competitors?” And there’s a growing recognition that between the brand strategy and the demand gen tools, there’s still a gap in the middle that needs to be filled. “Here’s our brand, check. Here’s our machine for processing stuff that will tell us what to do next, check. Umm… how do we join the two together?”

In the ‘olden days’, the gap would have been filled by design work. A graphic designer would have been expected to colour-in the gap, maybe with a Getty image or two. Tah-dah! A beautifully coloured picture with your message at the top and your badge at the bottom. Brilliant. Let’s go to the pub.

In the newfangled digital and social world however, colouring-in doesn’t fill the gap. The graphic design requirement for engaging in (for example) social monitoring, conversation and response is, let me think, oh I know – zero. There is still a need for design, but the real requirement (the gap) is for creativity. Not just Getty images creativity, but digital creativity – creative thinking based on digital understanding. The difference of course is that the very last person on earth that you should ask for digital creativity is the same person you ask for graphic design. That’s a tough one for clients and agencies to come to terms with. B2B clients barely recognised good traditional creativity when it bit them on the ass, so the transition to digital is like taking them on a trip to Mordor. Graphic designers craft breathtakingly beautiful work, which is next to useless in the context of most digital platforms.

The gap then, between B2B brand development and digital marketing delivery is creativity. Actually, creativity has always been the missing link in B2B marketing, but the opportunity is to provide creative solutions with and for digital challenges. So if the traditional Creative Director’s role has changed, where’s this elusive new digital creativity going to come from? The Planners, the Strategists, the Community Managers, the Info Architects, the UX testing…? ‘Yes’ – probably all of the above. But not many of the clients or the agencies are prepared to truly take the risk and make the change. If B2B is famous for anything, it’s for not changing. But the talking’s just about over now I think. We’ve talked a lot about B2B Social Media and B2B Digital Marketing. We’ve been sitting on our thumbs watching and referring to endless B2C examples. Now we have to deliver it in B2B, or not.

The focus for digital delivery in B2B needs to shift fundamentally, and it has done – certainly in my mind, and my business. But does that mean ‘ready for liftoff’ or ‘bullet in the head’? I don’t actually know. I guess that’s the next stage.

Scot McKee
Managing Director
Birddog Ltd.
+44 (0)20 7323 6666
twitter: @ScotMcKee

Pitching Digital – The Line in the Sand

I have had cause to proposalate in the last few months. Proposalation is the line that, as an agency of repute, one draws just before dropping one’s drawers and taking it up the Mohave Desert. The ‘before’ part is an important distinction. Pitching is bullying in my mind and so it simply won’t compute. I hate dedicating the resources of the agency for no reward – we have clients who pay for such a service and there isn’t a credible reason I can give those clients for making them pay, and yet give others the same service for free, or ‘speculatively’, or for the ‘potential opportunity’, or however the hell you try to justify it. It’s simply unacceptable.

So, now that that’s clear, what have we got left? Well on the basis that the prospective client has equally staunch views on ‘sampling the merchandise’ and requires more than a lifetime of credentials, case studies, awards and testimonials because, you know, what if overnight you suddenly start delivering shit…? Well, that’s where the agency can proposalate – write a proposal, show an ankle, but whatever happens, keep the drawers firmly in place.

And so I have proposalated for the last few months – with mixed results. On the plus side, almost every client proposal has been approved and progressed towards something wonderful. On the down side, almost every prospect proposal has met with anxiety, procrastination and a nervous twitch.

I’ve learnt a few things in the last few months. The first, and probably the most important, is that in a difficult economic climate and in a rapidly evolving digital space, the trust of an existing client is far more valuable than the potential riches of an uncertain prospect. There are brands that are willing to embrace digital change and those that would prefer to produce the same old, same old in the vain hope that it might work this time (even if it didn’t work last time). No matter how compelling the proposal, nothing changes the basic fear of the unknown.

The digital space for B2B brands is currently one of chance – the chance to change, to do things differently, to evolve. The vast majority of the work that I am currently proposing simply hasn’t been done before. There are no case studies, there are no measures or benchmarks. That’s quite a hard sell for the traditional B2B prospect. Actually, it’s pretty difficult for an existing client, but the at least client has trust. The measures are therefore not what has been achieved for other clients, but ‘how much do you trust me?’ We’ve never done it, you’ve never done it, no one’s ever done it… but it’s cool isn’t it? Trust me. Spend some money on it and let’s see what happens… Like I said, a hard sell.

So I’ve learnt that I’m wasting my time speculating on prospect proposals. Digital brand strategy and delivery is too risky for the majority. Those closest to accepting and embracing change are already our clients so it makes sense to focus on them. They will become the case studies that the other laggards eventually follow.

It makes no sense to continue to educate the market in the art of the possible when the market makes little tangible investment in that process of evolution. They’re interested in it alright – it’s the interest that simulates the proposal in the first place. They’re even excited by the potential – “incredible… that’s amazing… can we really do that…?” Well, actually, no, you can’t, because you’re not prepared to pay for it and I’m getting tired of telling you while you jack-off in the corner.

That leaves a few, a happy few, a band of brothers. Whichever way I look at it, it’s still a hard sell. And so I’m going to stop proposalating. I have better things to do. For a start, I have some needles in a haystack to find. They’re out there, but I’m no longer going to try to write a proposal to find and convince them. Once they’ve narrowed their options, they’ll find me. We should all draw a line in the sand. Not in the Mohave Desert though.

Scot McKee
Managing Director
Birddog Ltd.
+44 (0)20 7323 6666

Follow Scot on Twitter

31/01/2011
Additional/Related information: Fast Company – The Future of Advertising

The Space Time Continuum

As B2B brands move painfully towards a digital future, I find myself having to slow down and go back to chivvy them all along – ‘back to the future’ you might say (yeah, I’ve still got it…). However hard I try, there is still a reticence on the client side to actually part with cash to ‘do’ digital. The extent of digital ambition on the B2B client side appears to be entrenched in ‘the website’, ‘emails’ and maybe some banner ads – all admirable pursuits, but oh so very tip of the iceberg. And mostly spam.

I’ve nodded patiently and sympathetically. I’ve been empathetic and encouraging. I’ve tried teaching and being supportive. I’ve even resorted to shoutery (which didn’t take too long if I’m honest…) but all seemingly in vain. Fortunately for all of you, I have discovered the answer – ‘The Space Time Continuum’.

The barrier to trial and adoption isn’t interest in the digital opportunity – there is no doubt brands are interested in social communications, community engagement, crowdsourcing, mobile interaction, cool shit generally – but when it comes to the sign-off crunch, there isn’t a budget to develop the digital activity from concept to reality. And so the opportunity is lost (if it ever truly existed in the first place). I begin the process again and talk to someone else about cool shit that they’re never going to implement. You can see how that might get annoying after a while I’m sure.

In trying to resolve the problem and remove the obstacle then, I have discovered that the B2B client almost always has a ‘space’ budget. A brand will happily spend inordinate and inappropriate amounts of cash on media space – traditional space in papers and magazines, and even digital space in banners and skyscrapers. Even when there is no direct evidence that the traditional advertising works, or worse, when banner clickthroughs definitively prove that the banner campaign essentially isn’t working, the business spends more money on space in the hope that it will come good in the end. Well, it won’t. Those days are gone. Not entirely and not even necessarily forever, but they’re gone inasmuch as the market has moved and the relative importance of the ‘space budget’ is considerably lessened. It’s taking the market a while to accept that. Denial is a particularly warm and cuddly blanket for the B2B market. Ineffectiveness and underperformance, however, can’t last forever – not even within B2B. At some (near) future point, the space race will become untenable and clients will seek an answer to the problem. You lucky, lucky, people – I have found the answer for you already.

The answer is not ‘space’ – it’s ‘time’. Traditional client budgets and the relative importance of activity needs to be shifted from ‘space’ to ‘time’ – the Space Time Continuum.

For 2011 then, I would encourage B2B budget holders to attach value to the ‘time’ part of the equation. Conceiving, developing and delivering the digital solutions to the challenges of brand engagement takes time. It’s an evolving landscape, so the solutions are often bespoke, untested and even unique. Allocating the time and the budget to explore the possibilities is increasingly important if brands wish to remain relevant to an ever more selective audience. The audience will decide where and when to engage with the brand. They will decide who to listen to and whose advice to take before making purchasing decisions. Adding more pages to your website is not the answer. Sending more emails is not the answer. Take some time to find an answer that is applicable to your audience in the context of their digital world.

The first step is to recognise that you’ll be investing in thinking time and not design time or space time. It’s a big shift, but there is value in the ability to conceive of a channel(s) and/or a tool(s) that will pull the customer towards the brand – and there may be little (if any) requirement for design or media. This may all be a bit uncomfortable for clients and agencies – but the customers have already made up their minds. Hello? McFly?

Scot McKee
Managing Director
Birddog Ltd.
+44 (0)20 7323 6666

Follow Scot on Twitter