In search of the ‘real’ digital native

We live in a digital world, but are we natives or immigrants?

In the summer I wrote a blog post about Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants, explaining the theory and outlining some of the commonly held opinions and assumptions. Since then, I have performed primary research in the field and can now share some of my findings.

The intended outcome for the study was to discover the differences in generational use of digital technology, with the premise that the generation born before 1980 found it harder to adapt to new technology and therefore used it in less abundance.

To sum up all the questions asked by the study in one blog post is difficult, so I will concentrate on the main three:
1. Are the generational groupings correct and a valid demographic segmentation for marketers to use?
2. Are immigrants being undervalued by some businesses?
3. What is the role of attitude?

The findings
The research revealed ‘natives’ to be more active than ‘immigrants’ in a wide range of digital uses.

The ‘neo’ natives, those born after 1990, showed a wider range and more frequent use of digital media than the natives. With this in mind, the fundamental tenant of Prensky's theory appears to be correct.

Based purely on these facts, segmenting a market by digital domicile would appear to make sense to marketers.

Marketers must not, however, make the mistake of disregarding online marketing when targeting the immigrant generation.

The results showed that around 70% of immigrants use a range of digital technologies four times a week or more - not as often as the generations that follow them, but they were found to be the most frequent users of e-commerce. Online marketing therefore needs to be at the heart of any strategy that targets the older generations.

But how old is old? If Prensky’s age grouping is to be believed, the youngest immigrants will be in their early thirties and the oldest well past retirement. Further research is needed into the segmentation of the immigrant population, but they surely cannot all be banded together as one demographic.

The qualitative research offered up a form of segmentation other than age, ones' attitude and willingness to use digital technology. This is where we find the real difference between a digital native and an immigrant. We can all think of examples of keen adopters and staunch 'refuseniks' amongst our networks of friends and contacts, be it in the use of computers in general or particular applications, for example social media.

Natives have grown up with the technology, it has always been there, they don’t have to ‘try’ to use it, they just do. The research discovered that many immigrants were determined to use it, whether to talk to a family member on the other side of the world, or to order shopping and make life that little bit easier. These immigrants went out their way to learn.

Another interesting finding was that natives and neo-natives, having always had technology, do not appear to push their digital technology skills to their potential boundaries. Indeed the results indicated that only a handful of natives or neo-natives have knowledge of ‘advanced’ technology, such as writing HTML code or using applications such as Photoshop to a high standard. The immigrant is much more inclined to explore and discover new territories.

In conclusion, it still seems to makes sense to segment generational use of digital technology into immigrant and native as the academics suggest, but a level of sub-segmentation is needed too - both by age and attitude. Businesses and marketers need to take note of the immigrants' determination to use digital technology and also of the risks of assuming advanced skills in the native generation.

We would like to hear how people perceive themselves without the restriction of given age groupings. Do you think you are a native or an immigrant?

Forget digital domicile, it's social domicile that counts

Earlier this month Matt White posted on the topic of digital natives and digital immigrants and sparked some lively discussion from people born on both sides of the age divide. (I am, by some considerable margin, a digital immigrant).

In many respects, Prensky’s concept can be applied to any period in modern history. We have been adapting to the constant march of technology since the days of the industrial revolution and one has to ask if there is anything fundamentally different about this latest evolution in our development.

The identification of a new socio-demographic group is, after all, only useful if it gives us fresh insight into behaviours or likely future trends.

Norman Tebbit once famously argued that the test of how well one has adopted a new homeland is which cricket team is supported when the current meet the former. To apply the analogy here, how many digital immigrants would support a fax over email or a set of encyclopedias over the Internet? By this test, immigrants we may be, but our longing for a distant digital place of birth has long since been left behind.

As immigrants too, those of us born before 1980 have become naturally attuned to finding information on a website or working out how a new mobile phone works with little or no need for instruction. Partly a victory for good design, this also demonstrates our rapid naturalisation.

To see any fundamental differences in the natives and immigrants of Prensky’s study, therefore, is difficult. Those of us born before 1980 have become so comprehensively naturalised to a digital world that there is little to be gained by treating us differently for marketing purposes – or certainly no more than traditional demographic groupings would provide.

While the date is wrong, the concept does, however, provide some insight if it is brought forward a number of years.

The evolution of Prensky’s analysis would be to set the dividing line at around 1995 and ask whether one is a social native or social immigrant. The real generational gap is not in the use of digital technology per se, but in its use for communication, file sharing and networking.

When I left school, I had about a dozen friends that I could be readily in touch with. I knew where they lived and it was possible, but unlikely, that I had their telephone numbers written down. The passage of time has meant that this dozen has dwindled away to only one (I hasten to add that I’ve made some new friends along the way!).

As my daughter now reaches an age when she could technically leave school, she has more than 1,000 friends of Facebook. Some of these contacts will be a lot closer than others, but the point remains that she can follow their movements and get in touch with any one of them at a moment’s notice.

I doubt my daughter recognises the power of her network and certainly hasn’t built it with any sense of the future in mind, but imagine how useful this could be as these contacts become the lawyers, teachers, politicians and entrepreneurs of tomorrow: people she can turn to for jobs, advice, referrals or social interaction in a very speedy and natural way.

But we immigrants have not stood frozen in the lights. As social immigrants, we have not only strived to catch up, but have developed or monopolised certain networks and free resources of our own.

LinkedIn is positioned unashamedly for professionals that want to keep in touch and Twitter is dominated by 35 – 50 year olds who want to promote their businesses or demonstrate their pithy wit to a set of followers. Now we see new geo-location facilities such as Foursquare being harnessed by a more mature audience than their creators might have anticipated.

The immigrants’ use of these facilities might lack the natural behaviour of the social native, but we are embracing the technology and adapting it for our own purposes.

Which brings us to the terminology, for it is often the immigrant that recognises the opportunity in a new land and works hardest to prosper from it, while the native watches in the wings taking for granted what has always been around them.

So what does all this mean for marketers?

For marketers and businesses in general, the principle challenge when dealing with the social native is going to be how to make a commercial gain from a group that has come to expect so much for free.

Communications, music, video, news, research and games are all now accessible entirely free of charge. This is already proving itself to be unsustainable and we wait to see who is going to be brave enough to break the mould and how they will do it. With the notable exception of Google, advertising is not proving itself to be the answer.

Secondly, marketers shouldn’t forget that we have an aging population in the UK, in which the social immigrants are the largest group and the holders of the wealth. We need to continue to focus on this group and use available media appropriately to ensure its engagement with our brands.

Are you a digital native or a digital immigrant?

This post is written by Marketing Executive, Matthew White.

“It wasn’t like that in my day” is something often said by the older generation to the new one.

There is probably no greater example of 'it not being like that in my day' than the digital revolution that has taken place over the past 20 years - a revolution that has entwined digital technology such as the internet, mobile phones, video games and digital radio into our daily lives.

A growing number of scholars, academics and visionaries have started to believe this latest digital generation is not only different from the last one on a behavioural and social level, but that it thinks and learns differently too.

The new generation are widely known as ‘digital natives’ - a term coined by visionary Marc Prensky. Prensky claims that anybody born after the year 1980 has grown up so immersed in digital technology that it comes completely naturally to them.

Prensky defines anybody born before 1980 as a ‘digital immigrant’. These immigrants have known life before digital technology and, while adjusting well to their new surroundings, never lose their ‘past accent’.

But is it really that clear cut?

Many scholars challenge the claim on the grounds of gender, social demography and the scope of accessibility of digital technology.

They say that boys use digital technology more than girls; people from poorer backgrounds do not have the disposable income to use it; and arguably the most prominent catalyst for the digital revolution, the internet, is still not available in 10 million UK homes. Can the 10-year old socially disadvantaged girl without internet access still be defined as a ‘digital native’?

The debate is broadened by questioning the age-groups. A child born in 1980 was 12 when the internet was invented, a teenager when mobile phones took off and 21 before broadband became widely available. This compared with a child born in 2008 who plays with ‘toy’ laptops (that are actually real laptops), toddler i-phone apps and who can now interact with the cartoons on the internet.

Can both generations really have the same level of digital expertise?

I was born in 1985 and from my own recollection did not grow up immersed in digital technology. This technology, however, undoubtedly now plays a very important role in my daily life, in fact, I cannot imagine life without it. Does this make me a digital immigrant or a digital native?

Perhaps we should be questioning the very existence of the ‘digital natives’. Maybe we are all just immigrants constantly adjusting to the rapid pace of digital evolution.

Do you see yourself as a digital native or a digital immigrant? More importantly, what does it all mean for marketers?

Why most marketing fails

If I had a pound for every time I’d heard someone say: "we tried marketing once and it didn’t work", I could have retired long ago.

Not only does the phrase betray a lack of understanding of what marketing really is, it is often a reliable indicator of how the fateful marketing programme will have been run in the first place.

Despite many advances in knowledge and information sharing, marketing remains one of the least understood of the business disciplines. Shrouded in mystery, and slippery in its accountability, it is a topic that everybody has an opinion on and most people believe they can do better than the marketing department.

Marketing isn’t rocket science, nor does it demand significant creativity or originality (albeit a little imagination helps). Largely it is a matter of process, understanding of the human psyche and persistent effort – otherwise known as hard work.

Most marketing programmes operate like this:

A marketing campaign will be sent out. The target buyer will respond or not (most often not). Any orders will be followed up (hopefully) and the remainder will be discarded and forgotten.

This formula applies whether we are talking about a direct mail campaign, e-shot, advert, trade show or any other form of marketing.

Is it any wonder that responses are typically way below 1% and that there is no return on investment?

To run a marketing campaign in this way borders on insanity. No regard is given to the buying process and little respect is given to the intelligence and needs of the buyer. In other words, the campaign is not buyer centric.

In earlier posts, I have referred to Jolles model of the buying process and the stages that we all go through when considering a purchase. The stages apply whether it is an impulse buy or a major capital investment – all that changes is the speed with which we go through the phases and potentially the number of people that will be involved in the decision.

If we take a step back for a moment, it is clear that the buying process is highly sophisticated. The buyer operates under a whole range of influences:
– Past experience
– Peer group comment
– Social media
– Google searches
– Webinars / Seminars / Events
– Advertising / direct marketing

While advertising and direct marketing still has a role, we as buyers are much more resistant to it. We like to feel that we are researching and finding our own solutions and only want to engage the sales person in the final stages of the buying process, when our mind is pretty much made up.

An intelligent marketing programme therefore needs to take account of the buying process and run like this:

The buyer will be engaged at all stages of the buying process with methods and content that are appropriate to where he or she is in the cycle.

In the consideration phase, which may be conscious or unconscious, we need to be educating and informing to stimulate interest. This could be with White Papers, blog posts and press releases or indeed with advertising and direct mail – it is the content that is important, not the medium of delivery (which should be varied).

Once the buyer has decided to act, he or she will then start to work out exactly what they want from their purchase. Case studies, product sheets and seminars can be useful in this phase.

When the criteria are defined, the buyer will then start to look for solutions to meet those needs. Past experience, peer group recommendations and web searches will all come into play.

If our previous engagement programme has been successful, we will be firmly on the consideration list – and potentially the only name on it.

The process of converting a prospect into a client can take many months – years in some cases. Jolles tells us that we spend 79% of our time in the consideration phase, umming and ahhing over whether we have a need or not. Our marketing contact programmes must therefore be multi-faceted and continuous.

Of course, the process doesn’t stop when our product or service has been selected. We need to keep engaging the client to make sure that our solution has properly met the need and then stay in touch to ensure retention, repeat purchases and up-sell.

When we look at the buying process in this way it is obvious that simple outbound campaigns are destined to fail. Marketing must comprise multi-touch activity that builds dialogue and engages the prospect at all stages in the buying process.

The theory, when converted to practice, produces results. Recent research by Forrester Consulting showed that businesses that market successfully:

1. Focus on lead generation as a process


2. Profile and segment prospects based on customer behaviour (not just demographics)


3. Design content that builds dialogue


4. Employ some form of lead scoring / prioritisation measure


5. Nurture prospects that are not yet ready to buy


6. Make certain that marketing works collaboratively with sales
   

The Forrester research further shows that these businesses enjoy a more robust pipeline, better customer insight, improved marketing and sales accountability and ultimately improved marketing ROI.

What more can anybody want?

Acknowledgements

How managing leads pays off in a stronger, more qualified pipeline - Forrester Consulting November 2009

Adam Needles - Demand Generation Blog 2009-10

2009: A year in review - and our predictions for 2010

2009 was a challenging year for marketers. This time last year we were talking about the collapse of Woolworth's and still recovering from the shock of Lehman Bros; the banking crisis was in full swing and we were surrounded by fear and uncertainty.

Fortunately, we seem to have been spared the worst fears of the naysayers. Whether this is because of, or despite, government intervention divides opinion and we will all get our chance to record our point of view in 2010.

In a tough and uncertain climate, marketers were called on to perform in a way that we haven't been for some time. The pressure for short-term, measurable results financed with slender budgets overpowered any sense of long-term planning and brand building. We rushed head-long into social media, not I suspect, because we knew how it would work, but because it was trendy and cheap.

In the office, we had to improve relationships with sales and finance to ensure stakeholder buy-in and a seamless progression from concept through to delivery: it is bizarre to think it might ever have been any other way.

Unfortunately, little progress has been made with improving marketers' sense of self worth. The hand wringing continues, with many marketers bemoaning their lack of influence at senior levels within their organisations, yet seemingly unable to devise a strategy to put it right.

On a more positive note, the summer months saw The Marketing Eye engaged in the debate about marketing automation. Led by the US, this still has some way to go in the UK, but it is encouraging to see people trying to harness technology to support sound marketing principles.

Our involvement came about via this blog, which has proved popular in many countries and has a particularly strong following in the US. The appetite for new content in the US appears insatiable. Our post on the differences between B2B and B2C marketing still attracts more than 100 readers a month and a plethora of comments.

The year saw fewer than normal corporate re-brands, but the controversy they created was no less heated. AOL, Kraft and MSN where amongst those that offered us evolved identities. Starbucks sent bloggers into a spin with their experiment with un-branded coffee shops in Seattle.

The big story of 2009 was, however, the explosion of Twitter, which came of age with the revolution in Iran. Twitter is still growing and is now finding its natural level. We have still to see the first Twitter-born brand, but the growth in the personal brands of people like Stephen Fry and Ashton Kutcher suggests the potential is there. Compare the Market is the best example we have seen in the UK so far of Twitter being incorporated into a broader marketing strategy, building the personality of the brand via the incomparable meerkat, Aleksandr Orlov.

As a business, The Marketing Eye has come of age too. We have new people, new offices, and a recently appointed Chairman designate who will help steer the business towards its full potential. We are firmly set on a road to growth and the final few weeks of 2009 were spent immersed in strategy and operating models. Our goal is to grow the business four-fold by 2012, which we will achieve by hiring the best marketing people and staying true to our philosophy of 'every client is our only client'.

So what will 2010 hold for us? As a business, we will take on more staff, enter new markets and strengthen our internal processes so that we can continue to put customers first. For the world of marketing, our crystal ball reveals the following:

• Twitter will continue to grow globally: its value for search and news will be realised. Marketers will still struggle to harness it for commercial purposes - but will keep on trying


• The shift towards spending on digital marketing vs. off-line will increase, probably because it is cheaper, not because it is proven to be better


• There will be some renewed growth in branding. Businesses that have neglected their brands over the past couple of years will now be finding that a revamp of the external and internal brand is overdue. At a visual level, an updated identity will signal renewed optimism as we claw our way out of recession. The business case will still have to be made and investment will be hard won


• Marketing budgets will nudge gently upwards as we come out of recession or as businesses start to adjust to, and accept, the 'new normal'


• A change in Government seems inevitable. As a marketer, I'm interested to see how the parties make use of new and old media to win our votes. As a businessman, I want to know which is the party for business.

What were your main marketing memories of 2009 and what do you predict for 2010? We'll be interested to hear your views. Whatever your role and wherever you are, may we take this opportunity to wish you a happy and healthy 2010.

Happy New Year!

Integrated marketing

Marketing a product or service has many challenges. First, there is a need to raise awareness of the brand and promote it's promise; second, the marketing activity must drive sales and get customers to sign on the dotted line. Creating a truly joined-up marketing campaign is the ultimate challenge for every marketer.

Traditionally, marketers have thought in terms of above-the-line for brand building and below-the-line for response. Now the line is more blurred. Pressure on budgets means there is rarely room for campaigns that do one thing or the other: we are being forced to think holistically.

The danger of enforced cutbacks is that we think excessively about channels and too little about target markets and niches. The standard response to reduced marketing budgets has been to make wholesale cuts to specific media and channels. The most dramatic cuts have occurred in newspaper and magazine advertising, swiftly followed by direct mail and sponsorship. The principle beneficiary has, of course, been e-mail marketing and social media, not I suspect because they work, but because they are quick and cheap.

We need to carefully consider if these lower cost media are really effective alternatives.

Rather than scrambling for social media programmes, marketers need to step back and realise that it is the interaction of a variety of media that raises awareness and ultimately drives a purchasing decision. A reduced budget should be addressed with focus on a more tightly defined and better understood target audience, not 'we cannot afford to advertise' or 'we cannot afford the direct mail programme'.

An integrated marketing approach is not, in itself, a strategy: it is the tactical implementation of a marketing strategy. The distinction is important, because without the right strategy, no amount of talk about integrating channels and mediums will make any difference.

When all is said and done, an integrated marketing approach is not an option, it is essential. The notion that different channels perform different roles is wrong.

An Indecent Proposal - or how to get your way with Finance

Having put the relationship with Sales right, it is time to turn attention to Marketing’s other tormentor-in-chief, Finance.

We all know that accountants are frustrated marketers. They are dying to have a close working relationship with us: not just on an intellectual level, but up close and personal with real physical contact. Finance might bang on about relevant metrics to demonstrate added value, but the real way to an FD’s heart is to consult him or her on advertising strategy or the need for a new logo. If all else fails, get naked.

Maybe not, but it’s an entertaining thought.

Tempting as it may be, there is no point in treating Finance as an alien race. The harsh truth is that financial management steers many boards away from pursuing a long term marketing strategy towards short term revenue generation and cost control. Marketers need a strategy of their own if they are going to get their way.

In reality, accountants probably don’t want to get involved with the advertising message or logo, but there is good sense in involving Finance early in the planning process and getting them engaged with the strategy behind specific initiatives. Robust, jointly owned forecasts of future value and a willingness to review initiatives together will lead to Finance becoming an ally and business partner.

And it is a partnership we need, for in the current climate, we need shared responsibility when faced with reduced profitability. Marketers must demonstrate good commercial and financial acumen, generating ideas that create financial value, not just creative satisfaction. For their part, the accountants need to recognise that short term sales are too blunt a measure of marketing ROI. Business growth is a long term, multi-dimensional strategy.

As I said in a recent interview, requests for budgets need to be presented in ways that are aligned to the strategic goals of the business - an integrated strategy that builds the brand and moves prospects through a planned engagement process.

If that fails, getting naked might still be an option, but let’s face it, high quality reporting, sharing of data and impartial analysis are likely to be a bigger turn-on for our bean counting buddies.

Connecting Sales and Marketing in B2B

The following post is a transcript of my responses to a set of questions put to me recently by Adam Needles, Field Marketing Director with US marketing automation specialists, Silverpop.

1.) What strategy have you seen work the best for connecting sales and marketing teams?

Sales and Marketing teams need to communicate often and earn mutual respect. By engaging with Sales and drawing on its knowledge of what customers want and respond to, Marketing can develop buyer-centric campaigns that Sales will want to support. Similarly, Sales can learn to accept the strategic direction set by marketing in terms of key messages and target markets.

In sales-led organisations, I have always focused on developing a rigid process that gives Sales a set period of notice before a campaign goes out. The objectives of the campaign, the key messages and the creative are all communicated, the prospects that are being contacted are circulated and the database carved up and allocated for follow-up. Once the campaign has landed, the Sales function identifies a day to dedicate itself to making 1:1 contact with the prospects that have been targeted. Results are collated afterwards and success is celebrated together.

Sales and Marketing need to combine to form a powerful business development unit that works as one to nurture a prospect from target name through to customer.

2.) What metrics have you seen work best for tracking and measuring the ROI of lead-management programs?

Ultimately, the only true measure of success is sales conversions, but ROI, as measured by sales income, is too blunt a measure of success in the short term. We have to recognise that in B2B, it is rare to convert a business from prospect to customer in one hit: there are several steps along the way and it is therefore necessary to set goals and measures for the degrees of engagement. In the first instance, these goals can be opening rates on email campaigns; click-throughs on links and downloads of product information. Further along the line it is the results of targeted follow-up of the names that have shown the first signs of interest - perhaps agreement to a meeting or a product demonstration.

Lead-scoring and lead nurturing mechanisms are in their early days, but it is exciting to see businesses like Silverpop and The Accuitas Group working towards systems that work.

3.) If you were going to do only one thing, what part of a B2B lead-management program would you implement (demand generation, lead scoring, lead nurturing or ROI measurement)?

Lead nurturing. While we are nowhere without the initial demand, in the scheme of things, generating a contact is relatively easy. The challenge is turning the contact into a client. We have to have systems and methodologies that enable Sales and Marketing to constantly and appropriately increase the level of engagement to the point where the sale is made.

4.) Which business practices are working best in B2B lead generation today, and which would you like to disappear?

The practices and hence the campaigns that work best are the ones that have buyer relevance at their core. This means identify the issues that are important to the prospect and owning the conversation that surrounds them. Whether it is with e-mail campaigns, press releases, blog posts or advertising, the organisations that understand and incorporate buyer relevance into their communications will be the ones that win.

My perpetual hope is that one day we will see an end to the sniping between Sales and Marketing. Too many organisations operate in silos and with a blame culture: Marketing blaming Sales for not backing its campaigns and Sales seeing Marketing as disconnected from the real world, generating no leads or leads it can’t do anything with. Come on guys, we’re all in this together – let’s have a coffee!

5.) What's your advice to marketers working with executives who view marketing as a discretionary budget item during a recession?

Marketers need to present requests for budgets in ways that are aligned to the strategic goals of the business. Unfortunately there are still too many people in Marketing with insufficient commercial acumen. A proposal for an advertising campaign or trade show in isolation can look like a flight of fancy and will be deservedly knocked back. However, presented as part of an integrated strategy that shows the activity as an integral part of moving prospects through a planned engagement process, will make sense to even the most parsimonious CEO or CFO.

These are tough times for many organisations and Marketing can’t spend money that doesn’t exist. More intelligent targeting, for example, by identifying niches or top-slicing prospect pools; better use of lower cost methodologies, such as e-mail campaigns and social media; and, most importantly of all, avoiding the waste that is inherent in generating leads that aren’t effectively nurtured and converted, are all ways of adapting a plan to a reduced budget and maximising the ROI.

How would you answer any of these questions? Please share your thoughts.

I wanna be a rock star - a new model for marketing

In his post ‘Will 10% unemployment be the new full employment?’, Charles Besondy predicts that permanent marketing employees will soon be a thing of the past.

He argues:

“There is too much uncertainty in the land to confidently invest in a strong and capable marketing department. There is too much volatility in the marketing programmes budget to justify a fully staffed marketing department. Better to keep fixed labour costs to a minimum and bring in the rock star interims for a few months as needed. No long-term commitments, no health insurance concerns, just the perfect skills and knowledge applied to the opportunity or problem for a season”.

Besondy is an interim manager and we shouldn’t be surprised, therefore, to hear him take this position.

Certainly, it is the case that economic conditions are imposing long term changes on business models. The move towards the outsourcing of non-core skills, be they marketing or otherwise, continues unabated: probably because it works, but does this mean the end of the in-house marketing team is inevitable?

Besondy stops short of looking at the pros and cons of a permanent marketing team or analysing which parts of the marketing discipline should be kept in-house. Having operated on both sides of the inustry, I feel qualified to have a try.

Pro’s of a permanent marketing team

• Dedicated to the business
• Deep understanding of day-to-day issues and developments
• On-hand whenever it is needed
• Potentially cheaper in the long run if fully employed

Con’s of a permanent marketing team

• Risk of silo thinking and loss of perspective on what is going on outside of the business
• Risk of temporary or permanent loss of drive and focus
• Potential to be absorbed by the minutiae at the expense of ‘the big picture’
• Potential to be under employed
• The substantial and inflexible cost of full time salaries, holiday pay, sick leave etc.

The case for outsourcing is certainly a strong one, but is it an open and shut case?

I have posted regularly on the difference between the marketing discipline and the marketing department. The marketing discipline has to be owned by the board: the marketing department has to look after the elements of the marketing mix that are assigned to it – more often than not, this is brand and promotion.

Besondy has his focus on the traditional marketing department and I agree with his views in this area. I have never seen any benefit in an in-house creative team and believe too that many, if not all, forms of campaign development and delivery can be delivered more effectively by external resources.

The picture becomes more blurred in the areas of strategic marketing and marketing management. To think of strategic marketing as something that can be stopped and started according to the ebbs and flows of business fortunes is dangerous. Marketing, in its broadest definition, has to be constant and this means there needs to be somebody who is able to link the strategy of the board with tactical implementations in all areas of the 8P’s. Whether this should be resourced in-house or outsourced is a question of scale and affordability.

An outsourced marketing operation that can provide strategic consultancy as well as tactical implementation is the ideal solution for a small or medium sized business: not only is it more cost effective, but the client can access a level of experience that it would take several years to build in-house. With the right provider, there is no reason why this outsourced resource shouldn’t be fully focused on the business and available on demand.

The larger business is likely to have the scale to warrant permanent resource, but it too will benefit from blending internal structures with outsourced experience. I predict the corporate of the future will have a non-executive Director of Strategy & Marketing on the board and a permanent Head of Marketing in a senior management position. The non-exec will be somebody with deep marketing experience in a range of industries, who is able to guide and advise the board on its marketing strategy. The Head of Marketing will be responsible for the delivery of the plan and management of agency relationships. Naturally, for the model to be effective, the Head of Marketing will need to see the non-exec as an ally and mentor, not a threat.

In conclusion, therefore, even if the days of the permanent marketing employee aren’t completely numbered, the nature of the roles that many of them fulfil at the present time are. Jobs for life, if they ever existed in the first place, will go and short to medium-term performance related contracts will become the norm.

Marketers should embrace the opportunity the change presents. The chance to move from business to business makes for an interesting and varied career and, moreover, it allows greater value to be delivered to the client. Through this transition, marketing as a discipline might finally gain the respect and recognition it deserves.

Whether we should swagger in like rock stars is a different question!

Leave Auntie AIDA alone - understanding consumer buying behaviour

The esteemed consultants at McKinsey have been burning the midnight oil to come up with the startling revelation that consumer purchases are, wait for it, needs and wants driven.

Yes, it’s true. In its recent paper on the Consumer Decision Journey, McKinsey challenges the linear progression of consumers from awareness to purchase and now says that consumers start with a trigger event that spurs them into action: they decide they need or want something and then set about finding it.

Well, knock me down with a feather.

The disturbing thing, beyond the fact that people are actually paid to come up with this stuff, is that Mckinsey is confusing the psychology of buying with a marketer’s approach to intervening in the process.

The linear progression that McKinsey challenges is based on AIDA – Awareness, Interest, Desire & Action.

To my knowledge, nobody has ever maintained that this is how people buy. We have understood since Maslow was a boy that human actions are based on fulfilling needs. When we have a need, we set about fulfilling it at a speed dictated by the urgency of the requirement and the degree of risk in the decision.

A B2C or B2B marketer’s challenge is to intervene in the process and create a purchase of their product at the highest possible price. This could involve stimulating an impulse buy or making sure that the brand is on the consideration list for a more measured acquisition.

‘A’ stands for ‘attention’ or ‘awareness’ and makes AIDA a good guiding principle when developing the approach to anything from a new brochure to a long-running multi-media campaign.

In the context of a shop, AIDA can mean grabbing attention with a compelling display and then turning the initial curiosity into desire with a great product and packaging. This, in turn, should lead to the action of a purchase.

A brochure or a website, be it B2B or B2C, should follow the same principle. The creator must find the compelling Home page or cover message that encourages the reader to delve deeper and deeper until action is taken.

Awareness comes into play for the more complex decisions when the purchaser may decide to explore the market. A marketer needs to create awareness to ensure the product or service is in the consideration set in the first place. This awareness could be created by brand advertising or a face-to-face relationship, either way it is a necessary pre-curser to interest in the marketer’s product, the decision that it’s the right solution and the action of purchasing it.

AIDA remains valid and has its place for those that understand it. To claim insight from the revelation that purchases are needs and desires driven is like proclaiming the Earth orbits the Sun.

Next...

B2B vs B2C - more than just a letter

A friend asked me in the week to explain the difference between marketing to businesses and marketing to consumers. Unprepared, I fumbled my way to an answer, but soon realised it was a deeper question than it first seemed.

There is, of course, a plethora of theoretical responses. B2C is traditionally said to be:

• Product driven



• Aimed at maximizing the value of the transaction



• Mass-market



• A single step buying process and a shorter sales cycle



• A creator of brand loyalty through repetition and imagery



• Reliant on merchandising and point of purchase activities



• The leverage of emotional buying decisions based on status, desire, or price

Whereas B2B:

• Is relationship driven



• Aims to maximize the value of the relationship



• Has a small, focused target market



• Involves a multi-step buying process and longer sales cycle



• Creates brand loyalty through personal relationships



• Uses educational and awareness building activities



• Leverages rational buying decisions based on business value

A useful analysis, but not uniformly true by any means.

The eminent Professor Malcolm McDonald says that 'the central ideas of marketing are universal' and it therefore makes no difference whether you are marketing vacuum cleaners or power furnaces. This seems overly simplistic too.

The principle that all marketing has the basic aim of satisfying the customer is, of course, incontrovertible, but the important follow-on questions are: 'who is the customer?' and 'what is my product?'

We can say that consumers are, on the whole, more impulsive in their decision making than business buyers, because the financial risk is often so much smaller. This means B2C marketers can focus less on the rational basis for a purchase, and more on the emotional appeal. B2C marketing is often geared towards catching the wave or, better still, creating the wave in the first place.

To say, however, that B2C marketing isn't relationship driven is a mistake. Any retailer, from a supermarket monolith to the local corner shop, needs to form a relationship with its customers to build loyalty and drive repeat business. Retailers are merely intermediaries in the value chain between the manufacturer and the buyer. Manufacturers themselves would also be mis-advised not to consider the relationship - Sony wants loyalty over Panasonic as does BMW over Mercedes. A charity will want a relationship with a donor to encourage repeat donations.

And what of professional services firms? They want life-time relationships with both business and private clients, which means that the marketing must be entirely geared towards the principles that are outlined in the traditional analysis of B2B.

In B2B marketing, the pure number of people involved in a purchase tends to have the effect of suppressing the emotion and bringing everything back to the business case. A good B2B campaign has to be brimming with promises of increased profitability, reduced costs or enhanced productivity. This is not to say that there is no room for the emotional influence of the brand. The old adage that 'nobody ever got sacked for buying IBM' still holds true in many quarters and familiarity breeds comfort in the board room. There is a clear need to build the brand with air cover from advertising, sponsorship and pr.

The conclusion is that the biggest drivers of the marketing approach are not whether it is B2B or B2C, but in the size of the financial risk, the nature of the relationship and the complexity of the decision making process for the customer. If we understand this then we are likely to make the right decisions. Perhaps we should do away with the distinction and simply call it Business to Customer - which is probably the point Professor McDonald was making.

Links

Source of Theoretical differences between B2B and B2C: Vista Consulting

Professor Malcolm McDonald

I'll scream and scream and scream

This week I went to a Chartered Institute of Marketing event to hear the results of a study on the role of marketing in large organisations. Carried out with Accenture, the very title of the study: 'In search of a strategic role for marketing' hints at desperation.

Marketing can be divided into two main parts: tactical (management of the marketing plan; brand management; lead generation) and strategic (customer insight; development of the value proposition; strategic planning). In most organisations the role of the marketing department is tactical, which leads to predictable wailing that marketers are misunderstood and undervalued.

But hang on a minute, let's look at this more closely. A business needs a marketing department to design and deliver the tactical activity. This is what provides the measurable revenues and there is nothing wrong or devaluing about it. A well designed marketing plan is firmly rooted in a detailed appreciation of the strategy of the business and the most successful marketing directors have the ability to turn business objectives into effective and actionable tactical plans.

The trouble with Marketing, though, is that it can't be satisfied with this role and wants to run the whole company. By the time we have been through the 8P's of product, price, place, promotion, process, people, physical evidence and positioning there is very little left for anybody else.

Many marketers thump the desk and demand a position for marketing on the board, refusing to believe that any business can properly function without it. These people are failing to draw a distinction between marketing as a concept and the individual abilities of the people in the marketing department. The remit is simply too broad and too important to be the exclusive domain of one person or one area of the business: it is the role of the board as a whole to set the strategic direction and the role of marketing to provide the insights and framework.

If individually marketers have the talent, they will rightfully earn a place on the board of the businesses within which they work. No business, however, can afford to offer board appointments on the basis of job title alone and the challenge for many marketers is to develop a sufficiently rounded level of experience to merit their promotion.