What makes a B2B agency marketer tick? What gets them excited about the nuts and bolts of the sectors in which they work? I spoke to the lovely Emily King from Radix Communications to find out about her unwavering desire for an office dog, the biggest clichés surrounding the world of B2B and harnessing the power of virtual reality.
To me, B2B marketing is all about…
Helping people find the solutions they need for the problems they have. B2B marketing is not about being in your target audience’s face all the time. Instead, it’s about giving them the information they need when and where they need it.
I can tell a campaign’s succeeding when…
We’re talking to qualified leads – people phoning or emailing us, asking about working with us. Simple as. There’s no point in getting worked up about social shares or other vanity metrics if no one’s picking up the phone or sending us a quick message.
The best and brightest B2B marketer has…
The ability to write, because content underpins so much of B2B marketing. If a marketer doesn’t at least understand the foundations of their content – doesn’t understand the writing that underpins it – then how will they know what marketing content they should commission and if it’s any good?
In B2B land I’ve never really understood why…
We’ve got brands using marketing content that’s jam-packed with buzzwords and jargon that doesn’t match how their audience talks. There are times and places for actual industry jargon, but buzzwords? No one wants to read about using rockstar blue-sky thinking to big-ise your future unicorn.
The biggest challenge facing B2B marketers today is…
Making sense of all the data we’ve got access to now. It’s great that there’s data that can tell you how well campaigns and content is performing. If you can’t figure out why your marketing is doing as well as it is, then you can’t replicate or improve upon it.
B2B marketers tend to get distracted by…
Predictions for content trends. Being distracted by these predictions can be detrimental, with marketing activities shifted to focus on content or formats that audiences aren’t interested in. Or worse: you end up doing the same as your competitors and you become lost in the noise.
The biggest cliché about the industry is that…
It’s boring. B2B brands are selling products and services that underpin crucial parts of enterprises, governments, public services, education, non-profits and… you know: people’s lives. There’s always a story to tell and it’s those stories that stop B2B marketing from being boring.
The next tech trend to hit the sector will be…
Virtual reality. It’ll benefit brands that sell physical goods. Helping potential buyers to get close to – potentially experience – products before they trial or buy. It’ll help buyers visualise products better than just flat images in a brochure or on a screen.
Sometimes I think B2B marketers forget that…
They are marketing to people. Your audience isn’t just a bunch of ill-defined demographics and roles pulled together into personas. These are people with loves and interests outside of what they do to earn a living.
A strong brand is one that…
Isn’t afraid to take risks with their marketing. Brands should allow themselves the resources for small marketing experiments. Then they have the chance to see what they can do differently in order to gain better results.
The best thing about life at an agency is…
Having an office dog. Oh wait. We don’t have one of those… It’s the wealth and variety of projects and clients that you get to interact with.
It really irritates me when…
People bang on about marketing to millennials. You’re dealing with an extremely varied demographic; it has one side that remembers the world before the internet and mobile phones, whilst the other side has existed with these things constantly in their lives.
This time next year, we’ll be…
Looking at office dogs through VR headsets rather than having actual dogs in offices. Hopefully there’ll be a wealth of peripherals available to give you the full experience, from stroking the dog to being licked full in the face.
