Head of communications and campaigns at BT Expedite & Fresca, Justine Arthur, was recently crowned ‘B2B marketer of the year’. Here she shares insight behind her success. Victoria Clarke reports
As award winners go, Justine Arthur, head of communications and campaigns at BT Expedite & Fresca is exceptionally humble about scooping ‘B2B marketer of the year’ at the B2B Marketing Awards 2012. While she’s not afraid to admit her strengths, she remains genuinely surprised at her prestigious accolade and the fact she beat a high number of talented peers to the top prize. She describes the awards submission process as a cathartic experience, not to mention something she could proudly share with her parents afterwards as if it were her best school report ever. It’s down-to-earth statements like this, as well as an endearing self-consciousness at times, which make Arthur a very likeable marketer.
So, what challenges has Arthur overcome that have led to her success?
Leading by example
Arthur’s B2B career journey began in sales – in the unrelenting world of telesales to be exact – so she knows what it’s like at the raw edge of a customer-facing role. It is because of this background, as well as numerous other sales positions in her early career history, that she unequivocally advocates close alignment between the sales and marketing departments. Since joining BT Expedite & Fresca, she appears to have completely overhauled the way the two divisions collaborate and has been instrumental in implementing a robust lead scoring system. It’s just one example of Arthur’s focus not only on improving the marketing department’s performance but crucially that of the wider business’ too.
She reveals, “When I started my role, there wasn’t a clear definition of a lead. We have a solutions-based sales team who are extremely knowledgeable, but they were only interested in a prospect if they were a BANT lead.”
Arthur explains that previously only a lead the sales team considered an ‘opportunity’ would make it into their CRM system in Salesforce, which meant a lot of time wasted by the marketing department and a ‘cutting room floor’ situation with lots of leads going nowhere. Collaboration was therefore crucial in resolving this.
She continues, “We [Arthur, her CEO and the sales director] sat down and worked together to agree a solid lead scoring system. We then set up weekly calls to go through every lead on a spreadsheet.” Eventually as the task became a bigger job, Arthur helped instigate a programme to bring this lead scoring and funnel management into Salesforce.
She adds, “I’ll admit, I’m not necessarily an expert on the product or solution at times, but what I am good at is delivering quality leads.” It’s this absolute conviction in her own skills and ability to deliver these leads that eventually won over the sales team.
Another way Arthur supports her sales colleagues is through social media training. She discloses that rather than rely on third-party data lists, she has helped train her sales colleagues to leverage LinkedIn in order to first build a profile around, and then instigate a conversation with, a prospect or customer – a process which has proved highly effective.
Entrepreneurial spirit
Whether or not it stemmed from her sales background, there is also a strong entrepreneurial spirit in Arthur, although she supposes this is true of all good B2B marketers.
From the tales she tells, Arthur has a knack of always finding a way around obstacles, such as lack of budget or resources, and she’s not one to “fanny about”, as she puts it, when she can just crack on with the job in hand.
“The skills of a B2B marketer are much more entrepreneurial because you have to learn skills as you go along. You have to learn how to write copy or resize an image because you don’t have time to wait for someone else to do those things for you. In B2B, you don’t always have the budget so you have to learn how to do things for yourself.”
Stakeholder success
Another interesting aspect of Arthur’s career background, which has helped shape her marketing attitude and approach, is her experience working for large international agencies both in Japan and London back in the late 90s and early noughties. At the time, south east Asia was at the cutting edge of digital marketing, and Arthur reflects how she learned important lessons around integrating digital with traditional channels and the concept of bringing technology inhouse to build content management systems.
It’s incredible really when you consider Arthur was crafting these kinds of skills over a decade ago when many of her peers are only just getting to grips with them now. However, Arthur not only honed her digital skills in Japan and at leading digital agency AKQA, but also, crucially, her stakeholder management skills. There’s no doubt this has helped build credibility in her role.
She says, “I’m a sucker for stakeholder management where it involves large organisations and lots of dispersed people who all have their own objectives. You need to understand the requirement definition, the cultural differences and who you are really talking to. But if you can come at it from that mindset in whatever you do – whether it’s a website, an email, a brochure or an event – you will have a much better result.”
So, what does the immediate future hold for this award-winning marketer?
“Marketing automation is my next big challenge”, she reveals, “to see whether it’s relevant for our business.”
This is no surprise really given her penchant for sales and marketing alignment, as well as an open-mindedness about technology. She’s also hoping to build on the successes of the 2012 campaigns mentioned in her awards submission, with bigger and better events in 2013. And who knows, maybe we’ll see Arthur’s name appear in next year’s awards shortlist? She certainly talks the talk.
Arthur’s top tips for marketing and sales alignment
1. Talk the same language: Define what the different stages of a lead are and who owns which stage. Give sales the authority in the process to formally accept or decline a lead.
2. Align targets: Align sales and marketing targets to ensure both
teams are genuinely focused on the same priorities.
3. Empower your sales team: Provide them with useful market intelligence, background on prospects and company information.
4. Deliver quality leads: Put the steps in place to enable marketing to qualify leads to the required level and deliver to the brief. Sales will respect marketing and acquired leads won’t be wasted.
5. Meet regularly: Ensure you meet the sales team regularly, join weekly operational calls to learn what they’re up to and feel their pain.
