At first glance, having to devise a marketing campaign aimed directly at your marketing compatriots in other companies and agencies can feel like a daunting prospect. The industry itself is complex, with both agencies and inhouse teams to target and each area often divided into numerous niche disciplines.
On top of the complexity of the market itself, this is an industry that lives and breathes ideas. Your target market – whether they are client or agency-side – are in constant dialogue about new plans and methods of developing their brands and brainstorming everything from company positioning through DM to full-blown integrated through-the-line campaigns. Many of them, of course, will be doing this with the benefit of major budgets, which can run into millions of pounds. With this pre-existing focus, experience and responsibility, this is evidently a group that needs to be carefully approached.
An evolving industry
In addition to having to overcome the high experience level of your target audience, there are other challenges here. The marketing industry is beginning to undergo some major changes; rules of engagement are shifting as audiences become increasingly marketing-resistant while more media and brand literate. At the same time, the advertising market continues to fragment and the Internet is starting to have a truly revolutionary impact on how those in the marketing industry carry out their day jobs.
Executing a successful marketing campaign aimed at this audience is therefore a tricky business: just getting above the ‘noise’ is going to prove a challenge for anyone.
Every day, Ricall works with advertising, marketing and PR agencies as well as their corresponding client teams and those involved in other creative industries who are professional users of music, including film and television producers, video games firms, multi-media companies and corporates. In fact, we have worked with more than 1000 since we started up. It is using this in-depth experience and knowledge of having had to establish ourselves with the industry and working with them every day that we hope we can impart some insight to help you target this most marketing savvy of audiences.
Top tips
The following is our advice to make marketing to marketers a simpler process:
- Timing is everything. We are all busy people in the world of marketing: whether it is meetings with the board to justify budgets, briefing sessions with agencies or integration with the sales teams, it all takes up a lot of our precious time. The key here is that by understanding our own time pressures we can better appreciate those faced by our target audience. It is therefore important for us to use this in our marcoms and ensure that our target audience knows that what we are marketing is going to make their life easier. Tip: Ensure the user benefits are to-the-fore and marketing is short and to-the-point.
- Inspiration not perspiration. Marketers are an ideas-focused audience and the best way to engage with them is to present them with inspiring concepts. Inspiring does not mean expensive: this is about demonstrating in a simple and effective way that the product or service you are offering is going to make a real difference to what they do every day. Tip: Base your activities around a clear and simple focus.
- The secret weapon. With such busy and varied roles, marketers often have to struggle to find the time to get below the surface of all the issues that they have to deal with. However, all marketers are striving to make their businesses more competitive. There is therefore a lesson to be learnt in positioning: show your target audience that your product or service is a way to empower them to be experts. Tip: Empower your target market.
- De-risking. With such a savvy audience, remembering some of the basic marketing kit bag can be vital, for instance, why not de-risk your product or service by offering a low cost or free trial of the service. If you believe your offering is strong enough, then make sure you give your audience the opportunity to see how good it is. Tip: A lesson from sales promotion can go a long way.
- Put them in the driving seat. Research your audience fully to obtain an in-depth insight and understanding of the problems they face. What are the things that take up their time and that they think add little value to their role? Use this to build a compelling marketing case for how your offering can help remove the biggest headaches from their work. Tip: Give them control.
- Don’t forget the influencers. Even if you are ultimately targeting the marketing director of a company, it is important to remember that although he or she is the decision maker, they are very unlikely to decide on their own. The rest of their team on the client side may be important influencers on decisions, or the marketing director might have a very close relationship with one of their agencies from the marketing side. These relationships should always be factored into your planning and may be vital to your success. Tip: Think about the decision making chain; it may be easier to start the marketing cycle at a different point.
