BT’s head of volume marketing, Adrian Hardy, predicts what the next big thing in B2B tech marketing will be along with the greatest challenges tech marketers are facing.
Which B2B tech brand do you most admire and why?
I have several: EY, PWC and IBM.
If I had to pick one it would be IBM. It has managed to carefully navigate the ever changing IT/ commercial landscape for the last 40 years, as an organisation that has transformed from IT to services. It’s customer engagement is always confident, clear, friendly and humorous.
What is your favourite B2B tech campaign and why?
Again, it has to be IBM. ‘Heist’ and ‘Innovation man’ adverts were hilarious and pitched just right, to make the IT director the hero of the organisation. A set of adverts that really show the power of technology, when coupled with IT/business expertise. They were perfectly targeted and very successful. It got lots of people talking.
What’s the next big thing in B2B tech marketing?
I don’t think it’s going to be a technology thing: we have so many new technologies and capabilities. Many organisations – BT included – are only beginning to understand the incredible power of these technologies in the B2B space. I think we simply have too many options, and too much information.
The next big thing for me is education. When I studied marketing, the sexy bit was always around marcomms: data was dull – now the opposite is true. However, there is a multitude of marketing solutions out there, which really only work effectively if you understand the whole process of marketing and can see the ‘wood from the trees’. An old adage from my computing days applies here: ‘rubbish in, rubbish out’. If you don’t understand the whole process, you won’t make these fabulous tools do anything useful, and you’ll be wasting your time and money.
In brief, what is the customer journey and why is it important to tech marketers?
Well, for me it’s the science I developed to tackle the above problem.
I wanted to know how to accurately forecast how any given campaign, with multiple customer touch-points and outcomes, would generate revenue, opportunity, new contacts and insight. This meant I could forecast my ROI and make really good cases for investment. Learning how to measure and forecast campaigns gave me a deep insight into the journey a customer takes through a B2B engagement. This insight means that I can look at tools like Eloqua and Marketo and intuitively understand how to use those tools to get the most return. I’d like to share that insight so my fellow B2B marketers can get the best out of their marketing automation.
What are the most common mistakes you see with CRM strategies?
There are lots of them, and I have made them all in my time. The biggest and least forgivable of all is not being personable in your approach. When working B2B, selling complex solutions to a customer, it is essential to translate your capabilities, products and offerings into a solution that meets the customer’s needs.
Personalisation and a compelling offer is what is needed for good B2B marketing.
What is the biggest challenge facing tech marketers today?
It’s got to be data. Everyone has it, everyone knows it’s vital, but – even with good marketing automation – very few people really know how to leverage it. There is also a dangerous tendency to hang on to data.
I’ve heard marketers boast about having amassed, ‘terabytes of data over the last five years’ the question is, how much of that data is still relevant / accurate or actionable?
Knowing what is good data, what can be relied on, what is bad data and will skew your thinking. This in my mind is the big problem.
Hear more from Adrian at B2B Tech – an event exclusively for marketers of technology offering insight and inspiration from top tech brands. The event takes place on 18 March at the Inmarsat Centre, find out more and secure your place now.
