Joe Edwards, digital and social director at MOI, will be revealing how to apply disruptive techniques to your marketing communications at our upcoming B2B InTech conference. He gives us a sneak peek into his session…
At B2B InTech you will be discussing disruptive and incumbent brands, what are the main differences between the two?
ncumbent brands will generally make incremental changes to products, disruptive brands come into the marketplace with a new way of thinking.
How and why should market leading brands be more disruptive? And is there anything the disruptive brands could take from the market leaders?
My talk is about being brave with marketing activity, being disruptive is part of it, but not the only part. That said, to answer the question, market leaders should be more disruptive to maintain growth as a business. At a B2B event I attended at Google HQ in London, Google suggested search would not be its core business in 12 years which is why they experiment with things like driverless cars and Google Glass.
What could disruptive brands take from market leaders?
Quite simply, disruptive brands are not looking at market leaders, the one thing they take from market leaders is their business.
What are the key disruptive techniques all B2B marketers should be applying to their communications today?
Rather than the way we normally frame activity around the idea of ‘think, feel, do’, we need to move to ‘do, feel, think’. Cognitive dissonance is a powerful tool and focusing on actions as the prime driver when changing behaviours not attitudes will see more success.
How important is digital and social for B2B tech marketers?
Digital is huge for marketers – it’s the platform to engage on (across whichever media or medium). I still see broken customer journeys across mobile, so there are still a few things needing to be fixed. Social for me is another important one, but I still don’t think there are many businesses realising its full potential yet. It can help answer so many different types of business objectives and the potential learning we can garner from social listening still feels like an untapped resource.
To succeed, a B2B marketer must…
Be brave.
What’s the next big thing in B2B tech marketing?
I don’t know, whatever it is I hope it’s quality and not quantity. More seriously, mobile is something we’ve not yet got to grips with in B2B. At MOI we are really steering mobile first for our clients who see its value. We work with some clients to build mobile apps into their campaign activity as ‘throw away’ apps that are there for the lifetime of the campaign, and then look at more utility based apps for other projects that will have ‘go to’ app in the business place.
What’s the best piece of marketing advice you’ve ever been given?
Never stop asking: ‘Why?’ Tony Donnellan, who at the time was my planning director, gave that advice to me. The guy’s mind is insane; he really opened my eyes to planning and its role in marketing
Hear more from Joe 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.
