Email marketing do’s and don’t’s when promoting your conference by Sharise Wilkinson, on 10/02/2023 With the rise of paid media and web 3.0, is email still an important channel? The answer is simply “Yes”. Strong email marketing is essential to the success of any conference. Why is email a critical marketing channel? Email marketing is still ranked as the most utilised marketing channel, with 93% of B2B leverage email marketing in their campaigns*. It is one of the quickest and most effective ways to personalise your messages and segment your audience accordingly. For conference marketing, it allows you to consistently engage with your audience throughout an event cycle, in a dynamic, engaging and user-friendly way. Here are some of team MPG’s ‘conference email marketing do’s and don’ts’ to get you started for your next campaign. DO’S #1 DO get your data right with a well-structured database – your contacts need to be appropriately tagged (i.e. sector, seniority level, job title). Segmenting by behaviour ensures that prospective attendees are pushed down the marketing funnel and nurtured in the right way. #2 DO automate some of your emails to generate the best results – registration confirmations, abandoned basket follow-up emails, and downloadable content confirmation emails are all valuable touch points that are quite straightforward to automate. #3 DO lead with content – have a well-thought-out content marketing strategy, with a good balance of promotion and content-led communications to position you as a thought leader. #4 DO have a clearly mapped-out email marketing plan – to prevent email fatigue, marketers must carefully plan their email campaigns to ensure that periods of high communication (early birds, registration deadlines etc.) are followed by a period of engaging, content-led emails. #5 DO work to a long lead time – to attend your conference, prospects need to have enough information, time, and conviction to commit to paying for a delegate ticket, transport and accommodation, and time away from their day-to-day work. #6 DO get personal – use the information you hold about your audience (like first name and company) to grab their attention. Use their behaviour and previous engagements with your brand to give them more of what they are most interested in. #7 DO make your emails short, snappy, and visually appealing – think about the marketing emails you receive, you probably skim and pick out the most important info before deciding whether to read the paragraph copy, right? Email design is important; make your key information stand out. #8 DO experiment – with sender names to see which ones get the best open rates and A/B test elements of your emails such as preview text, CTAs and imagery to see which messages perform best. #9 DO always include basic event information – like conference dates and location. Don’t expect your audience to remember this information from previous emails or have to click through to your website to find out. #10 DO have a clear call to action – your emails need to be informative and engaging, but they also need to inspire action – whether it’s downloading a piece of content, exploring the agenda, or buying a pass for your event. DON’T’S #1 DON’T only send email campaigns in the few months leading up to your event – this is a huge missed opportunity by far too many conference organisers. Keep past attendees and leads informed all year round. #2 DON’T send out emails with too many messages – for every email campaign, identify one key focus e.g. exciting updates to the agenda; the latest speakers; or an early bird deadline. Make it clear to the recipient what you need them to do with obvious CTAs. #3 DON’T flood your audience’s inbox – sending multiple emails every week makes it more likely that your target audience will unsubscribe. Plus, using words like “free”, “buy”, or “urgent” in your subject lines can mean your emails are flagged as spam. #4 DON’T focus only on promotions, or communicate the price straight away – especially at the beginning of the campaign when prospects are not ready to commit/buy. First, convince them of the value, benefits, and business case for spending their time and money on your conference before communicating prices and promotions. #5 DON’T neglect your website – potential buyers will make their decision about whether to attend an event based on what they see on your event website. They will want to explore the agenda and speakers, and see who they can meet. Your website must be optimised to engage and convert website visitors or your email marketing won’t work. #6 DON’T send the same message to everyone on your database all the time – split your database into key groups based on demographics or behaviour to ensure your messages are targeted at the most relevant people. #7 DON’T forget mobile optimisation – with the majority of senior execs now opening emails on mobile, if you’re not optimising for mobile, you’re likely missing engagement opportunities. #8 DON’T forget to measure your email results – monitoring and regularly analysing deliverability, open rates, and click through rates is essential for making good decisions about your email marketing. #9 DON’T email data that hasn’t been contacted in over 12 months – old email addresses are often recycled as spam traps in a bid to weed out companies with questionable data practices. Make sure you “clean” old, unengaged data first before emailing or it could lead to your domain being blacklisted. #10 DON’T forget about your registrants once they are signed up – keep them informed about their event experience – changes to the agenda, new speakers confirmed etc. For free-to-attend events, these emails are vital to ensure registrants attend the event. For paid-for events, this is a great opportunity to encourage them to invite their team or upgrade their pass. There is a lot to think about and get right when it comes to email marketing to promote conferences. And we strongly recommend you invest in strong strategising, planning, campaign management and execution of your email marketing – as this is a critically important communications channel connecting every conference organiser with their target audience. * https://bestwriting.com/blog/b2b-email-marketing-stats Do you need help improving the performance of your email marketing? Team MPG has a wealth of knowledge and experience in email marketing to ensure a successful conference. Get in touch to find out more. Continue Reading Topics: Email marketingEvent marketingMarketing Skills
MPG Newsletter | Autumn 2022 by Team MPG, on 28/09/2022 Newsletter • Autumn 2022 Investing well in marketing leads to business success and growth Marketing has never been more important in B2B. Now is the time to ruthlessly focus on ensuring your marketing budget is being spent on the right things. “Companies that have bounced back most strongly from previous recessions usually did not cut their marketing spend, and in many cases actually increased it. But they did change what they were spending their marketing budget on, and when, to reflect the new context in which they operated.” HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW Investing well in marketing will be essential to surviving and thriving in the coming months – and years. This means you need to: ✔️ Add as much science as you possibly can to your marketing. Customer insight, 1st party data, tech, analytics, and data-led strategy must now be built into every marketing function – no matter how large or small your organisation. Sufficiently relevant, personalised and impactful marketing campaigns can only be possible if you have a strategic, analytical approach, and the right level of investment in your martech and data infrastructure. ✔️ Reduce your data and martech debt – now. Before it’s too late, put in place: A well structured database – with good coverage of your target market Smart marketing automation tools – much more accessible now than a few years ago in terms of cost and user-friendliness A well-integrated tech stack – with well set up data flows The longer you carry a legacy of low investment in these essential areas, the more it will cost you to ensure your marketing is effective in the future, especially if you want to grow your business. By paying attention to the critically important above-mentioned areas, you can get exactly the right messages to exactly the right people, at exactly the right time. The quality of the content and creative elements you add to your marketing campaigns will certainly also make a big difference. But you need the scientific elements in place first to make sure these campaigns hit their mark. In this issue of the MPG Insights quarterly newsletter, we focus on how a scientific approach to marketing can make a difference to every business. We highlight the things that senior executives and heads of marketing should be paying close attention to right now when it comes to future marketing investments: #1 When was your marketing last audited? Do you know where your gaps are? Your business will suffer if you spend blindly on your marketing. You need to understand which elements of your marketing are performing well, which areas are performing poorly, and where your biggest and most important gaps are. To ensure a strong ROI, and to future-proof your marketing, you need to know how different types of channels and tactics you have used have worked so far. You also need to know whether the systems, processes and people you need for success are in place. The MPG Insights team have written a ‘how to’ guide to help you invest in a good marketing audit – so that the money you spend on marketing in 2023 and beyond will deliver a strong return. Questions answered in this resource: Why should I do a marketing audit? How should I approach a marketing audit? What should I include in a marketing audit? Who should conduct my marketing audit? What should I expect the output to be from a well-run marketing audit? READ THE FULL ARTICLE #2 Do you have the marketing skills you need in your business? How will you get the missing skill sets plugged in where you need them? Your marketing audit will probably tell you there are skill gaps in your team. Some will be critical. Team MPG have created many resources for leaders considering how best to go about getting all the marketing skills they need in their marketing team. Here are our top 3 most relevant pieces for leaders right now: Creating a robust, sustainable marketing function: a strategic, hybrid approach Copywriting: how every B2B marketer can improve this skill set Don’t take marketing skills for granted: they’re precious and need investment Enquire about MPG’s Academy for essential marketing skills development #3 Have you activated advocacy as a powerful marketing tool? Activating and leveraging advocacy is an important way to get your message out to more of the right people. You can gain almost instant credibility, as well as the trust of a potential customer, based on a recommendation or endorsement from someone they already trust. That ‘someone’ is your advocate – and could be an employee, supplier or customer. To help MPG’s community get to grips with advocacy marketing, and to understand how to use it to grow rapidly and profitably, we’ve created a number of relevant resources. The top 3 are: A guide to advocacy and referral marketing Leveraging the power of advocacy to make your business more resilient Employee advocacy: unlock this powerful marketing channel Find out more about how MPG approaches Advocacy Marketing #4 How well integrated are your marketing and sales processes and KPIs? Your business will never reach its full potential if your marketing and sales are not well integrated. And marketing and sales integration needs to be approached strategically and holistically – with your customers, and their experiences in dealing with your business, at the very centre of every process. Take a close look at your marketing and sales funnel. Is it joined up? Are your marketers playing the part they need to at every stage of the funnel? Are they focused on generating, nurturing and qualifying leads? And are your sales people focused on the bottom of the funnel, where they can work their best magic in selling to people who are ready to buy? Do you have integrated marketing and sales metrics and KPIs – where your marketers and salespeople are all working towards the same end goal, and are rewarded for achieving success together? These are the KPIs your marketers and salespeople should be focused on (together): Number of leads Conversion rates Number of sales Average order value Length of sales cycle Total revenue “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” PETER DRUCKER Download MPG’s guide to sales and marketing integration #5 Are your website analytics tools delivering the value you need? And is your Google Analytics update to GA4 – so you don’t lose data? Not having the most basic website analytics tools in place means you really are flying blind. Relying on anecdotal evidence from your marketers or sales people is going to hold you back from growing your business. Not having the metrics to tell you how your customers are engaging with your website could be fatal – especially in the current business environment. If you use Google Analytics, GA4 is the new version you need to put in place very soon. As a team of digital-first, analytical and data-led marketers, Team MPG have been through extensive GA4 training, and ensured GA4 is well implemented for websites we work on, to deliver essential customer insight. Have you done the same with your marketing function? This MPG Insights article explains how, quite soon, you won’t be able to collect any more tracking data via your Google Analytics account, unless you have implemented GA4. It is also important to note that there are a number of significant differences between Google’s current Universal Analytics (UA) and GA4, such as not being able to track through the use of 3rd party cookies. This means you won’t be able to easily deploy GA4 without training – even if you’re an expert in UA. We strongly recommend – as an urgent priority – that you ensure you have strong analytics expertise plugged into your business. This may require training of current internal staff members, or you may want to hire in an analytics specialist (if your business is sizeable). The other option you have is finding an external partner to implement GA4 well for you. The same partner should then be able to help you pull valuable data from GA4 into your business, as ongoing intelligence, to enable de-risked, data-led, decision-making. Read MPG’s guide on GA4 Get in touch with Team MPG to find out how you can add more science to your marketing – so your campaigns always hit their mark! GET IN TOUCH Continue Reading Topics: Analytics and intelligenceDigital marketingEvent marketingLead generationMarketing Skills
Copywriting: how every B2B marketer can improve this skill set by Team MPG, on 08/09/2022 If you read our earlier blog about how to conduct a marketing audit in order to future-proof your marketing approach, you will know that it is important to audit the overall marketing function. This includes your inhouse marketers’ skill set – including your marketers’ copywriting capabilities. From conversations we’re always having with leaders of B2B businesses, and heads of marketing teams, there seems to be continual frustration with copywriting not hitting the mark. We believe there are some universal reasons for this common challenge: Marketers often don’t have the same deep and instinctive understanding of their target personas as their colleagues in other departments – such as sales, content or product development. This is because marketers usually don’t talk to as many customers, based on roles and responsibilities, and because marketers have to spread their time across many different marketing areas – such as martech, data, analytics, design, digital channels etc. If marketers don’t have a good process, and support from their colleagues, so they can draw out deeper knowledge on key customer value points and best ways to articulate these – then they’re ‘writing blind’. Copywriting is subjective. No matter how clear the USPs and benefits are, there are many ways these can be organised and explained in words. And everyone has an opinion. We have worked with many frustrated marketers who find it impossible to please their colleagues/stakeholders with the copy they are tasked with writing. They find constructive feedback is often lacking, and they’re often expected to ‘get it right first time’ – with very little help from their colleagues who naturally have a better understanding of their customers based on roles and level of experience. To address this issue, we have some practical suggestions on how to improve a marketing team’s copywriting skills and output. Here they are: #1 Messaging strategy In a previous blog we covered the importance of developing a messaging strategy before any copy is written. If you haven’t yet read this blog (or have read it and need a refresher) see: Build a winning messaging strategy: a step-by-step guide. A good marketer will work through these steps to make sure they understand their target persona well enough to write impactful copy – for every channel, and in every stage of the marketing funnel. #2 Length of copy We often hear business leaders expressing firm opinions about the ideal length of marketing copy. Like most things in marketing, this depends on context, i.e. the communications objective, the channel and the stage in the customer journey. And the key word here is ‘customer’. Every good marketer knows that it doesn’t matter what internal stakeholders prefer – it’s the customer experience when being exposed to and engaging with marketing copy that matters most. Various lengths of copy are needed within one, integrated marketing campaign: Short-form copy is needed at the top of the funnel, in areas such as organic social media posts, and paid media ads in social channels and Google. Short copy also works well at the very bottom of the funnel, when it is known that customer is very engaged and they just need a relevant marketing messaging to push them over the line. Medium-form copy is typically needed in middle of the funnel activities, such as email campaigns and on website pages. Long-form copy is needed for content-rich pieces such as case studies and blog posts, which sit at various stages of the funnel – but typically short and medium form copy is required to ‘sell the benefits’ of a long form piece so that a customer is incentivised to read it. A good marketer will consider the objectives, channel and context, and then ensure the length of copy is suitable within the relevant context. #3 Copy and design In the ‘experience age’ of marketing, copy typically sits alongside and within relevant imagery – whether static or dynamic (including video). Often the purpose of copy is to produce audio content i.e. as the script for a video or podcast. Design/visuals/sound effects and copy need to blend well, and together need to seamlessly incorporate CTAs (calls to action) to optimise conversions to the next stage of the customer journey. A good marketer will consider all aspects of the message i.e. the words, the pictures and the CTA devices. And it is the marketer’s job to make sure that the way in which all these elements come together is suitable for the format and meets the communications objective. #4 Copywriting vs editorial writing vs business writing There is a big difference between writing good marketing copy, and writing content for other business requirements: The purpose of writing marketing copy is to persuade someone to do something. It is subjective and should be biased. Editorial or business writing usually needs to be more objective. In marketing, editorial writing is needed to create content that feeds into content marketing – requiring a piece that is credible and valuable for the customer. Business writing is typically used for formal reports such as internal strategy documents, and company reports for investors. These three types of writing vary greatly in terms of their objective and context, and it is very important not to get them ‘mixed up’! There is nothing more off-putting to a senior business executive than reading a ‘puffy’ piece of writing in a business report. And marketing copy that is not persuasive isn’t going to do its job. A good marketer will recognise the difference between copywriting, editorial writing and business writing, and should be able to deliver all three well – as per relevant context. #5 To write well for your customers, you need to read what they’re reading Many marketers in our community are older Gen Z’s and Millennials (aged 22 – 40 as of 2022) who consume a large amount of news and entertainment via social media, where short form videos with subtitles are prevalent. If you’re writing for this demographic, then this is a really important style of communication and copy to understand and do well. However, a lot of B2B marketing copy (as well as editorial and formal business copy) needs to be written for senior decision-makers who are aged 40+. A large number of the target audience groups MPG’s clients serve are C-suite executives, who tend to be aged 50 and over. For an older marketer to write well for a younger audience, they should immerse themselves in the channels their younger audience is spending time in e.g. Tik Tok and Instagram, and they should be paying close attention to how content is presented and consumed. This should define their copywriting style for this audience. Likewise, when younger marketers have the job of writing for older audience groups, they should make a concerted effort to spend time on Facebook, and read what their target personas read e.g. The Economist, The Financial Times, and well-respected, editorially-led news and information providers in specific, relevant industries, such as Retail Week and Infrastructure Investor. Issues with spelling; abbreviations that an audience won’t understand; language that is too informal or formal; and poor grammar (especially problematic when writing for older audiences!) are unfortunately far too prevalent in the copy marketers produce. Generally speaking, the marketers who read more – and read widely – tend to be stronger at copwriting. So, if you are a marketer struggling with copywriting, I strongly recommend you get reading! It doesn’t matter what you read, but make sure you include some high quality publications that are editorially-led. Even an extra 15 minutes a day of reading something you wouldn’t normally read will probably make a big difference to your natural copywriting abilities! Good habits make good marketers. Copywriting is a challenging area, and therefore potentially also your best opportunity to get ahead of your competitors. But a pro-active and constructive approach is needed to make sure copywriting is a marketing strength. If it is a weakness, your whole business will suffer. MPG can help your B2B marketers get better at their copywriting. Our most popular MPG Academy training course is the B2B Messaging Masterclass that has seen over 100 successful students over the past two years. Get in touch to find out how we can deliver this training for your marketing team – complete this form to find out more https://www.mpg.biz/academy-request-more-info/. The ‘effective messaging’ training programme delivered by MPG Academy was very relevant to our team’s day-to-day work. I’m seeing a lot of the learnings being taken on board and used. All the theory was made applicable – which was hugely valuable. I would definitely recommend this programme for B2B marketers. Mathilde Le Borgne, Head of Marketing, Licensing Portfolio, Informa Markets Continue Reading Topics: Brand strategyContent marketingEmail marketingMarketing SkillsMessaging
Why you need a marketing audit, and how to do a good one. by Team MPG, on 24/08/2022 As with every function in your organisation right now, marketing needs future-proofing. But, in a very uncertain world, trying to prepare for ‘what’s coming next’ is really tough. How do we identify and manage our greatest risks? And how do we spot and invest in your biggest opportunities? Marketing needs particular attention in your strategising and planning because it requires significant and ongoing investment, and is (or should be!) a key driver of revenue. In a recession, marketing becomes even more important. According to a 2020 Harvard Business Review article: Companies that have bounced back most strongly from previous recessions usually did not cut their marketing spend, and in many cases actually increased it. But they did change what they were spending their marketing budget on, and when, to reflect the new context in which they operated. #1 Why should I do a marketing audit? The question you should NOT be asking yourself right now is “How can I cut my marketing spend?”. The CORRECT question is “What marketing investments should I be making – to survive and thrive?” To answer this question, you probably need a marketing audit. A marketing audit helps you ensure your marketing approach and investments fully support your business strategy. A well executed audit focuses attention on the data points and benchmarks that show you what’s working, what isn’t, and where your key opportunities are to bring more efficiencies, economies of scale and effectiveness into your marketing function. #2 How should I approach a marketing audit? To have impact, a marketing audit needs to be rigorous, and based on an analytical, evidence-based approach. A marketing audit should consist of the following distinct stages: Stage 1: Definition of objectives and scope Stage 2: Information and data gathering Stage 3: Analysis and benchmarking Stage 4: Delivery of findings and recommendation – including an operational plan to ensure the right investments are made in the right areas, at the right times, and with the required measures in place to ensure a good ROI. #3 What should I include in a marketing audit? The following elements of marketing should be reviewed within a marketing audit: Your overall business strategy and goals. It is essential your marketers have a thorough understanding of what you are aiming to achieve as a business, otherwise your marketing efforts won’t be well focused. Your target market, especially their profile, size (total addressable market, aka TAM), and your current penetration of TAM. Your TAM should ideally be divided into market segments that are then prioritised. The value proposition of your brand(s) and product portfolio(s). What are the ‘problems to be solved’, or ‘jobs to be done’ that mean your highest priority target market segments need and value your product? Your competitors, and your positioning against your key competitors, with a focus on your core differentiators and USP(s). These should relate directly to the ‘problems to be solved’ and ‘jobs to be done’ – as per above point. Your marketing objectives, and how success against these objectives is measured and visible at all times. Remember that these need to line up behind your business goals, with marketing metrics that should tie clearly and directly into financial results. A ‘warts and all’ SWOT analysis of your marketing function – incorporating an evaluation of: Insight on your customers i.e. what 1st party data you hold on customers, starting with the most basic information stored in your database about your TAM (see point 2 above), and also covering the most advanced useful information you have about levels of engagement and propensity to purchase. Your marketing systems and integrations for data flow i.e. martech platforms, digital marketing platforms, analytics tools, etc. Your brand assets i.e. visual branding, messaging, consistency of touchpoints, customer experience of your brand. Marketing channel and tactics deployed to date, and how these have been optimised to date and how they have performed so far. Your marketing processes i.e. manual and automated, within your marketing function, between your internal marketing function and external partners (e.g. marketing agencies) and between marketing and other business functions. This includes how marketing strategies and plans are created, and how campaigns are managed and executed. Your marketing people i.e. overall level of internal resources, skills and team structure (also considering that some ‘marketing tasks’ may be done by people not in the marketing department); external resources/expertise you rely on for marketing to work; and how your marketing function communicates/integrates/collaborates with key external parties and other functions for overall synergies, Key activities a marketing audit process should include are: 1-2-1 interviews with key stakeholders Group Q&A sessions to gather all the information (sometimes called ‘workshops’) Review of relevant documentation and reports, including org charts, job descriptions, financial data, customer survey findings, process maps, supplier agreements, samples of collateral and content, etc. Review of system set ups and relevant data within systems (via direct access into systems) #4 Who should conduct a marketing audit? There is no escaping personal and/or confirmation bias if someone ‘internal’ conducts a marketing audit. Therefore, a marketing audit should be conducted by a suitably qualified ‘3rd party’ i.e. someone not involved in the day-to-day of a business (or business unit), but with a strong background in marketing, in a similar kind of organisation, with a similar business model or product set. This 3rd party could be a central marketing resource within a large organisation, or a trusted external partner. #5 What should I expect the output to be? The party conducting the audit should present findings and recommendations within a comprehensive report, including: Executive summary For every relevant area of marketing (as above) – key findings and recommendations, with clear link between recommendations and ROI to be expected from implementing these. These pages should link to detailed appendices, examples, templates, and analysis as relevant. A recommended investment plan for filling gaps and ensuring marketing is set up for success. A high level recommended operational plan, or ‘roadmap’, on how recommendations should be executed in terms of priority, sequence and timeline. Be prepared: conducting a marketing audit will in itself require investment and time as it needs to be approached skilfully, and with a good level of rigour. A ‘half baked’ audit will probably do more harm than good, but a well conducted audit should give you incredibly valuable insights, and help you make good decisions about how to invest well in marketing – which should pay for itself many times over. If you’d like to have a chat about how best to approach your marketing audit, please drop us a note on info@mpg.biz. Continue Reading Topics: Digital marketingMarketing operationsMarketing SkillsMarketing strategy
How to get all the marketing skills you need – when you need them by Team MPG, on 28/07/2022 At a recent Renewd virtual roundtable discussion that I was privileged to chair, we heard from our hugely impressive and inspiring guest speaker Monique Ruff-Bell of TED Conferences. The overall round-table discussion theme was “Leadership challenges and opportunities in a post-pandemic world”, and during this very dynamic session the following key points really stood out for me: How important it is for business leaders to really understand the perspectives of those ‘further down’ in the hierarchy of an organisation, especially in roles they themselves have not worked in. Only by trying to put ourselves in their shoes, can we see the value they can offer and how to help them grow and reach their full potential. How we need to embrace diversity in all its forms if we are to build better businesses, including diversity in ethnicity, religion, gender, personality, and also importantly – how people think, and therefore, communicate. This got me thinking about a key marketing problem in nearly every business I have encountered over the past 10+ years of consulting and running an agency. And this may well be the biggest thing holding your business back – especially if you are looking to scale profitably. And here it is… Many business leaders, most of whom have never held a marketing role, expect the impossible from their marketers. They have never walked in their shoes, or even tried to. One person is expected to have strong competencies in a wide range of areas that vary greatly and require completely different skill sets and natural strengths. Businesses often expect the same marketing person to be great at copywriting AND tech implementations, or database development AND design, etc. Businesses often hire junior, inexperienced people as marketers (because they’re cheap and available), and then don’t provide the support and training these people need to succeed. Sometimes they hire more senior and experienced marketers, and because they’re paying them more, expect them to deliver a depth and breadth of tasks simply impossible for one person to handle. They want strategically strong people to also be very good on all things ‘hands on’. This results in frustration (for all parties) at best, and failure of a marketing function at worst. To counteract this issue, it is important to recognise the five marketing skill sets that every business needs (see our blog from December 2020), and accept a diverse team of marketing ‘thinkers and doers’ will be needed to deliver all the skills you need. Some of these marketing skill sets can sometimes be combined into one role – if the person in the role has the experience, aptitude and interest in the relevant areas. And it is important to recognise that certain elements of marketing, particularly the very technical aspects, are often better outsourced – for three reasons: Certain types of marketing specialists are scarce to the extreme (especially in data, martech and analytics), so are difficult to hire and retain. An ‘all in-house’ marketing function that includes all resources and skill sets you need, full time, can become expensive and difficult to manage. Some specialist skill sets and flexible resources needed may best sit externally – to compliment what you have inhouse. There are some marketing specialists you may not need full time, all year-round. Often to be most effective, a marketing specialist’s work is best focused on specific projects that are time-bound, and with set deliverables. Unless they have a pretty full quota of ‘business as usual’ tasks to work on a daily basis, then project based resourcing, using consultancies, agencies and/or freelancers, may be a better option. The most successful marketing functions we have seen over the past ten years have found ways of working in a highly collaborative and integrated way with strong external partners – over a long period of time. This has enabled them to easily outsource elements of their marketing as and when needed, and thereby always have access to the best skill sets and a good amount of flex in a stable and scalable hybrid marketing team. Circling back to the Renewd discussion, it is important for business leaders and marketing leaders to take full responsibility for building diverse and fit-for-purpose marketing teams. They need to walk in their shoes, and see their perspectives when it comes to working out how best to build a strong marketing function. This includes supporting them in working out what needs to be done inhouse and what should be done by external partners, and then ensuring the right level of executive sponsorship is in place to support the marketing function to succeed. Want to know more about Renewd and the online round-tables you could join? Find out more at https://renewd.net/. Join the community with a free basic membership here. Continue Reading Topics: Community marketingEvent marketingMarketing SkillsMarketing strategy
