When my kids discover a new sport they’re into it! They’re going to be the next Serena Williams, Lionel Messi, Dan Carter, Lisa Carrington, Brendan McCullum, and good on them. They’re living (or maybe dreaming) the dream. Then a couple of things happen, and let’s run with tennis as the example.
First the ‘gear’ requests come in, and they inevitably want the very best tennis racket. It’s top of the range in both performance and price. Sometimes you’ll get a great shop assistant who points out that the racket that Serena Williams uses is very specialised. It has a tiny sweet spot which works for her because she’s practiced everyday of her life since she was 4 years old and hits that sweet spot 95% of the time when at full stretch. But it's absolutely shocking for a beginner. In fact, it can do you more long term harm (tennis elbow) than good. If you do get the right advice from the specialist shop, you get a racket that’s suitable for the beginner.
Second thing that happens, after the initial enthusiasm, is they realise the sport is quite tough. You make the occasional amazing shot (worthy of a professional) but a lot of shots never make it over the net or inside the tram lines. You start serving, and that’s an art form in itself. They may not realise it themselves yet but now the practice stage starts, and they may go backwards before they go forwards.
This is a key moment. Some kids can’t handle not being the best from day one and move straight onto the next sport or activity. Many will practice with their friends, improve and play a good social game. Others will practice, supplement that with some coaching from a tennis pro and over time they’ll become a good tennis player. Some may even go on to represent their club. Practice, practice, practice.
Then there are the few, those who have found their passion who dedicate themselves to their tennis obsession, work hard every day, seek the wisdom of coaches, have a very strong game plan, set goals for each game, season (and off season). They become really good players, may represent their region or even country at age group level, turn professional and maybe one day become that Wimbledon champion like Serena.
Do you see where I’m heading with this? You can sub out tennis for digital here, and our budding tennis player with sales and marketing teams starting to get their heads around digital.
Here are some warning signs to look out for:
So should you and your team be bringing their 'A' game to B2B digital marketing? The stats suggest there's opportunity for those who do. 94% of B2B buyers researching online before purchasing (2014 study by the Aquity Group) but only 37% of B2B buyers thought suppliers websites delivered the information they wanted. So there's massive opportunity even if you only deliver the basics like the right website content for your prospective buyers. Imagine if you brought an integrated digital 'A' game? You'd be winning 6:0 6:0.
First the ‘gear’ requests come in, and they inevitably want the very best tennis racket. It’s top of the range in both performance and price. Sometimes you’ll get a great shop assistant who points out that the racket that Serena Williams uses is very specialised. It has a tiny sweet spot which works for her because she’s practiced everyday of her life since she was 4 years old and hits that sweet spot 95% of the time when at full stretch. But it's absolutely shocking for a beginner. In fact, it can do you more long term harm (tennis elbow) than good. If you do get the right advice from the specialist shop, you get a racket that’s suitable for the beginner.
Second thing that happens, after the initial enthusiasm, is they realise the sport is quite tough. You make the occasional amazing shot (worthy of a professional) but a lot of shots never make it over the net or inside the tram lines. You start serving, and that’s an art form in itself. They may not realise it themselves yet but now the practice stage starts, and they may go backwards before they go forwards.
This is a key moment. Some kids can’t handle not being the best from day one and move straight onto the next sport or activity. Many will practice with their friends, improve and play a good social game. Others will practice, supplement that with some coaching from a tennis pro and over time they’ll become a good tennis player. Some may even go on to represent their club. Practice, practice, practice.
Then there are the few, those who have found their passion who dedicate themselves to their tennis obsession, work hard every day, seek the wisdom of coaches, have a very strong game plan, set goals for each game, season (and off season). They become really good players, may represent their region or even country at age group level, turn professional and maybe one day become that Wimbledon champion like Serena.
Do you see where I’m heading with this? You can sub out tennis for digital here, and our budding tennis player with sales and marketing teams starting to get their heads around digital.
Here are some warning signs to look out for:
- Is your team all about the gear? If they’re relatively new to digital and asking for a significant investment in gear (Marketing Automation, Website, CRM, BI Portal), resource (headcount), new Channels or money for expensive campaign development? All this without proving the performance of their proposed approach on a small scale (see points 4 & 5 below)? Chances are you’ll be investing in Serena Williams tennis racket, with a team who are just starting to learn the game. Most high performance enterprise solutions have a free, almost free or look-a-like that’s carries a small subscription charge so you can try it out before you make a major investment in ‘the gear’.
- Are they clear who they’re playing? Are they chasing 'awareness' without a target audience?You need to know who’s sitting across the net from you. If you don’t then chances are you’re either hitting the ball against a brick wall back to yourself, or you’re serving to nobody, both of which mean you’ll be wasting time and money for little benefit. If your team is focusing on an audience of ‘everyone’ or a general awareness without a clear next action, then chances are they’re talking to no one.
Here’s a great example of knowing who you’re playing, US developers Braintree identified Ruby developers were the most socially connected of all development groups (according to University research papers they searched). Four or five of the individuals within the Ruby community in particular were uber connected. By focusing in on the four or five they were able to engage them, and then tap into their networks to first break into the rugby community and then the wider development community. - Do your team have a clear game plan? To win you’ve got to go into a game knowing your strengths, your weaknesses, and your opponents’ strengths and weaknesses. With a plan of how they’re going to counter those strengths and weaknesses. So if your opponent has an amazing forehand you’d be crazy to keep playing to their forehand. Same with digital, you need a game plan.
We use the customer journey or sales funnel (see image below) to shape our digital game, measuring the numbers at each stage and conversion (see point 5). Being clear at each stage of the customer journey what the customer needs, the next step i.e. the next action you want them to take and your conversion performance. - Are your team practicing to improve their game? Do they have a test and learn programme in play so they’re learning what works? A 1% improvement every day means you’re twice as good as you were 70 days later. You’ll be able to throw away the ineffective, and doubling-down and scale up the effective. Just like the professional or even semi professional tennis player you need to be constantly testing your abilities, practicing and improving your game.
- Do they know the score? Are you serving for the set, tied at deuce or scrapping it out facing two break points? It’s important to know how you’re performing. Digital, like tennis is a measurable game. Make sure you and your team are clear on the KPIs along the customer journey or sales funnel, measure them and like a game, challenge your team to beat them every day.
So should you and your team be bringing their 'A' game to B2B digital marketing? The stats suggest there's opportunity for those who do. 94% of B2B buyers researching online before purchasing (2014 study by the Aquity Group) but only 37% of B2B buyers thought suppliers websites delivered the information they wanted. So there's massive opportunity even if you only deliver the basics like the right website content for your prospective buyers. Imagine if you brought an integrated digital 'A' game? You'd be winning 6:0 6:0.
Assessment: Does Your Team Think Digitally?
I thought this assessment from Harvard Business Review would make a good edition to this post:
http://hbr.org/2015/10/assessment-does-your-team-think-digitally
http://hbr.org/2015/10/assessment-does-your-team-think-digitally
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