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Technology has had a profound effect on the way we operate in every aspect of our lives — from the way we communicate, to the way we run our homes and the way we shop. Perhaps one of the most significant changes comes into play outside of our personal lives. While we might not realise it, the effect of technology in business continues to shape the way in which we work and organisations operate.

As an example; for any business with a supply chain, investment in technology is essential. We’re all aware that the modern consumer has demands that simply wouldn’t have been met twenty years ago. In retail we’re now accustomed to click and collect, same-day delivery and one-hour delivery time slots and VR apps that let you check how that mirror would look on the wall before you buy it. These are great conveniences, but the pressure for retail businesses to remain competitive is enormous.

In a B2B environment, technology now means that any disruption to the supply chain can be quickly resolved as businesses have access to real-time data and can scenario plan in advance to anticipate a host of ‘what ifs’. Despite the fact that legacy processes, such as a reliance on spreadsheets, still holds many organisations back from reaching their full potential, others are investing in the best technology available to digitally transform both the customer-facing and, often neglected, back-end processes.

Not only does technology affect business outputs and processes, it has also changed the workplace and the way we, as employees, function. We can work from home, get paid on demand, leave the desk and tuck ourselves away when we need a few quiet minutes to concentrate and manage our pensions, annual leave and payslips on an app. Cloud computing, fintech and developments in IT mean that some companies don’t even need an office anymore. Forward-thinking fintech companies, such as Hastee Pay, offer services that mean for those of us feeling the January pinch there is no longer a wait for payday.

At the rate technology has been evolving over the last few years I expect a blog on this topic next year will be entirely different. Will robot assistants be serving us drinks while we work away on a beach in the Caribbean before meeting our clients on the other side of the world via hologram? Maybe. Check back here in 2020 to find out.

The annual global innovation showcase known as CES has seen brands from across the globe take over Las Vegas and compete for the limelight since the ‘60s. Companies need to stand out from the crowd and cut through the noise, particularly at a show where nearly every technology company in the world can be found under one roof. The sheer scale of the event is a reason having a strong creative public relations and communications strategy can enable key brands to steal a march on their competitors.

In the past CES has been viewed as a gadget fun-fair which lacked any connection to the everyday consumer, but this year things are different. This year the consumer was put first.

When talking about winning the race for consumer favour you need look no further than the fierce battle between tech giants Amazon and Google as the two dominate the voice-aided smart speaker space. Amazon is estimated to have a 41% share of the global smart speaker market while Google has 28%, following a year of significant investment to catch up to their tech rivals.

Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant (GA) AI technologies need no introduction, but they are still in the early adoption stage as consumers come to grips with the benefits of smart-home tech and connected devices. Their comms teams have acknowledged this by demonstrating the technology in-use, through partner technology like JBL’s new GA headphone range and the smart TVs that have Amazon Alexa functionality built in. The marketing teams highlighted new functionality, but unlike previous years, the benefits of the products have been the focus, rather than the gizmos themselves.

Google managed to pull off an elaborate stunt involving a ride which uses voice commands to move the consumer along a journey, putting the user in control – Hey Google, give me a thrill but don’t make me throw up.

Speaking of thrills, a robotic sex aid for women by Ose was banned from this year’s show, which caused uproar on social media. Commentators on Twitter adopted the hashtag #CESGenderBias to debate the organiser’s decision and suggest there was a double standard because male-friendly sex products were displayed at last year’s show.

Despite this biased PR decision which plays into the broader gender discussions in society over the last year, many organisations have quickly adopted policies in their recruitment and business operations that will create a more diverse workforce and empower female leaders. Comms professionals can help tackle the issue by creating strategies that position business leaders from different genders and ethnic backgrounds to be equally represented throughout PR and marketing campaigns.

If one company were to win the award for best stunt, then in my view it has to be Apple. Apple wasn’t even exhibiting at the show, yet it managed to troll the competition with a giant ad on the side of a Las Vegas building, that read: “What happens on your iPhone, stays on your iPhone.” The obvious dig at privacy standards in the industry puts the pressure firmly on the likes of Facebook, Google and Amazon. Ultimately, I believe consumers are in the process of benefitting from the increase in attention on privacy, as devices become more secure and safe to use. And in one fell swoop it looks like Apple, not Amazon or Google, won the CES comms war.

We recently released the findings of a landmark piece of independent research which investigated the use of Account-Based Marketing and Account-Based Sales approaches. Entitled, ‘A Perfect Match: ABM and ABS’, in the first of this two-part blog series, we revealed:

• The close alignment that exists between Sales professionals and Marketers;
• Which communications options they each think are most effective;
• How CRM systems are being used;
• Whether those people we researched are working to an account-based framework, and;
• The ways that both teams measure the effectiveness of marketing on lead generation.

Today we can share the concluding part of our research project and some further insights provided by the 200 senior B2B Marketing and Sales decision-makers.

Setting off on the right foot

As we reach the time of year where budgets start to be reviewed, refined and allocated and annual business plans and implementation strategies are signed off, it is the perfect time to ensure you have clearly articulated the goals and expectations you have for your marketing strategy. With three-quarters (76%) of the Marketers we researched working within an ABM foundation, it would be recommended that your next annual marketing strategy incorporates at least the beginnings of the journey to this approach.

Perhaps surprisingly for me, only 45% of those surveyed said that a persona-based approach to Marketing or Sales is a goal. For us, this is the ordinarily the foundation of an effective marketing strategy. By truly understanding your personas, you are able to visualise and put yourself in the shoes of your buyers and clients. Find out more in my recent article.

Related: Unleashing the power of buyer personas and account-based marketing

Our findings also suggested that while close rates and times mattered as a goal of their overall strategy to 57% of the group, both Marketers and Sales leaders were most focused on the slightly more qualitative measures of improving the quality and applicability of marketing plans to the overall business plan (71%) —rather than just quantity of leads. Understanding more about prospects also featured highly as a goal. This further underlines the importance of a sales and marketing strategy which both builds and develops a brand and also goes after leads and sales with short-term tactics.

Achieving impact from an ABM or ABS structure

With a strategy defined, the attention turns to how to achieve impact in day-to-day execution. While 76% of Marketers and 85% of Sales leaders said they are already working to an ABM or ABS structure respectively, dissatisfaction was higher than expected in terms of the impact it was having on their business. In fact, 60% of Marketing decision-makers wanted to realise a bigger impact, as did 79% of Sales professionals.

So, what’s behind the numbers? The top three challenges preventing both groups from seeing true performance improvements were:

• A lack of knowledge (46%)
• Less budget or time than ideal (45%), and;
• Lacking the required technical infrastructure (41%).

To take the final bullet point a little further, almost half of Marketing professionals said that they didn’t have the right technology in place. And from our experience, this likely reflects the difficulties which arise in evaluating the number of tools available and needed for an integrated Martech stack.

Surprisingly, only 31% of the combined audience said that they didn’t feel they had enough support from senior management, suggesting to me that these decision-makers have effectively educated upwards as to the need for an account-based approach.

There’s little doubt that implementing and working to an account-based framework can be hard work and may feel initially unrewarding – but just like improving a Martech stack, it will be rewarding and helpful in the long term.

Suzanne Griffiths, Managing Director, Whiteoaks International

Tell Us Your B2B Tech Story

Download our free report, ‘A Perfect Match: ABM and ABS’ today, by filling in our contact form below. In the report you’ll discover:

• How senior Sales and Marketing decision-makers are currently embedding ABM and ABS into their business;
• Which marketing communications both leaders say supports the business most effectively;
• The best ways for marketing tactics to demonstrate their direct impact on sales; and
• An in-depth look at the goals and challenges that Marketers and Sales professionals have when implementing an account-based structure.

Oops! We could not locate your form.

1. What’s your career background, in brief?

After graduating Cardiff University with a BA in Journalism, I did an internship with a radio PR agency in North London for a few months. Then I decided it was probably the perfect time to shoot off travelling for a bit, so I did a ski season in St Anton, Austria, before starting my role at Whiteoaks.

2. What’s the most challenging job you’ve ever had?

Probably my job of selling Jägerbombs while I was at university! It may seem simple, but trying to navigate through crowds and dancefloors of nightclubs with a tray of 15 shots was no easy feat…

3. What apps, technology items and gadgets can’t you live without?

I couldn’t live without my iPhone. Twitter is my favourite app, mainly for the funny videos.

4. What’s the best advice you’ve been given? (life or career advice)

I can’t think of a specific piece of advice, but I think Forrest Gump sums it up relatively well with “life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get”.

5. Name one thing about your job that gives you a sense of satisfaction or makes you leave the office smiling…

Having a good laugh with my team.

6. Do you personalise your workspace?

Not intentionally, but yes… I came into work wearing a sloth onesie for a charity fundraising day and since then I haven’t been able to live it down, so for my Secret Santa gift I was given a load of sloth merchandise, which is now on my desk. I also currently have a mini Christmas tree because why not, it’s nearly Christmas!

7. What’s the first thing you do in the office in the morning?

Seek out the coffee – I can barely function otherwise.

8. What are you reading, watching or listening to at the moment?

I’m watching the new series of Masterchef: The Professionals and RuPaul’s Drag Race: All Stars 4. I’m a big fan of Drag Race – I spend most of my down-time re-watching episodes of that and Brooklyn 99 on repeat.

Innovate. Transform. Grow. Bold words, but all certainly applicable to Fintech Connect, which bills itself as the UK’s largest fintech trade show. Held at the ExCel in London last week, it didn’t let me down, with speakers and representatives from major institutions like Citigroup to smaller niche players like Smart Valor.

Our agency has a strong heritage in the Fintech space and we’ve represented disruptive firms from across the industry, from Regtech to small business finance and data management to invoice financing. This is an industry landscape that is constantly shape shifting, influenced by the regulation agenda, consumer demand and mobile technologies, to name just a few.

A glance at the speaker sessions and workshops gave just a flavour of the huge variety of solutions on offer: from augmented reality in banking to tokenised investments, the opportunities created by open banking to machine learning. This is an industry that is fertile hunting ground for innovation and it is a source of huge pride to see London and the UK rightly recognised as the perfect base for these sorts of companies to launch, grow and thrive.

I was fortunate enough to speak with a few of the home-grown Fintechs at the event and find out how their transformative technology will meet one or many market needs.

Their passion and belief is admirable, but it also strengthens our own resolve. What is clear to me is that PR is a strategic investment for these firms – it isn’t a budget pot they are willing to fritter away so that they get it again next year. Instead, it drives and supports strategic business direction, from breaking new markets to attracting external investment, increasing sales to generating new leads.

So as we continue to disrupt our industry with our results-driven engagement model, it was heartening to hear that these firms require a communications agency to complement their own company ethos or approach.

As a proof point, have a look at our work with Fraedom, a hugely disruptive B2B firm in the commercial credit cards and spend management space, which earlier this year was acquired by Visa.

Doing things the ‘same old way’ has been a terminal error for businesses in the past – and those working in the financial services and Fintech space know that better than anyone. Different results need different approaches, different ways of thinking and similar disruptive philosophies, which is where I think Whiteoaks truly sets itself apart from the rest.

A number of Fintech and digital technology trends are having a big impact on the financial services industry right now. Artificial Intelligence, a strong compliance framework, CRM systems, Blockchain and the subject of this blog, Regulatory Tech which is more commonly termed Regtech. We all know the background: after the financial crisis in 2008, an enormous volume of new regulation and compliance responsibilities were placed on financial institutions. In response, those organisations looked for help from technology start-ups aiming to ensure that they better manage the vast amounts of data and conformity to a myriad of international regulations, including most recently, GDPR and MiFID II.

The Regtech sector has evolved in the last 10 years and the new technologies help compliance professionals to save costs and increase efficiencies on their regulatory burden – and at their best discover that regulation can be a new revenue stream.

The focus areas in 2018 and 2019 are automation, intelligence and data analytics. This combination helps financial companies with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)’s KYC (Know your Customer) and AML (Anti-Money Laundering) screening, and transaction monitoring. As a result, the industry is finding that Regtech works better for large institutions – the volume of data required to ‘train’ an AI engine to the stage where it can provide meaningful data analysis is heavy and improves over time.

Yet Regtech has been, often unfairly, dogged by an argument that it will negatively impact on employment prospects and employee satisfaction levels. The current reality is that Regtech shouldn’t and won’t replace professional, qualified and knowledgeable people. The capabilities are meant to take the load on repetitive, expensive, data-heavy jobs and data analysis – in exactly the same way that Business Information (BI) product suites have helped businesses to achieve the same outcome, for many years. Compliance professionals continue to provide consultancy, strategy, data management, risk intelligence and advice, and ultimate oversight of their company’s regulatory approach.

From everything that we see about Regtech, the excitement is in its ability to make it possible for experienced compliance professionals to spend more time doing what they do best, and as a result adding the most value to their business.

But what are the key challenges? Data portability is a Pandora’s box. The dream for clients to easily and seamlessly switching to a service provider with the best offering is often not realised. Most Fintechs arguably are still not working on the same platform as the big financial institutions but with Regtech, that may be about to change. Whilst innovations in customer experience may be seen to be optional, compliance is non-negotiable.

Banks are finding that they must open up their operations, with potential Regtech partners only too happy to oblige. As well as the business, the opportunity provides them with access to years and years of legacy data. Armed with this, they can apply the complex algorithms required to make the bank’s compliance operations more efficient. As the algorithms iterate, they’ll learn and make their own tech business better and more competitive.

Nevertheless, data portability is a huge mental and operational challenge for large financial institutions. It forces them to change everything they thought they so far believed: client data security is paramount and keeping their own business practices utterly confidential is not up for discussion. In fact, recent research by Asset Control, the leader in providing proven, high-performance systems for financial data management, shows that more than a third (37%) of those financial firms think that legacy data platforms are the biggest obstacles to improving their data management and analytics capabilities.

What is data portability? How should it be embedded in the financial company? Who can access the data? These are the key questions for 2019…

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And for further reading about the current compliance landscape, the Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence team has published their annual ‘Cost of Compliance’ 2018 report, benchmarking opinions from compliance professionals over the last nine years.

Content is still king. We keep hearing it, we keep saying it. It forms the basis for almost all PR and marketing campaigns and is one of the most important ingredients to set a brand up for success in terms of building awareness, saliency and generating leads. But there’s a big caveat. To get your business messages across, impress your customers and prospects, and reach your communications objectives, it needs to be the right content.

Getting the basics right isn’t enough

Of course, it needs to start with good content — well written or spoken, cogent, relevant and smart — but that’s no longer enough. With so much content out there, being well scripted isn’t much of a differentiator. Yes, it’s important, and yes there’s a certain skill in doing it, but creating engaging content encapsulates so much more.

In the context of planning for a campaign, the variety of content must reach the right audiences with the right messages through the right channels. It’s about understanding their pain points, the industry they operate in and what they’re trying to achieve as a business.

Not all of this insight comes from desk research; in fact, your communication strategy is doomed to fail if this is your sole method. Instead, a critical part of campaign planning comes from talking to the people who know the audiences best. And that’s the Sales and Marketing professionals.

Different sides, same coin

The rivalry and discontent between the two teams has been well documented in the past — with much of it anecdotal. After all, it’s a better story to write about two groups at loggerheads.  Yet, our own independent research into the collaboration and understanding between Sales and Marketing leaders, ‘A Perfect Match: ABM and ABS’, yielded some contradictory results; 87% of the Sales and Marketing decision-makers we spoke to said they believed they were aligned with their counterparts. Catch the main findings from the research here and download the full report in the link above.

And that’s critical when putting together your content plan as part of an account-based approach to Sales and/or Marketing. Marketing adds value when it comes to the company messaging and the wider industry outlook; Sales on the other hand has the deep insights into customers and prospects in terms of their challenges and requirements. Both outlooks influence your content strategy and help you understand the audiences and personas that are being targeted in the overall campaign.

Down to tactical business

From strategy to tactics, the right content and understanding of personas helps shape the assets you’re creating; articles for thought leadership to educate and demonstrate knowledge; customer success stories for reinforcing proof points; blogs and vlogs to show both thought leadership and personality.

Related: Unleashing the power of buyer personas and account-based marketing

It also helps in determining which assets are better suited to the different stages (and aims) of the campaign journey. Long copy, like whitepapers and eBooks, is great for education and awareness, while shorter copy, such as blogs and social media posts, is ideal for reinforcement and attracting interest.

Don’t settle

Ultimately, having the right content (in terms of messaging, type and length) in place means you can start off your campaign on the right footing. And it’s worth remembering that good (ahem, really great) content doesn’t have to have a short lifecycle. It can be repurposed into other assets, used in different campaigns and can seed complementary social media plans. So while good content is… good, having the right content is even better.

In our recent webinar, ‘Partnering with Sales: A Marketer’s Guide’, I discuss much of this guidance as part of the broader content for marketers designing integrated marketing plans. You can watch the webinar anytime to suit you, here. I hope you find it useful.

Susan Richter, Head of Marketing Communications

Tell Us Your B2B Tech Story

On Tuesday 27^th November, US space agency Nasa landed a new robot on Mars after a dramatic seven-minute plunge to the surface of the Red Planet. It was NASA’s first attempt to land on Mars in six years and the jubilation of Nasa employees said it all. It was a truly historic day and testimony to the effort and expertise employed on this perilous and what many considered, insurmountable challenge.

The InSight Lander’s journey of six months and 300 million miles is the culmination of Nasa’s £633 million two-year mission which aims to shine new light on how the Red Planet was formed and its deep structure.

After the successful landing, InSight’s project manager Tom Hoffman was quoted as saying: “The InSight team can rest a little easier tonight now that we know the spacecraft solar arrays are deployed and recharging the batteries.”

While working on a mission to Mars may not be directly comparable to working on a marketing campaign to launch a new technology product or solution, there are some striking similarities. Each starts with an ambitious goal which can invariably get eclipsed along the way. Each requires experts in their own right to commit to the mission and work collaboratively to get the product/solution into orbit. All in all, the landing on Mars teaches us that anything is possible with hard work and expertise. This is where Whiteoaks International can play a starring role.

If you are a marketing or internal PR professional working in technology with stellar expectations and looking to rest easier at night knowing you have given your all, it would be worth considering hiring an external specialist B2B Tech PR Agency.

At Whiteoaks International we develop strategic, yet creative PR campaigns which are highly targeted with persona-driven tactics and approaches.

At Whiteoaks we can guarantee tangible and impactful results that are underpinned by robust performance commitments and formal service level agreements.

Finally, to see what we do in practice, you can read some of our client case studies on our website.

As we stop to catch our breath and get ready to look back at 2018 and the developments in our industry, one debate that shows little sign of slowing is the ongoing challenge between PR and SEO and how the two disciplines should work together.

The reality is, is that there is no easy answer. However, it’s vital that we consider how to make the most of the synergies and benefits in coordinating PR and SEO as part of integrated marketing campaigns. Likewise, I think there is a need to provide a better understanding to our clients on what is achievable in helping brands be more visible and salient online, and how PR can truly support and deliver against this objective.

At a PR Moment conference in the autumn, a debate on this subject found some common ground but there are some key challenges that PR agencies must not be afraid to tackle head on and be prepared to have bold conversations about with their clients.

As part of the discussions, one of the clear advantages that PRs have over their SEO counterparts is that SEO professionals naturally think about how to please search engines, while PR and Marketing practitioners think about creating content that is interesting and exciting to audiences through multiple channels, including the likes of Google. Top tips articles, for example, is short, punchy content that can be used as a way to promote and drive traffic to your website, relevant for both prospective and existing clients. Relevant and updated content is still king, so the advantage for PRs who know how to tell a good story means that SEO will work better.

It’s essential that SEO and PR experts work closely and not in a combative manner. SEO is a way of providing an online legacy to every campaign – continually building upon and increasing campaign ROI at the beginning and over time. And to thrive, working with a content calendar where PR and SEO comes together can be invaluable.

Alongside this, there was one clear takeaway when trying to bring PR and SEO together to benefit working with the media. For example, clients may ask for back links in their content, but we have to remember that there is a clear differentiation between earned and paid media and we cannot treat both the same.

However, there are some ways to encourage journalists and media editors to include links in coverage, but before these are outlined it’s important to point out what is unacceptable. Do not waste your time asking a journalist if they will include a link without good a reason. It’s up there with calling a journalist to ask if they have ‘received your press release’.

So, how do you persuade a journalist to provide a link? Follow these simple tips and it will increase your chances greatly:

• Provide links to a worthy report – for example, more information than a journalist can include in an article
• Create a useful tool for clients or customers and tell your media contact about it – e.g. a budget calculator – something that people will want to use experiment with, etc.
• Select terminology carefully – use words like source/credit to data to ensure your content has the gravitas it deserves.

There’s no doubt the debate about how to get the most from PR and SEO investment will continue for some time yet. However, the key thing to remember is that, done properly, integrated marketing is more important than ever. Together PR and SEO are more than the sum of their parts.