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I’m delighted to write a short introduction to this blog by Vanda Adlerova, who is an Account Manager at Move Up, our WIN PR Group agency partner in the Czech Republic. Vanda is here visiting and working from our office for October and it’s been a pleasure having her on the team for a few weeks. Over to Vanda…

“Groups are a fundamental way that we function as humans: we socialise in them, we live in them and we work in them. We are so used to being part of different groups, that we perhaps stop to ask why, particularly in relation to the workplace.

There is a simple answer to the question in this blog headline: two heads are better than one. That’s why. We’ve used this idiom for such a long time, so there must be something to it… I’m now a part of two unique professional groups; one of them is full of ‘Oaksers’, aka the team here at Whiteoaks International, and the other is the rest of the group of international agencies called WIN PR Group.

Let’s start with the former. As an international PR agency based in the UK, Whiteoaks has a strong global presence thanks to like-minded agencies in its WIN PR Group network. And to further demonstrate its commitment to operating internationally, ‘the Oaksers’ have just welcomed their first international intern into the group – me.

I’m currently halfway through a month-long placement and so far it has been such a great, inspirational and educational experience. But what exactly inspires me during my internship in Whiteoaks International the most? Yes, that’s right…the groups. The teams. The people.

I’ve had the chance to see how this tech PR agency works and experience a culture where everybody has their own expertise and operates as an indispensable part of a whole.

As well as being part of an international group, the agency also operates in groups within the company. Internally these groups include individuals with specialised skills, all working together for the good of the client. And when it comes to the benefits of belonging to an international network, they may seem obvious to us in the group, but we are often asked what this network could bring to the public relations industry and what does it mean for our clients.

The simple answer is expertise. The connection between other agencies brings us a wider view, and allows us to leverage the experiences of PR professionals in agencies all over the world, stretching from Australia, to Asia, the US and back to Europe.

There are a lot of things you can gain whilst working in the group. As I experienced while here at Whiteoaks International, the most important thing is that you aren’t limited by your own strengths or weaknesses: you have the whole team working with you and complementing your own skillset. When you work in a group you can let people be specialists, you identify their strengths and let them shine. Shine for you. As Coldplay sings in their album, Yellow.”

Please check out our interactive map if you’d like to find out about all the agencies in the WIN PR Group.

Hook, Hampshire, 8 October 2018 – Two-thirds (65%) of senior B2B Marketing and Sales decision-makers consider social media the most effective marketing communications activity to support combined sales and marketing efforts as part of an account-based structure. Social media is followed by email marketing (61%) according to an independent study, commissioned by Whiteoaks International, the UK-based B2B Technology PR agency.

Marketing communications and lead generation

When asked to consider the potential choices of communications streams used as part of the Account-Based Marketing (ABM) or Account-Based Sales (ABS) framework, marketers place a greater value on the assets they have responsibility for creating. Both Marketers and Sales decision-makers rank social media, email marketing and customer reference work, including case studies and testimonials, as their top three communications streams. Media relations are valued in fourth place for marketers, whereas video takes fourth spot for sales leaders.

Both Marketing and Sales decision-makers agree at 89% that their company’s marketing activities have a positive impact on sales and lead generation, measuring this with enquiries through the company website, social media and at events.

Collaboration between marketing and sales functions

In the report, ‘A Perfect Match: ABM and ABS’, 87% of Marketing/Sales decision-makers state that their department is very closely or closely aligned with the Sales/Marketing division. This collaboration is particularly true amongst sole decision-makers and employees that have been in their company for more than five years.

The current implementation and increasing shared use of a CRM system for both prospective and current clients (59%) is a tangible catalyst in facilitating and reaching shared marketing and sales goals and objectives in a more strategic and efficient way, particularly when using a cloud-based platform.

Suzanne Griffiths, Managing Director at Whiteoaks International says: “In the B2B technology sector, the alignment and collaboration between sales and marketing departments to achieve a shared strategy is becoming ever more crucial. And with 67%[1] of the typical B2B buyer’s journey taking place online, we can now better prove and understand the importance of social media and email marketing in supporting the sales function.”

The shift to an account-based organisation

81% of the total audience surveyed agree they are currently working to either an ABM or ABS structure. Yet two-thirds (60%) of Marketers are dissatisfied with the impact and the figure is even higher with 79% of Sales professionals also stating that they are dissatisfied.

Griffiths continues: “While our research challenges the long-held assumption that Sales and Marketing teams are always on opposing sides, the high level of dissatisfaction suggests that the ABM or ABS concept, technology or resource needs improving for it to demonstrate value to this group of leaders.”

Working with the leading research firm and founders of the PRCA Research Best Practice Committee, Vitreous World, Whiteoaks International polled 200 professionals[2] to produce the first piece of research of its kind in the UK to consider the views about ABM and ABS and the associated outputs from both senior Marketing and Sales decision-makers.

Sources:
[1] Global Performance Group
[2] 202 interviews were conducted in June 2018 using an online methodology across both senior Marketing and Sales decision makers. Quotas were placed on the marketing and sales sectors to ensure a 50/50 split.

For fast-growth, challenger brands, one of the main priorities is to separate themselves from the competition. If you work for one of them, how can PR make your business stand out from the crowd?

We work with a number of B2B technology companies that operate in busy, and often crowded market places, so the challenge you face is one that we relish. There are multiple opportunities each and every year to get your voice heard, through seasonal events such as National Customer Service Week and Black Friday, which most companies leave untapped and underutilised.

In order to ‘hijack’ these seasonal events and shoulder in on the news agenda, you must be well prepared. We start speaking with clients about these events months in advance. We work with them to create seasonal campaigns that speak to the right audiences, in the right way and most importantly at the right time.

There’s no point in issuing a news release about Black Friday, on Black Friday. Journalists want your story ahead of time, and often they will want it exclusively.

We believe there is a better way to gain share of voice, and it’s through creativity. Most companies we work with are focused on innovation in order to gain market share, and it is no different in PR. Coming up shortly, Black Friday and Christmas are prime examples where the media are inundated with content and requests, so in order to turn their heads your idea has to offer something unique. One of the best tactics we have found with our clients is to flip the popular agenda of a news story on its head; if everyone is talking about consumer spend online at peak sales periods, why not talk about how the high-street can catch up, for example.

Research projects are a tried and tested method at achieving PR results, and we typically find that you can get more media value from a single research project than you might first think. Whether it is consumers or businesses that you’re surveying, adding one or two questions related to a seasonal event will give you longevity and ammunition for content later on in the year. Spread the momentum across a longer period of time, add your take on the findings and you have a newsworthy story, months in advance of a seasonal calendar event occurring.

Each year these events present brands with different opportunities to add their say because the technology landscape changes so rapidly. Take customer experience, and in particular customer loyalty. Around high-profile sporting events retailers of all kinds compete for the consumer pound. In the past, brand recognition and offering the lowest cost may have been the most dominant factors in influencing consumers’ decision making. But now you could turn a customer away simply through poor convenience or providing a non-personalised service, even with low prices and/or brand equity.

Education and adding something new is critical and this is where you and your spokespeople come in. Journalists need credible sources. If you’re able to offer a concise, and different message that speaks directly to a publication’s readership during a chaotic time like Easter, you’re more likely to be featured in a story.

Capitalising on seasonal stories requires good preparation, creativity, and unique insight. Standing out from the crowd is always a challenge, and the best PR results are achieved when you offer educational insight that solves the target markets common problem.

Download our free report, ‘A Perfect Match: ABM and ABS’ today, by clicking here.

 

Founder of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, is embarking on his second major ground-breaking and radical plan since the WWW’s inception. His aim is to de-centralise the web and bring the power back to its users rather than those profiting from it – namely, Facebook, Google and Amazon. But, what will this mean to the wider world, including the industry of PR and digital marketing?

Berners-Lee has launched Inrupt, with its solution, Solid, an open-source platform built to decentralise the web. Solid allows you to access all of your data seamlessly, such as your calendar, music choices, videos, chat and research all in one place in a visual platform. It’s a digital assistant for all your daily needs, but crucially, all the information is under your control rather than owned by one of the big Palo Alto players. It’s your data, encrypted for your use.  In the current centralised web, data is kept in silos which are controlled by the companies that own them, but in a decentralised scenario, these silos don’t exist.

This is a developer’s dream as hackers have become used to unpicking these silos. Developers will have the freedom to build their own decentralised apps through the Inrupt site.

Thinking more widely, however, what will this mean for PR, marketing and digital professionals, who are continuously updating their know-how on the fast-paced, evolving world that the likes of Facebook and Google have developed? For instance, Whiteoaks is constantly reviewing and upgrading its digital service to clients, creating strategies that rely on targeting specific audiences. When it comes to audiences, this often falls out of where data is centralised and for all to use.

With the control of data firmly back in the hands of the Solid user with a personal data store, Inrupt could signify a power shift away from the online giants. This could mean that rather than relying on regulation such as GDPR, the default starting point for data rests with the user to opt in to how their information is used.

I’m trying not to sit on the fence as a PR professional, but I can see that there are benefits to starting again with a pure communications network that cuts out the middle man and focuses on what data we want to share and who we want to share it with rather than rules and parameters being dictated to us. Yet with huge commercial opportunities for the likes of Facebook to develop personalised and data driven initiatives, we almost need to work towards a stage where we have the best of both worlds – centralised or not.

Over to Jon Clarke, CEO at Cyance for this guest blog…

In the last few years, the behaviour of B2B buyers have changed, and so the marketing industry has adapted in response. The vast amount of information that B2B purchasers can find and the often-lengthy process, from research to consideration to buying, means it’s becoming more challenging to target and move those buyers through the sales funnel. And the ultimate challenge for most businesses now, is how to attract customers in increasingly targeted ways while growing revenue and market share.

The legacy mass marketing tactics of the past are way past their sell-by date. Marketing teams now need to be able to identify, categorise and then target customers at the right time and show them the right message. They need to take a more insights and account-based approach, as Suzanne Griffiths wrote about on this blog recently, and yes, change is needed in order to keep up with a transforming environment.

For the most part, marketers have been using programmatic marketing to target and attract new customers, but I think this needs to be taken even further, and be more personalised. Doing so will enable businesses to reach the 2-5% of customers or prospects that are actively looking to and are ready to buy.

Enter behaviour-based marketing, fuelled by buying intent data, which I believe is a better way of transforming the quality of leads produced by B2B marketing. The latest backdrop of GDPR and the required compliance adds an extra layer of complexity to the picture for in-house and agency marketers and their sales counterparts, but that complexity can be confidently overcome.

Executing behaviour-based marketing does however need a shift in mindset, something which will inevitably mean educating internal audiences. Moving away from traditional methods can be daunting and some of the C-suite may view it as risky too. The shift is to move from generating large amount of leads of questionable quality, to generating high calibre, relevant leads. It’s the age-old argument of quality versus quantity. In the case of B2B lead generation, volume doesn’t guarantee results.

Instead, success comes from the confluence of three factors: context, timing and relevance.

When it comes to context, we all know how useful the right digital keywords can be in identifying audience segments and what they’re talking about. Context is important because it identifies accurate behaviour signals and separate the warm leads from the cold ones. In practice, building context into the keyword approach means layering insights onto words, including which sites customers are using to do their research, to whether a specific industry problem is being discussed. Each layer that is added helps build a single picture of who that customer is and how your brand can meet their needs.

The next element is timing. Gathering insights about your customers’ needs to happen in real-time, or as close as possible. This is critical as you need to interact with them the moment they show you they’re ready to make that decision to buy. Without real-time insights, you run the risk of engaging with them too early or too late in the buying journey. Understanding timing also helps you tailor the message. With real-time insights you can see where they are in the process and be agile enough to send them the right message as quickly as you can to capitalise on the momentum.

Lastly, there’s relevance. This step is critical in ensuring you’re sending your prospects and customers the right content that addresses their needs and resonates with them — and of course reflects your products and solutions as the answer they’re looking for. And the type of content and actual messaging depends on where they are in the buying journey.

In the B2B sector, personalisation is so much more than knowing a customer’s name. It’s about understanding their pain points, what they’re looking for and how your company’s products or services can solve those challenges for them.

Helping brands and agencies to find new customers at the right part of the buying journey and sell more to existing customers is our purpose.  Using a combination of data and computer science, we help clients around the world to transform sales and marketing results.

Jon Clarke is CEO of Cyance, a multi-award winning B2B customer behaviour technology company.

Earlier this year we set out to understand whether senior Sales and Marketing decision-makers working for B2B tech brands are truly operating within an Account-Based Sales (ABS) or Account-Based Marketing (ABM) framework. And if so, how it works best for them, what goals they have and the challenges they face. In our view, either structure can be summarised as a business-to-business (B2B) strategy that aligns both marketing, and/or sales resources and strategies, to categorise, build relationships and target companies or accounts into prioritised groups rather than on an individual leads basis.

The driver behind this research

So, why did we want to understand this area? ABM and ABS have become established buzzwords in the industry and within in the B2B technology space. We increasingly see the benefits of integrated, inter-dependent marketing and sales partnerships, co-ordinated with the same objectives from the top down. When that is in place, marketing communications professionals and their agencies can deliver true value for their brands. And, on a tactical level, we also wanted to know how companies’ marketing output influenced lead generation and which forms of marketing communications made the biggest difference. The result is what we believe to be the first study in the UK, examining both ABM and ABS, rather than just one or the other.

Critical to our intention was to understand the views from both Marketing and Sales leaders. To us, they are not functions to be viewed in isolation.

Highlights

This view is backed up by our research, with 87% of Sales and Marketing professionals stating that their department is very closely or closely aligned with their colleagues. This alignment directly challenges the myth that often rears its head: that Sales and Marketing teams are at odds, with different priorities, objectives and methods.

Our data shows that use of a CRM system is currently at 59% uptake for both prospects and clients and 88% for one or the other audience. This ability to capture, record and action information about both prospective and current client data, ideally in the cloud and complemented by a Marketing Automation Platform, goes much of the way to explaining why these two departments and their leaders are working in an ever more integrated way.

Yet, the CRM platform is only part of the story. The success of high-performing B2B tech brands operating in an account-based model to execute their sales strategy has, over the last few years, prompted some of those high-performing businesses to convert their marketing operations to run in the same way. In fact, 81% of the 202 professionals we surveyed said that they work to either an ABM or ABS operating model.

Our study shows that at a communications delivery level, social media and email marketing are viewed as the top two most effective ways to facilitate interactions with clients and prospects by both groups of professionals. Media relations, case studies and testimonials held stronger value for Marketers, demonstrating that more work is required by PR and communications experts in persuading Sales colleagues to understand their benefits in the overall marketing mix.

What really stands out from our research is that 89% of the 202 business professionals agreed that their company’s marketing efforts contribute to sales and lead generation. The value added was measured most widely by inbound sales enquiries to the website, the number of enquiries from social media channels and, interestingly, leads captured at events, either the company’s own or at industry conferences.

Our research continues

In a new blog focusing on the second part of our research project, ‘A Perfect Match: ABM and ABS’, I look in-depth at the goals and challenges of those 202 Marketing and Sales leaders to implementing an account-based way of working.

Related: A Perfect Match: ABM and ABS – goals, benefits and challenges

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 it you’ll find out:

• 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; and
• The best ways for marketing tactics to demonstrate their direct impact on sales.

In this blog, our team often comments on the world of tech, and the latest business trends and, while not a complete divergence, I wanted to use this week’s post to be a bit more reflective.

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the PRCA National Conference. If you haven’t come across it yet, the PRCA is the PR industry body that carries out a wide number of functions, from lobbying and training to charity work.

The theme for this year’s conference was an extremely interesting one: ‘Embracing Change’.

‘Change’ in this instance was broadly defined as societal shifts (for example Brexit and the 2016 US election), technological shifts (impacting how we live, work and buy) and business shifts (‘Goliath’ brands failing) and what this means for the PR industry.

The good news – for us at least – is that it means opportunity! These factors have combined to create ‘the age of earned’ – which puts PR firmly ‘in the sunlight’ and at the heart of the marketing mix, according to speakers and panellists at the show.

The ‘age of earned’ essentially boils down to the importance of traditional earned media in shaping public opinion, given the very obvious lack of trust in established pillars of society. Something further exacerbated by fake news.

The reasoning makes sense. The ability for PR firms to earn reputation for their clients, doing so across multiple channels, and to create experiences with brands, is unrivalled. If we accept that the purpose of PR is ‘to protect and enhance brand reputation’ – then this creates huge opportunity at a time when consumer confidence can be lost on the basis of one bad tweet. One excellent example cited was the fateful day that Snapchat had more than a billion dollars wiped off its value after one unhelpful tweet from social media mega-star Kylie Jenner who said she no longer used the platform.

Enlightened CEOs must understand the value of trust and the downfall that follows when it evaporates.

Yet, set against this, it was claimed that the PR industry is suffering from a lack of confidence. As an industry, conference speakers said, we have lost pride in the primary influence of PR in the marketing mix and instead sought to justify our place in it.

A 30-year advertising veteran who closed the conference said that those on the outside looking in (such as advertising professionals) accept that we as PR professionals are on the same hallowed ground that advertisers occupied in the 90s.

It was fascinating to listen to so many established industry leaders and hear their thoughts on the present and future of our industry.

In many ways they echo the belief at Whiteoaks that PR has, is and will continue to be vital to brands. The wider societal shifts outlined at the top of this blog absolutely strengthen our resolve. We are proud to represent many disruptive B2B tech companies that, now more than ever, require measured, bespoke communications to facilitate their growth.

While the PR and communications industry is definitely not just about traditional media relations any more, the need for cohesion across many different channels is obvious – and PR is at the very heart of it.

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

Until now, I’ve always worked in-house for large B2B technology companies.  I started my career in PR and social media, but from an early stage I knew digital and social media was where I wanted to be, so I carved out my career in that direction. After nearly seven years of working client-side I’m really enjoying agency life.

 

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

Outside of my working week, I also work in property development. The hardest weekend of work I have ever done was when the Beast from the East met — ironically — Storm Emma, causing the worst weather in the UK for 10 years. I was working on a property with no central heating, or windows! To say it was freezing … is an understatement!

 

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

I most certainly couldn’t live without Instagram or, my guilty pleasure, the Daily Mail. I secretly love a bit of celebrity gossip. Although, we all do… right?

 

4. What’s the best advice you’ve been given?

Live for the moment! Never think ‘if’, ‘what’, ‘but’, just go for it.

 

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

Two things: successfully trying something new and being part of our internal Social Club. The digital landscape is so fast paced, so when you nail something new, that’s exciting and rewarding. All of the social media experts at Whiteoaks International belong to ‘The Social Club’ and part of what we do includes sharing new tactics and performance – it’s great for keeping creative ideas fresh.

 

6. Do you personalise your workspace?

I currently don’t. But if I did, it would be covered with glitter and flamingo inflatables.

 

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

First thing in the morning at home, I switch Radio 1 on, and as soon as I arrive at the office, it’s coffee!

 

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

A great TV programme that’s just started again is No Offence on Channel 4. It’s a fab witty drama that will fill your Thursday evenings. I would give it a solid 10 out of 10 rating.

On the 150th anniversary of its creation, the Trade Union Congress (TUC) brought a smile to many a worker’s face across the British Isles. We were told that with the latest advances in technology, especially #AI, a four-day work week is within our grasp.

Frances O’Grady, general secretary of the TUC insisted that the change is possible. “In the nineteenth century, unions campaigned for an eight-hour day. In the twentieth century, we won the right to a two-day weekend and paid holidays. So, for the twenty-first century, let’s lift our ambition again. I believe that in this century we can win a four-day working week, with decent pay for everyone,” she said.

In response, Tahmina Begum @tahminaxbegum, reporter at  the Huffington Post took to the streets and asked people what they would do if they had a four-day week and ultimately an extra day to themselves. Those she spoke with suggested they would spend more time with their families, catch up on sleep or take up a new hobby. There are currently trials taking place at organisations based in New Zealand and Italy to see if a four-day working week will work. The jury is still out, with little evidence to back shorter working hours, especially after a two-year trial in Sweden when some companies introduced a six-hour working day has been inconclusive.  Although significant productivity benefits were initially reported, experts found that the cost outweighed the benefits overall.

With the UK having the lowest productivity of any country in Europe but one of the longest working weeks, maybe the tide is about to turn? Especially as many of us frequently check our emails and work when we’re meant to be on holiday.

Although a shorter week may still be a way off in the UK, if you are a client-side marketing or PR professional working in technology with not enough time in your work to get everything done, it would be worth considering hiring a specialist agency.

While we can’t commit to reducing your working week to four days (sorry!), we can guarantee tangible and impactful results that are underpinned by robust performance commitments and formal service level agreements within a strategic yet creative campaign. We all work hard to ensure that our clients can rely on us to be an extension of their in-house team, taking the time to really understand their businesses, challenges and the industry in which they operate.

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