Opinion

The critical factor for selling to marketers: trust

Damien CummingsIn this guest post, Damien Cummings argues that trust is the crucial factor in making the client-agency-vendor ecosystem work, and outlines how vendors can best to sell to marketers.

The challenges clients, agencies and tech vendors have in working together usually stem from a lack of understanding on all sides – a challenge of understanding “the business of marketing” as I’ve previously written. There’s one critical element that’s come to light in my recent discussions with partners on this: trust.

To understand how trust works between tech vendors, agencies and marketers, it’s important to understand the mindset of each stakeholder.

Brand/client-side marketers are focused on delivering activity plans that sell their product or service. They place a great deal of trust in their agency partners, as the best client-agency relationships operate like an extended, an integrated marketing department.

A lot of their time is spent getting internal alignment, coaching other parts of their organisation on the change that comes along with new marketing technology. This often means that the last mile (the final communication with the customer) – creative, media selection and the marketing technology that supports this is outsourced to their agencies.

Whether understood or stated, this means that brand marketers place an enormous amount of faith and trust with their agencies. This trust can be watered down when costs come into it. Like any relationship, when you argue over money, the relationship (and the level of trust) sours. But in general, marketers trust agencies.

Agencies (whether it’s creative, media, PR, digital or specialist) have a role at the centre of marketing transformation. They have earned trust from their brand marketing colleagues, but this comes at a price. The scope of work that traditional agency models operate under is being squeezed – costs are high and clients are paying less. The expectations have risen too. Agencies are not only expected to deliver excellent marketing, PR or media plans but to be an advisor for marketing technology, data platforms, CRM and digital.

In addition to this, they are asked to collaborate with the media giants (Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.). Since many marketers are struggling to keep up with consumer changes (the rise of digital, ubiquity of mobile, etc.), agencies are filling this role. Generally agencies are impartial with their advice and technology recommendations but the relationships between agencies and media and tech vendors are not always clear to the client. Regardless, this perceived impartiality has done an excellent job of building trust.

Tech vendors are the new kids on the block in the business of marketing. The arrival of ad and marketing technology has transformed how marketing is performed. They have made understanding and interactive with customers easier and more transparent but the proliferation of so many tech companies has made the job of marketers and agencies more complicated than ever. Silicon Valley has done an amazing job of funding and creating a stream of companies that are focusing on automating and improving marketing.

But therein lies the challenge – many tech partners don’t have the history, understanding or experience in marketing. They don’t understand the business of marketing. Tech vendors are evangelists of the new. Too often this takes the form of discussing the latest technical features of their product, and why it’s better than their competitors though. Less time is spent understanding marketers and their customers. Even less time is spent working with agencies and clients together. While marketers are convinced of the tech products and their features, there is less trust between marketers and tech vendors than there is between marketers and agencies.

Media partners (Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc) have done an amazing job of being integral to marketing. In less than 10 years, the largest media / tech partners are now front and centre of any media plan, and are so integrated into client marketing and agency thinking that working with them is the new normal. What modern marketer would not have Google search or Facebook ads thoroughly integrated into their next campaign?

This position has been earned – by providing consistently high support to agencies and partners, as well as by delivering on results. This means that they have a high degree of trust from marketers although with the understanding that each media partner is promoting their (and only their) platform and products.

Understand your trust level and how to leverage it

If marketing technology vendors have enough self-awareness to understand the interplay between marketers, agencies and media partners, understanding the trust levels in each, then they are in a great position to effectively sell. The inherent trust between marketers and agencies is an opportunity to sell differently. If a tech vendor and an agency co-present, showing a client marketer how this technology works with current marketing activities or filling gaps that a marketer needs becomes an easier sell to the marketer. Practically understanding the agencies working for the client, and the relationship between the big media partners should become a part of the pitch process that will sharpen the final sales discussion.

Change management is the key

Damien Cummings (far right) on a panel at ATS Singapore

Damien Cummings (far right) on a panel at ATS Singapore

While budget, timeline and features of a product are all important the most overlooked challenge are the change management requirements. Almost always, the marketing technology that is being sold to marketers already exists in some form with the organisation. If the new technology is bought, then the old technology needs to be exited from the organisation.

The effort to change processes, train or re-train staff, change documents, templates, reports and more is significant. This effort currently falls exclusively onto the shoulders of marketing managers who are not prepared, trained or ready for this.

Marketers are poorly skilled and ill equipped for change management. It’s simply not a skill set marketers have been trained on or have objectives/KPI set for in their day job. This presents great opportunities for agencies to assist with – leveraging the trust that they have built with the client, they could offer consulting and implementation services. Not just on the technology being considered but on what it will truly take to implement into an organization.

For tech vendors, there’s an even greater opportunity – to refocus the sales pitch away from the technology and into how to embed it into the organization. If this is discussed along with the customer benefits and ROI of the technology, it creates a much easier proposal to say yes to.

To help in selling to marketers, here’s six action points you might want to consider:

Create transparency on all sides. Marketers should disclose their marketing plans and objectives where possible. This provides clarity to tech vendors on where their solutions can help. It also provides a guide for agencies on what gaps to fill and how to work with tech vendors.

Understand the objectives of each party. Rarely will a marketer get promoted because they implemented a new marketing technology platform (even if it’s on time and under budget) but instead have objectives around growth, revenue gains, profit, customer satisfaction and marketing efficiency. Understanding this means an easier sale. Ideally, the tech vendor’s KPIs/Objectives are also shared. Too often, it’s assumed that the only KPIs are revenue or customers signed-up, but if there are other metrics beyond this, sharing these objectives builds empathy.

Establish credibility. The downside of rapid growth of tech companies and Silicon Valley culture is that many tech companies are looking for an exit, rather than long-term client relationships. Agencies and brands are relatively more stable in comparison. So establishing business credibility and longevity is important.

Focus on change management. Every new piece of tech dislodges something else – anything from a competitive product, or a simple spreadsheet with manual workarounds. Helping marketers onboard the technology, train staff and work as an integrated team to updated processes and get internal buy-in will ease the transition and make the sale go smoother.

Create a level of intimacy. This isn’t about spamming the marketer with constant emails, LinkedIn messages or phone calls but creating a shared vision and talking enough, in the same language to create a sense of intimacy.

Rethinking the sales approach. LinkedIn inmails, cold calls or emails are a fact of life. Nobody loves them, but sales is too often a numbers game. There’s no easy answer to this, but personalising each communication, and building a relationship (via sharing the marketers content, joining in online discussions, networking or otherwise adding personality and value to the sales approach is helpful.

Damien Cummings is the global head of digital marketing at Standard Chartered Bank. In his career, he has worked agency-side, with Neo@Ogilvy and also at Philips, Samsung and Dell. This post first appeared on LinkedIn.

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