B2B digital strategy: Making informed choices

Choices are the essence of strategy. It’s not always about what you actually implement, but what you choose not to allow as a distraction. Arguably the biggest challenge marketers face today is how to do more with less. With so many options, especially in the digital ecosystem, marketers must focus on making the right choices. Here are three principles to help navigate the complexity of a digital strategy and implementation.

Put business first.

Digital is not a channel, or a tactic or a silo P&L function. Too many marketers—often influenced by board members and senior executives who are not marketing oriented—get caught up in the tactical “shiny-objective” syndrome. They don’t consider the role of digital in contributing to the overall business objective, usually growth.

Marketers need to clearly articulate the job to be done in terms of business contribution. For example, do you to want steal share from competitors? Increase share of wallet or average purchase frequency from existing customers?

Identify your primary source of volume and how and where digital can influence that core target through a customer journey.

Focus on behaviors that impact the business objective.

This is really quite simple if you know your targets. Analyze and document behaviors across a customer journey. How and what do they search? How do they consume content? How do they use your current website? What is the role of mobile in their life?

Once you have a handle on customer needs, you should also evaluate how your competitors address your target needs. Look for whitespace and seize upon it for a competitive advantage or point of difference.

Most importantly, focus on digital strategies that will impact the kinds of behavior that you need to meet your business objective.

Filter your strategies and tactics.

Choose a path that makes the most sense for your business and for your customer. I recommend the following simple exercise for evaluating options.

Create a matrix with an X- and a Y-axis. The X-axis could be “Meets the needs of the business.” Then evaluate each tactic by answering a series of questions. For the X-axis:

• What impact will this have on the overall business objective?
• What resources will this require, internally and externally, and will it impact other activities or initiatives?
• Are there any organizational barriers that will impede implementation?
• Is this fast and easy to implement, or slow and hard?

On the Y-axis, ask the following types of questions about your core target.

• Does this address a desired need or want?
• Is this the most effective option for influencing the desired behavior?
• Has the target adopted this type of behavior or is this still an emerging trend?
• Is this the simplest way to influence the desired behavior?
• Will this contribute to the overall brand experience and align to the brand personality?

Create a scoring system, and plot your results. There is no right or wrong answer, unless you have the data to help you answer the questions. But it will help you evaluate and compare your choices. And in this complex digital age, we all need all of the help we can get.

Job Status: “Overqualified”

If you’ve got 20 years or more of professional work experience and you’re looking for a job these days, no doubt you have been told more than once that you’re “overqualified.”

I will use a friend and former colleague as an example. Lisa, like so many people I know, myself included, is a seasoned marketing professional. She has dedicated her career to advertising agencies and corporate clients. She has sacrificed so much of her life helping others make money. No doubt, she’s been able to provide for her family, but not without a significant personal toll.

Like so many of us “ex” agency people, what Lisa brings to any professional environment is deep communications experience: strategic, integrated marketing insights, multi-channel creative management, results based business acumen. Experience that goes deep: managing individuals and teams, managing budgets, managing “up,” managing under pressure, solving problems, initiative. Plus, she’s nice AND smart.

So yesterday she learns, after her seventh (7^th) job interview with company A, that she is a great candidate, but she’s considered “overqualified.”

What does that mean, overqualified?

• Perhaps it is a euphemism for “we can’t afford to pay you what you used to earn.” Let me just clarify that most of us would just be happy with a paycheck and some health insurance.

• Perhaps the concern then becomes that if this overqualified individual takes the job for a lesser salary that they’ll be happy today, but by 2010, when the economy supposedly starts to turn around, they will want more money or leave. Mr. Prospective Employer, you could have worse problems. Take the experience at a reduced rate while you can get it. Think of it as a trial run. If they are that good, then they will have made you enough money so you can afford to pay them what they deserve. If not, let them go.

• Perhaps the concern – and this is valid – is that this person isn’t a “doer” because they are so senior. I share this concern, but I think in this economy you will find plenty of very senior level people that will happily take on project management roles and do them with great skill and efficiency (which means happier clients and improved profitability). Remember that point about a paycheck and health insurance?

• Perhaps the problem is that the “overqualified” employee will report to an “under qualified” manager. Now we’re getting somewhere. Good, smart people apparently ruffle the tenure structure.

The point I want to stress is that the term “overqualified” is relative to something or someone else. If an organization passes over really great talent because of formidable qualifications, what does that say about the organization? What message does it send to clients?

Sure, we need structure, and sometimes even hierarchy, but brains and experience tend to develop better strategies and solutions for success.

David Ogilvy would have loved today’s hiring environment. He would have embraced the tremendous pool of talent available today and I imagine he would use the opportunity to clean house. I learned early on in my career at Ogilvy about the Russian Dolls. Every so often, Ogilvy would send each of his directors a set of Russian nesting dolls, where inside the largest doll would be a small one, and then a smaller one, and so on. In the smallest doll, he would place a piece of paper that read: “If we hire people who are smaller than we are, we will become a company of dwarfs. If we hire people who are larger than we are, we’ll become a company of giants.”

Now, I am off to my therapy group. “Hi, my name is Hugh Allspaugh and I am overqualified.” Please hire me.

The Value of Narratives.

I have been struggling with the fact that I don’t have a formal, polished website. As a marketing expert who has spent years implementing integrated marketing channels for my clients, I know I lose credibility in my marketing consulting practice because I DON’T have a website for my company, Marketing Independence. I have done my site architecture and I have even developed the pages in Dreamweaver. But I have not posted anything.

Why?

Because I have struggled with what my website will be – or more specifically, I don’t like the static nature of a web poster hung up to say “open for business.” I DON’T WANT A CORPORATE, WEB 1.0, INFORMATIONAL SITE. For my business, the website is just a corporate statement of facts alongside some polished images of work packaged as case studies. That is certainly useful for conversion, if not required, but it’s a poor reflection of what I want to project for my company.

I want a dynamic, fluid, two-way, interactive engagement site. I want more of a narrative; a way to tell a story that develops, evolves, adapts. In lieu of maintaining a website, I am choosing to maintain a blog. A true web log is the ideal medium for storytelling and that is really my business expertise – helping businesses craft compelling stories that will engage their target customers. Contrary to Marshall McLuhan’s idea that the “medium is the message,” I think the narrative that a brand can create and weave through as many different, relevant mediums is what makes consumers interested, engaged and ultimately active participants or users of any product or service. However, for my small business, I only have time to focus on one medium.

While the website vs. Blog debate rages on, the truth is simple: businesses must choose their tactics strategically and ensure they can support their choices with dedicated resources in order to maximize the effectiveness of the medium.

Hello world!

This is Hugh Allspaugh’s blog.  Just getting started, so bookmark this page as more will be coming soon.  I will be discussing Integrated Marketing Ideas, the value of Storytelling narratives in marketing and advertising, insights from my students at DePaul University and other ideas and insights that crop up in the world.