Lightly edited for readability. Speaker 2: Welcome to The Business Marketing Podcast. My name's John Horsley. I'm the host of the show today. I've got the absolute pleasure and delight of being joined by Renaye Edwards, who is Global COO and Managing Director of Ammunition. Welcome to the show today.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me, John.
Speaker 2: What'd be really great, just for the listeners, a little bit of an intro to yourself. Uh, it would be brilliant just to hear a little bit about your story and how you've got to where you are today.
Speaker 3: Yeah, of course. I mean, how far back do we go? I'll, I'll go back to the post room.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: And then I'll keep it speedy. Started off in a post room after uni, um, and got into marketing. I sort of made myself sort of known being post girl, met as many people as possible, and, uh, ended up getting kind of marketing assistant job, um, at a publishing company. Worked my way kind of up the usual ranks as you do as a, as a marketer. Um, I landed at a tech company, and then, yet somehow, uh, I ended up as a entrepreneur and co-founder, obviously, of, uh, an agency. So, um, we had never actually... I'd never actually worked in an agency before. So, uh, I felt at the time as, uh, being in, in-house as a kind of managing, um, marketing director, it just felt like I wasn't kind of getting truly the support that I needed. You had very much your cons- marketing consultants back then, and then your creative agency. So it really felt like you needed someone to kind of get under the skin of the audience market, the product, but then you had to then kind of go and rebrief the creative agency. So, the idea was that we'd kind of fuse the two together to bring something that was a bit more kind of strategic and joined up to market. Obviously, what was a USP back then, not so much now. Obviously, every agency kind of pretty much does that. So, yeah, so that's that. We sold to Selby Anderson a couple of years ago. Um, really proud of that. And, um, and now I've kind of landed at Ammunition, who are a US-based agency, and I'm launching the kind of UK/Europe arm over here. Um, B2B full, full-service agency. Um, very much a kind of digital first, focusing on, uh, complex... Those businesses that have very much kind of complex buyer journeys.
Speaker 2: Fantastic. I mean, you've spent two decades, uh, in marketing. We talked about being client side, building an agency that you exited, which is obviously the dream. It's amazing. Um, and looking back across that journey, what experiences most shaped how you think about marketing today?
Speaker 3: It's a really good question. I, I, I think for me, marketing has always been the same. I think, you know, I always remember way back when, um, when kind of my, probably my first, um, sort of marketing, proper marketing manager gave me a, um, a book around, like, the customer and how basically, you know, we should be the voice of the customer, and this was, like, way back when, like 20 years ago sort of thing. Um, when I feel like marketing was still known as the kind of coloring-in department and those that were kind of hosting hospitality events and things like that for, for clients, and that's kind of all they were doing, was sort of almost glorified event organizers. Um, but I think for me, um, uh, yeah, it, the kind of penny dropped then in terms of, right, this is, this is my job as a marketing leader, is to very much kind of voice the customer, be a champion of the customer, hold that information with me, um, and obviously put that out to the rest of the business.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Can you remember the book? Was that Seth Godin or, or someone like that?
Speaker 3: It was somebody like that. It definitely was... I was try- In fact, funny enough, I did, um, I did WhatsApp, um, my, uh, manager, my ex-manager I should say, this morning, but she didn't get back to me. But, um, yeah, it was somebody along those lines. It definitely had, like, yellow pages.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: It was a very worn book. Um, but, uh, yeah. I'll find it and link it somewhere, but it, I, I have to say, what once was true all these years ago is still very much true now.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I on- once read one of his books. Uh, well, I've read Purple Cow, but the, the other one was called Permission Marketing, and I learnt a lot, you know, a, a hell of a lot from that. Uh, you've... Obviously we've said that you've, you've exited the agency. You now, uh, lead and, and you're growing Ammunition. What does it take to build a, a marketing organization that can scale internationally?
Speaker 3: Yeah. Um, so I think first and foremost, obviously, it's kind of getting the, the structure right. You know, we're really lucky that obviously we've already got the engine kind of up and running. For me, this is about kind of almost having my CMO hat on, um, and actually build- building the brand, which actually has been a really great experience. Like, I've loved actually kind of getting my little CMO hat on again and kind of going, "Right, what does it take to very quickly get known in this, leverage what they have in the States, take that obviously transatlantic and build the brand here?" But also we've kind of had to do a little bit of repositioning as an agency as well. You know, what obviously lands well in the US, you know, m- m- we need to localize it to some of the other kind of markets as well. Um, otherwise it sort of appears a little bit tone deaf. So, it's having that thing, isn't it, that with all kind of global marketing, it's having something that, you know, you can hold together a kind of consistent proposition at the top, but it's, it's meaningful still in some of those local markets so you can localize it as well.
Speaker 2: Sure. I mean, there's very different nuances as we know. Certainly across Europe, the UK has similar ar- arities, but, uh, we're less bullshit. Uh, we're not so good at and confident talking about ourselves.
Speaker 3: 100%. And I, and I think also what I've noticed here is we're really fragmented. We, you know, in terms of how buyers kind of choose agencies, they very much go with kind of niche. So what we've done, we've built very kind of niche offerings around, like with Radish. You know, they were known as a A- Well, we were known as an ABM agency, and we did a really good job of kind of putting our stake in there. But actually out in the States, you know, this kind of full service- Anti, um, holding company is what we're trying to kind of, uh, uh, Ammunition, what we're trying to build, is that over there it's very much like a one throat to choke sort of approach whereby, um, you know, the CMOs are, are kind of leveraging some of the, you know, these full-service agency and, you know, allowing them to do kind of everything essentially and get deep enough within their business that they're, they're able to kind of do that and move quick enough and fast enough being in India rather than a kind of a large kind of network who can often move obviously a lot slower without kind of slamming them completely.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 3: But yeah, so that, that's the biggest thing that I've noticed here. So again, I'm going to have to kind of... I think we can be quite skeptical over here of a full-service agency that is indeed, but, you know, that's my job to make sure that that lands over here.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Excellent. And actually, that, that's probably a segue into the next question as well. So you've been both client side and agency side. Where do you believe the biggest misunderstandings are, uh, in terms of perception of, of, of bra- you know, between brands and, and their agency partners?
Speaker 3: Yeah. It's a good question. So I don't know whether you know this, this study done around kind of briefs whereby I think clients, I think 75% of client side felt like that they had... They nail their brief to their agency, but only 5% of agencies actually say that their briefs are any good. So there's, there's definitely this kind of quite big disconnect there, I think. Um, and, and I think for me, um, I think quite often that can happen right from the outset is that that expectation is just, isn't joined up. Um, I, I think that's probably where usually it ends up kind of crumbling further down. I also think there's this, um, this piece also the whereby sometimes where obviously marketing isn't then aligned kind of the business outcomes, and therefore the agency can sometimes get a little bit stuck in there in terms of like just doing output, output rather than focusing on outcomes and, and I think that's again, something that which, which, which we're trying to get behind today is like, right, okay, how does, how do we properly move the dial here? How can we tie these results back to business growth rather than just talking about clicks and impressions, basically? How do we get something that's more meaningful so that, you know, we're not flipped out as an agency, we become more sticky because we are truly a agency partner.
Speaker 2: Do you think that sometimes comes down to the traditional billing model of agencies as well, i.e., being sort of time and materials, you know, et cetera, et cetera?
Speaker 3: Yeah. Do you know what? It probably is. And, and actually before COVID, it, I, I felt like we had managed to nail that a little bit with, um, getting like implants into customers' offices. So I just felt there's that thing, isn't there, of kind of being seen, integrating yourself into the team, the business. But since then, obviously kind of COVID happened. We've only got m- you know, maybe people in businesses two to three days a week, and I, I feel like that that has been, that's kind of dropped off a bit, which is quite sad because I actually think that's a, um, a real benefit to both parties that p- you know, that you kind of just sat there and you pick up all the things that are around you and, um, yeah, I think it's sad that that's kind of gone amiss.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we used to do that, uh, I wanna say late '90s, early 2000s.
Speaker 3: Mm.
Speaker 2: I was working with an agency at the time called Dow Carter.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: It became DC Interact. They were one of the first digital agencies in the UK. Uh, we had clients like Apple, for instance, and we had embedded teams within their operation-
Speaker 3: That's it. Yeah
Speaker 2: ... and various other clients. And actually we, we put that into practice as, as much as we possibly could so that we learnt the culture of the company. We really understood the nuts and bolts. Uh, we understood their DNA, the, the core of that business and, and really got to the nitty-gritty in terms of what needed to be communicated and why.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, it's invaluable.
Speaker 2: Um, so Ammunition positions itself to an extent as a full funnel agency connecting brand demand and performance. Why do so many organizations still struggle to connect some of those moving parts in a, in a, an effective and efficient manner?
Speaker 3: Yeah. Uh, do you know what? I, I feel like it's just, it, it's the setup and I feel like we have, as marketeers, and myself included when I was client side, um, you know, quite often brand sat purely in the States and then s- we had like the regional spinoff budgets, which was basically like go create demand, you know, the kind of dirty and lead gen work. Completely felt very, very disconnected and also just within the teams, and I think we've overcomplicated it as marketeers as well. It's like, okay, you're responsible for SEO. You, you know, you've got SEO and PPC working kind of over here that's working on the brand side, and then you've got the ABM team, which are, you know, working on something completely different. Um, and I heard this analogy, it was yesterday actually, Jennifer Shaw from B2B Institute was, you know, having the, putting the pins in place and having the bowling ball kind of, you know, you put the pins in place, you roll the bowling ball, and I think what happens too much, and particularly when I was working at Radish as an ABM agency, they were just rolling the ball and hoping for the best without having that brand piece even up and running because it's just deemed as expensive. Um, but we know that whole, the whole piece that Les Mills does around the long and short of it, um, obviously Mark Ritson also bangs on about this as well. It's just too many people kind of s- they start off with that kind of brand approach. They get scared. Nothing kind of comes in, so they pull it and they pull it too quickly and ends up costing them money essentially. Um, and I think again, it goes back to reporting and things like that and speaking a language that the board can understand where marketing's place is and how it is truly tying into that business growth.
Speaker 2: Do you think there's sometimes a lack of understanding between a, you know, a, a, a board of a, let's say an enterprise business and then, "Oh, we just have our marketing team here." And the fact that, I mean, if you look at global enterprise businesses, I believe that only 30% of them actually have a CMO on the board in the first place, and I think that's telling. And often the perhaps marketing operation isn't close enough aligned to the commercial side of the company.
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, I find it really sad. I feel like I've spoken about this for years, and years, and years, just marketing not having a place in the board, and I, you know, I, I've never been able to understand it. But I truly believe this is a bit of a golden age for us. I truly believe there is a movement happening over the last few years, which is becoming, you know, marketers just becoming a lot more kind of co- commercially savvy. Um, and I think we are seeing a very big shift. Um, but I do think it is all down to the kind of, the, the reporting, speaking the same language. As I said, sat in the boardroom talking about clicks and impressions, and it's just falling on deaf ears. They don't give a shit about that. You know, it's about how are we delivering against those business... How have we managed to move the dial? We turned off this spend, so therefore it had this impact longer term around this. I was, I was with somebody yesterday around, we were just talking about an ABM program, and they were like... I said, "Oh, we, how- how's it going?" And, you know, this is from, I worked on it about two years ago. He's like, "Oh yeah, finally, you know, we ended up landing this, you know, this massive win for them." But, you know, they turned it off. Pilot, pilot didn't work, you know? And it's just, it's, it's that short-term thinking, which I think-
Speaker 2: Yeah
Speaker 3: ... is just so, um, i- is so worrying, I think. Um, and it is, it's just giving confidence, and I've had to do it with my, obviously joining Ammunition and getting budget to kinda go hard here. You know, I'm, I'm, I, I'm not here to mess around. I, I've kind of built a program. It's kind of pretty much go hard or go home. You know, I'm not gonna mess around doing small incremental spends throughout the year. I very quickly need to prove that, prove the modeling, that it's gonna work. Um, and I, and I still stand true by that, it, to not dilute that budget pro... And let's face it, by October, or however you, when your financial year ends, I remember being client side, and three months out, they'd be like, "Okay, if you've not spent it quickly," it just quickly gets taken away from you because-
Speaker 2: Yeah
Speaker 3: ... it's still seen as a cost center rather than a profit center.
Speaker 2: I always find that insane. "John, John, uh, we're coming up to the end of a quarter. We need to lose 50 grand."
Speaker 3: This is it, yeah.
Speaker 2: "Uh, can we just spend it with you?"
Speaker 3: Like, yes, you can.
Speaker 2: "We, we'll, we'll bank it with you and-"
Speaker 3: Yeah
Speaker 2: ... "perhaps we'll do something in future," which is just ludicrous.
Speaker 3: Mad, and I don't feel like I was that savvy when I was client side. I'd be like, "Yeah, sure. You can take the rest of my budget," sort of thing. And, um, and now I'm like, I'm very much kind of encourage people to, basically, yeah, you s- you spend... And then if you... It also looks bad on you 'cause if you don't spend it, obviously then, you know, when you're trying to fight for more budget the year after, it's kind of, yeah, you need to be a bit more savvy with it, have that plan up front even before three months out so you know that, you know, as soon as that financial year starts, you're pressing green, you're going.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, we've talked about short, short-termism to an extent.
Speaker 3: Mm.
Speaker 2: Um, it's making me think about CMOs' tenure as well. So they might only spend two years within a business. They've been brought in. You know, we, we need to move the dial.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: We need to do this. We, we need you to bring new revenue in. And that comes at expense as well, 'cause we know that building brands, obviously, a long-term, um, activity. It's not short-term. So that affects strategy as well, which is, okay, well, you know, how many leads are we gonna get in? What we gonna do this quarter?
Speaker 3: Mm.
Speaker 2: And, and, and so on, at the expense of brand. How do you find the balance?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that is really, really tricky, and I think it's, there's, there's two things there. I think there's one, I think the way, the way that I've seen the best CMOs is around their kind of internal PR, right? Making sure that everybody within that business knows what you're doing, um, that you're not just a, um, an, you know, a taker of work, what's the... order taker. You are, you know, you are actually driving it. Um, uh, so there's that internal PR piece, and then I think there's also this kind of, um, smaller milestones rather than these bigger ones where we focus on... Obviously, we're focusing on leads, but I think there's also, you know, it's the three Rs, isn't it? The reputation, the revenue, relationship piece as well, and breaking it into those three pieces and looking at some of those softer metrics as well as those, those smaller milestones as well as those ma- larger milestones. So you can actually... I think sometimes it's just enabling people to be able to see progress, right? Um, so I think that's where some people have managed to strike that balance quite well.
Speaker 2: Mm. I love the three Rs. I could see how they... Brilliant.
Speaker 3: Yeah. It, it, yeah. I, I, I, I do think it works. As, as a framework, I think it's pretty good, you know? Um, and I think that whole relationship piece and the amount that we have to do now, I think, um, in terms of that influence piece, not only influencing obviously digitally via AEO, GEO, all the rest of it, but also obviously to, to humans as well now. You know, um, it, we know that relationships are built on trust and loyalty, and that's people. That's us kind of becoming our own brands rather than, you know, we know that obviously through social company pages and way less effective than when you're building your own brand portfolio. Um, brand portfolio, brand thought leadership positioning, if you like, um, is becoming just so much more important because we can see that word of mouth-
Speaker 2: Yes
Speaker 3: ... is, and referrals, of, of, and communities, all of those things are, are now what's driving kind of trust and loyalty and why people are buying.
Speaker 2: Mm. Do you think people forget about... I'm just thinking about the three R still.
Speaker 3: Mm.
Speaker 2: Uh, the idea of it being a flywheel and creating a, a virtuous circle or cycle of activity where, you know, um, you'll perhaps build a relationship with someone. You bring them in. You build reputation by what you've done with them. You work them also to build content as well.
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2: Um, you spin that content out. It captures and finds other people like them, uh, you know, who are self-identifying-
Speaker 3: 100%
Speaker 2: ... and want to be involved.
Speaker 3: Exactly that, yeah, and that was another piece that came up this morning around- Um, exactly that. Looking at the kind of the top four reasons why, how people are influenced, and one of those was, like, who else within my space... It's going back to that niche piece, I guess, that, you know, oh, oh, I want a bit of a, a piece of that. They're using it in, in this way. But I think, yeah, going back to your point around relationships, it's the people that... We did a fantastic, um, ABM campaign actually for someone where we were, uh, looking at penetrating that account even further, and u- using an influencer within the account to kind of work with us on mapping out who the other stakeholders are within that account, working with them to create that joint content and thought leadership, and then going deeper into those. But also, then mapping that against lookalike accounts and u- reusing that content to go out to them as well. So, I think, yeah, anywhere where you can, you can look to be seen to be working in true partnership with someone. Even, like, things like speaking slots and co-created content together. Um, I have these down all as almost metrics within themselves. You know, when you go back to those softer metrics, those milestone metrics, like, yeah, that's a bloody win. You know, getting a client to come speak and do a bit of PR with us, and 100% that all goes to getting the word out, getting that word-of-mouth out there.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, we have so much data out there. We have technology, we have automation and so on. Uh, which is brilliant, you know, and, and excellent in terms of its proper use.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But do you think that has, in some cases, over-operationalized, uh, and has removed the human, as it were, or the humanization?
Speaker 3: God. You- do you know what? It's a really interesting point, this, 'cause I think exactly that. We- we've gone down this bloody rabbit hole of data whereby we're only looking at, you know, s- in some cases, in some businesses I know this happens, like, last touch attribute. Okay, we know that's PPC, what you gonna do? Spend 100% of your budget on PPC when we absolutely know that's not the case, that there are thousands of other touchpoints that happened before then. Um, funny enough, um, one of my... I won't say who the company is, but, um, great model and they're growing really, really well. Tech company where all of the staff have got shares, so the focus on numbers is insane because they're all driven by it. They're all motivated by it. Every week they are literally on a call, they're going through the same metrics. But what has happened there, so my contact that, the, uh, friend that has, um, that, that's gone in there as, uh, a CMO, she's gone in. She's absolutely petrified to, to do anything different 'cause it's performing really well, but they're throwing shitloads into just PPC. It's just a... There's, there's no chance to do anything creative. It's almost like don't break the model because the numbers are just... And everybody's just, because everybody's in it. I think the c- the company's actually growing really well, but obviously she's kind of, "Well, this is kind of a bit boring." But I will say that, I caveat that with that it is an, uh, they're targeting SMEs, so it is much more digitally kind of e-commerce based rather than, like, larger enterprises where you've got multiple stakeholders that you need to kind of engage.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So, slightly different. But yeah, I think we have in some cases, and certainly in that I was really surprised. I was like, "Wow, that's nuts." Like a whole machine based around, like, five or six key metrics that they are analyzing to the second.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Surely within a company like that, though, there's a... And, and where the staff are so bought in-
Speaker 3: Mm.
Speaker 2: And I, I imagine if you, even if the shares weren't there, it sounds like they'd be tremendously bought in as well, which is great.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Surely there's an opportunity to truly unlock, uh, employee advocacy rather than, you know, one of these systems where ph- people feel pressured, "Oh, I've gotta share this stuff. I've gotta share this shit on LinkedIn every day." Press a button, press a button.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Tick a box. It feels like they could really create true employee advocacy there.
Speaker 3: Exactly, yeah, 'cause what's... It, it, like, like you said, it's, um, I think some people aren't necessarily comfortable with, you know, posting on LinkedIn or whatever it is. But actually when you've got, you know, real motivation that sits behind that to be able to kind of influence the brand awareness yourself and get reach and virality, yeah, like, a- 100%.
Speaker 2: Mm.
Speaker 3: It's clever.
Speaker 2: Changing the subject-
Speaker 3: Mm
Speaker 2: ... slightly. Just thinking about this. So-
Speaker 3: Mm
Speaker 2: ... do you feel that there's been a shift perhaps in more recent years in terms of brands developing more of a personality or B2B brands, whereas in the past they perhaps looked a little bit bland, or they looked a bit similar, didn't really seem to differentiate themselves enough?
Speaker 3: Yeah. Um, and I'm loving seeing this. I have to say, like, yeah, past sort of two, two years probably, I feel like I've definitely seen kinda much more braver work. Um, and we've been doing it quite a bit, um, at my previous agency and the agency that we're at now in terms of kinda championing that whole, there is no B2B. Why do we box ourselves in that whole B2B box? Like nobody else. B2C don't say they're in B2C. Like, all of the things. Um, we know the whole thing, P2P, all the rest of it. I feel like it's finally landed, and I think with the rise of AI, I think that has actually forced people to start being much more creative because there is so much, obviously, dross out there in terms of content and creative that I think it's forced people to go, "I have to stand out for something more s- distinct," not just differentiated, like distinct. What are the ownable codification assets that are going to, for people to be able to recall my brand when there's so many, so many brands out there in my space and they're absolutely saturated? How can I make that more ownable and that that br- brand recall is there and that has... The only way you can do that is to be more creative. So, people are definitely finally, um, getting on board with that. So, I think it's a really exciting time.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I totally agree. I think the leaders are doing that, for sure.
Speaker 3: 100%.
Speaker 2: And then we've got the laggards or the-
Speaker 3: Yeah
Speaker 2: ... the main, the mainstream is probably a nicer term to use.
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly, and I think we, um, we've always wanted to work with kinda those high-growth ki- um, uh, mid-market type businesses because- They're not stifled sometimes by creativity that can come by through very strict brand guidelines, and, you know, it- it... For an agency, it's- it's kind of quite demoralizing having to move a logo two meter- you know, two millimeters to the left rather than kinda coming out, coming up with, like, different creative concepts that you know are gonna, you know, have a real impact in the market.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And the other difficulty, I- I guess, or complexity, I think is a better term to use, is the, the buying committee is obviously expanding. I was speaking to, uh, an individual from Sage earlier today.
Speaker 3: Mm.
Speaker 2: And I was asking him about his buying committee, and there's 13 members, there or thereabouts. And you're right in terms of sort of personality, storytelling, and so on, to better capture the interest of all of these other di-
Speaker 3: Mm
Speaker 2: ... individuals who are involved in the process at, at different points. Um, what's your approach in terms of content creation that's gonna resonate with that committee?
Speaker 3: Yeah. Um, so I think, you know, you know, yeah, back to your point, we know that there are loads of influencers, so many decision-makers, um, and there was a stat actually that came up this morning whereby, um, people were 20%... Sorry, 20 times more likely to buy when the whole buying group know you, so everybody from procurement to finance, across the board. Um, and so I think that just pr- proves that that extra time in managing to kind of adapt that content and treating them like they're a market within their own, you know, whether it is a, um, you know, a persona level, it is worth it, you know, if you know that... And again, this is going back to looking at the propensity, how likely are they to, to buy, how well-aligned the I- ICP, and then that will obviously dictate to you how much time and effort you spend in actually doing some of that creation. Obviously, now we've got, obviously, AI to help us do some of that, but it's still getting that blend right with AI and, and, um, HI, um, to ensure that that works well. And obviously there's loads of tech, different tech platforms that now can kinda spin out, you know, different things, optimize content very, very quickly, um, and spin that out. But I still go back to, you know, content's one thing, but I still go back to, um, having thought leadership. Back to your point around having employee advocates within the business that actually can own that space. So get your head of procurement to own a space and thought leadership that can then talk to that audience, finance, all those different... I think there's, there's probably a big gap there, I would say. So rather than marketing just pushing out content via our side, I think there's a space there for, to leverage some of those kinda key people within the business that they're gonna be able to, you know, they're gonna be in these groups that, for, for instance, I know that there's loads of WhatsApp groups now that are obviously aligned to, you know, particular persona or a particular sector or something like that, and, uh, I think it's just, it's about empowering some of the kinda key people within your organization to do some of the selling for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I, I, I can see that. So, you know, the counterpart of, of the, the company, you know, who you're interested in making a sale to, or perhaps a counterpart at a company you haven't even considered.
Speaker 3: Exactly that.
Speaker 2: Then something comes to you, and you're there for a point of consideration.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, exactly that.
Speaker 2: Uh, and again, this leads back to the importance of, you know, not neglecting brand.
Speaker 3: 100... Obviously, we all know the whole 95/5, um-
Speaker 2: Yeah
Speaker 3: ... you know, it, it, it's a no-brainer, right, isn't it? Um, uh, we have to do that work in order to raise that awareness to be able to get on those RFPs early doors.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So in terms of customer journey, so we talked about content-
Speaker 3: Yeah
Speaker 2: ... we talked about buying committee, so the, the next logical part really is customer journey. 95% of that's now starting out in a LLM.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 2: So how should brands and businesses be thinking about that?
Speaker 3: Yeah. Um, and I, I think kind of probably goes back to my point earlier in terms of that influence piece. You're not only kind of influencing humans, but you're obviously, obviously having to influence now the LLMs themselves, and, um, you know, those same things that we spoke about, become trusted voices and, um, you know, have verified experiences, um, get talked about because we know that now obviously LLMs are managing to crawl inside LinkedIn and things like that, which is super clever. Um, but yes, I, I think for me, this is about, um, obviously the having and focusing around building that reputation. Um, that's the thing that's managing to kinda drive virality, um, and stickiness. Um, and I think, yeah, it's a really interesting time, for sure, around that, that space.
Speaker 2: So I mean, that, that also comes to the idea of a sort of pub analogy. You know, you might walk into the pub, you meet someone there, they will say something to you, and you think, "Is that right? Is that told story?" Or, "It's kind of believable." Uh, and then you might turn around to some of your pals or, or friends who are there and almost fact-check. You know, "Johnny's just said this. What do you think? Is, is that right?"
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Um, and then there'll be someone there who, like, Googles it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. This is it.
Speaker 2: And it, it's the same way that a LLM is working, right?
Speaker 3: Definitely. And how you show up consistent, consistently in that, um, it is the key, right? Um, for sure. And it's making sure that you, obviously your website now, obviously your FAQs within your webs- website, um, a fantastic way to be able to ensure that those are all optimized, and that you are answering the right questions just even within the, that FAQ page, so that you're being surfaced up when obviously people are directly looking and asking questions via some of those LLMs.
Speaker 2: Mm. Changing the topic slightly, so if you look at the next generation of marketing leaders, do you feel that the role itself is, is changing at this point in time?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I, I, I really do think it's changing. I, um, I think they've had an absolute gut full, quite honestly, um, of, you know, becoming order takers, uh, and not being on that board. As I mentioned, I think there is this real step change to become more commercially minded marketeer and sit on some of those boards and have that level of influence and, and, um, you know, therefore, be able to be able to ask for bigger spends and bigger budgets. And, and I think, um, that there, there is this focus now on them very much aligning themselves to some of those kind of business outcomes and being able to model the data so that... And, and being much more influential around selling in that kind of, as you said, that kind of short-termism with the long-termism as well and saying, "Do you know what? What's the cost of not doing something?"
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. Mm.
Speaker 3: "Rather than the cost of doing something, and let's give it this length of time." And, and, you know, there are, there are certainly... I've seen much more, um, uh, marketing leaders being able to kind of achieve, achieve that and get on those boards and have those conversations.
Speaker 2: Do you feel that the CMO role is evolving, so, you know, CMO needs to be part strategist, part technologist, uh, and they also need to be a really good commercial operator as well?
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely. Um, for sure. Obviously, the... Going back to the, yeah, sm- speaking much more in terms of, um, being, having that kind of commercial language that, you know, joined up language with the board, as I mentioned, just, you know, not talking about these more granular marketing metrics. I think we went down a massive rabbit hole with, a couple of years ago, with, you know, well, whilst we were flipping up loads of tech and we were like, "Great, now we can measure this, this, this, this." And it's like, what is it actually te- telling us? Um, so that piece, and then I go back to probably obviously being that voice of the customer, and I, I still stand by that as just being a big part in the organization to, um, ensure that that's, that, you know, they're being heard, that, um, that, that, that, um, intel and that intelligence is going back and it's influencing product and pricing and, um, positioning and all of the things. And, um, again, you know, that person that's looking at competitors out there that is able to kind of go back to the business and have-
Speaker 2: Uh, fa-
Speaker 3: ... much more of those strategic conversations.
Speaker 2: Mm. Do you feel that marketing is tasked too heavily on, purely on acquisition within many companies and not aligned enough or not sat close enough to areas such as CX or customer service?
Speaker 3: Yeah. Um, and it's funny, isn't it? I feel like the o- the old kind of marketings or four Ps, I feel like that, we're just stuck basically, aren't we, in, like, promotion, that's kind of it. It's like focus on more, more, more, net new, net new, net new, um, rather than, you know, we know the cost to acquire a new customer is far more than actually kind of, you know, retaining a customer, expanding, cross-selling an upsell, selling, um, within it. But there is still, unfortunately, it is quite sad that it, there's this, it's quite obsessive, I think, um, a notion around how many leads. And I think a couple years ago we were getting to a place actually where brand, you know, it was becoming much more of a con- conversation. It was like people were doing cool stuff. As soon as the market gets tough, we literally go back to that lead gen.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 3: And those so same conversations about lead generation and how many leads and, um, yeah, it's quite s- it's quite sad really that obviously we're back there because of the market. My hope is obviously we'll move away fr- from, from that. And I think there's just this education piece to be done upwards to ensure that people are educated on the whole brand long-term, short-term part of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, lifetime value really needs to be mentioned and, and looked at. I mean, that's, that's-
Speaker 3: Absolutely
Speaker 2: ... key to the success of any bu- business. Otherwise, you've just got a whole load of people coming in, great, and attrition somewhere else.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 2: Um, trying to think where we go now. Uh-
Speaker 4: Without
Speaker 2: I was gonna ask you f- yeah, from your experience, what are the early signals that a business is true, truly ready to start scaling, scaling up globally? So you're saying that you work with mid-market businesses.
Speaker 3: Mm.
Speaker 2: You also work with slightly larger ones as well.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 2: Can you spot a particular inflection point or a, a part of their trajectory that says these guys are ready now to start expanding out into other markets?
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well obviously one being when you've, you know, when you've proven the model and you've got enough proof, um, and you've earned respect and you've earned trust and loyalty within that organization, and you have those kind of proof points to be able to then start scaling it into other markets. Um, and also what we'll also do is work out obviously which countries, so at that particular time, so which markets are mature in whatever it is that you are selling into the, you know, into. It's, um, it... You know, what you don't wanna be doing obviously is trying to invent a category and spending a whole load of money and trying to educate a whole market on why they should be doing something. You know, it's, um, it's kind of looking at obviously how well serviced are they a- already? Are the... Is there a gap in the market? And I think, um, yeah, just going back to your point, I think tho- those are the things that we will often look at where it's like, right, okay, you're ready because you have now properly established yourself here. You're kind of outgrowing, you've got the re- a repeatable model, um, and now you're kind of ready. The market is ripe in this particular area. It might be that legislation has come in which... Or, um, you know, there are these trigger moments where, um, it might well be, like for instance with Ammunition, where they had a, uh, a US client that was a global and it was like, "Okay, actually you can help us. We, we also wanna be expanding over Europe and UK all at the same time," sort of thing. So obviously that made, it made, makes it much more easier for you to obviously kind of then go on and branch out-
Speaker 2: Sure
Speaker 3: ... and establish yourself in that market with, already with a customer.
Speaker 2: So you talked about the idea of, of kind of land and expand, so winning an account, expanding it in other countries and, and regions and so on. Um, you've talked to the fact that you've done that within your own business. Uh, is that because you're obviously more nimble and, and more agile, uh, versus enterprise businesses that- For silos. So they'll have a, a marketing team for EMEA, uh, or a local team in the UK and another one in France or, or somewhere else, and they've made a key win, and then they're unable to kind of replicate and, and get into that account in other countries be- versus just leaving it in the same country and having the introduction and having those guys expand it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think the biggest mistake sometimes that certainly enterprises do, and I've worked for some of these businesses, is where they just literally lob in one person and go, "We're gonna, we're gonna break into the States with this one person," and, you know, and rely on their network a- and e- expect that to kind of just happen overnight, and therefore then, shock horror, the investment's then kind of pulled. But going back to your question on kind of being kind of nimble and agile, I think it goes with, I think larger enterprise businesses obviously it's like can be very often designed by committee and, um, it, it, it can take a while obviously to, to have those discussions and to, um, it, you know, ensure that it is the right approach. Whereas actually, you know, when you are a s- you know, smaller business, it's just, it's just a lot easier, right, isn't it, to be able to go, "Do you know what? Let's go for it." Even it... You know, that kind of much more around that kind of fail fast mentality, I think.
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3: Trans-
Speaker 2: But you can also rewrite the, the playbook, can't you? You don't have to stick with what's traditional-
Speaker 3: Yes
Speaker 2: ... because you're rebuilding it.
Speaker 3: Exactly that. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Cool. Um, I, I'm gonna ask you a few quick fire questions. So, you know, a brand that you feel is doing great marketing at this point in time.
Speaker 3: Ooh, I think Gambro are doing pretty well. You know, when I spoke around that idea around kind of codification, they did that, um, campaign a few years ago around kind of having the kind of big purple, um, monster and, and, uh, yeah, I think they, they've done really well in terms of y- the way that they pushed that out via the different kind of channels. And, uh, yeah, kudos to the team for doing, again, something kind of quite brave at that particular time.
Speaker 2: Sure, 100%. A marketing metric people obsess over slightly too much.
Speaker 3: Oof. SQLs.
Speaker 2: I thought you were gonna say MQLs.
Speaker 3: MQLs. I was about to say yeah, one or the other. They're both equally as yuck.
Speaker 2: And you're not the first person who's said that this week. One capability every marketing leader needs today.
Speaker 3: Oh, resilience for sure. I think resilience, um... I think, you know, uh, we, we spoke about... Sorry, these are supposed to be sh- short fire questions.
Speaker 2: That's fine.
Speaker 3: Um, I will try and be quick. Yeah. Uh, I think resilience for the pure fact that I think marketing do get a hard wrap. We are on a journey. We, we've got, still got a long way to go in terms of educating the rest of the business. Um, but I think we are making really good headway, so yeah, I'll keep going. Resilience is the one.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And final question. What advice would you provide a, a younger individual who's looking to get into the world of marketing, could be marketing, creativity, tech-
Speaker 3: Mm
Speaker 2: ... at this point in time? Uh, yeah, is there any nuggets you can provide for them?
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think, and, and sorry to go talk about AI, but I do believe that they have, they're in a unique position right now to get deep in AI and understand how to prompt correctly and really use it as their, their ally. You know, we know that obviously that, you know, at that age they're kind of quicker to learn and, um, I, uh, for me, I thought that that is gonna be where that whole HI, AI piece, and doing that really, really well, I think is gonna uniquely place them. Because what you've got then is you've got at the top, I think what's happening at the moment, they're squeezing down the middle. They've got CMOs at the top that have that, the experience, obviously the experience layer, the human layer that you need to add to the, uh, add to AI, and they're kind of cutting out the mid and then obviously then you've got people kind of coming up along the bottom trying to kind of it get in and, and at the moment, I, I, you know, it's a tough gig, right? But I think if they get that right and they're able to kind of prove the value that they can operate smarter and more effectively and quicker with it, I think that's where that could be game-changing.
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I truly believe the same. Renaye, you've been an incredible guest on the show today. Thanks so much for your time.
Speaker 3: My pleasure.
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: You're welcome.
Speaker 3: Cheers, John.
Speaker 2: You're welcome.
Speaker 3: Thank you.