Business is getting more and more competitive and carving out a niche becomes increasingly difficult. Marketing is often responsible for the first touch point a prospect has with an organization. Innovation in terms developing leading edge, unique product offerings is great, but how do businesses influence the markets they sell to? Take a look at Nike, a company that prides itself on product innovation. They are also a company that uses ingenious marketing campaigns and strategies to affect the buying behaviors of consumers across the world. They have shifted from being a product led organization, to an agile, innovative, marketing led business. They create desire so strong that cost becomes secondary or tertiary in the buying cycle. It’s at the front of their business that they differentiate and this is absolutely key.
So how do we lead marketing teams to become more innovative? To help them differentiate their businesses from the competition? To become a marketing led business instead of one that leads with products and services?
This can be achieved by promoting an openness within the team. Personally, I task my team with producing and detailing innovative ideas as part of their bi-weekly reporting process, I also encourage an innovation session at the beginning and end of each monthly meeting whereby they can pitch ideas of how we can push the boundaries of conventional marketing and more importantly how we can differentiate our business.
Innovation doesn't have to be game changing, subtle changes in marketing strategy can have dramatic effects. For example, Dell focused on demonstrating that a rapid response had an impact on lead conversion rates and also believed that putting customers first and in charge would increase revenue. Through its new strategy, it demonstrated that sales acceptance was 300 per cent higher, conversion to qualified sales opportunity is 300 per cent higher and conversion to revenue was 1200 per cent higher. This subtle change in marketing’s behaviors ad a dramatic impact.
Dell also embarked on a massive business marketing reorganization, merging four business units into one global organization, within two quarters, at the same time improving processes and reducing costs. A year after this process was completed, the combined team is processing 69 per cent more leads than a year before; processing this increased volume 63 per cent faster than before, and at the same time reducing operating expenses by 61 per cent.
Innovation in this example was about not being scared to change. The greatest innovators in the history of the world are typically fearless. Those that are willing to take a risk, for great reward. Dell took a strategic risk and by explicitly understanding the scope within the global marketing team and the skills they had within it, they were able to maximize efficiency and reduce cost by driving a significant structural change program.
Innovation means different things to different businesses. Where some organizations think they are driving innovative strategies, others will see these changes as obvious improvements to business processes. A good example of how O2 Enterprise, in 2012 with a mission to ensure its 150 sales personnel and 20 marketers worked together as a single integrated team. Marketing’s role was the supply 240 sales leads for enterprise level ICT implementations. O2 was eager to demonstrate the benefits of its offering first hand – flexible working in particular. So the team closed the Slough offices for a day, resulting in 2500 people working remotely. This initiative directly generated 46 sales qualified leads and 285 longer-term prospects.
Mace took innovation to CSR and promoted its focus on corporate responsibility with the launch of the Mace Foundation, focused around three distinct campaigns: Volunteer Week (which saw 600 employees working across biodiversity projects); Burns Night Supper and Time to Shine (sponsorship of a disability initiative for young people).
Of course, innovation can be achieved and promoted in many different ways. As a marketing leader I am always looking the leading edge tools and ideas that can make my campaigns stand out.. I adopted the use of personalized digital print and executed multiple B2B campaigns having only ever seen them used in the B2C space previously and ran a number of successful campaigns using PURLS, again, having never seen them in the B2B market previously. I guess this makes me an earlier adopter when it comes to innovative tools. And early adopters often stand out from the crowd. The danger of using these tactics in isolation is that you are relying on your audience to be early adopters too. That’s why innovation in this sense needs to be taken in small steps. Build it into your campaigns rather that leading with it as a campaign itself. As an example, all DM campaigns I execute contain a QR code to the landing page. Only 6-8% of respondents use them but they represent the highest conversion rate of all campaign responses. Likewise, PURLS return a greater number of website hits than traditional URLs and Personalized digital print increases open rates.
To build innovation into your marketing team you need to allow your team to express themselves while keeping your figure on the pulse in terms of the latest technological developments.
Luis Esparza is a social media marketing expert and the Founder and CEO for Vitalogy Interactive Marketing.
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