Tuesday, August 4th, 2009

GyroHSR B2B Marketing Insight Report 2009

We’ve just had printed and delivered our latest  B2B Marketing Insight Report. This is an annual review of the B2B market that talks to senior decision makers in B2B marcomms to find out what they are thinking and doing. This is part of our commitment to thought leadership, walking the walk of the world’s leading B2B agency and creating a deeper understanding of the markets we and our clients operate in.
 
This is the 3rd year we we have produced the report so we are starting to see some quite important trend data emerge. It’s also been one of the most challenging years for the industry, certainly in my working lifetime , so it is interesting to hear how B2B practitioners are responding.
 
It was heartening to see that over 200 senior decision makers and B2B marketers were willing to invest their valuable time in the project. Our respondents came from a variety of sectors and types of business, both big and small but with a healthy representation from MNC (over 50%) and  with a third turning over at least £40 million.
 
B2B marketing is a specialist and evolving discipline which is rapidly coming of age.
 
One of the most encouraging and immediate out-takes was that despite the alarming state of the economy, there remains a remarkable sense of quiet optimism among our respondent base with over 25% expecting budgets to increase in the next 12 months and over 70% fairly confident about the future.
 
There are a number of key out takes and I’d strongly recommend you to get hold of a copy (visit http://www.b2bm.biz/insight09/). One of the stand out findings for me, was the rapid acceleration of marketing money into cost effective, accountable, quick to execute and measurable online activity – at the expense of traditional (and, by implication, wasteful) techniques. A trend that’s seen online spending bucking the trend, to show the largest year on year growth.
 
It’s not unsurprising, considering that 72% of our respondents say their job performance is judged on measurability. However, I think that there is a grave danger that we fall into the trap of mistaking measurability for effectiveness, anyone who’s done a statistics O Level will tell you they are not the same thing.
 
If you dig a bit deeper into the figures you will see that people don’t actually set out to invest in measuring these channels; the forms of measurement they cite (website visits, email click throughs and email open rates) already exist by default. When it comes to measuring other marcomms, as we all know, it’s a bit harder and takes a bit more effort. We all know that ‘what doesn’t get measured doesn’t get done’ – which explains some of the key reasons why we are seeing these expenditure trends. My personal worry is that we are disinvesting brands with this mindset and I think it’s no surprise that one of the other stand out statistics in the report is the leap in digital comms use for brand building.
 
It’s interesting to note that while the majority of respondents considered a brand to be critical to supporting business growth, only 7% actively measure the equity in their brand, with just 6% putting the value of the brand on their balance sheet.
 
This theme of ‘brand or demand’ is something we are currently looking at with B2B brand owners and will report on over the coming months. 
 
Danny Turnbull,
Managing Director,
GyroHSR Manchester,
and European Practice Leader, B-to-B

Categories Brand, Branding, Brands, business to business, marketing Tags , , , , , , , ,

Share

One Comment

  1. Renee Cassard on August 5, 2009

    Great blog posting. Thanks so much for providing an overview of your initial findings.

    I too find the concepts of measurability along with the rapid acceleration of marketing money into measurable “successes” to be of interest. In my experience, marketers often create the measurements based on data procurement/availability combined with the plausibility of creating appropriate scales of measurement for the given area of exploration. Then they drill down further into what it is they a) really want to know and b) what they think will show results. There are a variety of quantitative and qualitative tools with which one can do this. It becomes a bit complicated as we attempt to create a marriage between the two, however, since from a statistical standpoint we cannot always glean correlation (let alone causation) even when armed with a chest of tools.

    As a strategic communications consultant myself, I personally think marketers should set aside a portion of their efforts to explore things less tangible, but arguably more creative (including areas like branding, motivational foundations, etc.). After all, that is often where our creativity and best insights come from, which later can serve to guide the development of future online as well as offline efforts.

    For me, another big question is how do we convince ourselves that exploration and creativity are a justified means of research when we are working within such a stringent model of measurability and ROI? Do these circumstances serve to improve our “performance” or simply inhibit the roots of creativity that may often yield longer term dividends? I find these to be difficult yet valuable questions, and in my research have found that many psychologists have begun to explore the topic as well. In one study by Baer and Oldham, on Creativity on Social and Work Contexts (2006), the results showed relationships between factors like supportiveness within the individuals’ work environment and their openness to experience. These two factors moderated creativity, especially when the individual was under time constraints (show ROI quickly, please!) The extent to which we make creative sacrifices under these conditions remains unknown, but it continues to become more relevant under uncertain economic times. One thing is certain: it is well worth our further consideration as we move forward with creating strategies for implementing and measuring digital and online efforts.

    Thanks again so much for the thought provoking article. Best, Renee

Leave a Reply