Hi Ros. Tell us about your journey before arriving at The Think Tank.
Prior to The Think Tank, I was at a smaller digital marketing agency that focussed on web dev, SEO and PPC for emerging businesses. It was very similar to what we do at The Think Tank, but on a more modest scale.
Before that, I held marketing roles in various sectors, from retail to pharmaceuticals on both the client and agency side, so I have around twenty-five years of client service experience in various marketing disciplines, the last 8 years in digital media.
What would you say you’re best at?
Perhaps that I don’t stick with convention. I’m proficient at saying: Is there an alternative way to get from A to B? If the client is used to getting from A to B in a certain way, then it’s my job to ask if that route has been successful, and look at how to improve, augment or look at alternative routes – working in PPC means you look at things both analytically, technically and strategically.
Can you think of any examples where you’ve applied that?
Say a new client has been using Google Search Ads because it’s what they know, earning only low-quality leads. So we might present them with the option of LinkedIn ads. They’re costlier, but more targeted, so when you think about cost-per-lead, you’re probably getting more relevant leads from LinkedIn than Google. It depends on the sector and audience. In short, it’s about challenging the norms to bring in better results and a higher return on investment.
Do you have any particular campaigns that you’ve worked on that come to mind?
Oscar Acoustics’ “Noise Annoys” is one that I’m really proud of. It had tremendous results for the client and also for us as an agency. It was a campaign that involved all disciplines – the digital team worked hand in hand with the PR, content and creative teams to deliver this award winning campaign – proving how well we collaborate. The satisfying result was that it met the objectives and we brought in high-quality leads for Oscar Acoustics, which really impacted their bottom line, but also set the bar for us on what we can achieve.
I think it’s key to note here that we don’t just work with large companies with large budgets. We’re there on the journey to transform and grow businesses of any size. And this campaign is a good demonstration of that.
There’s also a very niche campaign we’re working on with Avery Dennison, with laser focused targeting on specific B2B buyers. There are multiple channels, including account based advertising, hand in hand with Google and LinkedIn. Here, it’s not about volume. It’s about precision. Because when you have a niche audience–a list of, say, only 500 companies–if I’m getting five million impressions, then something’s not quite right, we ensure our tactics match the objectives .
This is one of our strengths as an agency: Ensuring our strategy and our execution meet the client objectives, and activate the right channels to get the right results.
What are the typical challenges facing our clients nowadays and how do you help them overcome them?
Budgets are always a challenge. The client’s initial goal might be to get leads. But you can’t get quality leads if nobody’s ever heard of you. So it’s important for us as an agency to educate prospects and clients on how it works in terms of building market penetration – mental availability and salience of their brand within their customers’ minds.
We also talk a lot about the “95-5 Rule”; that at any given time, there’s only going to be a maximum of 5% of your total addressable audience currently in the market to buy your product or service. The remaining 95% aren’t in the market.
It’s only somewhere down the line when they’re ready to buy that they’ll summon the providers that come to mind. And so, building that mental availability is what we need to do, and all B2B companies need to focus more on building those mental structures in their customers’ minds, rather than doing short-term lead generation, sales-incentive-type activity that might give them a short term lift but never builds the brand, and never increases sales overall.
How do you approach educating the client in terms of not always just going straight for chasing leads?
We speak to our clients about their objectives and then really dive in to determine if those are indeed their true goals. Then we analyse the brief to see if what’s there is truly what they want or if there’s another brief written between the lines.
Sometimes the sales director is putting pressure for more leads, but actually the marketing director knows that we need to build the brand. So, a lot of the things that we’ll talk to the client about are based on evidence from our 30 years of B2B experience: we’ve got evidence of what works and what doesn’t, coupled with our ongoing learning, development and training.
What changes are coming over the horizon that brands need to look out for?
People are concerned about artificial intelligence (AI), but it’s not going to replace people. It will change how we work and ultimately make us more productive.
For example Google is eliminating third party cookies, so the way we approach digital marketing has changed; we don’t rely on that third-party cookie data (it used to give us all of our audience demographics and lovely retargeting lists). So our approach has changed to ensure we’re improving our first touch, i.e., reaching a very relevant audience with the right geo, the right industry sector, the right job title, with the right message and content.
The first touch must also be authentic, so deploying video or something that entertains the user and sparks their interest is key and AI can support us with that.
I don’t believe we should craft our content using AI, but it can help us with nuances. For example, if we target an audience with specific pain points, we could use AI to ensure we effectively finesse the messaging to address those issues.
We’ve also used AI when creating content landing pages to predict how this sort of target audience will respond. This helps us with our conversion rate optimisation, our content sculpting and it allows us to be more productive.
By leaving the administrative details to AI, it frees up our time so that we can be more creative. Because so far, AI can’t be creative. That’s in the remit of humans.
What do you think sets The Think Tank apart from other B2B marketing and PR agencies?
We’re integrated, so we have both PR and marketing. That’s a real winner, the gold. As B2B marketing changes, it’s really important that we look at everything we do through a PESO model (Paid, Earned, Shared, and Owned media), and have access to all those levers to pull to address our clients’ specific challenges in the best possible way.
Other agencies might have to tell a client, “This is a PR problem; you need a PR agency,” but we handle it all in-house. This integrated approach gives us a significant advantage: we’re agile and can adapt very quickly to our clients’ needs.
Do prospective clients appreciate the benefits of working with an integrated agency before they try it?
I think they have to experience it before they realise the true benefits. Often, clients have their organisations structured in such a way that the marketing manager works with one marketing agency, while the PR manager employs a different PR agency. This creates a fragmented approach.
When clients work with us, they quickly see the advantages of our integrated model. We have seamless crossover in our strategies and execution, as seen with clients like Asendia and Avery Dennison.
Our clients benefit from dealing with a single team that handles all aspects of their campaign, reducing the time and effort required for briefings and activation—they never have to do or say things twice. Additionally, this approach brings more creative ideas to the table from one cohesive team, leading to more effective results.
Who is your dream dinner party guest?
First of all, would I be cooking? Because if I’m cooking, then it needs to be somebody that doesn’t mind my lack of culinary expertise. Maybe I’d like to see my kids 30 years from now… and get to chat to their grown up selves.
