Marketing Blog

Covid-19 marked the year 2020 like no other phenomenon has marked a year in many of our lifetimes. Pre-Covid – we took things for granted or we simply did things because that was expected, but this major disruption to our personal and working lives will act as a catalyst for new permanency or change.

And what was 2021 like for you? For me, I feel privileged to have worked with IMA Europe on this marketing series. I have worked for and with some of the world’s greatest FMCG businesses, including some of the most instantly recognisable brands across the globe. That’s a marketers dream. Yet these past 12 months have been marketing disruption like never before, and for the IMA, yes incentive marketing, it could not have been better placed to lead and support performance improvement right across its membership.

Did you disrupt your business strategy and elevate your marketing to adapt, reset or pivot? Covid-time has given you time to set aside to review where you are, what’s left to achieve, or what further changes are needed to achieve or adapt the end-game. Doing this with your teams is so important, it supports their purpose and their contributions to meaningful work.

The very first marketing trilogy started simply with know yourself, know your customer, with more purpose. This was not the time to keep doing the same things to get the same results, it was time to do things differently. Reviewing your SWOT and looking at opportunities and threats objectively, coupled with your strengths, ensured you could go about change positively. The common denominator for change is be open-minded and agile to adapt to adversity, adapting to remain relevant, creating more opportunity. Bringing reviews and customers to the heart of the organisation would confirm your offer and your purpose, but importantly raising your customer’s support of you.

In the ABZ of effective organisations, we introduced team roles & personality types, by using Belbin to unearth your peoples’ strengths, to create the most agile team. You could have found Shapers, Coordinators, Plants, etc – more useful than any job title. Then maybe your Plant has helped you significantly, as they are most likely to come up with new ideas and suggestions.

When businesses are faced with market forces and organisational challenges, how adaptable they are is driven by their culture of agility and the personality types and team roles they have within.

Concerned with business silos and the possible negative role of dispersed teams working remotely, Zoom can help significantly in a new, normal organisation. Listening, collaborating, innovating, performing – these can all be enhanced if Zoom is adopted correctly in your ways of doing things.

And finally the focus was on you, or your leadership team. A great conductor creates the environment and the energy to get the very best out of all the resources in the business – maximising individual and team performances, supporting, training, taking risks, repeating successful outcomes to deliver a great tune, time and time again.

So where are you going in 2022? Over the course of this marketing series, I hope I have conveyed enough opportunity and given you a select few tools to help you disrupt, communicate and elevate your business positively.

Value chains are well entrenched in business strategy. You must have your own, detailing the operations required to deliver your product or service. The tools that I’ve introduced are all additional ways of delivering your value chain, internally and externally, benefitting and supporting your success in to 2022. Christmas homework? Enjoy your time off, but if you have a spare moment, look at your value chain. Good luck & very best wishes for 2022 …

Know yourself: SWOT up on marketing

This Covid world is testing every one of us and the many standards we’ve set ourselves in business. Working from home, watching multiple webinars, attending numerous zoom meetings, being bombarded with emails with top tips, the strategies of billionaires – it’s all becoming a little samey and never quite right for me. I do applaud the IMA for some excellent support tools that cut through the noise though and I’m really pleased to help play my part in spreading good marketing cheer to the incentive, reward and recognition industries.

Over the next three IMA Chats, I am looking to help you take stock, review and apply marketing fundamentals in 3 steps so you make the most of your marketing opportunities and give you a new purpose in a new world.

There are many definitions of marketing but in its rawest form marketing is about managing profitable customer relationships. It’s about offering the promise that you can satisfy customer needs better than your competitors, then delivering on that promise, profitably.

These past 6 to 9 months have made us all re-evaluate what we need and when the customers’ needs change, we need to adapt too. But what has fundamentally changed? A change in the working environment, the need and ability to adapt, managing increasing levels of uncertainty, coping with anxiety, managing changes in pace of life. So many, all related to behaviour, and this is where IMA members can really help. With changing needs come changing behaviours and habits. We’re in the behaviour game and the rules have changed.

SWOT up, share the task

Covid-19 has disrupted many aspects of our operational business, but let’s get one thing straight – stay relevant. When was the last time you updated your SWOT? A SWOT should be the start of your strategy and a fluid operational exercise, not just for the training room. What do you do well, where do you fall short, and what’s out there in terms of positive trends and issues?

If you need help, remove your subjectivity and get others to do it instead. Afterall, you’re in the business of engagement, and empowering others to do meaningful work inspires motivation, teamwork and probably loyalty. If you’re a business with a number of employees, farm it out and let others come up with 1 for each quadrant. Gathering objective insights about what you’re truly good at, what you can improve and what’s out there that you may not be aware of and need to respond to, is a really worthwhile exercise.

How are you competitors fairing? Are they winning and becoming a threat? What opportunities are they providing their clients to bring cheer to their businesses, employees, sales teams, …? Don’t do what they do. Do it differently, do it better. Reach out to the great resources available within the IMA and their partnership with the IRF. Many of you have a financial-bias and so do give this a 2 minute read: https://theirf.org/research/what-top-performing-financial-services-companies-do-differently-in-incentives-and-rewards-2020/3007/.

There are many articles on SWOT analysis. I would always favour reaching out to all parts of the organisation, you may have a strength that you don’t see or haven’t sweated its value enough in the market. It’s great when employees feel engaged with the strategy and not just the operations. You want to win that “Top place to work” don’t you? So give your people a piece of how the future looks and help them thrive. There are different tips here too: https://www.inc.com/paul-schoemaker/12-tips-swot-analysis.html.

In 2020, when you hear of reset or pivot, it often begins by leveraging what you’re genuinely good at & where you can find opportunity. The best place to start is with that SWOT. Maybe do a PESTLE too! You might even look at the work of McKinsey, but most importantly share your strategic development.

Know your customer = love thy customer

The thing I love about marketing is that it's about others. It’s what others want and how they go about things. It's also about you and how you satisfy those needs and experiences. This is what the IMA is all about – it’s about you and about others, creating and delivering a tremendous impact in incentives, rewards and recognition.

One thing we have gained during this pandemic is more me-time. For those who had to spend time home schooling, it may not have felt like this, but many of us have lost that “normal” coffee-time, photocopier-time, shredder-time (the ultimate de-stress), review of what-we-watched-last-night-time. We’re still meeting, virtually in 2D, but as human beings, we're hungry for multiple contacts and experiences. Have you adapted your communications accordingly? While we are seeing accelerated technological advances, human interaction must not be left behind, so do vary, innovate and personalise your communication methods. Have you also adjusted your incentive / prize offers? Recreate that office experience with coffee-at-home solutions or the buzz of a shredder.

While you can adjust your style and offer, understanding your customer has never been so important in the engagement game. You may love thy customer, but do they love you? Do you know them well enough to be able to satisfy new needs? Whether it’s employee engagement or channel incentives – things aren’t as they were. There are some thriving sectors, such as pharmaceuticals, but there are an increasing number of sectors that are struggling, declining or on the verge of extinction. The IMA, whether you’re in solutions, gift cards or gifts, has a huge part to play in helping manage the motivation of people and the delivery of targets. You can read up too on the many excellent resources from the IRF, including: https://theirf.org/research/seven-critical-questions-in-employee-incentive-program-design/2996/, but that’s just an overview and one size doesn’t fit all. 

So what are you doing to understand your own customers better? You may have an account team who are on top of their client lists, keeping abreast of news and who feedback during sales calls about whether it’s good or not so good. Marketing always seek an objective view. To get the most from your customers – let them do the talking. It’s easy if you ask open questions. How? Why? What? Where? Many customers like to have their opinions heard and especially listened to. I would call this exercise Voice of the Customer. It takes out the filters and forms true insight.

And how can this relate to what you do? It’s really about engagement – engaging with your customers – how is everyone fairing with their targets? How are your teams coping? How are your departments managing loss of revenue, adjusting goals or behaviours? How are you engaging your employees, your channel partners and your customers?

But why do this? Understanding our customers even more will help us build a better and more substantial value proposition. So: What can we do to help more? If you could improve one thing, what would that be? What do others do that we should too? 

Not only do these answers help form your value proposition now, but will also help future-proof it. Customers want to feel that they have been listened to. If you can demonstrate that you have … “we listened, and we’ve …”, “thanks for your time, your suggestion of …”, etc – as valuing their time and giving feedback to them, they will be more loyal and motivated by your future support. You can carry out this study yourself, but for an independent approach, I would also consider using my organisation for this: https://qqmmarketing.com/voice-of-the-customer.

It goes without saying, it really does help to bring the customer to the very heart of what you do. Retention is far cheaper than acquisition. In 2020, your customer needs you more than before, their loyalty is willing and so let them in. 

More purpose: purpose is more important than ever

Covid-19 has rewritten so many business and social rules. The marketing rulebook still exists, but must be adapted to remain relevant. We’ve said it’s all about the customer and their needs and habits are changing – all forced by a sudden change in the environment, with long-term consequences.

If you’ve reviewed your SWOT and taken a deeper interest into the workings of your customers, not only can you define your value proposition better, but you should formally overlay this with greater purpose. 

Many brands honestly believe that their job is to do more than make profit. They have a purpose which goes beyond that of making money. They try to improve society with the way they produce their products and services, and the way they do business. Did you mention this in your voice of the customer?

Away from the IMA, allow me to indulge in my core background of FMCG … We can all buy pens from numerous retailers, of various brands, manufactured or supplied by different companies. Some of us buy just on price and there will always be some consumption on that basis. What is now increasingly changing our consumption habit, is that we buy from those we understand better and trust. Bic doesn’t sell pens. It innovates. It educates. It helps. It improves the lives of millions, through simple tools, providing educational resources, including foundations, supporting education all over the world, including many deprived areas. When we hear this, we have a different affinity to the brand, far greater than the cost of a €1 pen. Bic demonstrates purpose. Their employees do this too.

Purpose should be a big deal in rewards, incentives and engagement. Without purpose, the programme has little meaning. If you’re trying to stretch the target, or appeal better from within, giving greater purpose is what matters. Selling a few more is short-term. Wrapping the programme in purpose drives longer-term behaviour change. 

Purpose used to be delivered through long-term brand building. Today, social media plays a quicker, deeper and often cheaper approach. Showing what you do or offer in other circumstances demonstrates impact, value and greater purpose. Some of you provide white papers on the benefits of programmes, but providing a social benefit has greater resonance today. Review your content marketing on social media channels and other communications. You must also communicate it consistently. It’s not just about amplifying the message, it’s about saying it the same way – google likes that and your SEO will benefit. There are tonnes of resources on this subject, just google “consistent SEO”.

A number of you work in travel rewards and incentives. The travel industry is on its knees with little sign of resolution, but the longer travel is excluded from our normal itinerary, the bigger the impact it will have. Habits and behaviours are changing and so what is expected from future travel will change. Customers will look for more purpose – whether cultural, environmental, and so on, as customers will have been starved of this. The IRF published this report: https://theirf.org/research/irf-pulse-survey-covid-19s-impact-on-the-incentive-travel-industry-july-2020/2835/and this can help you form a plan.

So how does purpose affect employees? Employee disengagement is such an issue in so many workplaces and that was at a time when most people were together in the same unit. With remote working taking over, and business profit and redundancy overshadowing many, how does a business demonstrate purpose that employees can feel a part of, be motivated by and make them perform better? Is your existing reward programme fit for purpose? Make it that even better place to work. Employers offer boot camps for employees to improve wellness and wellbeing, but is your programme now offering training equipment or yoga experiences? Here’s the IRF with some more tips: https://theirf.org/research/seven-critical-questions-in-employee-incentive-program-design/2996/.

That’s the end of this marketing trilogy, Know yourself, know your customer, with more purpose. So, have you made the leap to reset or pivot? 2020 has been a bizarre year, and I’ll apologise if I’ve reiterated that one too many times. But by saying it, we must act upon it positively. The time is now. We can review what we do, we can get to know our customers better and we can look at our business model and plan to be in better shape for 2021. 

Previously, in Know yourself, your customer, with more purpose, did you reset or pivot? Did you review your business model to be in better shape? Let’s start a new journey to create the most effective organisation with a simple ABZ (pronounced ay bee zee).

With a formal business and marketing background, relying upon books, theories and history leads my thinking, but Covid-19 has rewritten many rules for business and things can’t stay the same. The common denominator for change is be open-minded and agile to adapt to adversity, adapting to remain relevant, creating more opportunity. This duology will help you deliver an effective organisation and, as part of the IMA, your clients will look to you for guidance and people growth.

A is for Agility

Top tip: organisational agility is partly structure, mainly people, more precisely the right personality traits.

Pivot is one of the most over-introduced words of 2020. Think about it physically. Foundations need to be efficient and agile, otherwise you can’t pivot. Structures and cultures in business are ineffective with the damaging statistic of more than 70% of employees disengaged, so we have a major window of opportunity to address this positively.

Many businesses think flat organisational structures are the way forward for greater agility between entry-level roles and senior managers. Wrong. Flat structures often create confused, weak leadership as there are little foundations and efficient workflow processes. This article offers relevant insights: https://pingboard.com/blog/hierarchical-vs-flat-organizational-structure-and-benefits-of-each/. Amazon has a hierarchal structure, not just because of size, and we should take note. Having foundations and processes help the efficient delivery of change. Being busy (direct link to efficient processes) is a major motivator at work.

More than before, membership of industry organisations like the IMA, rather than a professional body, is crucial. Professional development gets you so far, but navigating these times will benefit more than the professional stripes you’ve earned. Embrace new ideas, be open to change, put structures in place that also benefit the long-term. The IMA provides thought leadership, effective networks and facilitation, to listen and share. It’s about you, your colleagues, teams, suppliers and customers.

If businesses are restructured now, putting people and culture to the fore, the new DNA will help long-term. When more threats come (live your SWOT), the more agile will cope. When Covid is quashed, we will emerge with fairer and more people-centric economies.

B is for Belbin

With the right structure, is your team delivering the change you crave? What personality types are among you? Ignore trash quotes like Herb Kelleher’s, “hire for attitude, train for skill”. Square pegs in round holes are exhausting. You need skills, it’s how you utilise and deploy them that matters.

Have you watched Undercover Boss? https://www.channel4.com/programmes/undercover-boss. It’s about executives taking extraordinary steps to ensure their companies are fighting fit by going undercover to know more about their people, their professional and personal challenges. It’s entertaining, sensationalised viewing, but a bizarre approach to understand what’s happening. Instead, why not listen, learn and work together?

Imagine being able to communicate with your team with no barriers, preconceptions or taboos. That’s the effective environment we want to create.

Use Belbin to create the most agile team. Belbin’s theory states that there are nine team roles which need to be in any team, including Shaper, Coordinator, Plant, Completer Finisher, Implementer, …

There are natural traits within disciplines. Many sales people are Completer Finishers and Implementers. I once worked in a team full of these traits. Non-stop delivery, exciting, objectives always achieved. But when market trends changed, that team couldn’t change. There wasn’t the levelling of alternative thought and inspired disruption.

Many teams are like this in Covid-world. Companies have people with titles, job descriptions, KPIs. Rarely do they seek to understand the personality traits. Companies struggling to make the difference have recruited in their own persona. With the same DNA, you find comfort in agreeing with the same decisions, doing what you have always done. Belbin (https://www.belbin.com/) will help and one way is find your team Plant.

The seed of an effective organisation, a Plant is a creative and inventive individual. Plants are most likely to come up with new ideas and suggestions, unlocking thinking to create agility. Belbin’s theory discovered there was no spark of an idea in a team unless a creative person was “planted” in each team. If your exec or sales team doesn’t have one, find that Plant who can make the difference. It needn’t be you. That person may exist in your organisation, but it’s not in their job description. Plants will understand your business, join the dots, rather than operate in silo. What a great way to banish silos.

Z is for Zoom

The 5 most cited themes for sustaining morale (direct link to performance) within a sales team are compensation, adjusting KPI's, celebrating victories, increased communication, daily huddles. Common denominator – communication. 

Today we rely heavily on video communications. Whether you’re Zoomer, Teamer, even a Skyper, have you considered how useful these are in your approach? Video can improve moral and performance.

I’ll use Zoom as the dominant product name like Hoover. Why? Zoom “is the leader in modern enterprise video communications, a reliable cloud platform for video and audio conferencing, chat, and webinars”. Like many tech companies they talk up the features, without fully highlighting the benefits (the role of marketing!). We’re making do with modern enterprise video communications, but they can deliver an effective and future-proofed organisation too.

We hear of a new hybrid way of working, part here, part there, WFA. Really? Do you think railways will have adapted to provide a better experience for your daily commute? Do you think pricing will become “reasonable”? Those chicken-coup call centres are more effective from home. The office has a massive challenge to bring workers back.

We will make office time more rewarding, with a productive, supportive and inspiring environment, but Zoom is here for good. Zoom will continually adapt and deliver a better working experience, making it their business to keep that business. As rewards businesses, you should offer clients daily commute alternatives and reward these. Commuting helped routine and fitness, so how can you help employees start the day with purpose and wellbeing?

Zoom can benefit employee engagement. One advantage of Covid-19 is physical structures are not current. Zoom is structure-free. We access each other how we want, when we want, individually or as a group. Meetings are fairer. Little domination of personality, as there’s no hierarchy in how people are in view. Promoting equality in thinking and opinions, they might unearth your Plant. 

Great ideas can also flourish under Zoom conditions. What are you missing out on because of filters and not listening? You’re running a business because you took a risk, differentiated or innovated. This is a great time to listen.

Zoom is the suggestion box of 2021. That old suggestion box, full of intention, rarely well deployed, destroyer of innovation. Make a suggestion. Get €250 if it gets through the 11 stage process. I’ve yet to come across a positive experience. Innovation doesn’t come from a box. It comes from Teams, working collaboratively, communicating and sharing. Zoom can fuel the innovation process. Ask the CEO. Let the CEO ask. How? Why? What? Open up & innovation will flourish.

Take Zoom to 2-way or 1-2-1 feedback for the benefit of employees. Zoom must be positively embraced during performance reviews. No longer the dreaded formality of a meeting room. Now in the comfort of your home – familiar surroundings, better preparation and performance. Not a tick box, but a way to get the very best out of everyone. Organisations often talk delivery but can now focus on performance. 

Plant Zoom at the heart of Covid-effective communications to get the right ideas and employee engagement. enabling you to innovate, allowing the pivot.

You all have your favourite gurus, mentors and tools, but this ABZ of Covid-effective & innovative post-Covid organisations will join many dots. 

Think of your business as an orchestra and, you, the conductor. The markets have undoubtably changed. Attitudes, expectations, choice and competition will all contribute to a new noise that resonates differently, and are you and your business still producing the same great symphony? Let’s cut through the noise …

Getting a tune out of the new normal

Have you reopened, opened up or adapted to the new normal with a new tune, the old tune or a tune that isn't quite you? The obvious business decisions seem to centre around customers, investment, marketing, pivoting and more. But for the rewards and recognition industry, and many industries, it’s important to put people not just at the heart of decision making, but ensure their contributions are aligned and their impact on the overall business results are understood.

It’s so easy to understand and be inspired by a sportsman if you love sport, or by a heroic public servant, as that’s relatable because you have previously heard or read something in the news. Relating to things that you don’t quite get is more of a challenge. It demystifies a subject and makes you think outside of the box by avoiding being trapped in the all-too familiar. I’m assuming many are like me …

The Orchestra Conductor

I once attended a seminar by an orchestra conductor relating the orchestra to all business situations. It’s one insightful session that has stayed with me for over 20 years …

I don’t get classical music. I prefer the shallowness of 80s synth & 90s brit pop. But, beneath the classical music output, the way orchestrated classical music works is fascinating and makes a whole lot of sense in a business performance context.
To orchestrate means to "arrange, organise, or build up for special or maximum effect". I just see the conductor as someone frantically gesticulating and waving their arms. But there’s more to it. In fact, the conductor is doing many things, not spinning many plates (know that feeling?), but getting the right tune by energising, calming, inspiring, raising the focus, creating the environment, the intensity, the equilibrium, the purpose and more.

The energy exuded by a conductor and their orchestra is no different to the energy required for a business to flourish. Energy comes from the ambitions of the owner or the leadership team, from key plants in the business, or from the market dynamics. Performance, growth, productivity and creativity all come when the energy is synced throughout an organisation.

Become a good conductor

Forget the corporate speak of leadership, coaching and management for a moment. Think like a conductor. Out there, leading from the front and a role model to many. Don’t just let me paint that perfect picture. It’s not all about personality either. There’s great content online if you want to explore this, such as: https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/instruments/conductor/features/tips-become-a-great-conductor/ These top 10 tips are super useful and can apply to every business context, though please ignore tip 5 – the use of a baton! As a business leader, the last 2 tips are quite cathartic. It’s important that you’ve decided that it’s this you want to do and enjoy what you’re doing. It’s easy to say life is short, but actually if you’re not excited and committed to what you do, that can rub off, and for many of you who are “in engagement” that’s not a great starting point. Don’t try and be good at everything, or just too generalist either. Practising or learning to play an instrument are key – so be a real expert too one area of your business.

Look around the conductor. Groups of people playing instruments, some the same, some entirely different, and not just groups but occasionally individuals. Importantly no one is alone in the collective delivery of the tune. They’re all performing their role, individually and collectively, working as a team, all focused, in tune, brilliantly organised, aligned, working as one - all lead by the orchestra conductor.

Some aren’t even looking at the conductor. They know their roles, what’s expected and how to perform. The conductor isn’t focused on them much either. Some are section leaders. They have responsibilities, are trusted and are accountable. You know those people in your business. They’ve understood what is expected and what their role is in the optimum delivery. Their performance is equally expected and understood, but the occasional connection is required to ensure they’re inspired, aligned, not different (out of tune) or isolated.

Are you conducting your orchestra and playing to your audience?

Close your eyes now. Put yourself in exactly that same situation within your business. Are your teams, peers, subordinates, bosses all playing that same symphony? Things have changed. We’re no longer working the same way – there are new hybrid arrangements, creating communication and process pitfalls and pressures.

Is there anything out of tune, or do the sum of the parts fall short of the whole? What isn’t resonating? What are the areas you need to focus on, on the journey to achieve that perfect tune? Are the tools (instruments) at yours and your team’s disposal, optimising that tune? Whether it’s software or even balancing revenues with expenditures to ensure cashflow isn’t compromised, good tools are needed to provide the symphony. Are the very latest tools being integrated, or when they are, does that tune sound the same, or is it new and improved?

It may sound a well-trodden path, but are you clear that your objectives, proposition and expected delivery is driven right through the chain and out the other side? Does everyone around you share those same ambitions and ways of doing things? Are you getting that same tune out consistently when presenting (or playing) to your suppliers and your customers beat? Externally, are your suppliers in perfect unison about what's expected of them too, the SLAs, etc.

What is your audience (your customers) saying? How is this being played out, interpreted and presented internally? Have you managed to impart all that is new to your customers? Do they share the same energy as you? They have changed. Closed, grown, declined, pivoted, or trading just. They may well have different expectations now. Are they fully engaged? Have you given them a glimpse of the benefits they will get now and in the future if they jump on board and dance to your new tune? How has the market changed? This article supports a lot of this, here related within a learning / educational setting, https://nottelmannmusic.com/top-10-qualities-of-an-effective-band-or-orchestra-conductor/.

Fine-tuning the optimum orchestra

Whether it's finance and budgeting, operations and customer service, marketing and PR, aligning across your organisation to deliver your message, proposition, product or service, requires an orchestra that is wonderfully aligned. Being a conductor is not easy. It takes time, energy, training, risk, repeat, but the rewards of a sweet symphony are huge. Good luck Conductor!