Can Sir Martin Sorrell waste his new ad-tech £110m venture capital fund?, Tim Hughes

If anybody is going to make advertising work it's Sir Martin Sorrell. Afterall he was the founder of WPP plc, which was the world's largest advertising and PR group, both by revenue and the number of staff.

Until he left in April 2018.

But that was then and this is now.

Let's look at the current state of advertising

Facebook ads have a 1.61% success rate

Google ads have a 1.91% success rate

Programmatic has a 0.35% success rate

This is a 98.8% success rate, if I went to my Board and said or new marketing campaign has a 98.8% failure rate, I would be laughed out of the meeting.

Here's an interesting article

"Time spent with ad-supported media falls to 46.6%, even as ad spending soars" via MediaPost

The fact is, people just don't look at ads anymore.

What about ad blockers?

According to this article.

"The first ad blocking extension was introduced to the market in 2002. The number of devices using ad blockers hit a milestone of 20 million in 2009.

Today, 42.7% of internet users worldwide report using an ad blocker. And the technology has expanded beyond the desktop. Ad-blocking software for mobile devices and tablets is now widely available."

Ad blockers are pretty standard use by people.

What about ad fraud?

But there again, how much of the money spent on advertising actually goes on advertising?

There is a great history of ad fraud here, compiled by Augustine Fou.

I wish Martin the best of luck, after all people have migrated from a life of looking at ads to being on social media. This is something that the internet, mobile and Covid has accelerated.

I'm sure there is some clever stuff out there, but is he flogging a dead horse?

What is social selling?

Here at DLA Ignite, we define social selling as

"Using your presence and behavior on Social Media to build influence,
make connections, grow relationships and trust, which leads to
conversation and commercial interaction."

It's not witchcraft, it's enabling your salespeople to work from home, (or the office) and create conversations with prospects and customers. Conversations on social media and conversations that convert.

So who's social selling?

In case you missed it, the Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch have banned cold calling and have moved all their people to social selling. This isn't some trendy tech company that might have decided to do this on a whim, this is a very conservative financial services company that has made a decision based on data.

But surely cold calling has a better ROI than social selling? Not according to Merrill Lynch.

"They will also be encouraged to contact prospects over LinkedIn, which has a higher hit rate than cold calling"

The CRO (chief revenue officer), Richard Eltham of Namos Solutions, of one of clients posted a comment on LinkedIn about social selling. See here.

“Social selling is not an option now it is the way of the world and you either learn and execute it or fear getting left behind”

Kevin Murray who is the Head of Sales at MacArtney Underwater Technology recently posted about his success with social selling here and wrote an article about the transformation that has happened in sales here.

Andrew Ferrier who is the CEO of Display Technology Ltd and in this article it talks about why Display Technology have adopted social selling. His team have also created a social media strategy with help from our partner, Crux.

Their social media mission statement is

“We want to position ourselves as a forward-thinking, knowledgeable team of individuals who are all experts in our own right, therefore, collectively awesome!”

Andrew also says in that post

"Adopting this (social selling) strategy has taken all of us well outside of our comfort zones but the rewards we have seen in a short period of time have created an excitement within the business development team (new term for sales team).

Because of the nature of social media, quite often you can get instant results. Even if that is just a comment left on your post, or a like, or someone taking the time to want to connect with you.

The excitement around the sales team is infectious, it’s no longer a chore to reach out to the market place because the results can be instant and are there, right in front of you."

What sort of results can you expect?

If you check out this video of Chris Mason CEO at Oracle reseller Namos, fast forward to 19 minutes 55 seconds. Chris talks about a $2.6 million win from being on social, after completing the DLA Ignite social selling and influence course.

Here at DLA Ignite, we work with our partners such as Crux, Little Bird Marketing, Funnel Amplified, Accelery, EDPE Consultants, etc. We are the only social selling and influence company in the world to offer a certificate provided by an independent qualification body (OfQual) and sponsored by the Institute of Sales Professionals (ISP).

Other articles you might be interested in ....

Would you buy social selling training course from somebody that doesn't use social selling?

How to create budget and build a business case for your social selling project