Well, it depends what stage of their growth journey they’re on. For the most part it boils down to Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) and given the rate at which our industry grew last year, 44% to a whopping £256 Billion the greatest challenge for CEOs is whether they can grow fast enough and at a rate that either fends of failure, grows market share or makes them attractive enough to secure investment.  

Spend in Digital Marketing is expected to rise at a steady rate over the next five years as companies continue to invest heavily in digital, most popular being Email Marketing and Marketing Automation, followed by Social with Data & Analytics being the fastest growing discipline within MarTech.  

Whilst the future is bright for our industry the challenge is, competition is higher than ever before with more with 10,000 companies on Scott Brinkers 2020 MarTech 5,000 lunar graphic, up 20% from the previous year and as he skipped doing the graphic in 2021 I suspect in 2022 we might see this number be closer to 20,000. And if we resist thinking about how Web3 and the Metaverse might disrupt the MarTech industry there is a greater and more imminent threat - which is buyers don’t want to be sold to and candidates (talent) don’t want another job pitched to them.  

The traditional recruitment approach is flawed, ‘post it and they will come’ is no longer fit for purpose and head-hunting is expensive. The traditional sales and marketing funnel for complex B2B sales is outdated, the success of which, is based on waste. We can no longer afford, or have the time to win business this way.

Why should you care

On a recent Digital Download LinkedIn Live event, a group of us debated whether CEOs and the leadership team should be on social. We looked at some of the CEO’s doing social well and the benefits to the organisation are multiplicative. The benefits far outweigh the effort required to own your social presence, things like; improve company culture, attract top talent in your industry - those people that care about you and your values as opposed to the biggest salary, new connections creating better business opportunities, I could go on.

Often, social media is seen as a tactical item. It can deliver short-term sales benefits, therefore it’s a sales tactic. It can deliver increased media share of voice, therefore it’s a marketing tactic. It can help recruit staff, therefore it’s an HR tactic. And whilst it can do all of these things I believe that social media deserves a seat at the top table because it touches every department and business function.

Here’s a list of the top 12 CEOs on social, though if you google ‘best CEO’s on Social you’ll find several interesting articles: https://blog.socialmediastrategiessummit.com/top-ceos-on-social-media/ 

Sales

Gartner reports that in the business to business space not only are buyers nearly 60% of the way through their buying journey before the seller knows they exist and during this research stage - BEFORE they reach-out or download a white paper - they are jumping to conclusions from what they see and read. These conclusions (right or wrong) might not be particularly favourable for the seller.

Alongside this concept of the “empowered & educated” buyer Gartner also acknowledges that the buying team now comprises typically 8-10 different people and they may all have their ‘preferred supplier”, prejudices and beliefs. This means that getting a consensus in order to move forward has never been more difficult, in fact now only 30% of purchases even happen, the other 70% are simply postponed due to a lack of consensus.

Two issues stand out as barriers to achieving the sale:

1. Sellers struggle to get access to buyer - largely because they have not built rapport with the buyer, there is no reason for the buyer to engage with the seller. 
2. Sellers lack the training to coach the buyer to successfully procure your solution - it's harder for the buyer to buy than it is for sellers to sell.  Buyers struggle to build consensus effectively, a soft skill difficult to learn.

Your sales team cannot even reach point 2 until they’ve successfully achieved point 1, at scale.

The art of social selling is to make the buyer jump to the conclusion that YOU want - that you are the “obvious” and most attractive supplier. Social selling will not usually actually “sell” anything, but what it will do is generate more conversations, build trust sooner and deliver a greater number of opportunities more likely to close.

In our experience each salesperson that uses social selling techniques can expect to generate at least one additional opportunity per week over and above those who don’t.

Marketing

Marketing already has a social presence in most organisations. The corporate Twitter account and the Company LinkedIn page might be the two most common of these, but often these are so stifled by making sure that they are “on brand” that they fail to gain any traction as they become just another corporate “mouthpiece” saying the same things as the website and the adverts and the brochures that are already being produced. Converting these to real “communication” channels (as opposed to broadcast channels) can turn them in to huge assets to the organisation. This requires empowerment, management and measurement and a different way of thinking about how content can be delivered

Much marketing’s involvement in social media has traditionally been pay-per-click advertising on social networks. In our belief though, this is not social…this is advertising. “Being social” is leveraging earned media rather than paid (or owned) media by empowering individuals inside and outside the organisation to engage in discourse and therefore spread the organisation’s message at scale.

Human Resources

It isn’t just purchases where people seek peer-validation, it’s career choices too. Glassdoor has become but the bane (and the saviour) of the recruitment world as candidates (and recruiters) can see “the truth” about the companies that are hiring.

Social HR is much more than just managing one’s corporate presence on Glassdoor, it is re-imagining how how organisations might find candidates, educate them about their business, onboard them, manage them and finally retain a relationship when they become alumni. The whole employee lifecycle empowered and leveraged by using social media.

There are huge economies to be made by using social in this way - accessing the networks of your staff to find more staff and encouraging them to advocate for your business see how with our social HR programme.

Social Media Strategy

Our strategic social media programme helps to identify your organisation’s vision (and appetite) for social media, aligns stakeholders behind this vision and uncovers all of the unique barriers that will need to be addressed to successfully achieve that vision.

We work with your Leadership team to prioritise key functions, deliverables and goals, avoid roadblocks and minimise organisational risk.

Often, social media is seen as a tactical item. It can deliver short-term sales benefits, therefore it’s a sales tactic. It can deliver increased media share of voice, therefore it’s a marketing tactic. It can help recruit staff, therefore it’s an HR tactic. And whilst it can do all of these things we believe that social media deserves a seat at the top table because it touches every department and business function.

Supero provides B2B Value Selling, Social Media Strategy, Training and Coaching services to the MarTech industry.  We have partnered with DLA ignite, the #1 B2B Social Media & Transformation business and together we hold 50% of the top 20 spots on Brand24 for most influential in Digital Selling.  

DM me on LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/alex-loves-martech or Twitter @Alex_Supero for a synergy chat, I’d welcome exploring how we might help you accelerate your CAGR!

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