10. Getting & Giving Value Through Thought Leadership with Nicky Davies

PLEASE NOTE: This transcript has been created using fireflies.ai – a transcription service. It has not been edited by a human and therefore may contain mistakes.

Dom Hawes -: 0:00:03

Welcome back to Unicorny the antidote to post-rationalised business books. This is the podcast for senior executives who want to find out how other businesses are building value through marketing.

Last week on Unicorny, I was joined by co-host Chris Willocks, strategy director for Digital Radish to interview Neil Berry, former global head of deal and account-based marketing at Atos. And we talked about the difficulties of scaling account-based marketing. You may remember that in our conversation we asked Neil what enterprise's biggest challenges are when scaling ABM and why failure is an important part of being a marketer. Neil explained why Atos is changing to be more specialist and how that's helps the marketing team. We also discussed why keeping the customer at the heart of everything is central to ABM and what the future looks like for a ABMers.

Now if you don't remember it, it's because you haven't listened and it's a fantastic episode. So please do go back, give it a listen if you haven't already. And if you did listen and you liked it, please give us a review on your favourite pod platform.

Now if you're a social junkie, the kind of person who scrolls through LinkedIn day in, day out, you'll see the term thought leadership so much it may well have lost a great deal of its meaning? In psychology, they call that semantic satiation. But today at Unicorny, we want to bring true meaning back to the phrase thought leadership. And the reason we want to do it is, well, because it's important. Thought leadership builds brand, it spreads your message, it increases sales, it improves visibility, it makes your employees proud, and it brings real value to your industry. So today, we're going to bring someone into our studio who's going to walk us through what a successful campaign looks like and she's going to demystify what true thought leadership is, what it can be and what it can do for your business. Now my co-host for today is the supernova Sophie Norris from Unity, an award-winning PR and communications consultancy focused on creating, cultivating and completing brands through human insight and data-led approaches. And we have the pleasure of interviewing the brilliant Nicky Davies, director of marketing, programs and operations for Protolabs, the world's fastest digital manufacturing source for rapid prototypes and on-demand production parts. They are also, by the way, manufacturers of excellent thought leadership content around industry innovation and sustainability, so we're overjoyed to be joined by her on the podcast today.

In our conversation, Nikki explains how thought leadership has evolved, and we dive into the nuts and bolts of one of their aerospace campaigns. We look at how it's conceived, how it was executed, when they expected a return on their investment and what they actually got. Later on as well, you'll hear us discuss Protolabs' tech stack, how they repurpose and optimise content and Nicky gives her big advice for marketers over the next 12 months. But that is then, and this is now, so this is what we're going to start with.

Hey Sophie!

Sophy Norris -: 0:03:08

Hey, good to see you excited to be deep diving.

Dom Hawes -: 0:03:12

Good.

So, Nicky, when we left off with Peter in season one, Peter talked to us at a very high level about thought leadership and getting buy in. But when we saw you at Ignite, you talked about some of the mechanics of how you do it, but also how you extract maximum value out of it.

Given that this podcast is ostensibly for people to learn, can we start right at the beginning and just do a refresher on why thought leadership might be something that they might want to consider?

Nicky Davies -: 0:03:38

Yeah. I think for us, and I think Peter probably alluded to this, as a company, we're doing very good. We had a lot of outreach to our customers, but I think it was getting to that point where we needed to have the conversation that was going on in the industry very important for our sales. But also, us as a business to have that idea of what's going on in the industry, what their challenges are, what their issues are, but also the positive research and development that comes out of it as well.

So, for us as a business, it was to go through and possibly look what we're doing from an ABM point of view and match that up with then how we might go to market and what industry we choose.

Sophy Norris -: 0:04:11

Just on that and listening to Peter's podcast again, what really interested me was the dual track that the thought leadership had to run. So, it was about brand and deepening understanding and connecting in a more engaging way with audiences, but also because you're such a commercially-led business with very, very clear bottom line, it also had to drive sales. So Peter touched on it, I think, but how did you go and sell that at a board level? That sort of taking a step back from, you know, switch on activities and doing something with a much longer tail and a longer burn was the right way to go.

Nicky Davies -: 0:04:39

Yeah. And I think from our point of view, you know we all do brand exercises. That's what we're marketers to do, but we're very heavily KPI'd when it comes to lead generation and demand. So, this had to fulfil both boxes. So, before we even started, we had to make it very clear what our aim was, how many leads we wanted to generate from it. As you say, that really helped with getting the board on on board. It's a big expensive project. You can't do thought leadership that cheaply. However, it's also about getting your team on board as well if they know that there's a key target here. This isn't about just a launch and get something to market, it's actually: generate bottom line and revenue and we wanted to be able to track that from start to finish.

Sophy Norris -: 0:05:14

So you won an award for this campaign. So, bravo, amazing. And your title, I think, was how to get 400% ROI. Was that 400% ROI entirely on leads generated?

Nicky Davies -: 0:05:31

Yes

Sophy Norris -: 0:05:31

So all that softer stuff (I'm using "bunny ears" everyone) didn't go into the ROI, so it's 400... that's your minimum ROI on this project?

Nicky Davies -: 0:05:31

Yeah. So we literally measured new contacts, so net new, not just growth. And we deal with e-mail as king and we measured those all the way through from start to finish and revenue that was generated following the campaign. In many ways, that's still continuing. You know, I'd love to think that some of those new that we've brought into the business are still working with us today. So, we're continually building on that and nurturing it and it, it should never be this one hit wonder: you did it, it launched in a certain month and then that's it. It's a continuation of those new customers.

Sophy Norris -: 0:05:59

And that doesn't even count the things like reputational shift or no? Amazing.

Dom Hawes -: 0:06:03

OK, so I think it would be a really good idea to be able to give our listeners something that they can really get their teeth stuck into. So, we're gonna post some collateral onto the Unicorny website, which I'll give you the details of at the end. But Nicky, maybe you would be kind enough to describe a campaign, the thinking behind it, what it was.

Nicky Davies -: 0:06:22

Yeah, so if I pick the aerospace campaign for us, probably the worst timing in many ways of just at the start before COVID. It's in probably the one of the worst industries we could have chosen. But the report was out, the survey was being done and I think, from our point of view, and what we've done in the past was very much build a campaign, we've got a deadline we wanna work to and that's our launch date that we always work back to. However, with this specific campaign and how the kind of market was at the time. It led us into this, picking it into chapters so that we've got content that was going out that hit the market at the time that the conversation was happening. The first chapter was about drones, because it's aerospace and at the time, the industry and the news and the press, we're all talking about drone delivery, social distancing, medical deliveries, all that kind of thing. So, it really resonated with the market. And then we're able to launch chapter 2, which is much more about supply chain and the difficulties in onshoring which at the time we were going through the Suez Canal issues and the rest.

Nicky Davies -: 0:06:41

So it just, it was about timing. However, the massive learning for me from that was it was, about no longer doing the one hit wonder. It was about trying to always be on continual content coming out and also understanding what's in the market at the time that we could then pick up on and actually make part of our conversation going out as well.

Sophy Norris -: 0:07:32

One of the things.. so obviously we we consult to businesses, and there's a difference between inside the business and outside. And one of the most important things is that narrative arc I think that you're talking about, which is the longitude of the story rather than the drops that you're doing. How did you white space that narrative arc? How did you land on aerospace and then how did you decide to map that out before you launched the campaign? So where did the inspiration for the campaign come from?

Nicky Davies -: 0:07:54

So, aerospace to us is one of our high potential industries. We've catalogued that in the past and we've got our key industries that basically they convert quicker and at higher value. So Aerospace has already part of that choice. We've done automotive before and we've got plans to do others as well. But with the aerospace again the industry or the year itself proved to be a difficult one. But then I think as you're saying with the narrative carrying on, it's really trying to listen to what's out there in the market rather than pigeonholing what you've come up with and trying to force that into the market and force that conversation to happen. And going forward, even if there isn't massive issues going in the market or the industry or the world, we would still have that process now of thinking actually we've got a a load of really rich content that's come out of this surveys and face to face interviews. How can we tie that together so that the right people are reading the right content at the right time and keeping in mind that everything seems to move so much quicker these days. So, if you've done a report in March reporting on that in September, October, it's not current any more. It used to be and it's not. So, it's trying to keep kind of constant pulse surveys going as well to make sure that you're saying the right thing at the right time a well.

Sophy Norris -: 0:08:59

And tracking trends I guess, across the timeframe which people are loving? Really interesting. So, you started this with a piece of sort of core research and a proposition and then flexed that as you you move forward.

Nicky Davies -: 0:09:09

Absolutely. And then I think it's also keeping in mind that it doesn't have to be just the report anymore either. So, you know, thought leadership in the past was you go out for a survey, you might survey hundreds. We did it across Europe: that could be a part of the plan that you're then dissecting by country as well. And then there's always a report that you come out with and the statistics that come from that. But then what's the next piece of information? How do you keep that current? And is it a discussion like a podcast like today where you talk about the results with maybe an influencer in the industry or is it a continuation of a pulse survey or is it a webinar where you discuss it? So I think it's then going right, that's your core piece of information. But never stop there, always build the report into much more varied means of being able to communicate it. Not everybody wants to read a report. Not everybody wants to listen or watch. There are many different ways I think you should be able to target an industry from there. I think the days of that big, printed report that landed heavily on your desk, who's actually got time to read that? So, they either want it summarised so they've got the key points that they can get to and then perhaps read that element a later date, or they wanna be, you know, I've just been on the train today, listening to it on the headphones, on the train, through video, whatever means it is, that applies to them.

Dom Hawes -: 0:10:18

Once you've made your relationship, so you've got your flagship content that's gone out there and attracted attention, you've got your cut through, you've got someone's attention. Then what do you do? Like how do you take that relationship, how do you nurture that and how did your program take that and nurture it?

Sophy Norris -: 0:10:29

Yeah, I think that's the key bit, isn't it? That transition from grabbing attention into sales because your KPI's were all lead gen-led. So it's not just about eyeballs on this, is it? It's about engaging with you and interaction. So, (A) that's a bit of a leap of faith and then (B), how did it happen then? How quickly did you see ROI start to translate?

Nicky Davies -: 0:10:48

Yeah. So, we're typically a 90 day from lead through to, I'm going to say quote. So, we already have that tracked and we then track everything from that lead, which is filling in a form. Basically, they've had to give us their details to then download the report and then tracking them all the way through. And for us, I would never want to see a lead come into our business that we then just assume that they'll do 90 days and upload. For us, we always nurture. There's always a nurturing program that follows on that.

Sophy Norris -: 0:11:13

And how does that manifest?

Nicky Davies -: 0:11:18

We've got two trains of thought. There are the nurturing emails that we'd send on so many days following. We've got artificial intelligence robots if you like where they're part of our sales staff that follow on from a very direct approach. You know you should see your nurturing e-mail campaign very, very different to your AI responses because they are real different things and there are two different channels of doing that. So, there's those areas and then we'd also highlight high growth accounts that had come through as a new leads that would then be marketing qualified leads to hand over to.

Sophy Norris -: 0:11:45

Sales growth means higher volume in terms of sales for you, yeah.

Nicky Davies -: 0:11:48

It's those key ABM accounts that you might approach.

Sophy Norris -: 0:11:52

OEM, I know this was an aerospace or a Boeing getting interested, yeah.

Nicky Davies -: 0:11:55

Absolutely. So those key accounts that we might have already highlighted with sales that we then create an MQL straight for sales to then follow up. So, it's kind of this three handed approach to make sure.

Sophy Norris -: 0:12:06

That requires an incredible interaction with your data on a daily basis. That's incredible. And inquiries coming in.

Nicky Davies -: 0:12:12

Yeah, I mean, so everything is UTM tracked, everything comes through to our system and a lot of that is automated and set up appropriately. So again, being set up at the very start and I mentioned we had KPIs from the start, that's all about getting the team in marketing together to understand what they're doing. So everything we sent out had to have the UTM tracking, had to have an understanding that we knew what was going to come in. Yes, OK to take that box for KPI's and what did we generate an ROI, but actually what are we going to do to nurture them and to make sure we get the conversion as well, because it wasn't just about ticking a box. It was very much about getting the revenue to pay back what we've done.

Sophy Norris -: 0:12:46

So, did certain ways that you channeled the thought leadership get better returns for you? So, did a webinar get more results than an article in the newspaper and did you study that? I guess you had tracking URL's and watched analytics really deeply and did that inform the program as you moved across the year?

Nicky Davies -: 0:13:01

It has to a certain extent, we've seen open rates differ when we've targeted slightly differently, which has then led us to grow and understand how we might target. And just thinking about what we're doing in the most recent upcoming thought leadership that we're trialling is that different stats could reach a different audience. The same report, different stats. So that might be senior management want to understand that start because it affects their stem and all the growth from there. Or it might be the more newer graduate levels that might want to more information about how innovation might impact their business, even sustainability which is something else. So, it's still the same report but different targeting.

Sophy Norris -: 0:13:40

So I guess there's a short and long tail bonus in this approach that you're taking is the short tail, I guess is that 400% that you saw immediately? I mean, not short short, but the longer tail is brand and reputation and I guess. If you see a highly targeted ABM campaign using the stats getting a better return, would it nix you speaking at an event because that's much longer tail or is there the sort of foresight in the business to see the benefit and all those things and sort of parallel track them as you move forward?

Nicky Davies -: 0:14:06

Yeah. And I think that is part of it and I think being really flexible with the approach and I think sometimes as well, just because it worked on that campaign, it might not work on the other end. Sometimes it's OK to say we don't know why as well. But I think in many ways, you know, to your point about different channels working better or or worse and how you might develop that, you know e-mail for us has always been very very strong, but I don't think that works on its own. And I think anyone in any business that relies on one channel. thinking that that's the key to it actually hasn't looked at the wider scope and maybe sometimes it can't be attributed to it, can't be part of it. But the social boosting the programmatics in the background as well, never mind the conversation that then this gives your sales team to do as their outreach that can't be measured is all part of the journey.

Sophy Norris -: 0:14:49

That says a lot about your business as well and your internal employer brand, that's a business that's so KPI and revenue driven understands the benefit of brand and that longer tail that that's a huge... I mean that's a testament to a marketing department and and why they do and don't work I think because if what floats your boat at board level is dollar signs. But you know that you need to nurture long-term stuff, that's a huge amount of trust across the business and that evolves marketing cascading messages. So bravo.

Nicky Davies -: 0:15:13

But yes, it and it does, but also, it's working as a team as well as part of it is an understanding that the long term goal we're all businesses at the end of the day. You've got jobs to keep, but you're not gonna do that by sell, sell, sell all the time. It needs to be a much more empathetic and educational message. And that's where we we aim to try.

Dom Hawes -: 0:15:34

Nicky's point that the message can't all be sell, sell, sell, but should instead be empathetic and educational is key in understanding why their thought leadership content is compelling and successful. It's a softer sell than many companies will sign off, but sometimes softly, softly works wonders.

You'll hear more later in the episode about how Protolabs' sustainability message goes, how it's woven like a thread through their content, but I think it's important, before we do that, to point out that great thought leadership content must be genuine, both in terms of motive and value. Employees? They're smart. Clients are smart, people are smart, and they'll plug their ears if all they hear is self-interest. So, to make thought leadership genuinely compelling, you need to make it genuine first. That's something not enough people prioritise when they release content.

Dom Hawes -: 0:16:04

You're listening to Unicorny with Dom Hawes, powered by Selbye Anderson, the marketing group that helps complex businesses win the future. Coming up next, we deep dive into how Protolabs repurposes content, how the team optimises it, how they keep it relevant, and how long they plan to keep it alive. We also discussed the future and what marketers need to think about in the next 12 months. But first, let's find out a little bit more about marketing technology by exploring Protolabs' tech stack. OK. So, it sounds to me like we've got a really sophisticated marketing engine going on here. Be really interesting to hear a little bit about some of your tech stack?

Nicky Davies -: 0:17:05

Yeah. So, our fundamental is Salesforce, that's our CRM that everybody works within. We then use Pardot for the e-mail sending. So that's our classic core internal usage if you like, and that's where our nurturing happens and that's where the leads fall straight into and MQL are distributed and all the rest. I guess the add-on tech stack that we work with is the likes of Convertica for artificial intelligence and we've got Cognism, which is like an outreach database to find new and validated contacts in the business as well. And then we obviously very, very strongly with GA (Google Analytics) and the outreach that gives us and the tracking and the analytics as well for our PPC (pay per click) and the campaigns that go from there.

Dom Hawes -: 0:17:42

Are you using AI to run bots, to nurture e-mail relationships or something else?

Nicky Davies -: 0:17:46

Yes, the bots are purely our sales assistants that we treat as real. We do have live chat, but not [the same] really [as] using a chat bot, if you like, it can only be very specific if you want very specific answers. We've been proactive with live chat in the past where on the industry specific page to where the thought leadership campaign might have come from. We might be they might outreach as are you interested in our thought leadership programme or are you interested in the survey that we've recently done on this industry. So, we can do it from that point of view, but tend to stick to the more real approach of the live chat.

Dom Hawes -: 0:18:18

And does that involve integrating social channels as well? Are you Twitter users or?

Nicky Davies -: 0:18:22

We could do more, I think as many businesses could do. And do we do it well enough? Probably not. But we do have an advocacy program that we run with Oktopost. And that's where we can create lots of content coming from marketing that we ensure that it's appropriate for the the nature of the business. It's also timed. But then we can have advocates that can dip in and share that information really, really quickly and responsively. But we also then create on the back of that that we'd have our own kind of leaders in the industry as well from our own company that we then create content for them as well for that outreach.

Sophy Norris -: 0:18:54

So you must have an enormous content team creating powerful emotive thought leadership all the time? Or do you outsource or how? How do you... because that's content heavy production alongside your sophisticated marketing tech stack?

Nicky Davies -: 0:19:05

It is, and the short answer is no. And we don't have a huge team, but we, you know the thought leadership we outsource with an agency to manage the outreach and the professionalism and the face-to-face is really I think you need a key supplier on that and to get the key names in. We've then got content teams within our regions that we can build on and we do have freelancers as well. So, we have to pull on every resource we possibly can when we're doing campaigns such as this. Because just like everybody else, that's probably listened to this podcast, that's not the only thing we're doing at the time. So nothing else can stop at the same time as this happens.

Sophy Norris -: 0:19:40

So I see this whole campaign is seen as additive?

Nicky Davies -: 0:19:42

It has to be over and above, yeah, we we have regional campaigns that are going on. We have events going on, and if you think about everything we do gets translated into seven languages each time. So, it's a machine.

Sophy Norris -: 0:19:52

So, I'm really interested about your internal advocates, because it is hard to get people to share your amazing stuff. Do you have it baked into their job descriptions? I don't know if you know that level of detail, but how do you ensure that they're representing you at the volume and quality that you want them representing you?

Nicky Davies -: 0:20:07

You know what, we've got really good buy-in from the customer facing teams. They're really always after more content to share. They're very high profile on LinkedIn and the likes already. So, they were always chomping at the bit for some more content from us and to share and that in the past has led to incorrect information being shared just because they want to share things. So having this basis gives everybody a secure place to find content and we know as a team that we need to be constantly supplying more and more for them.

Sophy Norris -: 0:20:36

And do you treat them like an inner circle? Do they get pre-briefings or is it just that, because you got really good relationship across the company, that you can tell them what's going on?

Nicky Davies -: 0:20:44

Well, our regional marketing teams work really, really closely with the regional sales teams and that's part of their regular updates that they have together. Within Oktopost, You can actually chart and make it competitive and who doesn't want some of that? So...

Sophy Norris -: 0:20:59

I love winning. So, I'll be one.

Nicky Davies -: 0:21:00

But yeah, that's all about sharing the post. But you can also highlight when someone hasn't been perhaps and just bring them on board with what it can show and what it can mean. I think definitely when you're launching something like that as well, it's trying to get those that could be your advocates for the advocacy if you like and prove that it works and and show how it could work for them.

Dom Hawes -: 0:21:20

How important is your deliberate strategy of repurposing your content to keeping your advocates on message?

Nicky Davies -: 0:21:30

For us it's really important because we're trying to create so much content all the time that you can't just keep creating the wheel for new content all the time. So, I think this whole repurpose. But just like I think the recipients need to have different and varying means to absorb content, that people giving that content feel more at home with perhaps links to a PDF or links to a website, links to YouTube, anything like that. It's it's getting them on board with the content as well. And if they're on board then they're gonna happily share it further as well.

Dom Hawes -: 0:21:57

When I saw you at Ignite, you were talking about the Inspiron campaign, could you talk us a little bit through kind of some of the outputs from that and how, I mean literally how you were repurposing content?

Nicky Davies -: 0:22:07

Yeah. So that for us was at the time a six-week campaign for 30 speakers that we had across the board. And those speakers varied from anything from fashion designs to recyclable vehicles and everything in between. And that content was so rich and so varied. Just having it live for the six weeks was never going to be our only aim and I almost saw it as a three-stage approach where you've got your promo trying to drive new content out to new people and showing that you're trying to do something different and being part of a message.

The content itself which was live but then very importantly was the on demand and how you might package that up for people to understand it. Inspire on itself for us is all about sustainability in the market and for us to then package it into four content driven aspects of that that people could then choose what applied to their role and then digest just those elements for them was very important. But then to keep that going on and drive that on-demand and keep that content that's still applicable today even though it was, it was last year now and really drive people to the content then we have the likes of the Design Council that we worked with. They were part of, they had some of their speakers, part of the Inspiron. They then wanted us part of cot 26 fringe event which extremely fortunate to be part of. But again, you're still just keeping that message going. The content that you've had so wonderfully as part of the campaign we've got then bring that to life in workshops as part of COP 26 and being part of that.

Nicky Davies -: 0:23:01

Then off the back of that, to have a LCA learning guide written together, combined with the Design Council. It's just constantly as I mentioned before, it's keeping the content live, applicable to what's happening in the market at the time, but also new and fresh.

Sophy Norris -: 0:23:44

So you did your six-week razzle dazzle show burst of yeah, and I know you probably nearly died by the end of this. I should expect... it must have exhausting. And then when you were planning, how long did you think the content would live after the six weeks. Before... I mean obviously it's still alive today so it's yes exceeded expectations but what in your head would have been success?

Nicky Davies -: 0:24:02

I think for us because it was just leaping over quarter one, quarter two of the year to last the rest of the year out thinking again how people view last year's content nowadays. It's very new and current that everybody wants. But I think just by keeping the spark alive by going to the event in November to then refresh the content to then get the learning guide that came out in Q1 of this year, it's already given that longevity and then to then have Inspiron to that. We've just had just a couple of weeks ago really taking that message down into the manufacturing level of sustainability you kind of taking everybody on a journey of of where we might want to go with that content.

Sophy Norris -: 0:24:36

So one of the sort of middle of the night nightmares about any thought leadership content is there's noise everywhere and how do you punch through? So clearly you punch through and what do you think was the secret to that?

Nicky Davies -: 0:24:46

Yeah. So, the the first event we did was very broad, very top level. I think us as a company are very involved in sustainability, but we did it very top level and to really understand what's out there, what's the conversation that's been having, but also the reach that those talks and the influencers that were part of that could give us. To then take this now to the next stage has also been into not making it quite so top level, much more targeted towards us and the manufacturing and now the product design. You know a lot of the commentary in the industry is about sustainability has to come from the design brief rather than at the moment. I think it's a bit of an add-on at the end and that's a big part of now where we come in as a business. We're not designers, we never profess to be, but we're the manufacturers that bring those to life. So, can we help with material choices and all the rest of it? Yes, we can.

Nicky Davies -: 0:25:04

So I think then doing an ultra targeted campaign that's very much to the people that are at that product design level, whether it be postgraduate and upwards. That's where we've now really made it a niche almost project and that's how we'll continue to develop it into that educational space.

Sophy Norris -: 0:25:48

So you talking about things like circular economy and end of life design, which feed into all sorts of conversations beyond the ones you're having with your target audience?

Nicky Davies -: 0:25:56

Ohh yeah. I mean at the end of the day we're manufacturers of plastic parts. However, it's not the single use level and it's very much about the reuse and I think if people are going into the design of the parts that start thinking about how it might have longevity and reuse, that's a big part of where that product design comes from. So, it is all of that LCA circular economy. All the rest of it is really close to the heart of what we do as a business.

Sophy Norris -: 0:26:20

So I'm really interested from a observer point of view because this is stuff I talked to my clients about all the time, is how you sort of architected the thought leadership campaign, perhaps particularly this one, the second one that you're targeting manufacturers themselves more specifically, what platforms do you use? You've got what you want to talk to them but how are you serving that content to them and how does that structure and layer? I think for people thinking about thought leadership campaigns, sometimes that feels overwhelming, so just sort of breaking it down would be really interesting.

Nicky Davies -: 0:26:46

Yeah. And I think the the crux of any event like that is, it's promotion and that's what as marketers we can do that bit. It's getting the speakers on board, which is the real hard nuts and [bolts] kind of getting the right speakers on board. But then as you say, it's that kind of hub of a platform and and for us, we didn't wanna just put something out on teams and that we all spend very many hours, far too many hours on all day long. It was much more to try and create a community. So, we use a platform called Hubilo and that is is trying to get that community feel. So, you can put polls on there, you can put meeting rooms in there, your attendees can reach out to each other if they wanted to to have that meeting. They can also post questions that we could get answered by experts as well. But the full agenda and registration page is all within this platform so that people can come in, they can register a fence, they can put it in their calendar and they can time that they want to come back to it. I think also as well then, it's trying to make them feel, the VIP's that they are because they've registered, they should get extras in my opinion. So, they obviously get the first access to the on demand content. I'm the worst for it in many ways that I will commit to going to a webinar and then a meeting drops in. You miss it. You need to have that on demand. You wanted to to watch it, you wanted to listen to it, but do people actually have the time to do the live? I think we have to understand that that doesn't necessarily happen so just giving them that special treatment. You know, they can dip back in as part of this community, and we keep that open for I think it's gonna be open for another six weeks just to give them that special treatment before then we did the on demand from there on in?

Sophy Norris -: 0:28:09

And where will that live? Does that live in its own hub? Does that live on your website? Are you driving traffic to the site?

Nicky Davies -: 0:28:14

So the six speakers we had over the two days, there'll be a specific campaign for each speaker that will then work with the speaker who's obviously got their own influence in the world and their own reach to then be able to specifically target an industry. So, if we had a speaker that was quite futuristic and thinking about how the future might be, that's a specific audience that we target that campaign with compared to someone that was a bit more material choice and product design and make it very targeted from each campaign. However, they all drive to similar place on our website that is hidden from everybody else for that exclusivity and once they're in, they get access to everything.

Sophy Norris -: 0:28:48

And super trackable.

Nicky Davies -: 0:28:50

Super trackable. The world of digital!

Sophy Norris -: 0:28:51

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Amazing.

Dom Hawes -: 0:28:53

So time marches on and a really important part of the Unicorn podcast is to think about the future. So, we always ask people what's coming down the line and we like a 12 to 18 month horizon. What do you think marketers need to think about over the next year to year and a half? It feels like a stuck record saying we're in extraordinary times. Like a pandemic was bad, then we got a war, then we've got a government, I think, of sorts.

Sophy Norris -: 0:29:17

And the queen died. It doesn't stop.

Dom Hawes -: 0:29:18

I mean. What the hell do we need to think about?

Nicky Davies -: 0:29:22

There's a couple of things for myself. Personalisation is key. We get it in our own personal lives these days and I think that should not be ignored in the B2B world. And I'm not just talking about an e-mail that's got my name on it, that needs to be targeted into my likes, my preferences, my time of receiving content. Everything should be very personalised to me. However, on the flip side of that, my personal opinion, future of marketing is I think we're all trying to find this golden lever nugget, whatever you might call it, this new way of doing things. And I think we've all perhaps forgotten what the key to marketing is, which is going back to the basics and understanding where you're different to your competitors and how those competitors have changed. I think there's a lot of me too out there. There's a lot of, well, they've done it, so we'll do it. And I think just going back to the key principles of marketing is really understanding you as a company, what's your USP? What do you offer to the market? How are you different to your competitors and how do you segment your customer base? I think we've all kind of let that go a little bit and I think that's where we all need to get back to in the next 12 months. To me, it's having the confidence to lead what you are as a company, focus on your USP's and actually go forward in the direction that you want to rather than getting distracted by competitors or the world or the industry and just remembering your key attributes that you want to really promote in the first place.

Dom Hawes -: 0:30:35

OK. So, thank you so much Nicky for an amazing insight into how you guys actually do do the things you do. If there's one thing that you wanted listeners to take away from today, just the one, what would it be?

Nicky Davies -: 0:30:47

I think, personally, it's having the confidence in what you're doing and taking the team on that journey with you. I'm not talking about me specifically because every campaign that we do, we are a full-on team that are doing that together. But I think wherever the ideas come from, whoever has had the original idea, have the confidence in it. But make sure that you're building it with those right KPIs and the right reason for doing it in the first place and then follow through. Once you've got that in your team and you've got that built out and that understanding, then you can only be successful.

Dom Hawes -: 0:31:14

Well, thank you so much for coming to see us. It's been really, really enjoyable and and we'll see you soon.

Nicky Davies -: 0:31:19

Thank you for having me.

Sophy Norris -: 0:31:20

Thank you.

Dom Hawes -: 0:31:23

OK, wow, there's loads to unpack from today's show, but I'm gonna try and keep it brief now, going right back to the beginning of the episode, when I asked Nikki why thought leadership should be something a business should consider, one of her points was really interesting. She said thought leadership was important for their sales, but equally important was the positive research and development that came from it. By entering whatever industry we are a part of, we become custodians of that industry. We become flag bearers. Or representatives for it. And it's important that we, all of us, protect our industries and bolster them. And by researching and developing ideas for our industry, we actually end up contributing to them. That's why thought leadership is so crucial. It doesn't only help your company; it also helps your industry. Moving on, I think something protolabs is absolutely a cutting edge of is how they produce, repurpose and keep content alive. And by the way, I'm not alone. Their work is multi, multi-award winning, including the amazing B2B marketing awards. So, I think Nicky's way of thinking about content as a three-step plan is useful to the likes of me, where content maybe begins life as a promo, the content then becomes live or on demand and then it can be incorporated down the line in things like workshops. Well, that's just really smart and it's exactly what Protolabs, you know, did for cop 26. So, you have one content pool and that's now be funnelled into three separate streams.

Dom Hawes -: 0:32:23

That's great both for business but also for longer term brand equity. But what needs to be remembered is that whatever thought leadership content you are making, it needs to be rich to begin with. It needs to have real purpose and that all is always going to come back to value. So, my final point I think is about Nicky's advice at the end of the episode when she talked about confidence because you know, particularly at the moment where we just heard that bloody word recession all the time, confidence is contagious, enthusiasm is contagious. So, I completely agree with Nicky. For these kind of ambitious thought leadership campaigns, you need a confident team behind you. They've gotta believe in the message you're sharing, so trust your team, have faith in them and they'll have faith in you. So there you have it. Thought leadership content helps both you and your industry. It produces content that can be transformative and long-lasting and it can be a fresh impetus and breathe confidence into your team.

Dom Hawes -: 0:33:24

Hopefully on Unicorny, we've managed to help bring some meaning back to the phrase thought leadership. And with that, I'm going to say sayonara, because that's the end of today's episode. Thank you so much to Sophy Norris from Unity for sharing hosting duties with me today. And of course, thank you to Nicky Davis for being such an excellent guest on a Unicorn you today. Next week I meet Jordan Gillott and Lauren Berkemeyer from YuLife and we're joined by co-host Samantha Losey to talk about something every exec wants to know: how to build a data-driven growth machine. Jordan and Lauren and their growth machine unite sales, martech and demand gen, all while keeping the customer right at the centre of the machine. So, we're going to look at how they use the model, the tech that supports it and the data it delivers to ensure relevance.

Dom Hawes -: 0:34:15

Your takeaway? Super smart campaign enablement. Don't miss it. It's a Corker. Thank you for listening to today's show. Together, we're building a body of reference to make marketing work better for business. Now it takes us eight to 10 hours to produce each and every episode of Unicorny. So please take the time to share, rate and review us, help us get found, and help yourself at the same time. Because Unicorny is far more than a podcast. It's a community of leading marketing minds and pretty soon we're going to be running events too. If you're interested in joining our community, please get in touch by following the Unicorny page on LinkedIn or connecting to me on LinkedIn. My name is Dom Hawes. You've been listening to Unicorny with me. Dom Hawes, powered by Selbye Anderson, the marketing group that helps complex businesses win the future.

Unicorny is conceived and produced by Selbey Anderson with creative support from OneFinePlay. Nichola Fairley is the executive producer. Connor Foley is the series producer. Kasra Firouzya is the superb audio engineer and editor, and the episode is recorded at turnmillstudios.co.uk.

Dom Hawes -: 0:35:22

Thank you for listening and we will see you in the next one.