4. Thought Leadership & PPC With Protolabs' Peter Richards

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.

[00:00:02] DOM HAWES: Unicorns. They're supposed to be rare, but they seem to be everywhere. Now, like you, I suspect, I devoured business and marketing books. If you've noticed, more and more of them use the same reference material, and they retrofit their strategies and tactics they're espousing to unicorns. Well, you know what? I'm bored of reading about unicorns. So what if Amazon thinks back to front? Why is it relevant to me that Steve Jobs started with why? Google, Facebook, Netflix, those guys, it's not where I live professionally, and it doesn't inform my future. I thought, why don't I do something about it? Why not create a body of reference material that ordinary marketers like me can contribute to and learn from? That is Unicorny. 

[00:00:56] DOM HAWES: Hello, unicorners. Oh, my God, have we got a treat for you today. We have got the amazing Peter Richards from Protolabs, who we met at the B2B Marketing Awards just after they had scooped the prize for thought leadership. Now, if you are interested in the concepts like thought leadership, if you are interested in how business-to-business organisations can make use of pay per click advertising, do not go away. I am Dom Hawes. 

[00:01:23] SAMANTHA LOSEY: And I’m Samantha Lucy. 

[00:01:25] DOM HAWES: We are the co-hosts of this, Unicorny. Now, Samantha, you come from Unity. Tell me a little bit about your agency. 

[00:01:34] SAMANTHA LOSEY: We are a communications consultancy. We, I think, really specialise when it comes to insight and strategy and getting under the skin of an audience. What we love to do, because I'm a nerd at heart and no one believes it, is take all the data we can find, layer that with behavioural science and really pull together insights to unlock briefs. We get to do that for a lot of really exciting clients that are not always the sexiest brands, but we get to do the sexiest stuff, because we get the best audience insights. 

[00:02:00] DOM HAWES: Cool. Well, today we have a guest, who if you don't know about it, it might look like an unsexy business. 

[00:02:06] SAMANTHA LOSEY: 100 percent. Then when I hear about that data, to me that suddenly says sexy. 

[00:02:11] DOM HAWES: Also, rapid prototyping, 3D printing, I think is pretty sexy. Let's go see what Peter has got to say. 

[00:02:18] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Sounds good. 

[00:02:19] DOM HAWES: Hello, Peter. How are you? 

[00:02:21] PETER RICHARDS: I'm good. Thank you, Dom. 

[00:02:22] DOM HAWES: Good. A good start to today's podcast might be for you to give us a little bit of an introduction to Protolabs. Because although it's a very large company, many of our listeners may not have heard of you. 

[00:02:31] PETER RICHARDS: Yeah, sure. We're, in simple terms, a digital manufacturer. We make component parts that go into all parts of the supply chain. The unique elements of what we can do is with our technology, we can actually get a part into the production supply chain as fast as a day. We use three different technologies. One’s injection moulding. That's what you will see inside your car, so your dashboard will be injection moulded. CNC machining starts basically cutting away and using predominately metal in terms of cutting away and looking at parts that produce in that way. Then the final one, which most people would have heard on is 3D printing, or additive manufacturing. That's the sexy, basically technology as well that we're involved in. 

We've got manufacturing facilities, eight manufacturing facilities across the globe. Our root to market is e-commerce. We sell through the web. Basically, the way that we operate is if somebody’s got a design drawing for that part that they want, they come on to our website, they upload that design drawing, and basically, we will give them a price back in a couple of hours. If they're happy with that quote, they can order it. As I mentioned earlier, we can then produce it and ship it in as fast as a day. 

So that the whole basis of where we were founded from was our founder, a guy called Larry Lucas, who set the organisation up in the States just over 20 years ago now, was involved in prototyping and was frustrated with the design cycle that you go through in terms of producing parts to prototype. He wrote some very clever code that enables us to actually drive that manufacturing process and enables us to get parts out in a very rapid time scale. The essence of our van promises manufacturing accelerated, and we support organisations that range from Formula One, all the way through to medical, consumer electronics, even as organisations such as Basics as well. Very broad range of organisations that we support. 

[00:04:16] DOM HAWES: How many people work for Protolabs these days? 

[00:04:17] PETER RICHARDS: Globally, we've got just over two and a half thousand people. Obviously, our processes in terms of the way that we operate is it's automated through the manufacturing process. Actually, our factories aren't awash with people, as you would have seen. I'm giving an analogy here. We’re going back to Victorian days. It's very heavily automated. Really, what we've got is a digital thread that goes all the way through form basically, the customer’s inquiry that comes in through the web, all the way through to physical delivery of the parts. In a lot of cases, we can do that with a web search. 

[00:04:50] DOM HAWES: Okay. I mean, so 25 years in existence and you scale from literally a garage, to two and a half thousand people. How important is marketing being on that journey for your organisation? 

[00:04:59] PETER RICHARDS: Huge, really. For me, I've been in B2B marketing now nearly 25 years myself, in terms of roles that I've been involved with. This is the first role that I've had where I'm second on the agenda in the boardroom. It goes finance and then it goes marketing, okay. From that point of view, it's critically important, because it's seen as demand for the business. There is a reflection that our founder had, which was when he set the organisation up, he put a little bit of money towards you, as it was in the day, in terms of you advertising to try and generate demand that works, and then it's grown from there. 

PPC, for us, still, is a key route to market. It's a challenging route to market for us, because our competitive landscape changed as well. Whilst we were founded 25 years ago and we had a real USP in terms of that speed, and we still do, we've got a competitive environment that's shifted as well. We've got other manufacturers that are coming into the same space as us that are reducing their manufacturing time scales as well. That makes our brand promise even more important, that we've got to deliver on that as well. 

Also, how we can educate the market from an online point of view and get that message out there is critically important. That whole point about marketing on top of the funnel is massively important for the business. We're an organisation that loves data and we've got a lot of data. It enables us to actually manage each level of the funnel. I can see where I am with my sessions, what they're doing, so converting into an engaged new inquiry. You're coming into the website all the way through, then that converts into a prospect, then also to a quote, and then to a customer, and I can look at all the conversion rates at each stage of that process. 

[00:06:34] DOM HAWES: Okay. I think, we're going to dig into the performance marketing aspects of how you guys do things a little bit later. I think a really good place to start might be at the beginning of your journey with Protolabs. At this stage my co-host, Samantha, I'm going to hand over to you, because you know a lot more about this than me. I was fascinated when we were talking about setting today up, that when you joined the organisation, the marketing was very much product-led and you had a different idea than that. 

[00:07:01] PETER RICHARDS: Yeah. I think, I came into the business just over three years ago now, where it was yeah, twofold, really. We've got a team that had been to a degree, unmanaged, because my predecessor have been out of the business for over 12 months. It was then coming back into the business and looking at, yeah, the first thing is and my team will hit me out and this, you can't keep doing the same thing and expect a different result, because I think, you're clinically insane if you take that approach. We had to do something different in terms of engagement. 

[00:07:31] SAMANTHA LOSEY: What was it that you were doing at that time that you had to shift? What was the thing that was going to unlock it? What was the same thing that were trying to get the same results out of that you came into? 

[00:07:41] PETER RICHARDS: I think, it was more from the points of view of, well, we manufacture parts really quickly. Come and buy some. In its simplest sense. When you put, it doesn't change, what else do you say? 

[00:07:51] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Absolutely. 

[00:07:51] PETER RICHARDS: How do you then get the narrative to go to a different level and also get a different level of engagement with a different set of customers is also the challenge. 

[00:08:00] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Did you woke up and decide, “I need to take a really good look around me. I need to understand who are these audiences.” Because it's so desperate, isn't it? You've got this real broad spectrum of sectors. Was there a, “First, let me have a look around me first hundred days feel to it?” Or, were you straight into, “Let's just change things. We can't keep doing the same thing. What's going to make a difference? What's going to move the dial?” 

[00:08:23] PETER RICHARDS: Yeah. I think, on your point, Samantha, I think in any role that you go into, you can't go in with the bull in a China shop syndrome. There was a period of reflection, seeing what we were doing. We were doing some good things. We were doing some things that we could do better, and we weren't doing some things. It was then looking at it in terms of those categories and building on what we were doing well, but then also, what we weren't doing and what we were missing and what we could amplify. 

We'd also done some work, which was starting to look at sectors for us that converted quickest. We'd also done some further analysis. In fairness, I walked into this, where there was work that had been done, which was looking at the conversion rates for key sectors. We knew that automotive was important for us, because it converted quickly. Also, we could see aerospace, again, being a potential market for this as well, to further develop both sectors. Innovation-led as well, because they need to keep moving forward themselves. 

We then did some further work scope, where, okay, how do we get deeper into those sectors? That's really where we spawned the thought leadership approach, which was, how we start to get a broader narrative into those sectors at a wider and higher level, as opposed to we manufacture parts really quickly, which we do and we do it really well. 

[00:09:38] SAMANTHA LOSEY: You've got all these different pieces that you've assembled together. You understand the sectors that you've got the fastest entrants into, and you've looked at some things that you do well and some things that you're missing. How did you piece all those bits together to then get to okay, it's thought leadership and it's going to look like this? 

[00:09:56] PETER RICHARDS: The first thing that we did was, well, what space do we want to try and occupy in the first instance? A lot of that was around innovation, because that's at the core of what we do. 

[00:10:04] SAMANTHA LOSEY: You can legitimately own it. 

[00:10:05] PETER RICHARDS: Yeah, exactly. 

[00:10:06] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Up there. Yeah. 

[00:10:07] PETER RICHARDS: We can own that space, because we're involved in the innovation process on that product design process. That was the first thing where we came around that theme, so to speak. It was then saying, “Well, okay, what's missing in the marketplace from an innovation discussion points within those sectors, that we could, I think your words, we could own?” Try and develop from that point of view. Then also, looking at our client base and going, “Well, okay, what are they involved with from a discussion point? How could we start a narrative that could actually start to angle us into that audience as well?” 

[00:10:38] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Yeah. That's really interesting, because as I said, and as you said, you've got these really disparate sectors, right? You've got, in a way, a profession specific audience, but that reaches across lots of verticals. Or is it actually, that there are really a very – with your audience mapping just scare the shit out of most people? 

[00:10:57] PETER RICHARDS: In the main, its design engineers. If I look at it from a common thread into who we're targeting, is those design engineers. Yes, it spans into procurements. Yes, it spans into innovation teams. 

[00:11:09] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Our favourite people. We love procurement. 

[00:11:11] PETER RICHARDS: Well, they're there for a reason, I understand. It also spans into looking at R&D teams as well. Yeah, coming back to your, does it scare the shit out of people in terms of either positioning? I don't believe it does, because I think any organisation has got quite a broad map of stakeholders that they engage with. The difference that we've got is that we can go for a transactional sale of say, £500, all the way through to a transactional sale of say, a quarter of a million. 

[00:11:45] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Crazy. 

[00:11:45] PETER RICHARDS: The added complexity is then, I've got a volume of business that is coming through, the small transactions I actually need to get zero touch on. Then, I've got high touch element, which are the key accounts which are critically important to us, but the volume isn't as strong and they take longer to develop. I've got to be doing both at the same time. 

[00:12:05] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Of course. What has your approach with that be? Have you taken with those key accounts more of an ABM approach, or has it been very much that brand always on slow burn, next to a really targeted set of sales proposals, and the way that you come after that audience? How do you balance out the immediate with the longer-term in that respect? 

[00:12:25] PETER RICHARDS: Really good question, because the other added challenge that we've got is at an ABM level in previous lives where I’ve done ABM, you're strategically important to the customer, and the value of your sale gets you up there in the customer. The challenge that we've got is that in a lot of cases with some of our clients, we are important to them, but their level of spend with us doesn't raise our profile in the organisation. 

[00:12:51] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Right. Got it. 

[00:12:52] PETER RICHARDS: You've got that element of complexity to it. If, say, for example, we went to the head of R&D at another automotive manufacturer and said, “This is what we do,” it is more than likely he would go, “Fantastic. Understand what you do. Right. Okay. You need to speak to this person.” He wouldn't necessarily have an active engagement with us. 

[00:13:09] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Understood. 

[00:13:09] PETER RICHARDS: I think, there is that challenge in terms of how we run things from a parallel point of view with ABM. From an ABM perspective, it's been something which we've been developing. It's starting to work. What we're also starting to do is we've done a lot of work in terms of educating the client base, because the other point that we then get to is we have a quoting platform. If design engineer A in Aston Martin uses us, it doesn't necessarily mean that design engineer B does. How you then get the internal cost out within the business? We do a lot of education to our clients to go, this is the benefit that we can bring you and we try and get that community together in those organisations as well to raise the profile. 

[00:13:48] SAMANTHA LOSEY: What does that look like for you? Is that a lot of really tight CRM management? Do you do roundtables and thought leadership internally? How do you best network inside the business that you're already connected to? 

[00:14:00] PETER RICHARDS: I think it's a combination of things, really. Within today's environment, we've been running a lot of webinars with clients and getting – Yeah, and actually it's a very effective way of getting about 20 people all together on a call for an hour. If you're doing communication with a purpose, it works. It works really well, because you can educate them from that point of view. 

The other thing that we've done, started to create bespoke material, which is focused in terms of almost a manufacturing guide, how we support them on that basis and that journey. That's tailored down at the account level as well. Then, as we move back in to face-to-face engagements, we are now doing more face-to-face engagements as well that started to come back online for this. We also bring clients into our facilities, because actually seeing the power of the manufacturing actually operating and going, “Well, okay, there is your design drawing, and there’s your part.” 

[00:14:49] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Really impactful. 

[00:14:49] PETER RICHARDS: Yeah, exactly. It makes a huge point. We're starting to further evolve and develop video assets, as well to try and further illustrate, then get deeper from that point of view. The biggest challenge is how you get somebody's attention and engagement. 

[00:15:03] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Which is always the challenge, isn’t it? It's the absolute challenge. Then, where does that sit for you in terms of trying to meter out between brand and engagement? How does brand factor in your – you say, you’re number two on the boardroom agenda, which is exciting, but terrifying. How does brand play into that? 

[00:15:22] PETER RICHARDS: Really good question, because the challenge that we've got is we’re a heavily driven commercial organisation, which is great. Keeps you focused, what you need to deliver. Then in parallel, what you can then start to lose sight of is that you haven't done any brand building, because you're so myopically focused on – 

[00:15:40] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Head down, sales funnel. 

[00:15:41] PETER RICHARDS: Right. Okay. Where are we with leads this week? Where are we with quotes this week? What's that converted to? That's a conversation which most probably happens twice a week with board members, from that point of view. Then, so, it's very easy to turn around and go, “Oh, we've got a brand and we've not developed it. We've not pushed it out further.” Part of the point in actually coming back to some of the sector approach and ABM focus was to go, “Well, how could we build a campaign that builds the brand, gets this exposure, but can also be used for demand generation?” 

[00:16:12] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Silver bullet. 

[00:16:13] PETER RICHARDS: Yeah. That was also where we wanted to get to, because it was a shift for the business. When we launched the first program from a service point of view, which we talked to the automotive sector, it was a leap of faith for the business. 

[00:16:27] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Interesting. 

[00:16:28] PETER RICHARDS: Because we'd not done anything like that before as an organisation. 

[00:16:31] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Was it hard to get that leap of faith? Because I think, there are so many marketeers who sit in those difficult conversations where they've got a sales versus brand, and they're wanting to invest in brand. A lot of our clients do the same thing, where they're very focused on the sales funnel and that leap of faith is hard. How did you take the organisation with you? 

[00:16:49] PETER RICHARDS: I think on a couple of levels, really. One, it's the open communication and going back to that principle that we stated earlier. If we want to change in results, we've got to do some different things. There is a risk to it, but it's a calculated risk. You're not betting the whole of the organisation on one strategy and principle from that point of view. I think, there's that point. 

Second point is, and I know it's cliche, but it's communication and its engagement with your own organisation, engagement with sales. We had a lot of conversations with sales to try and educate them about well, this is different, this is going to be a different approach. These are going to be the key messages that we're going to be putting out to the market and how we get that alignment. If I reflect back from where we are now to where we were when we launched the approach, if we look at the response that we got from the organisation when we launched it, which was, yeah, okay, we'll go with you. 

[00:17:45] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Begrudgingly, but they work with you. 

[00:17:46] PETER RICHARDS: Yeah. We’ll go with you. You're the new boy. You've come in. 

[00:17:48] SAMANTHA LOSEY: You can mess up. We don't mind. 

[00:17:50] PETER RICHARDS: Exactly. It's your P45 sort of scenario. 

[00:17:54] SAMANTHA LOSEY: I love it. I'm going to use that. 

[00:17:55] PETER RICHARDS: Whereas now, and I was on a call this week, which was with sales and marketing on the same call, and I've got the sales team unprompted, talking about how they were completely aligned with marketing. Take the marketing assets, aligning from that point of view, looking at the campaigns, getting a complete understanding from that point of view. That's night and day from where we were. 

[00:18:16] SAMANTHA LOSEY: It must've been a proud moment for you, actually, to you must have gone, “Okay, we did something right here. Thesis and things.” 

[00:18:21] PETER RICHARDS: Yeah. I think you take the small comments. The other important thing for me is you feed that back into the team. The team needs to recognise that. Any organisation has got short memory. I think, it's also being able to take that point in time to reflect and go, “Right. Okay. This is what we've done well.” How do we build from that perspective? Then the other thing is that we continually look at is how do we drive more innovation into the business, how we continue to do different things, how we get people to learn, so that they can actually lift their heads up from their day job and get outside of the building and try and learn a bit more to what's going on in the industry, as well from that side of things. 

[00:18:59] DOM HAWES: I just want to wind back a little bit, because the overriding theme is what you won your award for, which is thought leadership, I believe. The B2B marketing award is no small award. Congratulations, first off. 

[00:19:12] PETER RICHARDS: Thank you. Thank you. 

[00:19:13] DOM HAWES: I think that's where we met. When you came to the organisation, we've been talking slightly around it, but we haven't actually nailed this. How did you persuade your colleagues that thought leadership, which must have been very alien to the product-based approach marketing, how did you persuade them that thought leadership was the right way forward? 

[00:19:30] PETER RICHARDS: Two levels, really. First of all, I've done it before and I've got successful it before. I was able to illustrate success from where I'd been previously. Secondly, Dom, I think it does go back to that point of, well, okay, what's the alternative? If we want to build a presence in these sectors that we know converts quicker for this, how do we get more engaged in those sectors? 

You play back to the strategy. That was the other key thing that we, I want to say, learned, but it's more from a adaptation point of view, which is, you understand your organisation strategy, you understand the business strategy, and you therefore, build your program, which is directly aligned to that. I'm not saying it's then a shoe in and you're going to get agreement, but it's harder then for any dissent, because you can go, “This is what we set out as the strategy. This is what we believe is right. This is what the stats tell us. Therefore, we're going to build a program that completely underpins that, as well as driving demand generation.” 

That was the other thing that compared to previous lives, a lot of my thought leadership has all been about brand positioning and brand awareness. With Protolabs and the commercial drive that we've got and the growth drive that we've got as an organisation, it was that parallel learning that we had to do. I think, that was the element in terms of that sell back into the organisation from that perspective. 

[00:20:46] DOM HAWES: A lot of people listening to this are going to be marketers in organisations that haven't yet scaled to the degree that you have, but they may be just as commercially driven. If you're going to give them one takeaway, would it be that, if you want to change engines mid-flight, only change one at a time? Introducing thought leadership when you're not actually dismantling the existing marketing program? I can see that you're morphing things. It's an evolution, not revolution inclusion. 

[00:21:09] PETER RICHARDS: Yeah, exactly. I think the, again, coming back to that earlier comment about how where we targeted and measured, if, for example, I go four weeks without any prospect generation, because I'm doing fantastic brand awareness and thought leadership, that four weeks has become a trend in our business, which is – and we're then bombing. How do you then turn that background? You've got to do that parallel activity from that point of view and you've got to be able to also, in an organisation that is heavily driven by the numbers, I know every organisation is, but from a marketing point of view, I could go the other way with my finance director, which is, well, you get so much return your [inaudible 00:21:50] on PPC is four to one. While you're putting money into brand activity, because your [inaudible 00:21:57], there's no [inaudible 00:21:58] in terms of what you're doing, so just put it into PPC. 

[00:22:01] DOM HAWES: There are plenty of organisations that do exactly that, by the way. Short-term, they do well, or long-term they decline. Because of course, they don't have a brand. 

[00:22:08] PETER RICHARDS: Yeah, exactly. I think, the added complexity that's and yeah, going back to that brand positioning piece, if I were on the clock about five years when I looked at the data, we had an impression share of about 80% on all of our external positioning from a pay point of view. If I look at it now, it's reduced, because the competitive landscape has changed. because that competitive landscape’s changed, I then got to do more work to try and build that brand profile and get the education out there. It really is a balance. 

At the moment, when I came into the organisation, it was most probably 90-10. 90% demand generation, 10% on brand. We're at a stage now where we're moving towards most probably, 39% brand, or just pure brand work with the remainder. My math has certainly gone out of my head. 

[00:22:58] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Say 40-60. Yes. That’s pretty good. 

[00:22:59] PETER RICHARDS: Yeah, 40-60, in terms of that position. That's where we're trying to get to. Because the added complexity that we've got is you can't just keep thinking that you're going to grow continually without any evolution, and without having product enhancements. It's not as if we're changing the way that we produce things dramatically. Yes, we'll get more materials we can use to produce things with. Yes, we got a few more technologies we can do in 3D printing that we can use from a development point of view. Fundamentally, the offer is the same. 

[00:23:28] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Yeah. You guys have obviously had tremendous success in terms of PPC and how it's evolved for you and starting out with Yahoo, and then moving to now, what do you think about the future of that? Because it becomes a black hole, doesn't it? To which you just have to keep throwing more money to get the same results. 

[00:23:45] PETER RICHARDS: Yeah, it's heartburn, I describe it as. Because when you look at the amounts of money that you're paying, we're in a really competitive marketplace. From that point of view, you continue to question, how can we get more out of this? There's that point. The other point is then, how you further build up your SEO strategy to supplement your PPC, as well from that point of view. Also, then beauty of Google, they change something in the algorithm and it's not performing as it was. You then go back to one line and say, when you're having the conversation and it's – well, that's not how it is. It's something we continually review. We've got guys that are continually working on it and it is challenging. It's really challenging from that point of view. 

I think, we are starting to get this viewpoint of where do we see diminishing returns? It's at that level now where we're trying to do that analysis to go, right, actually, we're throwing money at this, but we're not seeing the true return. As you mentioned earlier, we've done some fairly in-depth modelling now on our return on advertising spend. We can see the countries now where it doesn't perform that well for us, where we're seeing your return of, say, below – obviously, below one. It doesn't make sense. We've got countries that are performing in that level. 

[00:25:01] SAMANTHA LOSEY: That's so interesting. 

[00:25:03] PETER RICHARDS: Then, you then flick it and you look at it – You look at that annually and you go, “Oh, it’s crap.” You then look at it monthly and go, “Well, I don’t know, there are 10 to one return in December. Why was that?” You're then trying to go through that approach as well. 

[00:25:13] DOM HAWES: The problem, I mean, I can't mention numbers, because obviously, they're sensitive, but you have enormous for B2B, a B2B organisation, I think you have an enormous Google budget. The problem with the complexity of that is the more granular you go, the more confusing the results get, in my experience, as you say, because annually, something doesn't make sense. Monthly, it might make sense. Then if you start looking at your ad distribution on the highly targeted words into the long tail, at what stage do you stop analysing, I guess? It's really hard. I think, a lot of B2B organisations partly don't bother, because it's just too hard. 

[00:25:48] PETER RICHARDS: Yeah. I think we've been at stages in meetings where we've had tense meetings with my online team, which is you're giving me information, I'm not getting any insight from this. Tell me something. 

[00:25:59] DOM HAWES: Good one [inaudible 00:26:00]. 

[00:26:00] PETER RICHARDS: Yeah, exactly. We then go through attribution modelling and yeah, we look at that. Then, because that evolves retrospectively monthly, so you look at it one week and that chart then gets shared out within the organisation. Everybody has a naked panic running down the corridors going, “Performance is really bad.” Then, you then come back a week later and the attribution has changed, because that's the way it's done with NGA. 

[00:26:25] DOM HAWES: Do you use any tools to help you manage the whole AdWords program? Because I know there are some pretty smart – I wouldn't call a middleware, but the intermediary technologies that use a bit of AI to try and help you optimise and – 

[00:26:36] PETER RICHARDS: Not at the moment. We've got a team of really talented individuals in that space at the moment. We're putting more into the people resource than, say, the automated resource in that element really, Dom. 

[00:26:46] SAMANTHA LOSEY: That's really interesting. I love that. As I always advocate human Avery AI and set into degrees. Is that because you find that that's the best way to connect and make those human components make sense on top of the data? Because I think, often, data in isolation is just a number, as opposed to a context in a set of things. I think, human beings are often very good at interpreting that data, so that you have relativity. 

[00:27:10] PETER RICHARDS: Yes, I think, that's a fair point, Samantha, in terms of we want to try and understand what's happening. Yes, Google will make recommendations on different elements, which we do obviously take onboard as well. I think, it's having the team there to actually try and analyse the results, as opposed to us looking to put another software alive in. We are open to technology as a business. We do a lot of test and learn with other software platforms, but we've been burnt by that as well. A lot of the software doesn't necessarily –  

[00:27:42] DOM HAWES: I think we're going to come on to that absolutely next. Before we go, let's get some takeaways for listeners on pay per click. I'm a B2B organisation. This is really generic, but I'm going to put you on the spot. Should I, or should I not be using Google AdWords? 

[00:27:57] PETER RICHARDS: Should you, or should you not be using Google AdWords? It depends on your audience, I think is the key thing. You need to really understand your audience and how they're accessing your service. The difference that we have with our service offering is there's an instant gratification, if I use that terminology, which is that click on the ad. If they've got a design, a cut design, they'll go to get a quote. You've got that instant channel. If you're in an organisation, and if you take some of the previous roles where I've been in consulting, doing PPC for consulting doesn't necessarily make sense, because you actually are trying to do more about the depth of the organisation, the quality of the advice that's given, and you're leveraging that through advice that you're giving as well from a thought leadership point of view. I think it’s, I don't want to skirt the question and be a politician in my answer, but it is dependent upon your audience. 

[00:28:51] DOM HAWES: Do you believe that businesses that run a PPC campaign get an SEO lift? 

[00:28:56] PETER RICHARDS: I don't know. We do a lot of work on SEO as well. We monitor keywords on a monthly basis to make sure that they're performing well. The added complexity we've got is I've got nine languages. I've got to do that in nine languages as well. Yeah, my pigeon German and pigeon French, that makes it difficult and it makes it difficult for the same, because my digital team is based in the UK. I've got regional marketeers that are inputting on that basis. Does PPC give an SEO lift? I don't know, but we also – you can't do PPC without SEO. 

[00:29:28] DOM HAWES: Great answer. Okay. I'm going to take this as a summary from this little section of the podcast is, if you are B2B and you are in a sales process that isn't too complicated, or deep, PPC might be a good place to look at. There's no point in doing it, unless you already do SEO. 

[00:29:44] PETER RICHARDS: Correct. 

[00:29:45] DOM HAWES: Brilliant. Right. Let's move on to talk about the future. We discussed when we were talking about doing this podcast, AI and the use of technology in the sales pipeline in the sales channel. I believe, you guys did a lot of testing with demand-based technology and trying to use intent-based data to predict actions and activity from your customer bases. What was your experience with that? 

[00:30:10] PETER RICHARDS: Yeah, I think the sales pitch is great. I'll put that one across first. I think, those technologies work, if you've got a single buyer in an organisation. Where if you take our business, I've got, say, multiple design engineers in an automotive business. Knowing that somebody from Aston Martin has searched for prototyping and their journey before they got there, before they put that keyword in, with the intent-based marketing, I can't get it down to the individual level. I can't then alter my engagement strategy, because all I know is the blob. I shouldn't use that, because I would apply it. The blob of the organisation. 

[00:30:53] SAMANTHA LOSEY: The beautiful blob. 

[00:30:54] PETER RICHARDS: It is searching for these, it is in the search terms, it doesn't help me. Now, I hope the sales pitch would argue about, okay, you start to then do some more conditioning to educate that organisation about what you do and ultimately, it will come good. 

[00:31:08] SAMANTHA LOSEY: That's a big if, isn't it? 

[00:31:10] PETER RICHARDS: Yeah, exactly that. Yeah. I think, that's the challenge that we found with it, which was we couldn't get down to that granular level of detail. It may work for organisations where you've got a single buyer. Yeah, I find in 10 days, also throws up loads of false positives. That's our experience of it, that just because someone’s searching for prototyping, it doesn't mean they want a prototype. They could be looking for a manual on prototyping, or a book on prototyping, or a job in prototyping, or anything in prototyping, frankly. I get that. You guys have found a better way of using technology to improve your conversions. 

Yes. We've also then started to look at, basically, we get a lot of customers come onto our platform that will just ask for quotes, because the way our platform works is we provide – I know it sounds cliché, free quotes. We provide a quote back on what they can produce. Now, what we were then saying is, how do we get that audience to convert quicker for us? Because they've been given a quote, so we know there's an intent from that point of view. How can we use technology to try and assist in that process? We've engaged with another AI tool, which is actually email-based, which then stimulates the conversation with the customer, which is I notice, you've received the quote, is there anything we can help you with? Or, to try and drive them towards actually getting them to convert, or take a call from our sales team. 

It works in, where are we? We've got it running in four languages. We had one instance where we had a design engineer sitting in Germany. AI agent reached out to this individual in German, obviously. The guy replied back in half German, half English, which was basically, “I've just moved to Munich. Do you mind if we continue in English?” The AI agent recognised that and replied back, resulted in a call and resulted in a conversion. 

[00:32:52] DOM HAWES: Did the AI agent also reply back half German, half English? 

[00:32:55] PETER RICHARDS: Just replied back in English. The beauty of it is and going back to that earlier point as well, Dom, where we're looking at seeing like, okay, how can we start to automate some of that process for us? We're then getting more assistance into the sales queue, because what we are then providing into sales are, you're more highly qualified and queue out. You're moving from, well, we've just created a list of people that have randomly hovered over our websites, and we give that sales to follow up. There's no interest there. All the way into, right, this customer has said they want a call, because of this interaction. You go in through that qualification process. For us, it works. 

[00:33:35] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Is there a percentage transformation in terms of where that sits, how much converts from that? 

[00:33:40] PETER RICHARDS: From the ones that then come through from the agent, we've seen a three to one conversion. 

[00:33:44] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Wow. Okay. Yeah. 

[00:33:46] PETER RICHARDS: It's been fantastic for us. 

[00:33:47] DOM HAWES: You must have some good behaviour economists working on your team, because that – I mean, automation done clumsily is the worst thing in the world. Actually, my favourite one, what I get all the time is, “This is the last time I'll write to you.” They’re trying to nudge me into doing something. Actually, I'm thinking, “Excellent. Leave me alone. Go ahead.” 

[00:34:06] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Finally. 

[00:34:08] DOM HAWES: You guys work with behavioural nudges and stuff all the time and automation. Advice for people listening to this. How would you go about doing automation that works? 

[00:34:18] SAMANTHA LOSEY: I think that's really complicated. Again, I think the answer to that is audience, fundamentally. Well, something that is annoying to you, Dom, like I'm going to stop writing to you now. For someone else, it’s deeply emotional. They feel very moved by that and they’re going to write back, “Please, auto bot. Don't stop talking to me.” I think that fundamentally, if you understand your audience well, then automation is a tool in a tool box, as opposed to the answer to everything. How you do it well really is fundamentally about understanding your brand, I think. 

[00:34:52] PETER RICHARDS: Yeah. I'd also state these things don't work out of the box. For the AI – 

[00:34:57] SAMANTHA LOSEY: You need to try, don’t you? 

[00:34:59] PETER RICHARDS: You train it, okay. You basically train it and it's got certain skills. You build up the skill profile. Again, from the learning points of view and for any sales people from a tech company listening, there's a recognition in the marketing community that these things, we're not fools in terms of what we're going to get sold to. We want something that works and we want something that integrates seamlessly as well. I think, there's that points as well. There is that point of from the sales process to go live, what's the time scale, and that learning that the organisation goes through? 

Also, we've had bumps in the road. We've had bumps in the road where the agent has communicated with somebody, and they were on the do-not-email list, all of those sorts of things as well. Then that causes much excitement in the business and everybody says, the agent is shit. Get rid of it. You look at it and go, “Well, that's one reply out of 50 for the week”. 

[00:35:57] SAMANTHA LOSEY: It's lucky that you have that queue, isn't it? Where you've got the free quote component. Because that immediately moves you to a different cycle in the behavioural process, which that nudge behaviour, it gives you so much data to work with then, that then must the AI must be really learning quickly off the back of, okay, quotes given. Then we have these many interactions. How many touch-points is it before we actually convert someone? What does that look like? How are they interacting with it? You've got a lot of nice data to play with there. Is it sometimes too much data? 

[00:36:27] PETER RICHARDS: Yes, it is. I think, your summary there, Samantha, is academically correct. We've got elements of those data, those touch points. Are we able to look at every single interaction that we've got with the customer? Yes, we can get to that. Do we review that continually? 

[00:36:43] SAMANTHA LOSEY: You’d be constantly [inaudible 00:36:45]. 

[00:36:46] PETER RICHARDS: Yeah, I'd have an army of people. Because even when we've done some journey mapping, you look at the thing you go through with the customer journey. Customer first came to us through SEO. Then orders, and then next time they come around, they click the bloody PPC out. You’re going, “How do they do that?” 

[00:37:04] SAMANTHA LOSEY: They're diversifying the themselves. 

[00:37:05] DOM HAWES: Yeah, exactly. You’re just making me pay for you. 

[00:37:07] DOM HAWES: There’s nothing strange within customers. 

[00:37:08] PETER RICHARDS: Yeah. Those sorts of points as well. Then, I think the important thing as well with that example is, well, okay, what did you learn from that? That’s the key thing. That's, I think, the difficulty that we've all got in marketing models, which is, how do you learn from the data that you're seeing? What are you going to do with that data? As opposed to, “Ta-da. Here's the spread of data. This is what's happened over this week, right? What are we going to do?” 

[00:37:29] SAMANTHA LOSEY: That I think is really where the behavioural and the human analytical component comes in. I think, adds a new dimension that AI as of yet is not able to add. 

[00:37:39] PETER RICHARDS: Yeah. I think, the other points is as well, certainly for us, which is because we're e-commerce-driven, our direct engagement with the customer can be – the search point can be slightly removed. Actually, doing more customer insight, understanding the journey that the customer went through. Actually, what was your search journey? What did you do before you got to us? Understanding that. We’re doing focus groups just before lockdown to try and get into that mode in more detail. We've now started to do more of that across Europe. Because again, the added challenges and this is the really unique thing when you look at the European markets, is if we send a short email to a German customer, compared to a longer email, the longer email performs better than the short email. 

[00:38:25] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Amazing. I love behaviour. 

[00:38:27] PETER RICHARDS: They want more of the detail, and they don't want to be sold to. Whereas, you take it with a UK customer – 

[00:38:32] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Short, concise. 

[00:38:33] PETER RICHARDS: Exactly. You got your AB test. The short one’s winning. 

[00:38:36] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Makes your life more difficult, doesn't it? 

[00:38:37] PETER RICHARDS: Makes it more exciting. 

[00:38:38] SAMANTHA LOSEY: More exciting. 

[00:38:40] PETER RICHARDS: I think, it's that learning that you go through continually. 

[00:38:42] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Yeah. 

[00:38:43] DOM HAWES: Okay. Thank you. Well, look, time's marching on. I want to do a quick-fire question again now. You may not want to answer this, but I'm going to ask you anyway, because we've talked about AI, automation, customer journey mapping and integration. What's your tech stack? 

[00:38:56] PETER RICHARDS: We'll go from, we've got engagement with Google in terms of PPC, that level. We've got standard CRM tools that we're using in terms of management there. We've got also optimisation tools that we're looking with Google, so Moz, and you have some SEO performance tracking tools with Angular AI sitting in the sales queue as well. We then got reporting with Domo. We’re a Domo house in terms of our posing engine. 

[00:39:21] DOM HAWES: If there's one piece of marketing technology that you're going to recommend to listeners, who maybe are not very technologically advanced, what would it be and where would you start? 

[00:39:28] PETER RICHARDS: I would explore the AI piece. I've been amazed. I think, our own organisation has been really, it's opened our eyes up to how advanced the technology is, and also, how you can apply it. The final point is I've got sales agents sitting in the country. I've got four sales agents. They’re part of a sales team, and they've all got names. I've got Matthew, Simona, Nicole and Ashley. 

[00:39:56] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Amazing. 

[00:39:57] PETER RICHARDS: Yeah. They're part of the team. It's incredible. I would explore that further for somebody that's looking at this space, that's got a transactional element to their sales process. 

[00:40:07] DOM HAWES: Brilliant. Well, I can't believe that for more than 40 minutes has shot by since we started talking. Peter, thank you very much, indeed, for coming to join us. It’s been really interesting. 

[00:40:16] PETER RICHARDS: Thank you, Dom. Thanks, Samantha. 

[00:40:17] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Thank you. 

[00:40:18] DOM HAWES: Yeah. We look forward to getting you back when you guys reach the 2 billion. 

[00:40:23] PETER RICHARDS: Because that won’t be long. Thank you. 

[END OF INTERVIEW] 

[00:40:28] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Amazing. It's really exciting to get such an internal view of what's going on with the business that you don't necessarily know, how big their spend is, or what different things they're trying. I was so impressed by their stack. Tech stack terrifies me. 

[00:40:42] DOM HAWES: Yeah. Peter went into really some good detail there about a lot of stuff. It's hard to know where to start, but something that really, really jumped out at me was his advice. When you arrive in an organisation, or if you need to change what you're doing. It sounds really obvious, but sometimes when you're faced with these things, you don't think about it. Step one is understand where you are. 

[00:41:03] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Yeah. Take a look around you. Get to grips with what's there in existence and don't rush in, I think, was something he was saying, wasn't he? You can't change everything overnight. Test and learn was clearly a big part of what they do. 

[00:41:14] DOM HAWES: Yeah. Step one, understand where you are. Then two, again, it sounds so bloody obvious, but a lot of people don't do it. Analyse where your fastest converting opportunities are, which is exactly what he did. 

[00:41:26] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Yeah, absolutely. Then understand how and why that is. It's really interesting to see if they're doing anything different with those sectors, or if it's the same marketing activity that's just converting faster, and really understanding the why, I think, then gets them to how they're using things like AI to be impactful. 

[00:41:42] DOM HAWES: Yeah. He mentioned those things at the beginning and then right at the end, he came out with a really great, great concept, which is the challenge of marketing is, is how do you learn from your data? 

[00:41:53] SAMANTHA LOSEY: 100%. I think, that's something that is absolutely terrifying for marketing professionals at the moment, because they're constantly being told measure, measure, measure. We're absolutely inundated with data. If there's not a throughline in the data that you're looking for, there's not a narrative to overlay it. It's just a lot of numbers that nobody knows really what to do with. 

[00:42:12] DOM HAWES: That's the difference between information and insight, I guess. To get insight, you have to be able to understand what's going on, which brings us to correlation and causation and all these other – 

[00:42:19] SAMANTHA LOSEY: I love the fact that they are still using human beings to do that, because from my perspective, that really is the right choice, but that's really interesting, because they're obviously very advanced with their use of AI. The fact that they've got that human level to analyse the data and pull out the insights and give them the why, I think, says a lot for the way you blend the two. 

[00:42:37] DOM HAWES: I think it's interesting, because I used to do a lot of work for an SME, and they had one of these pieces of, I don't know what you even call it. It's not middleware. It sits between you and Google ads. It’s meant to optimise and automatically bid for you. If you want to be average, it’s great, because they will average everything brilliant. I get the point using humans. I mean, not a lot not a lot of companies, I think, have the resource to be able to do that. By the sound of it, from what Peter's saying, actually, maybe that's a false saving. 

[00:43:07] SAMANTHA LOSEY: I think that does seem like the case, right? I mean, it's a really strange situation, where you've got him to talk about his AI, let the members of his team, but also, using human beings to do something most people would try and use some middleware to. It's clearly something that they've tested and learned and learned how to work with, so that it suits their needs, which I think is the key takeaway for marketers. 

[00:43:29] DOM HAWES: Cool. There's one other thing that struck me in this. You've already given the key takeaway. This is an interesting one. We talked about ABM, or you talked about ABM. You introduced ABM. Obviously, it's a hot topic for us as an organisation. 

[00:43:40] SAMANTHA LOSEY: It is. 

[00:43:41] DOM HAWES: It's a hot topic in B2B. He said, in ABM where it works, where you're strategically important. 

[00:43:47] SAMANTHA LOSEY: It's really interesting point, isn't it? 

[00:43:49] DOM HAWES: Isn't it? Isn’t it? Yeah. If you talked a lot of ABM as they talk about ticket price. They don't necessarily talk about how important you are to the organisation. I thought that was a really interesting clarification. Because ticket price actually depends on how big your target customer is. £250,000 is a ticket price to a global market leader. 

[00:44:08] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Yeah, exactly. 

[00:44:09] DOM HAWES: It's probably too low a ticket price to have the attention of anyone strategically. Whereas, for a small company, of course you may end up being their biggest supplier. I thought that was a really interesting observation that ABMs would be good to take note of. 

[00:44:22] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Yeah. No, I totally agree. I think, it talks about that whole flow of communications working together, doesn't it? No individual discipline is going to solve the problem, as opposed to really carefully connected set of different things coming together to give you a 360 picture, which clearly, they're doing a great job of doing. 

[00:44:38] DOM HAWES: Look, you gave us our key takeaway. Then I said, there was going to be one more thing. Actually, I'm going to do one more as well. Because this one's really important and it strikes to the heart of who we are, which is that whole balancing utility and magic, building brands for the long-term and driving performance in the short-term. In consultancy, this must be something you see all the time. What is the silver bullet? 

[00:44:58] SAMANTHA LOSEY: I think, that absolutely is a silver bullet in that it's about understanding your organisation and your audience and really appreciating that they are very cyclical. You have moments where you have to be driving brand awareness much harder and you have moments where you have to be driving direct sales. Obviously, those two channels need to run together all of the time, and I naturally, as a brand specialist, will lean towards putting more money into brand. The reality is, you can't neglect one child and overfeed the other and have a healthy family. 

[00:45:26] DOM HAWES: Well, you know what? On that note, Samantha, I think it's time we end. Thank you very much, indeed, for listening, everybody. We will see you next time on Unicorny. 

[00:45:35] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Thank you. 

[00:45:39] DOM HAWES: That is the end of today's show. If you would like to subscribe to us, please do go to your favourite podcast outlet and you will find us there. If you want to be on the show, my name is Dom Hawes. Look me up on LinkedIn, connect, and I would love to talk to you. This show is put together by Selbey Anderson. We find and unlock hidden value. The show is recorded at Terminal Studios, which you can find at terminalstudios.co.uk. See you next time.