Think Smart Marketing ThinkSmart.groupsite.com

We had a fascintating meeting with Rinus Visser of Cantab Marketing last week. His company specialises in telemarketing on a global basis in the IT sector.

We share a German client and we were discussing the relative differences /challenges that he had found in telemarketing in mainland Europe as opposed to the UK.

Rinus felt that mainland Europe was much more open to telemarketing approaches and that it was comparatively straightforward to reach senior decision makers in organisations of all sizes and then have a sensible and indepth conversation.

It seems the same is not true of the UK, in that ..

We've been looking a lot at Social Media and Web 2.0 strategies. Many of our clients are keen to get to grips with exactly how and indeed if these tools and technologies can benefit them as "serious" b2b organisations.

I think without a doubt, the answer is yes...(probably or maybe eventually!)...but undoutedly they can and they will. The next question is how?

Twitter is a form of "micro blogging". Like all good marketing, it brings people together, it aids discussion and encourages debate, it disseminates information and creates viral "adoption".

The really facinating thing is how the business world and social ..

Having been "client-side" and now running a business "agency-side", I get the benefit of both perspectives. The one thing that suprises me above all, is that clients are almost too happy with a simple transactional relationship with their marketing providers.

I see organisations lose no end of opportunity because they don't engage better and get more out of the relationship with their suppliers.

Don't forget that the agencies that serve you today have fantastic peripheral vision. They work across any number of clients and potentially across any number of industries. They stay in business and become valued and trusted partners ..

It's no secret that large organisations find it difficult to translate the business agenda into sales and marketing activity.

Some corporate bodies have grown so large that while there's plenty of excellent innovation at the senior levels, actually getting anything out the door or off the ground in its originally intended format is almost impossible.

Internal politics, departmental allocations and resource issues have long been a quagmire of doom for the larger organisation. Little wonder smaller more agile companies seen to be...more agile in terms of getting to market.

Until recently the larger organisation had two options:

1. Never get anything ..

OK so now all bets are off. The World is a very different place.  Big, previously institutional brands are in trouble and everything we've held dear is in doubt.

Phew!

So now is it OK to say STOP!?

Now can we all finally agree that marketing is not about how much you can spend, or how much stuff you can push out the door or whether it's a telemarketing excercise or a brochure or a logo or an event or even (believe it or not) a press release?!

Could it be that marketing is actually about helping our clients' organisations to ..

It seems that more and more organisations are deciding they can now “do without”.  They can do without large marketing departments, teams of; project, product and programme managers, channel managers, strategists, heads of verticals and the layers of dedicated people who just “do” the marketing.  

For those making the undeniably tough decision to “downsize” it’s a bitter pill to swallow. They know that it may well, for a time at least, ease the burden on the business financially, but the initial sense of respite will  be swiftly followed by the cold wind of realization that ..