B2B Outbound

As a B2B marketing agency, Punch! is always looking to partner with the most innovative tech companies with tools that can make a difference for its clients and propel them towards their goals. Today, Punch! is pleased to announce a new partnership with Drift, the high-performance conversational marketing platform.

Introducing Drift

The startup, which this week announced its unicorn status says it is out to “reimagine the B2B buying experience.” By using its software, Drift’s 50,000 customers can bring together sales and marketing teams on one platform to deliver personalised conversations.

Drift’s conversational marketing platform adds a new layer of performance in account-based marketing approaches. As an agency, Punch! spends a lot of time and puts a lot of effort into driving traffic from target accounts to its clients’ websites and landing pages. Before Drift, visitors may not get the support they need at that moment, and they lose interest. A Drift chatbot closes that loop, stopping you from losing leads and also by adding a bit of spice to the conversion. 

The Drift tool also integrates with other solutions that Punch! recommends to its clients –  including Turtl and Cyance. When you combine these tools, you create something more than just a tech stack; it’s an ecosystem that drives unparalleled growth.

Driving Future Growth

As an agency obsessed with growth, Punch! is looking forward to getting started with its new partner. Drift will help the agency support its clients through the end-to-end customer journey; cutting through the sales cycle and capturing more high-quality leads. 

“Clients come to Punch! because we’re one of the few agencies in the market that understand the entire funnel. Our background is sales, so the growth mindset is firmly bedded into our culture. We are approached by a lot of challenger brands who are looking to be disruptive in the market; they need support from building awareness all the way through to closing opportunities to drive their growth plans. We know how to bring all that together - where marketing powers sales and sales powers marketing. Tools like Drift are exciting because it fits in with the entire customer journey. When you combine the power of Drift with our fundamental sales expertise to get more deals over the line, significant revenue growth is sure to follow.”

Chris Muldoon
Co-founder & Managing Director, Punch!

Sort Out Your Stack for Good

After spending the best part of the past two years confined to the same four walls, it was a pleasure to be able to attend The Martech Alliance’s #MarTechFest in-person at London’s Magazine back in October.

With over 20 hours of content, and an agenda designed to address the challenges faced by everyone who uses, sells or manages martech, I was looking forward to seeing what the industry’s leading thinkers had to say about the current state of play.

Arguably the fastest moving and progressive subsector of the marketing world, the global martech market is now worth somewhere in the region of $344.8bn. I know firsthand that many of our clients find their martech stacks overwhelming and impossible to navigate, so it was no surprise that customer experience was the hottest topic discussed during #MarTechFest 2021.

According to a recent study, 60% of marketers are using over 20 different tools to do their jobs every day. No wonder you’re feeling overwhelmed. The way I see it, a clunky process behind the scenes equals a clunky experience all-round. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Martech is designed to make your life easier and to optimise the experience of your customers. If it’s not currently doing it for you, it certainly won’t be doing it for them.

So, before you sign up to another tool, you need to sort out your current stack and make sure it's doing what it's supposed to do. I’ve seen too many marketers using tech like bandaids to try and fix problems caused by their existing set-up.

Here are my tips on how you can start 2022 off on the right track.

Three new year’s resolutions for sorting out your stack

1. Think customer-first
   Start the new year by mapping out your current customer journey and identifying every touchpoint. Your martech ecosystem should be built around this journey, and you don’t need me to tell you it's not a linear one. Nevertheless, by completing this exercise you should be able to quickly identify any redundant/ duplicate tools in your stack. A good place to start at least.
   
2. Consolidate
   Next, consider the providers that can support you for more than one stage of the customer journey, or for multiple use-cases. For example, HubSpot offers tools for inbound marketing, sales and customer service. At Punch!, we have consolidated our own martech stack around HubSpot sales and marketing solutions, which has in turn allowed us to retire martech that doesn’t integrate seamlessly. Our partnership with HubSpot also allows us to implement and manage solutions on behalf of Punch! clients (a value-add if you’re one of those struggling with a monster stack!).
   
3. Stop paying for stuff you aren’t using
   My third tip sounds like common sense but I’ve seen so many marketers forking out for tools they do not use. I just have to call it out. If you don’t need it now, you probably never will. I’d recommend this as a good end-of-year activity. It’s rewarding and it will win you bonus points with your finance team. Plus - who wouldn’t want that extra bit of budget back to spend on a campaign or a nice piece of content?

Getting these foundations right will put you in a good position to start leveraging martech to really optimise your marketing efforts and provide a seamless experience for your customers and prospects.

And, if you’re really stuck, we’d be more than happy to help. To arrange a martech audit, contact your Punch! team or reach out to me directly  - jack.mercer@punchabm.com 

Further Reading

Some food for thought from Punch!’s industry’s-leading technology partners.

The science that busts the myth about content engagement - Turtl

Discover how Lumen and 3M research is putting content and engagement in a new light. Happily, you don’t need to hire your own team of attention scientists. Simply follow the research and you’ll give yourself an edge over many of your peers.

How to make marketing more human - Drift

Potential buyers are looking for a unique experience, but true personalisation takes time and effort that many teams just don’t have. Companies like Drift are making it possible for sales and marketing teams to create individually personalised experiences at scale, allowing you to unlock the rewards of personalisation without sacrificing your ability to get your message to a wider audience.

The 2021 state of modern marketing - Terminus

Learn how teams plan to revolutionise their traditional marketing approaches to tackle the demise of third-party data and the journey towards ABM maturity. This report is not to be missed.

Research reports don’t have to be boring. But how many times have you been confronted by an 80-page PDF monster of wall-to-wall text? It’s time to change that.

We trawled the internet looking for examples that did research reports differently. And these seven stood out as the best and the brightest. So here are seven simple tips to bring a research report to life.

1. Be Characterful - Mailchimp

Brand characters are a staple of television ads. But how often do you encounter them as controllable avatars guiding you through an annual report? That’s the standout feature of MailChimp’s colourful, characterful, and memorable roundup of 2020.

Aside from being a quirky navigation tool, MailChimp’s cartoon guide also prevents the bane of many a good research report — people scrolling right past your key findings. MailChimp’s U-shaped stroller creates a leisurely, linear path through the report. This means the reader can digest the insights easily without being overwhelmed by a bombardment of information.

Our expert’s opinion:

‘The horizontal scroll is really cool, it’s different to your common vertical scroll. When you scroll horizontally, it’s like you’re moving through a landscape, not just a report, which really adds to the experience.’

• Ellis Wells, Designer at Punch!

Check out the full report

2. Embrace Immersion - Wetransfer

Reports rarely get as interactive or immersive as this — the third edition of the WeTransfer Ideas Report. With the chance to read, play, or watch, it’s a dynamic, triple-pronged experience.

The built-in game is a powerful way of bringing to life the topic of this report — Creativity in the Wake of the Pandemic. You play as a small, oily marble searching through the sand for ‘moments of reflection’. At each moment, you're asked a question. For example: how creative have you been feeling lately? Your answers accumulate across the levels to eventually provide a comforting review of your year, informed by relevant insights pulled from the report. It’s a unique way of reducing the report into useful, targeted information.    

Our expert’s opinion:

‘Even if you don’t absorb all the content in this report, it leaves a fantastic brand impression, the sheer levels of creativity going on. Of course, it’s aimed at a creative audience, but it just goes to show that insights are more memorable when you incorporate interactivity.’

• Anna Dormidontova, Designer at Punch!

Check out the full report

3. Live Your Message - Thanks in Advance

Digital files are stored on physical servers, which use up energy. This report does some vital work by examining the environmental impact of our online activities. It’s all in order to answer one simple question: Is the Earth’s inbox full?

The copy uses imaginative and accessible comparisons to bring the report’s findings to life. Take this cracker: ‘All the inboxes in the world consume enough energy to fill up Loch Ness 18 times.’ Contrasting colours and SVG animations make the accompanying visuals attractively simple. At the same time, this report, built as a web page, is 97% greener than the average website. It lives and breathes its message of digital sustainability.

Our expert’s opinion:

‘This report does so many things right, from cloud-hosted web fonts to hosting servers powered by green energy. It’s a testament to the less is more philosophy and shows the impact you can make when you live your message.’

• Ellis Wells, Designer at Punch!

Check out the full report

4. Utilise the Power of White Space - Lions

Lions’ report, ‘The State of Creativity’, explores similar territory to WeTransfer’s report. But this time, rather than a tour-de-force in interactivity, we get schooling in clean visuals, digestible copy, and beautiful layouts.

Nobody likes a wall of text, no matter how well researched it is. So, it’s great to see Lions deploying white space expertly. At crucial moments in the report, it draws attention to key visuals and copy with clever layouts. In addition, whole pages are dedicated to certain headlines or quotes, ensuring the most important ideas are as close to unmissable as possible.

Our expert’s eye:

‘Even 40 pages into this 58-page report, it doesn’t exhaust the eye. And amongst all that white space, the colours! Pastel grey, autumn gold, and then you end up in that warm honeycomb yellow. The right colours in the right shade are invaluable when it comes to readability.’

• Diego Arroyo, Creative Lead at Punch!

Check out the full report

5. Know the Competition - Hubspot

What’s nice about HubSpot’s ‘Not Another State of Marketing Report’ is its self-awareness. They know their industry is saturated with similar reports, so they’ve taken the step to poke fun at that in their title.

They’re aware of their competition, so they’re asserting their industry knowledge. Although their title claims distinction, they’re not just any old state of marketing report, which suggests new findings and novel insights to the reader. Like all the reports we’ve singled out, a simple, uncluttered layout means that this data-heavy narrative is also still easy to scan.

Our expert’s eye:

‘A cover page sells that first impression, not only of your report but of your brand, so it’s important to get it right not just from a design perspective, but from a copy perspective too. HubSpot does that fantastically.’

• Ellis Wells, Designer at Punch!

Check out the full report

6. Be Flexible - Terminus

It’s the fifth year of Terminus’s State of ABM Report, which investigates the key trends and patterns circulating in the ABM world. The addition of subtle animations and a flexible navigation system adds life to what could have been a dry subject.

Where MailChimp’s characterful report created a linear journey through their findings, Terminus allows readers to navigate to whichever chapter they please. Your readers are always running out of time, so it’s essential to give them a route to the most valuable information. If that differs from reader to reader, you may want to think about taking a similar approach to Terminus. It’s a refreshing change not having to scroll through an endless PDF.

Our expert’s eye:

‘This is an informative design. It makes everything easy to digest, and the animations, whenever you transition, make the graphs and copy pop.’

• Anna Dormidontova, Designer at Punch!    

Check out the full report

7. Even Complex Can Be Simple - Spotify

Spotify’s ‘Culture Next: 2021’ report explores how millennials and gen-Zs have driven a more inclusive and connected cultural landscape through their engagement with audio. True to Spotify’s penchant for playfulness and creativity, they’ve built a brilliantly interactive experience.

This report is all about exploration. Three different rooms with slick transitions of colour and audio unfold like a mystery box to reveal dance floors, kitchens, bedrooms, boardrooms bouncing with life. Despite a complex design and several multi-media elements, a commitment to simple illustration and user-friendly navigation makes for a fun, impressionable experience. As a result, what could have been a disorientating website is highly effective.    

Our expert’s eye:

‘What’s also great about this report is you get two options. You can explore the interactive version of the report, or you can download a PDF and simply read through it, which means the report can work for multiple audiences.’

• Diego Arroyo, Creative Lead at Punch!

Check out the full report

Be Adventurous

Not every report has to be as flashy as MailChimp’s or Spotify’s. Your brand will have its voice and audience, which should inform the structure, tone, and levels of interactivity you build into your report. That said, be adventurous. You never know who will come across your research and what judgments or decisions it will inform. So be characterful, embrace immersion and follow the rest of our lessons to the best of your brand.

We spoke to Martina Schroder, VP of Marketing and Communications at AEVI, to discover her biggest challenges on the path to success, what it's like as a working mother during a global pandemic, and finally, her top tips for creating a memorable marketing campaign.

Fintech Unicorns and Jumping Cold Water

Hi Martina! First up, could you tell us a little more about your role at AEVI?

I’m heading up marketing and communications. My main role is to develop and execute a unified marketing and communications strategy to support AEVI growth plans through clear and consistent positioning, brand equity and multichannel campaigns, globally. So I’m involved in a broad range of marketing comms from events, to PR, to account based marketing. We’re a team of seven but growing quickly. I’ve been with AEVI almost seven years now but time flies! It really doesn’t feel like seven years at all.

And for anyone who doesn’t know, what does AEVI do?

AEVI digitalises the in-person payment world. Our core product is an open cloud payment platform. Merchant-facing businesses such as merchant banks and acquirers can easily connect and upgrade their existing proposition to own their payment infrastructure, by having everything in one place. That way they can easily integrate new payment solutions and new partners, meaning they can scale their business and make it future-proof. We really think that today's product is not just about building something standalone, it’s about a collaborative approach that provides services for whatever comes next in our ever-evolving world.

So how did you end up at AEVI?

I started my professional career in a completely different world, which was not fintech but fashion! For four years I was in fashion management as a product manager. I think this actually helped me to understand retail, which is super useful for my job with AEVI – enabling merchant-facing businesses with solutions for their merchants. Working in fashion helped me understand AEVI’s customers’ customers.

Going from fashion to payments must have been a huge challenge!

After 10 years in payments I think the biggest difficulty was the complex, never ending story of payments. I was joining the payments industry for the first time with only my consumer perspective, I had no clue how complex the back-end really is. To be honest, fashion was easy. But in the payment world I had to understand this massive ecosystem of different players, barriers, and regional requirements. It’s crazy! It really was. And that space, it just exploded. People started to use cashless alternatives, Apple came up with their wallets, phones turned into payment devices. The payment world suddenly woke up, like a sleeping beauty of thirty years, and suddenly I really saw the challenge of understanding the new and the old at the same time. That was really a lot!

What was your biggest challenge during those early days?

The biggest thing was driving the carve out process from our parent company. Establishing a new company in the market, it was like, how do you say in English? Jumping cold waters? We already had a good reputation in the market as we served global clients as a business unit of our mother company. It was a very exciting experience to launch the business under a new brand. Internal comms was my biggest learning curve. When it comes to big things like communicating the mission statement and the company goals, there are different layers you need to address. It always starts with management, and then it filters down. We came up with a structure for communication to address and educate all the different layers, like a kind of internal ambassador programme. That way people could ask questions and they could feel comfortable, they got all the answers in one place. Of course, you also need to consider multicultural differences and hierarchies – how people expect communication. It's important to get internal comms right first. Your people are not only your biggest assets but also your biggest brand ambassadors.

You said you’ve been with AEVI for seven years. How much has the company changed since you started?

A lot! And the changes have been massive. That’s also the reason why I’ve been with AEVI so for a long time, because it's never been the same. It’s not like they hired me for something and I still do the same thing with the same responsibilities. We are growing so quickly, and so do the people, the roles are changing all the time. You have more responsibility. You can add more things to your agenda that you’ve never been able to cover before. It makes it super exciting! When I started out, it was just me writing the newsletters by myself, putting the content together, doing the HTML email and sending it out. But now we’ve got a proper team that thinks about the audience, the content, the copywriting, and tracks the performance of the newsletter. Seven years ago, that was far far away! If you start a new business, you have to bring a good level of hands-on mentality to the table. We were really a start-up, but we quickly started to professionalise marketing operations. That’s been a big driver for change.

What’s been the secret to maintaining AEVI’s success?

We pick the people that believe in our vision, the people that want to be part of the journey, not the people that are only looking for a new job. We have a really defined ‘AEVI person’, like you would with customer audiences. We make sure people fit our values, culture, and mindset. That’s what really drives success, choosing the right people, that’s where it starts. Once you have the right people on board your customers will feel that positive vibe too. Customer happiness is really important, especially in our business. We don’t have a product where you talk to a potential lead and sign a contract after a week or two. It takes time, it takes up to nine months. You have quite a few conversations, you need to address your audience through different channel formats. Lead nurturing plays a big role. Listening to the needs of both prospects and existing clients and providing the information and answers they need to build trust, increase brand awareness, and maintain a good connection during the purchasing process. Also, even though we are growing and professionalising, we still keep the kind of start-up mentality, its agility and flexibility. I think that’s what also drives success as we are able to respond to customer needs quickly.

You’re based in Germany, but you’re in charge of a global team and on top of that you’re a working mum. How do you manage your work-life balance?

I don’t know if I do quite manage it (laughs)! I’m still exploring a little bit, finding the right way. I feel more productive in a home office and I’ve established a routine for myself, my family and also my team. We are getting used to this kind of hybrid situation. People enjoy it. Obviously though, it makes a huge difference when you see each other. We’ve got two new hires in the UK office I talk to daily, but when you see each other and you have a drink that’s the difference. You don’t talk business, you talk life, you get to know each other better than via Teams. I try to do this more often, travelling to the UK at least once a month or letting them come over to Germany. Being a working mother, to combine my professional life with my family life, I have to stay flexible. AEVI has been very supportive in that regard. When I take hours out in the afternoon to spend with my child, I can catch up with two hours in the evening when he's in bed. It provides me a lot of flexibility and it makes me happy.

That’s good to hear! You’ve enjoyed the change and growth at AEVI, so what are your ambitions for the future?

That’s easy. I hope that the dream we had when we created AEVI will come true finally, in a few years, with even more investors supporting us, giving us the bandwidth to grow our teams and to reach even more clients to support their journey of digitalising in-person payments and to become maybe, hopefully, the next unicorn in that fintech space. That is my dream. I would love to support AEVI on that journey, from beginning as a start-up, the concept phase, to growing into a unicorn phase. This would be really really cool.

Finally, whilst we’ve still got you, what are your top tips for creating a memorable marketing campaign?

I'm a big believer in humour. At the end we all are people. Once you have a campaign that is not boring but makes people smile, I think that’s a good campaign. But you can’t gear all your campaigns as super funny. There are of course different campaigns and purposes. Thought leadership serves a different purpose to a LinkedIn talent acquisition campaign. Less is more. I like campaigns where they start with a really good ad, less words but really powerful imagery. It triggers the interest to click the button for more information instead of going into big heavy assets straight away. What’s important is understanding the audience, this is where we all have to improve and learn. I don't know if there ever will be a moment where we understand our audience a hundred percent, since customer expectations are individual perspectives, but this is the most critical bit.

Thanks so much for your time and insights Martina, it’s been great talking to you!

Thanks very much! Have a good rest of the day.

According to Sir David Attenborough; “Saving our planet is now a communications challenge.” And as far as I’m concerned, Sir David’s say is final.

We’re all well aware of the climate emergency - it’s arguably the most significant challenge we’ll face in our lifetimes. In fact, 96% of people working across the UK advertising industry are worried about the impact we as a species are having on the planet.^[1] But if you’re anything like me, the enormity of the situation is so daunting you wonder what, if anything, you can do about it.

I’ll preface this article now by saying that I’m no eco-warrior. Besides following a vegetarian diet and doing my household recycling, I’m in no position to preach about tackling climate change. However, I am making a conscious effort to educate myself and I’d like to take you with me on this journey to becoming net-zero, one step at a time.

Along with my colleague Kim Bennett, I recently became certified in Ad Net Zero Essentials; a new Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) qualification ‘to help people in the advertising and marketing services industries understand the actions to achieve net-zero emissions from the development, production and media placement of advertising by 2030.’

And while I could use this opportunity to take you through each step of the Advertising Association’s plan to get our industry’s climate impact down to net-zero within the next eight years, I’m choosing instead to provide you with my own two pennies’ worth…

Simply doing ‘our bit’ is no longer enough. We all need to be making proactive decisions to drive change, and use our influence as an industry to help people live more environmentally sustainable lives. No biggie.

At Punch!, Kim and I are working closely across our departments to begin implementing some of our learning. These aren’t giant leaps, but they are small steps in the right direction that are easy to action, quickly.

Our commitments:

1. We will use imagery that promotes sustainable choices for our campaigns - such as electric vehicles, reusable containers, and packaging
2. We will highlight and focus on sustainable solutions and initiatives offered by our clients within the work we do - such as this project for Iron Mountain
3. We will challenge briefs from clients to make them more environmentally friendly - such as replacing higher footprint marketing tactics with more sustainable ones

Will these three commitments change the world? No. But we have to start somewhere. And it's better to start with something than nothing, right? Well… not necessarily… it depends on what the ‘something’ is.

Greenwashing is a major part of the problem within our industry: ‘the act of overstating the importance or impact of environmental initiatives, misusing buzzwords or jargon, using vague language or misleading pictures.’ Essentially, it’s covering up a lack of sustainable credentials with ‘green’ brand and marketing strategies. To avoid jumping on the bandwagon, make sure that your copy isn’t exaggerating or implying environmental benefits. Be a good marketer.

Take a leaf (metaphorically of course - otherwise leave leaves alone) out of IKEA’s book. Working with its agency partner, Mother London, it adopted a clever set of OOH ads across London to promote the opening of its sustainable Greenwich store in 2019. The message was simple: travel to our most sustainable store in the most sustainable way.

Image source:

Famous Campaigns

While in comparison our B2B marketing budgets seem fairly humble, this type of concept is easy to replicate. You could say it's like walking the walk, not just talking the talk.

And yes - I did just credit another marketing agency for their fine work. Because it is our collective responsibility to begin the essential journey our industry needs to take. So whether you start today or tomorrow, please just make sure you start.

The time is now. All for none.

Punch! is committed to defining a roadmap in order to become a net-zero agency by 2030. If you would like to be involved in our focus group for sustainability, please contact Deanne Crocker, Marketing Manager, for more information.

[1]  Results from online quantitative research conducted by Credos between April and June 2020, with a sample of 285 people working across the UK advertising industry, cited in The Ad Net Zero Report

Terminus

Looking to level up your ABM skills? This comprehensive free certification course covers the fundamental principles of an account-based marketing strategy, and tactical, real-life recommendations and examples for running ABM campaigns.

The Account-Based Strategy Certification: Fundamentals course is designed for B2B professionals who are looking to:

• Understand and evaluate the benefits of ABM
• Build a business case for ABM at their organisation
• Launch their first ABM programme
• Improve or scale an existing ABM programme
• Or, just level up their knowledge on ABM best practices

The course features five lessons led by seasoned professionals in the ABM industry. Once all lessons have been completed, learners will have the option to earn a certificate and digital badge by passing a timed, multiple-choice exam.

Turtl

In a world flooded with instantly forgettable content, account-based marketing (ABM) promises to help your message rise above the rest and resonate with that one person who can get you the sales meeting you need. ABM Personalisation at scale delivers results and many companies have great success with ABM. However, some have struggled to get it right. Turtl discusses the issues of being relevant, measuring engagement, and scaling your ABM without killing it.

See how Turtl customers use content automation to deliver high-impact personalisation at enterprise scale in this guide, and learn:

• Why personalisation is so hard to scale
• How to create a platform for effective personalisation at enterprise scale
• What real-world content automation results look like
  
  
  If you’d like to learn more about Punch! partnerships, please contact
  Deanne Crocker, Marketing Manager, deanne.crocker@punchabm.com 

In marketing, particularly B2B marketing, you are always trying to get your prospects and customers to take some sort of action. But prospects can be a  fickle bunch and you are sometimes left wondering why you aren’t generating leads from a campaign or why no one is clicking on an ad, or signing up to read your beautifully written and engaging newsletter.

What if there was a way to subtly influence the type of behaviour you want from your prospects, and do it ethically? Well, there is a way, and that is nudge theory. It forms part of behavioural economics and helps us to understand what people do and why they do it and subtly helps them make different choices.

“A nudge is an intervention that maintains freedom of choice but steers people in a particular direction.”¹ It is closely linked to the concept of ‘choice architecture’. This is essentially how the context or environment around us affects what we choose, want and ultimately decide to do.

Most of us as B2B marketers are probably already doing this or, at least, some version of this. But codifying it and making it part of your business’s overall strategy can help turn the tide of declining marketing returns. It pays to think about how nudge theory and behavioural economics can be implemented into the overarching marketing strategy as well as in the actual execution tactics used.

Accepted nudge theory says that a nudge has to be in the best interests of the prospect and they must have a choice. They should also feel good after they make their choice, without any pressure or concern that they may have made the wrong decision.¹

As humans we find decision making hard and it helps if we are guided towards an option that is in our best interest. This principle also applies in B2B marketing - at the end of the day, it is a person making the final decision, and if you can help influence that decision it is a win-win situation.

There will always be a large human element in any decision-making process, so it makes sense to frame your marketing in a way that appeals to the person who will be making the decision. Yet, so many B2B marketing campaigns don’t do this, and as a result they are bland and lifeless. Then companies wonder why their audience isn’t engaged and why they aren’t generating any leads.

How to Use Strategic Thinking to Nudge Customers to Behave in a Specific Way

So, how do you actually implement nudge theory into your marketing campaigns to try and get your prospects to behave in a different way? The first way is to use it in your overarching strategy across your entire marketing mix.

Using Nudge Theory in the Overarching Strategy

• Using Emotion:
  
  A great way to use nudge theory in your overarching strategy is to tie your marketing to an emotion. Fear is a good emotion to pin a strategy on; the fear of missing out, the fear of lost revenue. Joy is another one; the joy of succeeding, of beating the competition, of having lifelong customers.

• Being a partner and not a supplier:
  
  Another way is to become your customer’s partner and not just a supplier of products. By becoming a trusted advisor and someone whose opinion your customer values, you can nudge them to take different actions or try your products and services in a consultative way.

The other angle that can be taken with nudge theory is using it in your marketing campaign tactics and implementing it there. You can look at the different tactics used and the different channels and see if using a subtle nudge would work well with each of those.

Using Nudge Theory in the Tactics Used

• Paid advertising:
  
  Using language in paid advertising that talks about the fear of missing out on a deal or adding social proof from businesses similar to your prospects can have a big impact on clicks and conversions

• Content:
  
  Having vertical, industry-specific or even persona specific content can nudge someone to take action and read it because it will resonate with them. Sending someone generic content will be treated as any other unsolicited piece of marketing and probably end up in the bin

• Design:
  
  Having images of people who look like your target audience can help someone engage with your content more. Make important pieces of text larger and in bold to help it stand out. Highlight the CTA in a way that is non-intrusive but not easily missed

• Websites:
  
  Having images of people who look like your target audience can help someone engage with your content more. Make important pieces of text larger and in bold to help it stand out. Highlight the CTA in a way that is non-intrusive but not easily missed

• Opt-in vs Opt-out:
  
  Explicitly asking someone to opt-in versus automatically opting them in can have a big impact on conversions, and trust in a brand. For example, having a pre-ticked ‘sign up to our newsletter’ checkbox on a website can increase conversions, but it may leave prospects feeling cheated that they were signed up to something without their knowledge

• Precision Engagement strategies³:
  
  This is a fancy term for personalising nudges for different persona groups. In the same way, you shouldn’t treat all your prospects as one homogenous group, you shouldn’t nudge them all in the same way either. A motivator for one group may not work for another

Examples of Ways Nudge Theory Have Been Used in Business

There are many examples of nudges in marketing but when experiencing them out in the wild, you may not realise ‘ a nudge’ is what you are seeing.

B2C Retail eCommerce Example

A very popular retail brand uses a clever trick to nudge customers to buy a product they are looking at by invoking a sense of urgency in them. A little banner appears over the image of the product saying things like, ‘28 people are currently looking at this item’ or ‘This item has been bought 5 times in the last 24 hours' or ‘Only 3 left in stock’. Some eagle-eyed marketers might question the truth behind these statements, are there really only 3 left in stock? Regardless, it is a very effective way of encouraging someone to buy.

B2B SaaS Example

An example from B2B can be seen in the way SaaS packages are marketed. Going onto the packages page of a SaaS website, you will often see a highlighted option, it is usually the middle package, sat between a Basic package and a Premium one. Highlighting a preferred option and recommending that similar accounts in the prospect’s industry also choose this option is a great way of nudging an account to choose it. Similarly, a way to encourage someone to buy add ons is by saying that other customers have found them essential.

Strategically Adding Nudge Tactics

Most businesses already employ nudge tactics within their marketing, but by consciously adding them to your overarching strategy you can have a real impact on getting prospects to choose a specific option and can help increase conversions. It is important to make sure they are done ethically and in the prospect’s interest, so they can provide long term benefits to your business’s growth. Really understanding your customers can help you nudge them on a journey and help them to make the right choice for them and for your business.

If you would like to discuss ways to strategically nudge your customers, get in touch with me: az.ahmed@punchabm.com or connect with me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/azahmed1/

1 https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/much-anew-about-nudging
2 https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/nudge-top-3-learning-modern-b2b-marketeers-imrana-khan/
3 https://medium.com/@darraghgw/nudge-theory-in-business-with-examples-explainer-design-thinking-192324313cc8

We spoke to Punch! icon and Head of Sales Development Holly Spooner as she’s about to hit seven years with the company. What’s kept her here so long? And how did she rise to the top in a male-dominated industry?

Riding the Punch! Wave

Hey Holly! For those who don’t know, what do you do at Punch!?

I do what it says on the tin, Head of Sales Development! I look after our 15 Sales Development Reps (SDRs), our three Sales Development Managers (SDMs), and the data team, keeping them all motivated, and looking for cross sell and upsell opportunities. I’m also part of Punch!’s leadership team, helping make decisions about the future of the company.

Over seven years you’ve risen up through the ranks. But do you still remember your first day?

I do, it’s so funny! Since it was a new job I was absolutely terrified. There were the founders Chris and James and four or five other boys. There was also Hannah, who is Chris’s wife. Everyone was super nice though. I got trained and then it was straight onto the phones. I was so scared to make a phone call in my first week, even across the first month. Chris and James might not know this but I would only make a phone call if other people were on the phone. The office was so small you could hear everything literally, so I didn’t want to be the only person on the phone at one time, because then everyone would be hearing my voice. But Chris and James were obviously amazing and now I've worked here for seven years.

Is the company culture something that has helped you?

Definitely. If we didn't have a good culture and I didn't like working here I wouldn’t still be here. There’s plenty of opportunities everywhere. I get approached on LinkedIn all the time like I’m sure a lot of people do. But I never wake up in the morning and think I don’t want to go to work today. All of the amazing stuff that we have in our culture, like quarterly socials or the prize catalogue, none of my friends get that at their companies. They’re just a number. Whereas at Punch! we all get to know each other on a personal level and we actually genuinely care about each other.

You said you were terrified when you first started. When did you gain that first bit of confidence? 

When I booked my first opportunity! The aim of the game as an SDR at Punch! is to book meetings. But it was like two weeks until I booked my first meeting. Up until that point, I didn't have much confidence that I could do the job. I’d had so many near misses and everyone else around me was booking meetings. But obviously they’d been doing it longer. So perseverance was key. When I booked that first meeting that was when I was like, right I can do this! From that point onwards I was booking meetings all the time. I became one of the top SDRs, hence why I progressed to where I am now.

What was the journey like going from SDR to Head of Sales Development?

It was exciting and I learnt a lot. I’m very goal oriented, so Chris and James would always set me a goal and I would work hard to make sure I hit that. I always want to get to the next stage. So every single time I got a promotion it was a massive success for me and I’d celebrate every time. When I was promoted to Head of Sales Development that felt like the biggest milestone. It’s the biggest promotion I’ve had and it’s the biggest achievement I’ve had. I'd been building up to it for a long time. We’ve all got journeys at Punch!, which lay out the path from a junior role to a senior role, so I could always see my career trajectory and what I had to do to get there.

What was your biggest challenge along the way?

The biggest challenge was Covid. My team was growing month on month, we were getting new clients left right and centre, we were smashing our revenue targets and then Covid happened and it just went to shit. My team went from 20 SDRs down to six. I had to get back on the phones. We had like four clients. They were all pausing because everything was uncertain. I'd also never managed a team remotely. That was pretty crazy. We didn’t have the technology to do it initially. We were using Whatsapp groups. And how was I supposed to coach people? But do you know what, we did a great job. We took it in our stride. We put some good processes in place and we managed to keep the team that we had motivated. And actually, I would say that once we put those processes in place, the team was just as motivated as when they worked in the office.

What do you love most about your role?

I love watching the team grow. Sounds cheesy doesn’t it? But I love being able to support people and for some of the SDRs it’s their first ever job. They might not stay at Punch! forever, but I’m helping them get a really good grounding for the rest of their career. Having had first-hand experience of growing myself at the company, it motivates me to help other people. I also love building great relationships with clients. We do a really great job of that here at Punch!. If we’ve got a toxic client, we turn them away. So all of our clients are nice people to work for.

It’s fair to say sales development is quite a male-dominated industry. What advice would you give to fellow women who are looking to take a step into the industry?

It can seem daunting at first because it is so male-dominated. But my advice would be to look for the right company, the company whose values align to your own. Don’t doubt yourself. And something I say to all of the team, not just the girls: perseverance is key. It didn’t scare me or worry me that on my first day the room was full of boys. You’ve just got to persevere. You’ve got to be motivated, tenacious, and really good at taking rejection. I have a journal and every single morning I write down three goals and a positive affirmation. If you write that you'll have a brilliant day, you’ll have a brilliant day. And I also have some motivational quotes in that book. This one from Pelé: ‘Success is not an accident, it is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice, but most of all: love of what you are doing or learning to do.’ As an SDR you’ve got to come in with a positive mindset, you can’t just roll out of bed onto the call in the morning and start making 100 calls. It doesn’t work. You’ve got to go for a walk, have a coffee, have some breakfast, make sure you have a shower. Get yourself pumped and ready for the day. That’s a massive thing.

Are you the same Holly Spooner that walked into the Punch! office seven years ago?

Am I the same Holly? I don’t think I am the same Holly. I’ve definitely grown up a lot. I didn’t really have any business acumen when I started. I’d worked in a cookery school, in hospitality, and a nursery, but I’d never worked in a business environment. And when I first started at Punch! I was really bad at taking feedback. I was terrible. You can ask Chris and James. I would be a face like thunder arguing back, stropping around. I was also terrible at dealing with change. But through company growth and my own personal progression came a lot of change. New roles. New responsibilities. So I had to get used to it. Over the last couple of years I’d say I'm much better at handling change. I call it riding the Punch! wave. 

Finally, where do you think you’ll be at the ten-year mark?

That’s a very good question. Professionally, I’d like to be managing a global sales development team. Feet on the ground in America, Europe, or APAC. It’s the next big challenge for me. And it’s exciting! Personally, I’d like to have a team of my own by then as well, a family, if Ed’s put a ring on it by then!

Thanks for all your insights Holly. Congratulations on seven years and keep riding that wave! 

Thanks so much!

Founder and Managing Director of Singing Grass Communications, Alicia Liu, reveals what key trends are driving change in the Chinese market, and the reason why brands find China such a tricky territory to crack.

London to New York, Dickens to Beckham: Liu tells us how her grandfather’s literary influence lead her to leave Beijing and pursue her passion to bridge the gap between China and the Western world.

So, Who is Alicia Liu, and What is Singing Grass?

I was born in Beijing, and actually studied in London and New York, and ended up getting my first job at the Mayor of London's office. It was kind of unconventional, I suppose, rather than going straight into the corporate world. But at that point, it was the early 2000s and my role was to help develop London as a destination for business investment, education, and tourism in emerging markets such as China, Russia, and India.

My role was almost like a personal interest. Professionally, I was interested in trying to be the bridge between China and the rest of the world. I grew up in quite a literary family. My grandfather was actually a literary critic and translator - he lived in Shanghai in the 1940s and translated classic English literature into Chinese, such as Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield.

Growing up in Beijing is very different from the rest of the world, so having access to English literature fueled my fascination with meeting people from different backgrounds. My first London job allowed me to meet some really interesting people and travel to a variety of different places.

I decided to set up Singing Grass in 2013. It's a business consultancy advising on access and development strategies for the Chinese market. The idea was to help brands to engage with aspirational Chinese millennials. In a way they're like the rest of the world - they're modern consumers. The difference is they grew up in very different environments, and so their interests and decision-making processes are different.

Our clients traditionally are in the luxury retail and content industries. So, for example, we work with some of the menswear fashion brands such as Gieves & Hawkes, as well as some entertainment brands like LEGO The BBC studios. We also work a lot within publishing, looking at content rights, IPs, and how best to fit that to the Chinese market.

What Are the Main Challenges Your Clients Face?

The main challenge is there are 850 million digital-driven consumers in China and things are changing rapidly. So, whether a brand has already set up offices in China and built a team, or is a new emerging business that is looking at China as a new market opportunity, there are quite a lot of disruptive challenges involved in aligning a proposition to fit the Chinese consumer needs. You can’t just replicate your international strategy into the Chinese market.

In the past three or four years, we’ve found our business to be evolving too. Cutting-edge science and technology brands have been accelerated by the pandemic internationally and I believe China is at the forefront of that innovation. Chinese consumers are very open-minded and ready to adopt digital-driven services, plus there's a big government-led drive for Chinese businesses to flourish in the technology sector. We’ve started to see new Chinese technology brands approach Singing Grass about exploring international markets too.

Why is the Chinese Market So Unique?

Complexity and culture. I think those are the two words I would say. For any business, when you're going into a new market you need to understand the current environment and the key players. The Chinese market has a very different structure; it's not all private players. There's a large percentage of state-backed businesses - especially in the science and technology sector.

In addition to the obvious language barriers, there are many different channels of knowledge acquisition in China. For example, social media channels are used in the UK to obtain information in addition to the traditional media. These are all blocked in China. There's a parallel world out there. Newcomers in this market can easily be confused by the complexity of it. They either get put off by it, or they just assume everything is the same.

In b2b, where a lot of campaigns are ad-led, brands need to build a dedicated strategy for the Chinese market. It’s not just about the right channels, but the right content to build your brand and attract high potential Chinese partners and clients.

Language is one thing, but building relationships is really important. I think it's important everywhere, but especially in China. People really value personal connections. There's a bit of a blurred line between the professional relationship versus the personal relationship. It's almost like a bigger difference between the East and the West in how things work. That cultural element can't be ignored. And I feel the pandemic has highlighted how differently we all react to situations across the globe.

I remember when I first visited the Middle East, I was a bit overwhelmed by the difference in how people dress, the religion, the language, the food. But then I discovered under the surface how Westernised people are - International Schools teach English very well. China is the opposite. On the surface everything looks very Westernised, the people, the cities and buildings are very cosmopolitan, yet the educational system, the culture is still very traditional. You need to understand this to be able to communicate, build relationships, and uncover business opportunities.

How is the Market Adapting in Response to Covid 19?

I think b2b marketing in China was probably the most disrupted by the pandemic. China is one of those remaining markets where you must still do business in person. China's been a closed border for two years now. And now in 2022, it looks like people are trying to reconnect, but travelling into the country is still looking difficult.

Businesses in China have transformed to online working, like the rest of the world, but one thing that's quite different is the way in which we look at business video communication. Live streaming and interactive webcasts are very popular in China. Almost like a virtual tradeshow stand, allowing brands to still feel like they are interacting with buyers face to face.

But there are still a lot of offline meetings, and unlike the rest of the world, there’s a desire to go back to the old way of doing business. Business dinners are the norm for building relationships with senior stakeholders in China; it's crucial.  Despite being quick to embrace new technologies, I think the way decisions are made and business is conducted won’t be changing anytime soon. This can pose a challenge for brands who are trying to replicate global success in China. To succeed, you really need to tailor your sales and marketing approach completely. A lot of globally successful mega brands have failed in China. Knowing the ins and outs of the market and building a strategy around it is key.

What’s Your Most Memorable Project to Date?

In 2017 we were working with luxury menswear brand Kent & Curwen, in partnership with the iconic David Beckham, to relaunch the brand in Shanghai. Consumers in China really buy into that kind of quintessentially Britishness. But the brand was deemed to be quite old fashioned and represented sports that the Chinese do not play. We needed to reposition the brand and modernise it to appeal to the aspirational Chinese audience.

We created a rather exciting Peaky Blinders style pop in a boutique hotel in Shanghai and hosted a series of private dinners with senior b2b and b2c stakeholders; owners of luxury retail buildings and the fashion buyers. This helped the client build genuine relationships with key influencers in China.

Do You Have Any Tips for B2b Brands Who Want to Explore Marketing Opportunities in China?

China is home to something like 109 corporations listed on the Fortune Global 500. But only 15 of them are privately owned. You really need to understand who your key stakeholders are.

Secondly, when you create your presence in China, don’t assume that global success can be directly replicated. You need the help of a trusted Chinese market specialist to create a strong persona and a value-led strategy, as well as a message tailored to that audience.

With the current travel restrictions, be brave and consider live streaming content. I know it is challenging that we still can't travel and visit. So be brave really think about live streaming. Think about video content with the guidance of a specialist to connect you face to face with your buying group. Cold calling and emails are not treated with respect in China; building a personal connection is so important.

About Punch! & Singing Grass

Punch! and Singing Grass have partnered in order to provide b2b marketing services and advice for brands who want to explore the Chinese market.

For more information, contact:
Chris Muldoon
Co-founder & Managing Director, Punch!
chris.muldoon@punchabm.com