You're my commsHERO
"You're my commsHERO" is a Podcast for commsHERO types, where we speak to people we're inspired by and discuss the comms work they do.
You're my commsHERO
Don't be a magpie! With Jim Ker
‘Don’t be the magpie’ - how marketers need to avoid overlooking the essential elements of a plan for the sake of the quick fix.
With the constant pressure to present value, busy marketing teams frequently fall victim to short term fixes leading to influences on a strategy that are subjective and poorly informed.
It’s all too easy to lean on short term fixes at the expense of the essentials that make up the foundation of a good marketing strategy that will last into the long term. This is where the real value in marketing lies. It’s handy to take stock of the essentials often so we know that we’re still on the right track and avoid a marketing strategy with more holes than a Swiss cheese.
In this podcast, Jim runs through the thinking behind this and the essential components that he relies on to maintain a true course.
Guest Biog:
Jim is an award-winning Chartered Marketer specialising in digital marketing and marketing strategy with over 10 years of experience. Having cut his teeth in a range of agency and in-house positions, Jim is a keen believer in sharing his learnings and experiences (good and bad) so like-minded marketers can benefit in kind. Jim is currently serving as Head of Marketing at Onfigr - Interactive Inspiration Tools. On top of this, Jim curates the Marketing Meetup sessions in Leeds.
Hello and welcome to a new episode of the Your My Comm podcast. And I'm your host, Jose Childry . Today my guest is Jim Kerr. Jim is an award-winning, charted marketer, specializing in digital marketing and marketing strategy with over 10 years of experience having cut his teeth in a range of agency and in-house positions. Jim is a keen believer in sharing his learnings and experience both good and bad, so , uh, to like-minded marketers and they can benefit and kind from that. So Jim's currently serving as the head of marketing at On Figure , and on top of this, Jim curates the marketing meetup sessions in leads. So thanks for joining us, Jim, and it's a pleasure to welcome you on the podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Okay, so in time honored tradition, we're gonna , um, ask you a few quick fire questions to get to know you a little bit. So , uh, let's start with , um, do you prefer an ebook or a printed book? Jim <affirmative>
Speaker 2:S um, considering my background, ironically, I prefer a printed book Dear every single time. Yeah . And why is that? I dunno what it's, I don't know . Um, um, when , and like marketing specific book, if I'm studying I'll cover it in notes, so that will be one
Speaker 1:Thing. Yeah, yeah. And then,
Speaker 2:And , and there's just this , there is just a romantic element about it that I can't get away from.
Speaker 1:It's true. A lot of the , um, people that come on, we have that , uh, same kind of reasoning, especially CPD learning and apparently , um, learning from a physical bit of text helps with retention apparently, and the highlighting. And , um, post-it notes, I do that with a little , um, the little tab sticking out the edges and , uh, I end up putting too many of them in, to be honest with you. 'cause there's so much good stuff in a lot of the, in a lot of the , uh, publications nowadays. So, okay. So Printed Bot , which is an interesting one for a digital marketer . Maybe it's not break from the screen as well, you know, that that might Yeah . Have something to do with it. So , um, apple or Android,
Speaker 2:Apple can't get away from it. Um , iPhone user religiously , uh, Mac user through work as well. The simplicity just, I , I couldn't give you a reason for it, and I constantly have fights with it experts about how I'm fighting against the grain, but , um, I'm sure a number of marketers will agree on me . They're just the best hands down .
Speaker 1:No , that's very true. That is true. So, okay, final ones on that . Are you an early riser or do you love a lion ? And this is changed for you in the recent months as well, hasn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I am , I'm an early riser by force . Um , I've, I've been blessed with a little boy recently who's now seven months old. Um , still hasn't figured out how to sleep, so , um, early rise is my jam now . I've been forced into it. <laugh> ,
Speaker 1:Uh , the joy of parenting right there, listeners, the joy of parenting. Um , so we will , um, thanks for that. And it's been really nice to kind of get a bit of insight into you, Jim. So appreciate sharing that. And you mentioned, of course , I mentioned in the intro about , um, you curate the marketing meetup sessions in Leeds and Joe Lover's an absolute legend. So how did you get into doing that?
Speaker 2:It's a funny one, really. So , um, my , uh, friend and colleague with Marketing Meetup, Jess and I, we've, you know, we've been through a number of different networking events in our careers, and one thing that we quite quickly noticed was within the leads area in particular, if you were an entry level junior marketer, there was a plethora of things that you could join or if you're a , a super senior marketer , um, there was a plethora of things you could join, but there was very little kind of in between for those kind junior level managers. So we just had , um, you know, we're going back and forth and there was a frequent listen listener at the Market Me to podcast, and we just dropped a message saying, Hey, we noticed you haven't got one in leads. Um , how would you , how would you feel about organizing one? And he responded in kind.
Speaker 1:Okay. That's an interesting story that Jim, so thanks for, thanks for sharing that. And as I said, Joe Lover , big fan of his work and the marketing meetup is , um, is great and you've filled a bit of a niche there. And this year we've also got the Comm Zero awards and conference happening in LEED on the 17th of October as well. So it's nice to bring events to , um, to this part of , uh, that part of the world. So onto what we're gonna be talking about, which is the title of the podcast is Don't Be the Magpie, how Marketers Need to avoid overlooking the essential Elements of a Plan for the sake of the Quick Fix. So with the constant pressure to present value, busy marketing teams frequently fall victim to short-term fixes leading to influences on a strategy that are subjective and poorly informed. Um , and it's all too easy to lean on short-term fixes at the expense of the essentials that make up the foundation of a good marketing strategy that will last into the long term . So in this podcast then, Jim, you're gonna run through some of the thinking behind this and the essential components that you rely on to maintain that true course , that North star direction. So let's kick off with the first question then. So how , how do you manage avoiding the pressure to deliver in the short term ?
Speaker 2:It is quite a meaty topic is this, and it's one that comes up quite frequently in my career. And I think to wrap it up into one single phrase, it would be justification of the marketing budget, justification of the marketing spend , justification of marketing act actions. It's no secret that particularly when times are quite tough in companies , uh, marketing will straightaway be seen as an investment. It gets into the cost center quite quickly. Um, and, and therefore the pressure to dump, dump your resources into performance based tactics and those quick fixes and sales enablement, frankly just becomes more and more appealing. The way I've got around this is always , has always been reporting and communication on long term impact and , and almost educating your senior leadership team. So brand strategy, as we know doesn't happen overnight, but the , the long term benefits , uh, are really quite lucrative and, and use using the, the tools that you have using, you know, being quite familiar with certain resources. Google Analytics, for example, fantastic free resource to show impact of your long term strategies, which come off the back of things such as brands. Uh , SEO being a prime example of that. It's, it's all down to educating that leadership and that, and that there isn't, there isn't a short term fix within marketing that will lead to the results that they're ultimately looking for. It has to be a combination of yes, performance based , do we get those outreach campaigns working , get those sales brought in. But in addition to that, it's, it's adding in the long term aspect, brand equity, reputation management, and those, those long term organic traits, like I said, SEO you know, work, work with social, inbound social things like that is so, so important. And if you can kind of educate your leadership in that way, it eases the pressure. The pressure never disappears. Um , which is why I think it's a really good turn of face setting in terms of managing the pressure. But you can, you can end up in a situation, you know, with a little bit of weight , you can end up in a situation where you have an answer to these, these questions quite comprehensively that be , here's the dashboard, here's here's the education of the long-term benefit of doing this. And if you can almost treat, I've always had to treat marketing and my role within businesses as an investment, and you've almost got to pitch the investments in the long-term marketing and show the justification of that. If you can get your head around that bit, for me, that's, that's how you avoid those short term , why are we not on this channel? Why are we not suddenly doing that? Why is this not performing?
Speaker 1:Can you get us on TikTok <laugh> ?
Speaker 2:Can you get us on TikTok ? Exactly, man. Exactly. Like I've had that so much recently. <laugh>
Speaker 1:Fantastic. There's so many marketers I know that have , uh, um, that's, I suppose that's the magpie bit in the title, isn't it? You know, that shiny new thing, you know, especially in the digital environment where, you know, you'll have, it'll been threads and get us on threads and get us on TikTok and all the rest of it, you know? Um , uh, so that's quite interesting. And that, that this constant battle, you say it's never, it's never ending . You're always , um, doing that justification. So how do you then present the value beyond quick fixes? What are the challenges that you come up against when trying to avoid this?
Speaker 2:It is interesting when you, you know, you mentioned things such as , um, we need to be on TikTok . So one of the big challenges , um, that I quite frequently find is everyone's a marketer and, you know, there are mees about this all over them , all over the place at the moment where everyone seems to be very good at doing your job. So that, that kind of brings inherent pressure because when you get someone senior who thinks, you know, you know, pure marketing theory, they , they will then kind of pour on this expectation for you to deliver on what they assume is the correct trend to jump on . Um , that's a , that's a big challenge and I think a lot of people I I would expect, relate to that, that challenge. Um , in terms of avoiding it, it kind of comes back to that justification communication and what I would probably call commerciality. So you , well , you know, when you mentioned in the beginning, I like to educate from my mistakes. One of the big mistakes I made, particularly earlier in my career was being really deep rooted in the marketing. So I could, I can rack off the theory till the cows come home, for example, and I can, I can give the very specific marketing details now where that means I failed and inherently brought big challenges from leadership was my failure to interpret and communicate that in a commercial way. So a big advantage to avoid those pitfalls , um, and not fall into the pressure of, oh, we need to be on TikTok for me is how are you moving the commercial needle with your marketing work? So if you say you bring in say, okay, we need to do, we need to improve our targeting as part of our segmentation targeting position, okay, say we're doing that. It's always asking that question, okay, well how is that moving the needle? So how is that moving the commercial needle ultimately? How is that, you know, improving the bottom line and the triple bottom line, if you like, whether that be the people profit or the product . And that, that for me was , um, a big, a big learning curve realistic, which is going into a business and understanding , okay, how does this business tick? How does it operate? Is it sales orientation? Do they , do they get the marketing aspect of it? Where does marketing fit within the wider remit ? And then how do you, like I said, move the needle? So how does your market activity actually impact that commercial strategy for the benefit and speaking in that language? So you can't go into certain people who think , you know , marketing don't, saying things like, okay, we've got X amount of impressions, disengagement rates was improved by 10%, our conversion rate went up. For a lot of companies, that's still gobbledygook. So what we need to do is we need to look at that and identify, okay, well how is that, how can that be interpreted in a commercial way? How can we speak the commercial language that shows the benefit of this increased engagement rate ?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's interesting. That and ,
Speaker 2:And yeah.
Speaker 1:Do you think then that, that you mentioned that obviously as a marketer you need to be taught and you need to have access to that theory, which is usually through , um, CIM qualifications. It's not something you can stumble upon. Uh , you , of course you can pick up all this through Google, but there's, I I interviewed in a recent episode with the podcast, Olivia Huller , who's done, who's just completed a marketing apprenticeship. Hmm . It's the first person I've spoken to in that realm, so came out of it with a degree, but three years. So she talked very much about those benefits because ultimately you come out of whatever , uh, um, you know, university or , uh, any qualifications without the commercial and lived experience within, within post itself. So it was quite a different perspective on, you know, do you think marketers who don't have that on the job experience when they're going through the qualifications route, do you think there is a , a challenge there where they just have to go through those failure points that you've mentioned there, where they might be talking in , um, theoretical terms to people who really want to hear it in commercial terms?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it , it's interesting. It's a , it's a two-prong. I think you need both. Um, so I think the theory is super important and you know, I'm say I am chartered and I maintain that chartered status. Yeah . Um , I've done the qualifications and there's a reason why, because if you, if you don't, you can very quickly end up in the thick of it. Yeah . And there's sometimes the , what well the marketing theory side of things does is it brings that outside perspective into your working day. Now you get a lot of senior marketers who have incredible commercial orientation experience for that sector, and they'll know the industry very well. But then it's almost on the flip side that they can't see the strategic benefit of bringing in fresh ideas. Yeah . And therefore that they very quickly get stuck in their ways and it becomes almost like a , a laggard approach. So yes, I think the theory of, if , if you go just pure theory and not kind of go with that, almost like a sponge open mind mindset to, to learn, okay, how can you interpret this into that particular industry's commercial language? Along the flip side, if you , if you're stuck in one role, stuck in one sector, you, you almost fail to pick up on new trends that will actually have an impact on your, on your, you know , commercial experience on , on your sector. Um , but also kind of coming back to the main point of the topic, you also, like I said, end up in the thick of it and you fail to challenge what might not work. Yeah. So for example, you've got your, like I say , you've got your CCEO potentially with CMO saying, we need to be on TikTok . If you don't have that strategic understanding that that theory of marketing, you can't ask those questions, well, how will this meet the needs of our target audience? How will it affect our positioning? Is it worth amending our marketing mix and subsequently our budgets just, just to get on this trend? You end up too in the thick of it, so you , you kind of need both.
Speaker 1:Yeah,
Speaker 2:Yeah , yeah .
Speaker 1:No , absolutely. I think it's that , it's always, I think that striking that balance never changes. It doesn't, you know, for your entire career it will stay with you because you've, that ability to zoom out and take a , an overhead view of the business, it's quite difficult when you're in it and you're in the thick of it. So, you know, we're talking about, so when you are stuck in the thick of it, as we've just discussed, then as marketers, they pretty much are all the time because it's so , um, uh, so ingrained into all the different aspects of any business, whether it's service or manufacturing, doesn't make any difference. You have to be all over all aspects of the business. So when, when you're stuck in that thick, thick of it as we've described, then where do you start when it comes to something like , um, the topic we're talking about?
Speaker 2:It's , it's a really difficult one. And I think I was, a lot of marketers will agree with me that everything, everything is your problem. And we end up having to be very reactive very quickly. And, you know, it's, it's difficult to, to stay on top of, like content's really got the example , okay. So you have to feed this content machine the con content machine consistently, and that is such a drain on time and resource straight away that you fail to manage that space within your working week to , to say, okay, is this the right approach to take? Um , what I tend to do is I'm very, very strict with my time and I would almost take like a prayer law approach. So 80% is let's get on with the job, like I said, move, move that needle using the theory I've got. And it kind of comes with experience. And you know, the team will come with questions that I can answer based on that experience combining the commerciality and the , the theory together. But I'll always leave 20% and I'm really, really strict with this. Like, I block it outta my diary and everything's an absolute non-negotiable. 20% of my working week must be on. Okay. How has that impacted the needle? How has that moved things forward? How, how are we getting pulled into something that is a poor use about quite lean time? Yeah. Is there something on the horizon ? And it could , you know, you can apply the theory , so you could do your macro environmental analysis, things IE PEs , but is there something on the horizon that we need to be just steadily thinking about applying that research and making sure that when , when the time does come to, to really put that into the mix, we're ready. So it kind of comes down to time management and being really, really strict. Which kind of comes back to the first point, which is when someone says, why haven't you done this? Or Why are you spending so much time thinking about the next big thing ? You have to be ready to justify that. Yeah . And to justify that to your boss, you need to speak in their language. So you need to say, look, commercially it makes sense for us to do this because on the horizon we're seeing X and Y. So if we're not ready, we're gonna become a laggard and therefore we're gonna lose our competitive advantage, et cetera ,
Speaker 1:Et cetera . Yeah , no , so good points there. So you talked about yourself there in terms of planning and being strict with time then, so what's one of your go-to planning techniques when it comes to developing a lasting strategy?
Speaker 2:I always, and I've never not relied on an STP framework.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Segmentation, talent positioning. It's, you , you know, you can go, you can go quite broad with some of the other ones. Like you've got your , your PSUs sauce stack is a , is a really good one to lean onto . But it all falls down to anything, anything in terms of the mix , your messaging all really can be looped into segmentation, targeting , positioning. So I have you split your audience correctly. Yeah. Have you identified what their pain points are? What are their priority initiatives? What's their mix in terms of where they find they find their results ? Have you developed a positioning to show why you are different to competitors and , and where you sit within your , um, your market mix? Yeah. So if you can answer those three questions straight away , you , you kind of hit that golden buzzer of who, what, why, where . Yeah . Um , and that, again, if you can interpret that in a commercial sense, it that that's an easy one for people to kinda get their heads around. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . So you can, you can straight away say, look, we need to be putting money into this PPC framework rather than that social BPC framework because that's where our audience lives and that's where we can gain competitive advantage, et cetera .
Speaker 1:Yeah. And is there an any other , uh, key strategic tools that you use in planning to show that long-term value that we're talking about?
Speaker 2:So I would always, sometimes you can go back to a good old fashioned swap. Yeah . Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . And , and, and there's a reason why it stood the test of time. There's a , an alter one, which is swap toes as well, the toes matrix, which is rather than just, so the problem with a swap analysis is it's , it's just an analysis point, whereas the toes add on the additional points, which is okay, what actions can you take from what you've identified? Yeah. And that can be really well received by commercial leadership. So I would probably say a good old fashioned SWOT analysis. But on top of that, the toe , so you can see okay, from these strengths, how can you mitigate your weaknesses, for example? Yeah.
Speaker 1:Which is ultimately what you end up doing, but it's not part of a Yeah . Particular framework. 'cause you think, oh , 'cause you can get wrapped up in the SWAT's quite good to get anyone in the organization involved with, and you get different perspectives. But like you said , the actual, what we're gonna do with it , um, tends to be an afterthought once you've got the shiny swo and uh , distributed it around and stuff like that. But it is the insight that it gets you , um, and the actions that off the back of it that are actually gonna make it, make it work and more valuable than just some stuff on a matrix as you tend to
Speaker 2:Yeah. E exactly. Like, you know, it comes back to that phrase, everyone's a critic. Yeah. So it is very easy to analyze where you currently are, and then it is a little bit more difficult to identify where you want to be. The real tricky point is, okay, what have you learned from your analysis that you can then apply, apply to move the needle? So that's where the , that's where the real skill of a market comes, which is, okay, this is where I'm at, that's where I want to be. How am I gonna get there? Yeah .
Speaker 1:Yeah . So ,
Speaker 2:So it is , it's a good framework to
Speaker 1:No, it is indeed. And kind of quick final question to wrap up this, this section of the podcast, the, we've talked about models there, you know , um, SWOT and swos and um , s STPs, you can have IP and you know, ideal customer personas. There's so many, there's SWOTs like you say, a good old school , um, uh, analysis and and analytics tool to help you get perspective of a business. Do you think that, going back to this whole magpie effect that newer marketers, do you think they understand and are actually driven to some of the value of some of the older analytics techniques or the planning tools over and above the new ones that have come out? Or they , they might be the same thing. They've just got a different name that's been created in the last five years by HubSpot, for example. You know, that kind of thing. You think that , you think that the older, traditional models are gathering dust now because they're not coming to the forefront because people like HubSpot and Salesforce aren't using them?
Speaker 2:That's a really interesting question. And I think some of them are, some of them are, Saturn together is a little bit of dust, but the , the , the bedrock of what they're based on is, is is still very much apparent. And it's, you know, one of the big things in marketing is you can, you can fall by the wayside quite quickly if you get stuck into that, like I said , that probably two , two theoretical if you like. Yeah . And say, okay, how does this meet and classify s Um, but you, you can quickly apply new digital techniques in a more effective way if you can use your traditional marketing methodology edition .
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:So, and , and that would be, that would be my take on it. So inbound methodology, which is a bit of a hot topic at the moment. Inbound maths inside the way forward and everything's be content . There was nothing new there.
Speaker 1:Yeah .
Speaker 2:It's just a , it's just a reinterpretation of old school theory. So if you can kind of combine the , combine the two, that's when you can, you can interpret things in a more advantageous way. It's very
Speaker 1:Powerful, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. So it's interesting to just get that taken . I thought I'd share that. 'cause we were talking about the magpie thing. So , um, that's great and I hope that that's given a lot of insight and there'll be, the listeners will be dealing with this on a day-to-day basis. So I sincerely hope that they've got some benefit from the pearls of wisdom that you've shared with us and some, and being open with some of the times when it's not worked as well, which is good because there's lots of learning. And you said, you know, I said in your bio that you sharing those examples of good and bad , uh, is important to you. And, and , and here you are on the podcast doing exactly that. So we're talking about sharing with the community and, you know, so why is comms here important , um, to you? And would you recommend people working in comms and marketing to be part of it?
Speaker 2:Yes, a hundred percent . I think one of the, one of the big things that we can do is become ignorant to our own industry. And it's, it's platforms such as this that they help you keep ahead of the curve that keep you engaged in that conversation. And the vibe where I was saying before, which is, you know, you can very quickly fall into a , well, this is the way it's always been done within my industry, so why do I need to know anything more? Yeah . And if you, if you don't, you know, listen to podcasts, which is comms here , um, engage with the likes of resources such as this, you'll , you'll miss a beat and then you become a language and then , then you get stuck in your ways.
Speaker 1:Like , yeah, no, it's good. That, so it's , it's kind of for , for you, the advice you're giving is it gives people that a kind of up to date perspectives from people who are doing the day job in effects . Most of the people like yourself are doing marketing for a living or comms for a living or pr and you are actually living this whole experience and using the skills to deliver on whatever objectives your business has got. So it's great that it's delivering that. And, and I hope the listeners would agree with that. And so we, we'd like to connect people within the community. So Jim, what , what your social handles, where will people find you?
Speaker 2:So the best place to find me is , um, I , ironically I'm not maline on social media. The one key one that I really put my effort into personally will be on LinkedIn. Yeah . So you can find me LinkedIn at Jim Care chartered marketer .
Speaker 1:Excellent. And we'll share that in the show notes as well anyway. And , uh, please do connect with Jim and if you're in leads the marketing meetup's a , a great event to get yourself to. And it's certainly filling a , a gap in this area. Um, and uh , you'll find this podcast on Spotify, apple or your chosen platform and also on our website com zero.com . You can follow us on Twitter or XI dunno what anyone's calling it. I'm still calling it Twitter , um, at com zero . And if you are listening on Apple or Spotify, do leave a rating and review and hit those follow and subscribe buttons so you get the new episodes as they come out. So Jim, it's been absolutely brilliant and I've learned loads and I'm sure the listeners will have done as well. And they'll be, if anyone's got any comments, drop them in. Um , wherever you see this , uh, drop us a line , a dm , uh, if you've got an opposing theory or view on it, get yourself on the podcast as a guest in the future. So Jim, thanks very much indeed. It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 3:Thank
Speaker 4:You for being a
Speaker 3:Pleasure.