Alexandra King is the co-Founder and Director of Ask Marketing, a virtual marketing management resource for SME companies looking to consolidate and grow their performance through marketing. Ali shares how SME are rapidly increasing their investment in marketing, particularly digital marketing and yet often do not have the resources to coordinate that investment to the business and marketing strategy. The use of a VMM (Virtual Marketing Manager) has proven particularly valuable, in providing this high level of marketing management required to see these organisations grow.
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Transcription:
Darren:
Welcome to Managing Marketing, a weekly podcast where we discuss the issues and opportunities facing marketing, media and advertising with industry thought leaders and practitioners.
Today I’m having tea with Alexandra King, Co-founder and director of Ask Marketing. Welcome Ali.
Ali:
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Darren:
So, Ask Marketing what Ali?
Ali:
So Ask Marketing is bringing Virtual Marketing Management to Australia. It’s 3 years old. We turned our model to Virtual Marketing Management in October last year and haven’t looked back.
Darren:
So what is Virtual Marketing Management because we are marketing management consultants but what do you actually provide organisations and their brands in the way of virtual marketing?
Ali:
So we essentially provide the same level of senior marketing leadership that they would typically have internally within a marketing manager role. So we provide that as an outsourced approach for a fraction of the cost of having that role in-house.
Darren:
Right, so this is actually an outsourced marketing function which is quite interesting when you consider we read all the time that senior marketers have the tenure of a couple of years at best.
What would be the benefit do you think for an organisation obviously to outsource marketing because not many people do it, do they?
Ali:
No. I think it is important to note it is not necessarily outsourced marketing but it is outsourced marketing leadership. So the actual execution, the doing, the day to day running of marketing, still sits internally within that business.
The key thing and the key way that we work is by resourcing or upskilling or training the existing internal marketing resource junior, be it one, two or three internal marketing resources on how to execute that strategy on a day to day basis in the same way that we would do if we were sitting inside that business and managing those people directly.
So back to what you were saying, it is outsourced leadership and the key thing now, more so than ever is the cost. We saw the statistics that Seek have brought out this week and you’re looking at an average of 110 to 120 k for a digital marketing manager in Australia now. Most SMEs regardless of what phase they are in can’t afford that as well as having a fully resourced marketing team underneath that as well.
So we provide the exact same level of service and integration within the business for 70% less.
Darren:
So this is ideal for businesses of a size where they really need to embrace marketing beyond just it being an additional task of say the CEO or the managing director.
Ali:
Totally. And the key thing is they obviously need to have a level of marketing budget that can sustain having that internal resource happening as well. Otherwise, and we will talk about this further, there is the fully externalised model which is obviously going through an agency which is potentially more beneficial for a business if they don’t have the budget to have in-house resource(s) as well.
Darren:
So, Ali when you are talking about marketing it is actually marketing comms primarily. It’s not marketing from the broader sense of marketing, of product pricing, brand etc. It is more the management and execution of the marketing comms strategy.
Ali:
Correct and in particular digital. That is where our focus 100 % lies. There is always a component especially for new businesses that we work with or businesses that are launching a secondary or third business within their umbrella.
Typically if we are working with an investment firm they obviously work as the umbrella brand and then we are working with individual brands within that.
If for example they are launching a new brand there is obviously and naturally a component of branding within that. Typically we would actually work with them to project manage that across the branding team, across the digital team, across the internal resources, across website development, across UX design, and across CRO.
So no, we don’t do the branding but there is the element of hand-holding and support because we have been there, we have done that. We know how to manage these agencies, all these people, all these consultants from a topographic perspective to make sure you are getting what you need and we can speak their language.
Darren:
So I’d imagine there would be quite a lot of organisations where marketing in the past has not been an afterthought but it is sort of to one side. Do you think that by outsourcing the leadership or bringing in leadership from the external that it helps to bring a focus to the marketing?
Ali:
Absolutely and I would almost say that the trend is definitely shifting. I read a statistic this morning that the expenditure on marketing with the SME organisations is doubling year on year and that is becoming a real key focal point.
I think obviously the digitalisation and how rapidly that is happening is a key part of that and also more so now during and post-pandemic, founders and owners need more bang for their buck than ever before. Digital is able to offer them that along with all the insights and metrics and optimisations that come along with that.
In answer to your question I think it is definitely coming to the forefront and I think that’s another benefit of working with a virtual marketing manager like our team at Ask Marketing because we come from a wealth of experience through SME incorporate.
We are well aware of what it takes to build a strategy but at the same time we are also extremely understanding and savvy, I guess you could say in terms of the need for businesses to be quite agile and also careful with how they are spending.
Darren:
It is quite different isn’t it, from say appointing an agency to manage this for you externally because you are actually implanting the people into the organisation whether virtual or actual. Though I would imagine that’s changed with Covid 19 that people are working more virtually anyway aren’t they.
Ali:
They are and I think that is a trend we could talk more about later. Obviously that shift towards a virtual work force is rapidly changing; it already was before the pandemic started so this model is more relevant than ever.
A lot of internal resources that we place, typically for example a digital marketing coordinator specialist or executive type role, these roles do typically sit in-house. That is they do have a presence in a business from a face to face perspective if the business owner requires that.
Having said that it is also quite typical of these roles that we place that they are not always full time. These roles can be pro-rata down to one, two, three days and then get gradually scaled up as the business grows.
What is so important is that the strategy always needs to come first. That’s the reality and it is not typically what we will see. We will often go into an organisation and they will let us know that they have a couple of junior resources; one’s doing the social media and one’s doing copywriting and a little bit of design on the side.
That’s great however, the reality is that we quite often go in and rip everything up and start again or at least start leveraging what they were doing and make pretty drastic changes to it.
Darren:
My experience is that it is not just SMEs. Increasingly a lot of organisations will have marketing where marketing is largely a service to the organisation rather than a strategic driver so the marketing plan is more a reaction to delivering the services required by the business rather than having a strategic plan.
So is that something that you often see?
Ali:
Absolutely, and I am from a corporate background myself as well and it is definitely not dissimilar in the SME space.
I think that is something that I’m sure a lot of our clients would testify to is having someone come in with a really objective opinion and with obviously having learned what the direction and the goals and the clear pathway for that owner or founder or investors is.
Being able to provide that external experience and also that kind of vision that they might not have had if they were going to do it another way is so important. As you said it does otherwise end up becoming this function that potentially isn’t servicing the business the way it should and the brand the way it should.
Darren:
That is one of the things I was alluding to before when I said it must be when you are engaged that it would bring more of a focus to the business around marketing because I’d imagine when you do start working with an organisation the first thing you just mentioned a minute ago is what do the owners of the investors want from this organisation. So that is your objective.
Ali:
Absolutely.
Darren:
Then you would go through the process of developing a strategy I would imagine.
Ali:
Absolutely, that is exactly what we do and then whilst it is very easy to go in and develop a 12-month growth strategy the reality of the matter is that needs to be agile.
It needs to be able to be changed and it needs to be malleable because whilst the direction will stay the same, the tactics to get you there as we have just seen in the last 3 months are very different some of the time and they need to be changed.
What we typically do is we go into the organisation once we understand their goals and objectives and the clear pathway is to build up that strategy and then at that point decide on the resourcing and the infrastructure that’s needed to make that strategy happen.
As I was saying that typically would require working with or recruiting an inhouse resource for that business. Then building out all of the infrastructure, the tools, the reporting, the integration and most importantly working hand in hand and in partnership with that internal resource to build out the marketing calendar.
That internal resource or resources need to have essentially as much buy-in as I do because they are the ones that are executing this day to day and where we fill the gaps is around the training and development that that resource or resources need to grow within that role so that one day they don’t need to work with us anymore.
If they get a tap on the shoulder to be bought, the business is being sold; they have everything inhouse ready, developed, done for them.
That’s quite a unique approach if you look at it from the perspective of the growth and development of the people within that organisation. Typically if the virtual marketing manager didn’t exist and the business didn’t have the budget for a senior marketing leader those junior resources would be reporting into the CEO or the managing director or the head of operations or whoever that might be. They are certainly not the best person to be providing training to that person.
Darren:
Not providing training or even sometimes direction.
Ali:
Correct.
Darren:
Because one of the things you mentioned a while ago is as we’ve seen, the requirement for being more agile. The idea that you can layout a marketing plan for the next 3 years, you can certainly have a marketing strategy for the next 3-5 years but the actual plan needs to change.
Now if you are not savvy as a strategic marketer when something like this happens you would probably react to the circumstances rather than react in the framework of what is it that we are trying to achieve. So having a more senior marketing person in that mix could be invaluable, I would imagine.
Ali:
Absolutely. A perfect example is a new hospitality precinct, that we are working with the investment group for. We brought on an inhouse resource who was brought on in a social media executive role. She has now built from the ground up an entire e-commerce platform. With our help obviously, but all of the leg work was done by that internal resource. Had she ever had any experience in backend set up development, e-commerce, working with CMS, working with DEV’s? Never.
I think the fact that we are so integrated with the business, so aligned with the leadership team within that business as well as the resource; we may as well be inhouse. It’s the same thing but obviously a lot cheaper and based on the deliverables that we are there to do each month. This reduces the cost up to 70 % for all SME’s so that has definitely been brought to the table over the last 3-4 months.
Darren:
The other thing that you mentioned is that your primary focus is digital which is interesting because it is very hard to find things that are not digital these days. When it comes to marketing comms wouldn’t you say almost every channel has a digital component or are you talking specifically about what people see now as the traditional digital channels?
Ali:
Totally. My background is from a corporate space in digital marketing manager and ecommerce roles so when I speak about digital I speak about typically the digital roles that fall within that category.
Darren:
The wall gardens like Google and Facebook, adwords and search engine marketing, SEO.
Ali:
Correct.
Darren:
But outside of that, there are a lot of other digital techniques that marketers use.
Ali:
And that’s Martech to me. Like marketing-technology is my absolute jam and I think if you look at some of the Martech tools these days, it’s like intercom, you’ve got messenger bots and Google analytics which is a kind of Martech. There’s every component of technology or every traditional above the line marketing method now comes with a type of digital technology to help measure that.
Coming back to what you were saying, our focus is definitely within that digital channel space across eCommerce. Digital channels, website and the techniques used to make that happen like SEO and things like that.
Darren:
It seems to me SMEs especially, end up being big investors especially in Google, YouTube, Facebook because it is very easy to do isn’t it?
Ali:
Totally.
Darren:
The access to those media channels has been designed that almost anyone can commit their budget to it.
Ali:
Totally, and it is achievable for them. I think it is a really incredible way if you are looking at it from the outset of a new brand. It’s an incredible way to go as broad as you possibly can whilst also being quite pointed with who you want that to go to.
Digital advertising techniques and audience building and the way you can target these days is a way I don’t think anyone would have expected and it’s only growing every single day.
I think for many SME’s digital is by far the best way to go because you get a better bang for buck, you’re building your brand and story on a much greater scale than you may have been able to afford via another channel or in the past and it is all trackable. So it is a no brainer I think.
Darren:
So I guess one of the things I often hear from business people is that they have often gone and appointed someone to do their social media and they have appointed someone to do their events and someone to do their PR. I guess that is a very convenient way. It is on a needs basis; I’ve got a need for this. I’ll appoint someone.
They will always say it is very hard to find someone that can do it all. When you think about it, it’s no wonder making that leap from SME to corporate is incredibly difficult, isn’t it?
Ali:
Totally. You and I have talked about this before. People are out there searching for unicorns. The reality is I read something this week by HubSpot, that there are over 41 different specialties just within digital alone.
We have talked about some of them today and we could talk about them for days but I think the reality is yes, people will go out and source someone in PR, someone in copywriting, someone in social media, and someone in the PPC space.
However, when you come back to the most important thing in all of this, it is having a strategy first. At least if you have gone and done that, reigning it in a little bit and fine-tuning that strategy before you go and execute another 6 – 12 months’ worth of spend with these people. It is really important that they are all aligned.
Darren:
That’s the nightmare, isn’t it?
Ali:
It absolutely is. Typically if the business owner or the founder or the director is making those connections and is that person that is essentially the link between the business and those outsourced parties, the reality is the information is not going to be fluid.
The GM or the CEO or the directors of an organisation are not the best people or well-equipped people within the organisation to be going and having conversations with people executing marketing tactics that they don’t understand, they are not sure of the objective or the goals.
They might think that they are but the reality is it’s going to create a missing link and that link is essentially what we fill because we speak the speak, we’ve done the strategy and we understand what those people are needed for and what the goal in working with them is.
Darren:
So a little bit of what you do is the translation of business-speak into a marketing strategy.
Ali:
100%. That’s a good way of putting it. That is exactly what it is and I guess that stems from not just my own experience but from our other VMM’s, Virtual Marketing Managers, and their experience having worked through SMEs and corporate environments.
It really comes down to the experience of that VMM having been and having worked through and worked with these people in these specialities before, to be able to understand the jungle of marketing jargon that there is out there and what every single one of those acronyms mean. Which ones are the really important ones to focus on to get that business owner what they need.
Darren:
I’m glad you bought that up.
Ali:
I think it is really important that the people working directly with these outsourced parties or insourced, it can obviously work well in both cases. The person working with these people needs to know what they are looking for and what needs to be done.
Obviously we can’t all be specialists in everything, there is no unicorn but the reality is some kind of unicorn-ess is kind of required to be a VMM or a digital marketing manager or in fact, a marketing manager these days because there are so many niches and you need to have an understanding of all of them in order to make it work.
Darren:
I guess if we take a step back a bit there are a number of different options available to businesses as they are developing their marketing needs aren’t there?
The first which you have already touched upon is building inhouse capabilities but I guess the issue or the challenge there is how do you get to the point where you don’t end up with a whole lot of specialists that you actually get someone who can look over the whole of the marketing strategy and be able to coordinate that.
The second would be to outsource. To go to a brand strategy or a marketing strategy company, often called an agency. But the danger there is they are going to be primarily suggesting the very services that they can provide.
I guess you guys fit more into a hybrid model. Would that be a fair assessment or are you actually in-housing?
Ali:
No, it is 100% a hybrid model and I couldn’t agree more with you. Coming back to your first question about ending up having a team of specialists that you might not always need, again it comes back to doing that strategy first. It comes back I think to a key way of looking at it which is having that person within that managerial role, for example, myself as a VMM, understanding and I guess pinpointing for that business what tactics and what channels and what overarching goals for that business are going to be always on.
For example in a business or organisations whose primary target market key persona is set on social media, be it Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, TikTok, whatever, that would indicate to me that the social media element from an organic perspective for that organisation isn’t always on tactic. That is something the business would value having in-house.
That’s something I guess we could also mention, is that ask Marketing prior to 2019 was becoming a digital agency. We were doing the social media for our clients and the reason why we don’t do that is we do not believe that is the most efficient and effective way of running your social media for a business.
The reality was for us – to be able to tell the story in the exact same way that a business leader wanted us to in terms of the day in day out social media execution – it is best done by somebody within that business and as an activity I would call, “always-on”.
So in that instance, I think if you have pinpointed a particular channel or a particular tactic that is going to require an always-on presence as long as you foresee this brand evolving, that role I would recommend having inhouse.
A typical role that we would resource to be in-house is that internal social media junior role and then coming back to the second point around which components to outsource, I also couldn’t agree more with what you said.
Clearly the digital agency model for some organisations works beautifully so I am not pooh-poohing that but I think one thing as you said if you go to the digital agency, having not done a strategy first, of course, they are going to recommend the tactics and the channels within their model that they are able to offer.
I read an article this morning and realistically the full-service digital agency model doesn’t really exist anymore because there are so many niches and where it does your typical SME can’t afford that.
So if you work to the strategy first and then resource based on the needs from an always-on perspective versus the campaign by campaign perspective, you’ve got a good hybrid model there.
Darren:
You still need someone there to oversee it don’t you because one of the things I’ve seen occasionally is where an owner, CEO has gone and outsourced especially around social media and digital and they have seen results.
Now you alluded before about how accountable and measurable that the digital channels are but it really does come down to what you are actually measuring because they were putting more and more of their budget into social media and they were seeing lots of web traffic and lots of likes but not a lot of sales.
Now they were completely convinced that all of those likes and traffic were converting into business but it wasn’t actually seen in real terms. So it really is important to understand those metrics, isn’t it?
Ali:
I often will show the clients that we work with and the leadership teams of those businesses the funnel. It is so important to look at the funnel for that particular business. If you look at the very top of the funnel you’ve got something like brand awareness and obviously the metrics of a brand awareness based campaign are very different from the metrics of a lead generation campaign which is ¾ of the way down that funnel.
I think it is so important to make sure you are constantly reminding the business and leading the business in the direction of what the goals are and what the relevant metrics are and what obviously is the best-case scenario that we want to achieve here based on that objective, based on where we are sitting within the funnel.
Obviously running a brand awareness campaign with a set amount of budget and obviously a set number of metrics behind that, is a very very different set of metrics than the metrics you put behind a lead generation campaign.
The budget would reflect that also, so it’s important to know that and be clear about that and agree on it from the outset versus running with a campaign that you think you know the reason for and then the person that you are working for, be it the internal resource or the agency, then telling you the metrics afterward. You need to agree on that at the outset.
Darren:
This is where a strategy is important as you said before because the strategy is built on what are the objectives I’m trying to achieve and so all of your metrics should be feeding back to, is it moving us towards those objectives.
Ali:
Exactly, 100% and you know this is one of the key things we bring to businesses which I think is so important is that overarching focus on the numbers. It is so easy if you are working across a multitude of digital channels these days to be looking at thousands of numbers a day and all of those metrics say something different and all those metrics relate back to a different objective from a different campaign based on a different date.
So I think one of the key things that we bring to the party is this ability to essentially integrate that data and build what we would call a dashboard using a tool for example Klipfolio where you are working in a live dashboard.
You are integrating your data that matters back into one sole place so that at any point in time you can look at this dashboard and understand the metrics that matter across the channels that matter on a campaign by campaign basis or on a month by month or quarter by quarter basis. So that you actually know what to look for because quite often you are looking at metrics that don’t really mean anything, or they don’t really matter, it’s not going to change, you know it’s not going to move the needle for you.
Darren:
And not just the needle in the short term, you also have to take a medium to long term look.
Ali:
Absolutely.
Darren:
Because you could suck all of the business out of the market in a week and then be left high and dry for a couple of weeks afterward.
Ali:
Absolutely.
Darren:
So the danger with a lot of this talk about performance marketing, is people going really hard at trying to convert everything in this week but you’ve also got to at the same time be laying the groundwork for future sales and future revenue.
Ali:
And that’s brand awareness right, in the same way, I was saying quite typically the internal role we bring into these organisations is a junior digital social media role. Well, the reason that we say that is because brand awareness in any organisation big or small, has to be always on.
It is not an optional thing. It is non-negotiable; you can’t just turn it on for a month and get leads and switch it off. That is not how brand awareness works; it needs to be always on. There needs to be a budget allocated there every single month.
From an organic perspective that is why we would recommend that would typically sit in-house. Then from a paid perspective, it needs to be always on. As you were saying from a performance perspective, you can’t just turn it on and off like a tap. Brand awareness needs to happen year after year.
Darren:
It’s an ongoing strategy.
Ali:
Absolutely, and then you obviously layer that with campaign-based performance channels as well.
Darren:
Now you mentioned before because I raised COVID 19 and the virtual working and you said that virtual working started well before this but COVID has accelerated a lot of changes, hasn’t it?
Ali:
Absolutely and I think just another crazy statistic, the virtual working has increased by 400 % in the last 10 years worldwide and based on some statistics that we read this morning the majority of CFOs and CEOs are saying they have absolutely no intent to bring their workforce back into an office in a full-time capacity.
I think that is obviously huge and there is quite an element of surprise in there as well. Did we think 4 months ago we would be able to say or did we think CEO’s would say hand to heart, trust and expect that they would get the same level of output and the same level of buying and the same level of I guess performance by having a 100% virtual workforce? Probably not.
I think that has really surprised a lot of people and I know particularly in the digital space this has been no change to a lot of us. All of our work can be done digitally. There is obviously an element of culture, obviously, an element of face to face that will always exist naturally, as we are humans and we like to meet people and be face to face but from a digital perspective, nothing changes.
Darren:
It is interesting from my perspective to read how IT is the part that is really struggling to catch up because everyone is now Zoomed out, Microsoft teamed out, Google meeting out, yet a lot of these technologies were not allowed by a lot of IT departments because of the ‘risks’ that they posed to things like servers and IT infrastructure.
Yet the necessity of having to remote work has made it that everyone is doing it and the IT department is really struggling. They don’t have control of your laptop at home; they don’t have control of your WIFI setup at home.
It will be interesting to see how quickly the IT department catches up with human beings who are going to have adapted to whatever we have to do.
Ali:
Absolutely. I am sure that is something that is really prevalent in larger sized organisations. It will be interesting because it has accelerated things so much, but I think the pros far outweigh the cons.
Darren:
Even in SME’s there’s a strong awareness that all you need as a business is to have a hard drive crash and wipe out everything and suddenly you are backing things up and then suddenly you are backing things up to the cloud and then you are wondering is the cloud secure enough and can I be hacked.
Is some hacker going to then hold me to ransom? I think these issues are certainly big IT issues for any business using any sort of technology.
On the technology front, the other thing that has been interesting is I would say traditional bricks and mortar retailers have been relatively slow to embrace technology. And one of the things I’ve seen in the last few months is the number that have embraced eCommerce and especially ‘click and collect’.
It’s been amazing and these are relatively small businesses but they are finding new ways of engaging with their customers.
Ali:
Absolutely. ‘Click and collect’ and I think ‘drop ship’ as well. The number of businesses who are now partnering with other like for like brands to essentially aggregate what you would call an affiliate platform or an eCommerce platform that allows for ‘drop ship’ so i.e., an amalgamation of brands that fit within the one umbrella then a user can go and select a number of and the business can then ‘drop ship’ directly to that customer for a really low cost.
We’ve seen this with many of our clients across all industries, they now have an eCommerce component to their business and not just eCommerce but a virtual component to their service-based business.
For example, businesses that would require their customer to come in and receive a particular service are now offering, for example, a 15-minute free consultation on line, on Zoom or on Facetime prior to not only help that user make the decision in terms of what service they want to redeem in that particular business but also to pinpoint what eCommerce products they might like to purchase customised to their exact needs.
So I think it is bringing the brand and the consumer so much closer together using things like eCommerce but I also think the virtual communication is now because people are so okay with using Zoom to talk to a brand, so okay with using a chat to talk to their brand.
Darren:
Chatbot.
Ali:
Yeah, chatbot or Livechat, it brings the user and the brand so much closer together and I think it is laying the foundations for what for most brands will be incredibly nurtured relationships and loyal customers moving forward.
I think it has only been a good thing in that sense.
Darren:
I have suddenly realised, what did you call them VMM’s, would bring in another thing. They would be working across multiple businesses as well because it is not necessarily full time as you said, so that means they can bring experiences from other businesses and actually drive innovation rather than just doing the same thing over and over again.
Ali:
Absolutely. We are completely industry agnostic in the same way that we work across businesses that are service-based and product-based. So I agree and there is a natural and organic way of doing that. It’s only natural that you look at what you are doing with one client in one particular industry and think about how that could be in some way applied to another which is only really benefitting that business.
You alluded to it, that you would not really get it if you had that resource fully in-house because they are not out there doing other things.
Darren:
I’ve just noticed the time. It is unbelievable how quickly this conversation has gone. But thanks, Ali, for coming and sharing with us about Ask Marketing.
Ali:
Thank you for having me.
Darren:
Before you go just a question that I have, I’m just wondering what would be your ideal client?
Ideal for marketers, advertisers, media and commercial communications professionals, Managing Marketing is a podcast hosted by Darren Woolley and special guests. Find all the episodes here
