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The Rubicon Agency In Insights, Miscellaneous, Our industry, The Message Elevator, Thought leadership

Thought leadership in the digital age: who’s leading who?

Opinion forming, visioning and crystal ball gazing is nothing new in the world of technology. Almost half a decade on, marketers are still waxing lyrical about tech mystic Steve Jobs and how he saw the role of computers in modern society.

It could be said that he has set the benchmark for many of today’s luminaries without the availability of social media, mobile technology or mainstream video. This begs the question, in today’s digital world are the visionaries of the 21st century actually that pioneering, or do they just have access to a bigger mouthpiece?

The dissemination of ideas

With the number of digital channels increasing exponentially, industry ambassadors have an embarrassment of riches when syndicating their opinions. If the quest is to elevate their personal brand, then measures of success are likely to include follower growth, engagement metrics, social shares and speaker opportunities. However, if their objectives are more aligned to business generation, how do you effectively attribute thought leadership notions with revenue? Do these ideas really resonate with potential buyers? Do they align with the company vision? Are these views likely to drive action?

Looking through this lens some of the vanity metrics mentioned earlier may seem a bit flaky. Can an idea that’s ‘gone viral’ really influence the sale of a six-figure purchase?

This really is the crux of the question, are the opportunities to see the content/notion diluting the actual value of the content itself?

It’s an interesting thought, are we subliminally being spoon fed these concepts that, if challenged, are reconstituted from someone else or are flimsy at best?

Beware of false idols

Today, the number of people with role adjectives such as luminary, visionary, pioneer or champion in their social profiles are commonplace. With so much digital noise out there, how do we sift through the real thought leaders from the pretenders to the throne?

Below are some telltale signs of what to look for.

Expertise and knowledge: Search for individuals who have deep expertise in their field that have been recognised by their peers and are frequent sharers of valuable and unique content.
Authenticity: Genuine thought leaders are transparent and unique, many replicate but true thought leaders share personal content, including failures, that make it feel real and relatable. Comfort with the good, bad and ugly shows humanity and real depth.
Strong points of view: The usual background check of credentials, past work and endorsements from peers can help validate industry luminaries – but how they project insightful, visionary and sometimes unconventional thinking is they key ask
Engagement: I’m not just talking about likes and shares, real thought leaders engage with their networks about their views and visions.
Consistency: Thought leadership isn’t just a hit and run exercise, being able to consistently produce high-quality content that provides value and is one step ahead.

The last point on this list is very important – consistent, sustained content is vital to establishing your business or personal brand and to make sure your content is taken seriously. But it’s also worth noting that using the plethora digital channels available to you also creates its own challenges. Lazy copy and paste posturing can create white noise, with followers becoming turned off by a cookie cutter approach. Different channels are frequented by different audiences so treat them as such. This continued requirement of content can be an overwhelming task for many business leaders, but The Rubicon Agency can help.

We craft thought leadership content that commands an audience, drives engagement and opens doors. With over 25 years of B2B agency experience working within the tech sector we know what it takes to articulate a vision, a view or a notion that people will want to follow.

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The Rubicon Agency In Insights, M4 in action, Miscellaneous, Our industry, Strategic content, The Message Elevator

Writers block: The great AI content conundrum

According to the Content Marketing Institute, 61% of technology marketers say creating the right content for their audience is challenging.

This is hardly surprising given the sprawl of decision makers, budget holders and influencer groups over the years. In yesteryear things were much simpler, the balance of power sat in the IT tower. Decisions on technology purchases were sat firmly with the CTO or CIO so producing content that pushed their buttons was fairly straight forward.

Fast-forward to the present, the technology space is awash with products, services, solutions and architectures that are designed specifically for certain lines of business. In May of this year CMSwire reported that the MarTech space alone had swelled to over 14,100 solutions [hyperlink], so it’s no surprise that tech marketers are finding it difficult to create differentiated, relevant and valuable content that their prospects want to engage with, given the competition for eyeballs.

Is AI the answer to our content prayers?

With the explosion of AI into every tech application known to man, it’s no wonder that marketing has embraced generative AI like a returning relative from an overseas trip. Let’s face it, AI has been pitched to remove manual, repetitive and human centric tasks- content creation is no exception to this. The Content Marketing Institute continue in their benchmarking report that 79% of technology marketers use generative AI for content tasks and 48% use AI to write full first drafts. But this begs the question, is AI the golden goose we have all been searching for?

Well, if used correctly it can certainly remove a lot of the grunt work out of the process which is a huge plus given that 66% of tech marketers are faced with a lack of resources. However, in order to remain in control, marketing departments must adopt some form of guiderails around the use of AI in content production. These include but are not limited to:

Ethical use of AI: Organisations should be transparent about AI-generated content in order to avoid bias and not to mislead audiences.
Quality control: Human involvement should be applied to all AI generated content to ensure that brand tone of voice and quality standards are adhered to.
Content authenticity: Ensure content feels like it’s been created by a human, making sure it’s authentic and adds value to the audience.
Content validation: Check to make sure that references, statistics and sources are relevant, up to date and correct.
Data privacy, security and compliance: Make sure that all content complies with copyright law, data protection and compliance regulations.

Content should be human-centric.

No doubt about it, AI has aided content creation and has certainly streamlined the process, although to be truly authentic, marketers still need to apply the human touch. Consumers often challenge and question the information they are presented with, so structuring arguments that support these and applying empathy, elevation and context to these points can promote authenticity.

People buy people, so if your content comes across as synthetic your audience may not only switch off but, on a deeper level, possibly question your products or even worse, your brand.

At The Rubicon Agency we craft human-centric strategic content that informs, educates and inspires. With over 25 years of B2B marketing agency experience working within the tech sector, we know what it takes to cut through the competition.

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The Rubicon Agency In Insights, Miscellaneous, Our industry, Sales enablement

Sales enablement: 10 pitfalls that can derail your sales efforts

We all know that securing a new account is very much a team effort. Extended sales cycles, big-ticket purchases and complex buying groups require a consolidated effort from both marketing and sales functions.

Get it right, and the payoff can be huge; get it wrong, and those marketing dollars spent on generating leads could be wasted.

Below we look at the top 10 sales enablement pitfalls that can derail even the best customer acquisition efforts.

1. Misalignment issues

It may seem obvious but it’s amazing how many times sales and marketing functions aren’t aligned. To be on the same page, sales teams need to be continuing the narrative that the prospect has originally enticed and engaged with. Going off-piste can dilute your proposition or leave the prospect scratching their heads about what they are actually buying. Whether you have functional (i.e RevOps or Growth marketing) or operational alignment (i.e. interlocked sales and marketing ABX) is irrelevant – the shared language, vision, metrics are key.

2. Unarmed and underprepared

The saying goes ‘it takes a village to raise a child’; well, in a similar vein you can’t close a sale without sufficient assets across multi-touchpoints. When an MQL lands with the sales team, they need to continue to nurture the prospect until they are ready to engage in intent-led activities such as demo content. If the sales enablement content is missing or significantly lacking, your place on their short-list could be in jeopardy.

3. The customer is always right

Listen to your customers and feed that back into the sales process. Customers are often a source of enlightenment that can highlight specific silver bullets that encouraged them to buy from you. These may differ from the USPs identified by the product marketing team and could, if used correctly, make your proposition a whole lot stickier.

4. Mind the gap

Sales teams are at the coalface when it comes to feedback from prospects. If a recurring issue or challenge crops up, then it would be foolhardy to ignore. This could be not having enough social proof that your product does what it says it can do, or collateral that demonstrates the business value to the C-suite. Whatever the gap, this content chasm needs to be filled or your prospect could disappear into the abyss.

5. Computer says ‘no’

Tech is great when it’s used correctly. However in the case of ‘having all the gear and no idea’, there is no point having it at all. If the tech stack is operating in silos or not being used at all then prospects can be under served, neglected or just left to go cold. Integration of systems and a single source of truth is critical to making sure prospects are given what they want, when they want it. Without this you are back to good old-fashioned guesswork and blind luck.

6. Slow, slow, quick quick slow.

Moving interested parties through the funnel is nothing new, but customers hold all the cards and call all the shots when it comes to sales acceleration. With the constant pressure of quarterly sales targets to hit, it can be tempting to move prospects through to the end game as quickly as possible. Moving a ‘lead’ straight to a demo after they have only consumed a single piece of content could come across as desperate. But by the same token, not moving prospects onto to more sales qualification content when they want can also demonstrate lack of empathy. Pacing a lead is a balancing act and one that should be informed by clear metrics and digital body language.

7. Too many tools

Counter to point 5, the digitally enlightened sales team may embrace the benefits of sales applications, but give them too many and the law of diminishing returns will start to kick in.

8. Poor training and onboarding

Knowing your customers and aligning their needs with your products is a basic necessity for sales. Inadequate training and campaign alignment can leave sales teams underprepared and less effective at communicating your point of difference or objection handling. Gaps in product knowledge or inconsistencies in sales messages can leave your credibility exposed.

9. Low ball content

As mentioned in point 4, content is key. You may have a plethora of assets to send to your prospective customer to help encourage them to buy, but what if the content is the wrong pitch? Sure ‘speeds and feeds’ material have its place, but is it likely to pique the interest of business leaders – probably not. Sales teams need a raft of assets that appeal, inspire and convince decision makers from both technical and business camps.

10. Don’t stand still

Heraclitus said, “the only constant in life is change”. How true he was, this philosophy rings true within the sales engine as well. Just because something is resonating today doesn’t mean that it will continue to do so in 12, 18 or 24 month’s time. Change is inevitable and your sales enablement needs to adopt this mindset as well. Trends change, buying habits flex and priorities pivot, failing to recognise this will make your pitch seem outdated and irrelevant.

For a holistic view of your sales enablement assets and approach, speak to The Rubicon Agency. With over 25 years of B2B marketing experience working within the tech sector, we know what it takes to inspire sales teams and cut through the competition.

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The Rubicon Agency In Insights, Miscellaneous, Our industry, Product marketing, The Content Spectrum

The importance of the product marketing enigma machine

Cracked by the boffins at Bletchley Park and synonymous with films like The Imitation Game and U-571, the Enigma machine was at the bleeding edge of cipher technology in the mid 20th century. Unlocking the true meaning of its coded messages had a monumental impact on the outcome of WW2.

With a slightly tangential pivot, the same premise could be applied to deciphering the sometimes-cryptic messages unveiled by product marketing teams. Tasked with communicating a product, solution or service to the market, product marketing can sometimes default to showcasing the technical features and functionality.

Now, there is a time and a place for this information – comparing competitors’ offerings can require a forensic peek under the covers. However, being able to convey the benefits to a non-technical audience or apply relevance to certain lines of business is a skill that requires a degree in translations.

Demonstrating the art of possible

As we are all well aware, buying centres and tech budget holders have become more diverse than they were 20 years ago. Lines of business including HR, finance, marketing and sales now have dedicated budgets to purchase x-tech products and services.

Assuming these buyers aren’t tech savvy, or particularly excited by the number of functions your product offers. So, how do you effectively communicate the value and the difference of your brand over a competitors?

The answer is empathy. Put the product in context. How is it going to make their lives better? How is it going to benefit the business? What possible use cases can your product be applied to? These are some of the messages that will cut through the noise of traditional speeds and feeds information.

The growing influence of Product Marketing Managers

In a recent article, McKinsey reported that PMMs could be the secret weapon in turning products from ‘meh’ to ‘must-have’. They stated the following:

Market understanding: PMMs bring essential insights to the table which in turn help tailor products to meet customer needs and preferences.
Orchestration: They coordinate efforts across teams to ensure a seamless transition from development to market launch.
Risk mitigation: By understanding market dynamics they’re able to reduce the risk and guesswork associated with new product launches.
Revenue growth: Companies with robust PMM functions see significantly higher revenue growth, with top performers having a 25-30% higher ratio of PMMs to product managers.

Used effectively, product marketing managers can bridge the gap between development and customer speak, they can pivot the stories above to resonate with their audience and act as ‘chief code breaker’, to take the technical intricacies of the product and decipher it into real business benefits.

At The Rubicon Agency we have a track-record of working with product luminaries and ‘simplifiers of propositions. Together, we craft product marketing content that bridges the gap between tech speak and storytelling. With over 25 years of experience working within the B2B tech sector we know what it takes to articulate a new product, service, platform or architecture.

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The Rubicon Agency In Insights, Miscellaneous, Our industry

Are FinTech’s losing touch? Fintech marketing trends

Traditional banks have long been seen as the lumbering dinosaurs of the finance world, unable to react dynamically. Many Millennials and Gen Z were searching for market disruptors that offered secure financial services but delivered on their terms and in a digital first manner.

This groundswell saw the birth of the neobank, a digitally native offering with no bricks and mortar branches, specialising in a concentrated set of products and services. Great you may think. Problem solved. These disruptors have filled a gap in the market and are now serving their customers in a more efficient and digital way than the traditional banks ever could. Wrong! If you are going to disrupt the market then you need to stay in lockstep with the demands of your customers (new and old) through effective Fintech marketing strategies. It could be argued that whilst FinTech’s provided a refreshing pivot away from high street banks, they are now facing the same challenges.

Know your market

Being different was, at first, enough of a USP to attract previously disgruntled customers. However, as more and more FinTech’s entered the market, supercharged with supportive conditions like digitalisation and abundant funding, each needed to carve out their own niche. However, many had misaligned their offering with the needs and wants of their potential customers. Overlay direct and indirect competitors and the piece of the pie that seemed sizeable at first can quickly turn to a pile of crumbs.

Poor user experience

The very premise of a neobank or FinTech is built on the customers digital experience. Deliver a poor UX and the selling point that many customers bought into has eroded and with it their loyalty.

If the digital experience is slow, unreliable, cumbersome or irrelevant then customer will churn.

Evolve or fail

In a continuously changing landscape, FinTech’s need to stay ahead of consumer trends and customer wants in order to stay relevant. For example, Revolut started life focusing on the travel market. Their offer was aimed at customers who wanted to make digital transactions abroad without being stung with commissions or unfavourable exchange rates. Over the years, they have evolved their proposition, adding new services such as crypto trading to keep pace with their users’ news.

Navigating regulations

New rules and compliance obligations like Anti Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) can become a burden for agile neobanks. These regulations require large amounts of resource and can impact business models depending on technology and risk profiling. Those that don’t cope with these checks and balances can be impacted by delivering a sub-standard service to their customers.

Safety in numbers

Filling the gaps in products or services through partnerships is one of the ways FinTechs can expand their offer to its customer base without diluting their core business. Partnerships enable users to customise their accounts with a la cart services that are most relevant.

It’s safe to say that the FinTech buyer is more disconcerting than a few years ago. Where slick propositions and digital-first experiences provided a breath of fresh air to a largely siloed and outdated industry, these same gems have lost their luster over time. Expectations have exponentially increased. Service requirements have become more complex and personalised.

Standing out from the crowd in a highly commoditised market is difficult, so to cut through the noise you need a marketing agency that can elevate you above the competition.

The Rubicon Agency has significant experience in the FinTech space – whether the original disruptors or the re-incarnators.

Check out our experience in FinTech.

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The Rubicon Agency In Insights, Our industry

Platforms need strong participation and purpose – an observation for platform marketing

Changing how the world works

Brands often want to influence and change the world around them – sometimes within the bounds of authenticity, and sometimes not.

Tech is no different, but when it comes to platform brands, it’s perhaps more true than other segments. Platform brands are often the youthful upstarts and yesterday’s unicorns with high regard for their market contempt and trouble making. They’re often the ones making up the new rules, and zigging when others zag.

A strong belief system or manifesto aligned with their carefully carved niche is super critical to success. There’s little room for the meek and mild here.

New economics of platforms brings new entrants

Platform plays have disrupted many established markets and industries – Uber in taxis, AirBnB in hospitality/travel, Doordash in fast-food – to name just a few. Most markets have received some challenge to norms and business models from a platform-upstart that’s looking to shake-up the status quo and entrenched commercial agendas.

To do it, they (largely) use existing technology to create unique IP to introduce a new route-to-market. But they also come at it with an ecosystem mentality, looking to introduce value to actors that are critical for the platform to be a success. These are often fellow disruptors looking sideways at a market and thinking, ‘We could do with some of that action’.

In fact, six of the ten most valuable companies in the world today are platform businesses: Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook, Tencent, and Alibaba. They all allow ‘vendors’ to use their platform to monetise their wares. And they’re doing well out of it!

Now, the winners are not necessarily ‘the tech pioneers’ – they’re often ‘the pioneers with tech’.

But while the platform-model is loved by shareholders and business leaders alike, these brands are faced with some unique pressures. Notwithstanding existing businesses undergoing ‘platform-reincarnation’ and looking to benefit from recurring revenues and sticky services themselves.

Platforms need an engaging core

More than many other tech businesses, platform co.’s need a rock-solid raison d’être for others to exist. They often provide an alt. route to market that still needs to compete with old world models as well as subsequent waves of disrupters.

The kernel of their original business plan needs to surface for ecosystem ‘contributors’ to believe in their vision and collaborate/co-create to the underlying business intent. These participants – together with the end-buyer – need to believe in the operating model as much as they do the character of the marketing. There ain’t no hiding here!

What should the platform marketer look for?

To achieve the relationship above, platform marketers should ensure:

The business purpose is very clear and sustainable for ecosystem participants – even more so if a market is experiencing various disrupters with similar models.
The purpose is translated into persona-based messages/journeys at key touch points.
The value of the model is seen/projected to carry substantial value to contributors (i.e. lean/efficient route to market) and end-buyers (i.e. ease of selection/provision).
The brand purpose (i.e. what the brand believes in) must co-exist neatly with the business purpose (i.e. the reason for invention).
Bullets 1 and 2 must sense and respond to changing plays of new entrants.

Addressing these issues head-on will get you well into the success zone.

Long live the tech-centric business

This new breed of tech-centric business, or the enlightened leadership team of a ‘platform-reincarnation’ play, are generally in-tune with the needs of the end user. They understand the self-empowered and open business mindset and how that’s good for the market – and their prosperity.

As such they’re generally less infatuated with ‘tech-spec marketing’ than the tech pioneers of yesterday. But they still need to enact the bullets above to make sure their play engages and endures.

The Rubicon Agency has significant experience in platforms play – whether the original platform disruptors or the re-incarnators.

Check out our experience in platforms.

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The Rubicon Agency In Insights, Our industry

Make the invisible visible – a hack for infra marketers

A little bit of magic is required

An Invisibility Cloak is a magical garment that renders the wearer or whatever it covers invisible – and brought to infamy in the Harry Potter film and book franchise. These cloaks are exceptionally valuable within the wizarding world as they are made from the hair of a Demiguise, a magical creature that possesses the power to become invisible at will.

It’s a shame that many infra marketers seem to be using them on their infra plays – making little effort to display their own magic.

The world needs infrastructure visible

Infra may not be the new rock & roll, but it is undergoing a new dawn in appeal and recognition – driven by software defined capabilities, domain convergence and new cloud operating models amongst other market shifts.

Further, infra has arguably become more key as industry moves toward platforms and marketplaces – and (digitally-transformed) business processes become even more infra-dependent. Goals for corporate agility, sustainability and Net Zero have turned up the pressure too.

Technologies that run global industries, markets and communities like 5G, IoT, blockchain, and smart grids rely on infra – and in themselves they ARE infra too.

But to succeed, the impact of this ‘digital plumbing’ must be manifested in a very real and visceral manner. But not all vendors and service providers do a good job in landing this.

More than digital plumbing

It’s probably worth a few words defining infra here – we mean WAN, LAN, mobile, data centre, security, Wifi, interconnectivity. You get the gist.

It doesn’t matter whether it drives a private, public or hybrid environment – the backbone is critical, and its invisibility needs to be overcome with very visible benefits. Often, it does more than connect A to B – it’s linked to possible shifts and transformations in business operations and posture.

Top marketing tips for infrastructure campaigns

The key messaging and creative watch-outs for the tech marketer include:

Build bridges between incremental technical/functional benefits and specific business indices. These are likely to be steps towards the bigger goal(s) of the next bullet.
Establish a credible link between the holistic, improved operations story and (business or tech) aspiration.
- By ‘credible’, we mean elevated but within the elasticity of the brand and the authentic purpose of the tech.
- And by ‘aspiration’ we mean contribute towards goals such such Net Zero, competitiveness, boosting NPD, service acceleration etc.
Create an emotional attachment with the above messaging. This is likely to be linked to personal, team or business reward and success
A positive response to all these principles will propel you well in the right direction.

Businesses generally invest in tangibles

The above sub-head may not ring true with NFTs and crypto, but most organisations demand highly measurable results.

None more so than big-ticket deals in ‘digital plumbing’. From service/cloud providers to enterprises/SMBs and public sector orgs, all need to act with prudence and diligence – but also with a next-gen mindset. Decisions made can have long-term consequences – good and bad.

The b2b tech agency or tech marketing function needs to make sure their technical argument commands an RFI/RFP, but their aspirations and promise secure brand preference.

The Rubicon Agency has deep experience with networking, cloud and data centre propositions, working with many of the leading vendors in the space.

Check out our experience in infra.

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The Rubicon Agency In Insights, Our industry, The Content Spectrum

Surface and serve ‘the power of people’ – an open letter to tech services marketers

People are brilliant

Not everyone can possess the scientific, literary or mathematical brilliance of Einstein, Wilde or Turing. Luminaries and intellectual gamechangers like these don’t come along every day.

However, brilliance manifests in various ways, reflecting exceptional intelligence, talent, or skill in specific areas. Brilliant individuals think deeply, solve complex problems, and generate innovative ideas daily.

It’s a shame that this truth seems to lack recognition in much of the tech services marketing for professional services (PS), managed services (MS) and engineering consulting (EC). How can we change the record here?

The new services universe

‘Old-world’ IT Consulting has long been a complex industry, where well-paid organisations are charged with ‘integrating the un-integrateable’. And managing the (almost) un-manageable.

Big advisory firms, boutique players and top-drawer resellers have feasted over the space for decades. Their success stories had/still have the potential to influence corporate client success – and for institutions to deliver-on policy pledges.

But times are changing.

The new world of IT is more integrateable, more composable, more modular.
IT itself can now deliver more profound business capabilities than previously dreamt of.
Tech offers are now (generally) configured to be consumed as a service.

But while this is all true, it still needs the power of people to make it happen. We must make sure the value of human ingenuity, assurance and experience shines-through in marketing PS, MS and EC offers. This is not always the case.
Articulate the potential of people

As technology marketers, or b2b tech agencies, we’re used to extracting and communicating the value/potential from a software, device or platform. We’re experts at projecting the impact to the user or buyer. But advisory plays are a little harder to land.

Yes, explaining process and operational pathways are part of the job – especially for complex, high-risk tasks that benefit from a ‘good-old’ methodology. But don’t forget about the value-add. And it needs to be better than competing offers too!

What’s the checklist for services marketers?

For b2b tech marketers with a people-driven service portfolio, they should:

Ensure each play expresses the very difference of human input – not just a flow of tasks.
Cluster service propositions into meaningful bundles where collaboration and intersection of expertise can flywheel success.
Create constructs that express the escalation of value aligned with human inputs – possibly around a lifecycle or buyer experience.
Establish interlocks between individual services – creating a pathway around the incremental plays that can deliver compounding gains.
Embed a vision/ultimate customer destination that can only be achieved with the right combination of tech play + services play.

Manifested properly, these principles will set marketers and tech agencies on the right path.

Blending empathy with expertise

With services plays, tech marketers have more chance to apply empathy and emotional intelligence. Here they’re selling people to people. They’re addressing highly-human concerns – ‘is that something we could do?’, ‘do we trust that to happen?’,’ how can that possibly be achieved?’.

It takes b2b tech agency expertise and mind-shift to get the balance right. But, after all tech still needs people, and people still need tech…

For now, until AI fully takes over! (wink)

The Rubicon Agency has deep experience with consulting, engineering and services propositions, working with many of the leading vendors in disruptive innovation.

Check out our experience in consulting and services.

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The Rubicon Agency In Insights, Our industry, The Content Spectrum, The Message Elevator

Sell aspiration not anti-perspiration – a philosophy for software marketing

Heros need a mix of aspiration and perspiration

Imagine the scene. A TV ad for a world famous anti-perspirant, where our hero is just about to make the rock climb of their life. Picture the director, sizing the dramatic perspectives that show the peril of the route in-frame and the atmospheric shots of the climber’s preparations. Edit-in the adrenaline-inducing ropes and apparatus – and the climatic joy at the summit. You get the picture.

Now imagine the ad where the focus is just the anti-perspirant and its ability to reduce sweaty arms. It’s a passion killer isn’t it. Well, this is much like the state of software marketing – where there’s a lack of craft and flair in blending perspiration with aspiration.

New models in software make things worse

Software has been core to the tech industry since day one. And as decades have rolled by, the delivery model has changed radically – and more recently the software supply chain and operating models have been turned on their heads too.

But in all that time, software has been engineered to fulfil specific roles – such as office tasks (Word/Excel etc.), processes (SAP/Oracle etc.), horizontal functions (Workday, Adobe etc.) and many more. All are positioned to make things easier, save time, improve accuracy – and fulfil basic needs in our workday lives.

But these binary messages/measures are now table stakes and not enough to express the real value of modern software applications to a business with zeitgeist challenges.

Modern architectures, APIs and AI bring massive potential to what software can do and achieve. And now (as tech marketers and b2b tech agencies) we need to place more emphasis on presenting how it’s going to change the business – rather than the basic performance it achieves. The potential and accomplishments of our erstwhile climbing hero need to be evident and authentic.

Software needs to dare to dream

We’re now talking about new messages and yardsticks – accuracy of experience scoring, quality of predicted outcomes, performance of virtual behaviours – the list goes on.

All these messages are visionary, and all yardsticks were unthinkable just a few years ago. But what principles should be applied by modern software marketers to make sure they’re on the right track?

The modern software marketer checklist

Here’s how to achieve the right level of pitch for the software or app:

1. Don’t think that the traditional high-touch nouns of agility, flexibility and productivity are enough these days. Break beyond these barriers into fresh air. Go beyond the blah, blah, blah
2. Get up close and personal with the customer use cases to extract the most valuable essence(s) of the application.
3. Get empathetic and imaginative in equal measure and apply your own ‘language translator’ to create and pitch a story for business managers/leaders, users and the IT function. All use different languages and have different care abouts.
4. Loosen-up a bit – apply some b2c thinking (even in b2b propositions) to enforce a fresh perspective and brand expression that buyers and users can relate and buy into.
5. Finally, don’t over-egg it! Make sure there’s authenticity and reality around the dream you’re selling to the customer. Overdo it and you’ll damage your brand and reputation.

The comfort in aspiration

The above 5 points take patience, rigour and high standards in knowledge extraction and message elevation to achieve the right results. But they sure feel like a breath of fresh air when you get there! The aspiration feels real, sweet and attainable.

The result. You end up with a differentiated, engaging and enduring pitch to your software play. And you’ll feel like our climbing hero from the outset.

The Rubicon Agency has 30-years’ experience in marketing software and applications, working with many of the leading vendors and engineers

Check out our experience in software.

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The Rubicon Agency In Insights, Our industry

Sell the impact not what’s inside – an appeal to cloud and AI marketing pros

Do you need a petrol head for adoption?

We all know one. An inquisitive, passionate petrol head that knows the inner workings of the combustion engine. Someone who can explain the mechanics of the turbocharger, crankshaft and gearbox. They’re a great source of free education – but they can be very heavy on the minutiae you pretend to be interested in, just to get the educated answer you’re after.

Cloud and AI vendors can have similar traits – super keen to show what they’ve learned and built over the years – and wanting to share technical detail that exceeds your need, desire (and let’s be honest), comprehension.

More innovation and bamboozling ahead

When cloud started to gather on the horizon a couple of decades ago, little did we all know the profound effect it would have on our lives – whether in the tech or marketing industry or just as a plain old consumer. We’ve needed to introduce and normalise emerging technologies rapidly – and sometimes we’ve overcooked it.

What started as ‘some virtual storage somewhere in the ether’, gained momentum, surfaced disruptive innovations and was the catalyst to a fundamental rethink of computing. It unlocked an Alladins Cave of possibilities and potential that not only reinvented what tech can do, but also business operating models, software supply chains and consumption models.

Tech marketing pros and b2b marketing agencies have spent the last 2-decades marketing cloud services in a way that’s made XaaS the de-facto that it is today. But like our erstwhile petrol heads, we’ve done some bamboozling and blindsiding along the way too.

Don’t love the tech too much

Early adopters can have a habit of thinking everyone ‘gets it’ and ‘instinctively knows where things are going’. And with that can come a false presumption of awareness and understanding.

Cloud upped the ante on what’s possible – but AI has taken that onto a whole new level. All segments, industries and economies are looking over their shoulders for what it could mean. It’s fair to say that (as of writing this blog) much of the AI market is still in its early adopter and (some in segments) early majority phases.

The early majority onwards need tech marketers to join the dots. We need to translate what the emerging tech is – into what it does and what it achieves.

We can’t afford for these emerging innovations to not achieve lift-off just because their value hasn’t been articulated. After all, not all tech vendors are led by visionaries with skills in crisp and eloquent distillation. We need to play our part.

Technologists – programmers, architects, engineers – are all understandably proud of their efforts and their stack. But product/portfolio management and marketing teams need to step in and stop this hitting the market without decoding the value.

What do cloud and AI marketers need to consider?

Solution, product and marketing teams should ask themselves these 3 key questions:

Does your current marketing decode what’s enabled and achieved with your technology, rather than what it does and how it does it?
Do you have tiered messaging to translate functionality and capabilities for varying levels of technical proficiency?
Do you present crisp use case benefits and stories against the status quo?

If some of these answers are no, you may want to think again.

Serving a more tech-friendly audience

Cloud and AI technologies are great for audience levelling – often bridging the needs of the business managers while offering something more progressive and flexible for IT pros.

Alongside that shift, the business manager is becoming more digitally able (with greater workforce representation of millennials and Gen Z).

So, while business decision makers are becoming more technically literate – you still need to keep ‘Team IT’ on-side – especially in larger businesses. This means tech marketers (and their tech agency partners) must balance the need for simplicity with crisp business benefits and technical depth.

Campaigns and collateral produced by b2b technology agencies (and internal marketing functions) need to land the purpose of the tech proposition – without patronising or bamboozling buyers and users.

Collectively, we don’t want to be known as the petrol heads that no-one wants to sit with at the Christmas party!

The Rubicon Agency has significant cloud and AI expertise, working with many of the leading vendors in disruptive innovation.

Check out our experience in cloud and AI.

Want to boost your budget?

The Rubicon Agency Budget Booster is designed to optimise funds – making your available $/£/€ go 15% further than it would have done previously.

Think of it as 15% extra – free of charge.

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The Rubicon Agency In Insights, M4 in action, Our industry

Resist the urge and rise above the FUD – a plea to cybersecurity marketing

Scary can create urgency

The Scream movie franchise has been a box office smash over the last 3 decades (yes, the first one was 1996!). It’s used wave after wave of dramatic storyline, unsuspecting victim and bad guy to get bums on seats. And it seems much of the cyber security market is following the playbook.

Yes, IT markets like cyber security and infosec are all about risk and exposure – and leveraging the underlying vulnerability and fear of the buyer is part of the script. But how much scaremongering is required for good business? And when is it bad for building a positive positioning?

Scary is getting scarier

For cyber sec vendors it’s all about outplaying the bad guys and not being taken-out in scene 2 – but it’s clear that things don’t always go to plan. Popular media is full of data-theft, ransomware attacks and compromises – whether it’s public services, high-profile figures or household brands. And now industry must deal with AI-generated adversaries too, with every facet of digital engagement in the threat zone. In IT security, it must seem like the Scream boxset is playing repeat.

So, it’s easy to see why impending doom is an appropriate lever for cyber sec marketing – but REALLY, does it have to be turned-up to the max and with so little respect to the brand and customer?

The pitfalls of scare mongering

Fear, uncertainty and doubt (or FUD) have been around since the birth of marketing. It’s applied to most industries – but perhaps there’s never been such a good vehicle as the security market. Here regulatory pressures and an ‘at-risk’ CIO/CTO/CiSO can lead to over-zealous scare tactics.

With shadowy underworld figures, storm clouds and a complement of hoodies, the average cybersecurity campaign can look closer to a low-budget horror flick than a b2b campaign selling a 6-figure resilience solution.

What should cybersecurity marketers look for in their marketing?

Campaign and product marketing heads should ensure their portfolio is marketed with a healthy balance of optimism/opportunity to offset the threat being faced down.

The customer takeaway should be that the solution is a force for good:

Positioned as an enabler rather than just a defender. This avoids the overly negative positioning that impacts perception and brand.
Serving progressive capabilities that can be promised and practiced. Telling a measured story of business liberation and beyond the value inhibitor of ‘a restrictive shield’.
Customers are looking for subtle cues that instill cool, calm confidence. Continuity isn’t achieved with dashboards alone.

Does your marketing provide these takeaways? You may want to continue reading if you’re not sure.

Businesses need a happy ending

As we covered above, not all stories have a happy ever after. But it’s incumbent on the security vendor (and their tech marketing agency) to ensure that positive forces can (and should) prevail against these ‘mongers of doom’. After all, the modern CiSO needs to understand and believe in the fundamental promises of tech – not that there’s lots of Ghostface’s out there.

With so many threat vectors, actors and connected processes these days, the CiSO decision-making will be structured, diligent and conscious. They won’t be scared into making the purchase. Not anymore. They want to be treated in a respectful manner – making professional decisions on business exposure AND enablement.

The best approach to address this is with the optimum balance of ‘measured threat’ x ‘actionable resilience’ x ‘business state achieved’ with the solution. Not too much FUD – but similarly not over-arrogant either.

We want to avoid the genre of Scream – but likewise we don’t want to lose the edge and end up with Scary Move either.

This needs an expert b2b tech marketing agency with deep experience in cyber security. One that has proven methodologies to elevate plays and an operating model to create empathy and appetite in buyer groups.

The Rubicon Agency has significant cyber security expertise, supporting many of the leading security vendors to raise their game in security marketing.

Check out our experience in infosec.

Want to boost your budget?

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Think of it as 15% extra – free of charge.

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Lewis Miller In Miscellaneous, Our industry

25 years of innovation and success with AT&T

Supporting AT&T for 25 years

We’ve come a long way since launching the AT&T MPLS capability in EMEA 25 years ago. At that time – due to the millennium bug – the IT function was mid-planning for tech meltdown and business was thinking about social Armageddon.

Way back in 1999 (yes, the previous century), AT&T was looking for a B2B tech marketing agency to run a pan-European programme to improve market education on improved traffic management in the enterprise WAN. And after a comprehensive pitch process, we answered the call.

Little did we know back then that our relationship would endure for another couple of decades.

Transformational technologies and opportunities

“Winning AT&T added a marquee brand to our client list. Any tech agency would be proud to support the world’s largest telco brand”, said Andrew Miller, co-founder, The Rubicon Agency. “After a successful MPLS programme that created a good pipeline of opportunity, we were introduced to a number of functions and teams that allowed us to deepen our partnership. These operations were receptive to an agency dedicated to B2B tech.”

Since then, the agency has had the pleasure of supporting many portfolios across the organisation – geographically and technologically. These include IoT, unified communication & collaboration, mobility, networking, consulting and contact centre. And go-to-market teams such as Education, Retail, APAC, EMEA and Global.

The Rubicon Agency: a great B2B marketing combination

Maintaining a relationship with a powerhouse like AT&T over such a significant time is no mean feat. “With an absolute focus on tech marketing, we’ve got a great track record of delivering results for AT&T – with moments of magic and mojo across many campaigns”, said Andrew Miller. “Whether simplifying propositions or creating new notions and leadership conversations, we look to make our marketing impact deliver a multiple of what AT&T invests with us at the outset”.

With over 400 projects under our belt, you’d maybe think that things are winding down. But far from it. Our B2B marketing journey continues – with new assignments for AT&T Labs, AT&T Connected Wearables and AT&T Cloud Voice. Things remain busy.

Here’s to the next 25 years!

Explore our latest projects for AT&T

Demonstrating the business case for wearables

AT&T
Anticipating customer needs to provide outstanding CX

AT&T & Five9
Bringing omnichannel to life

AT&T
Embedding collaboration across the enterprise

AT&T
Creating relevance in key vertical markets

AT&T
Driving market development in IoT

AT&T

The Rubicon Agency In Miscellaneous, Our industry

The Rubicon Agency’s 25-year relationship with Cisco

The Rubicon Agency: helping Cisco build the Internet for a quarter of a century

There seems to be a poetic symmetry to Cisco’s claims of accelerating internet uptake 25 years ago – and their current campaign claiming that 80% of traffic runs through their infrastructure. Not only were we supporting them back then, but we continue to do so even now.

In 1999 Cisco, the worldwide leader in internet networking solutions, were on the hunt for a B2B tech marketing agency to support their telco service provider business. Specifically, the co-marketing programme – Rainmaker – was a key investment in driving managed network services business into Cisco Powered Network providers. They just needed a dedicated tech agency to help lead the charge.

After a competitive pitch process, we ultimately secured the prestigious gig.

“I remember the agency selection and campaign development process very well – like it was yesterday. We pitched against 8 other B2B tech or telco marketing agencies to secure the programme. I also remember the lightening bolt of energy generated by adding their logo to our client list.”, said Andrew Miller, co-founder, The Rubicon Agency.

Providing support across Europe and beyond

The following 24 months were taken-up with supporting key European services providers on market development programmes in their respective countries – including Telecom Italia, KPN, DT, Telekom Austria, Swisscom, Belgacom and FT, to name a few.

Since then, we’ve managed B2B marketing programmes across Cisco including Cisco Enterprise Networking, Cisco Capital, Cisco IoT, Cisco Webex, Cisco Partner Development organisation, Cisco Office of Innovation, Cisco Service Provider, Cisco Office of I&D, and many more. And over the last 18 months we’ve produced projects co-funded by Radware and Cisco for Cisco SECURE.

“We knew the initial project had a wide campaign window – but I’m not sure we expected to still have the relationship over 25 years later.” Andrew Miller further commented. “But we’re as proud to be creating mind share and wallet share for the tech giant now, as we were back in the 20th century.”

Cisco + The Rubicon Agency: an enduring relationship

Undoubtedly, Cisco has a bold commitment to marketing – and this philosophy provides a good fit with our agency’s expertise in B2B tech marketing, creating high levels of attraction through in break-through strategy and creative.

Our relationship continues to this day with new projects across several channel, technology and sub-brand functions.

Explore our latest projects for Cisco

Increasing awareness in DDoS protection

Cisco & Radware
Accelerating adoption of a game-changing channel programme

Cisco
Encouraging new behaviours to ‘Be the Change’

Cisco
Communicating a new model in social impact

Cisco
Helping develop sales mastery for teams and partners

Cisco
Sharing sales best practices with partners

Cisco

The Rubicon Agency In Miscellaneous, Our industry

Series-C CMOs who hit their growth goals all know this

If your tech start-up is prepping for its series-C funding round, your Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) has a challenge ahead.

They need to rapidly professionalise the company’s marketing, branding and communications, bringing them up to corporate standards.

They need to show that they have achieved the goals set at the last funding round. And that they have the expertise, the series-C marketing strategy, the technology and skills to achieve the results any series-C investors will demand.

From scrappy tech start-up to corporate professionalism

At this stage in the start-up journey, the challenge isn’t simply about what the potential customer can see — though that is still important. It’s also about the technology, frameworks and strategies behind the scenes.

What does the CMO have to do to get the company ready for series C funding?

Demonstrate a communications strategy that addresses each user segment at every point in the customer lifecycle in a way that maximises returns.
Adopt marketing automation as part of the fully technology-enabled strategy for demand-generation and the maximization of customer lifetime value (CLV).
Have a credible demand-generation strategy for taking the business into new segments, new geographies and other new audiences.
Develop mature account-based marketing strategies and practices, to ensure and demonstrate maximum revenue growth from your install base.
Own a powerful thought leadership platform that creates sustainable conversations and clear market differentiation and leadership.

To get your start-up through its series-C funding round, brand identity, corporate messaging guidelines, communications strategy must all be comprehensive, flexible and contain all the elements required to enable these and other innovations.

For instance, if you’re building a personalised digital journey, driven by CRM-based marketing automation, your start-up’s brand identity and marketing architecture must contain all the elements required to support that effort. The system must be able to pull these automatically from your libraries to create the asset it needs, at an industrial scale.

This requires a combination of marketing, revenue, technical and operational knowledge and practical expertise. For many start-ups, it’s huge leap in combining greater marketing structure, with far more detail in strategy, larger amounts of data and a much greater and broad ranging use of technology.

We call this stage-by-stage approach the start-up marketing investment maturity path. It runs from pre-seed to series-D. At each stage, the challenges associated with convincing investors, securing funding and hitting growth targets are unique.

To find out more about the marketing investment maturity path, check out our infographic.

View infographic

When technology is a false friend

In one sense, there is a lot of reassurance at this stage in the start-up journey. CRM platforms, marketing automation, digital-experience — these are all known quantities. You can buy into off-the-shelf technologies and follow ready-made plans.

That’s all good. But it’s not a substitute for having the necessary architecture underpinning your branding, marketing, corporate messaging and communications.

The best martech in the world will not help you if:

Your messaging is inconsistent across touchpoints in the lifecycle.
Your communications aren’t tailored to your audience segments.
Your visual branding is a bad fit for your value proposition and brand personality.

Without the right approach to start-up branding, marketing and communications, you can find yourself with a technologically flawless technical implementation of automated, data-driven marketing at scale and still fail to hit your growth or investment targets.

Investors want to see conversion metrics, not tech metrics

In this scenario, the technology-related metrics will look great. But your conversion metrics won’t, because while your comms might arrive in the right inboxes, your messages won’t land with your audience.

This won’t help you grow your user base or your revenue. It will not help you meet either your series-B goals or convince investors that you can credibly achieve any goals they set as a condition of series-C funding.

The answer is to make sure your CMO has access to a marketing, branding and comms team that has experience taking start-ups through their series-C funding round. You could choose to build this team internally. But this involves time and cost overheads that many start-ups will find prohibitive.

The answer is to find an external partner with start-up marketing expertise, right away. A good tech marketing agency will work with you to identify exactly the tools/tactics you do and — and don’t — need for your series-C funding round. It will help you develop exactly the mix of branding, marketing and communications your company needs to achieve its current goals and to give it a platform fit for future growth and evolution.

The Rubicon Agency has three decades of business and consumer tech marketing experience working with both start-ups and some of the world’s leading established technology brands.

This blog is part of The CMO Investment Challenge series, including The pre-seed to C journey, Seed-A, Series A-B and Series B-C.

Get proposal

The Rubicon Agency In Miscellaneous, Our industry, Web + UX development

This secret gives the best series-B CMOs the edge

When a start-up makes the leap from series A to B funding, it places a lot of pressure on the company’s marketing capabilities.

At this stage in the start-up journey, investors expect more structure and more obvious professionalism in marketing. You can no longer build your marketing effort solely or mainly around your founders and their vision.

The time for scrappy, ad-hoc communications is over. Now, you need structure, not just in brand identity, but in your messaging guidelines, your product marketing, your demand generation, your relationship with your channel and other partners — and more.

We call this the series-B marketing great leap forward. Here’s what it looks like:

Brand marketing: you need a structured brand identity and tone of voice. It doesn’t have to be a 50-page guide to every element of branding, but it needs to cover the basics – and it needs a control system to prevent deviation but allow evolution.
Revenue marketing: your product should now be defined as something separate from your company; your target segments and your marketing plan should be clearly defined and your demand engine somewhat proven and reliable.
Marketing communications: you should have comms planned for multiple personas across each key point on the customer journey – and across multiple channels.

Often, by this stage in their lifecycle, the start-up’s Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) has at least a small, dedicated team to work with.

In one sense, this is a blessing. The CMO has help to hand. But it can also be a curse. Having previously done the marketing themselves, the founders hand over to the CMO, dust off their hands and think ‘job done’.

This completely underestimates the marketing challenge facing the CMO as they take the start-up from its series A to its series B funding round.

The series-B marketing great leap forward

The series-B funding round is a key stage on the start-up marketing investment maturity path, running from pre-seed to series-D. At each stage, the challenges associated with convincing investors, securing funding and hitting growth targets are unique.

The series-B CMO has a huge job to do. They must create a branding, marketing and communications vehicle that’s almost as comprehensive, data-driven, accountable and effective as anything a corporate would produce.

Among other things, that means:

Taking the disparate, ad-hoc branding elements the start-up has created, making them consistent and filling in any gaps to build a comprehensive brand identity.
Building data-based audience segmentation and then creating marketing campaigns, with measurable success metrics, for each segment.
Marketing the marketing model to potential investors, clearly demonstrating how it will enable the start-up to achieve growth and revenue goals.

You can’t just hand over some blog posts, email templates, the keys to your website and then tell the CMO, “best of luck”. That’s how you set your CMO up to fail.

What do we mean by fail? Not showing enough revenue growth. Not having the time or headspace to develop a proper market understanding. And not having the tools they need to scale fast enough. And these are all among the top-five reasons why CMOs get fired¹.

To find out more about the marketing investment maturity path, check out our infographic.

View infographic

Give your CMO what they need to master the series-B transition

To avoid this outcome and the damage it can do to your company as it heads into its series-B funding round, you need to give the CMO the tools, technologies, and team they need.

For most start-ups, it’s unlikely that it will be economical, or speedy enough, to do this in-house. Building the right team, with the right mix of skills, and putting together the best mix of marketing tools, will take too long and cost too much.

The answer is to partner with an outside specialist. A b2b or b2c tech marketing agency that specialises in branding, marketing and communications for start-ups can give your CMO instant access to everything they need to win new customers, grow revenue, and convince investors.

The right agency will work with you to identify exactly the marketing tools you do and — and don’t — need for your series-B funding round. It will help you develop exactly the mix of branding, marketing and communications your company needs to achieve its current goals and to give it a platform fit for future growth and evolution.

The Rubicon Agency has three decades of business and consumer tech marketing experience working with both start-ups and some of the world’s leading established technology brands.

This blog is part of The CMO Investment Challenge series, including The pre-seed to C journey, Seed-A, Series A-B and Series B-C.

Get proposal