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May 6, 2010

Digital Marketing Agencies – the overlooked partner for software vendors and IT consulting companies

I'm excited to introduce guest blogger, Simone Burrows. At HP, Simone is our business intelligence solution manager for the Health and Life Sciences industry. What a privilege to have someone who writes with such passion and conviction! I Simone, I hope you can join us often! - John Santaferraro

Ripped jeans and cowboy boots mandatory.

The IT and Marketing functions of many organizations are merging, presenting a challenge for digital marketing agencies as they try to work out who they want to be when they grow up.  While digital marketing agencies have largely recognized that this key client side trend must be addressed, software and IT consulting companies don't seem to have the issue on their radar, and are missing a vital partnership opportunity as a result. 

A recent blog post by Pro Bose, VP Digital Strategy at a leading NY agency addressed the issue from the agency perspective as follows - 

"With digital marketing increasingly taking on a central role in the media matrix, technology enabled platforms and features such as personalization and real time optimization based on analytics etc are very hard to separate from strategic customer segmentation as a separate offering. Most industries have started to look at budget allocations for initiatives that intermingle the boundaries of IT and Marketing. There is no reason marketing agencies shouldn't productize offerings in collaboration with software (enablement) companies. And certainly not try to build it out internally - the past decade is strewn with carcasses of overpaid underdelivered technology products that were the excesses of ad agencies trying to build them."

So, the agencies seem to have learned their lesson and aren't trying to have sideline in marketing software development - a wise choice.  But what about the software vendors and IT consulting companies in the game of selling and implementing marketing analytics, web portals, campaign management or complete CRM suites?  Well despite their best efforts to really understand the needs of their customers, they just don't have the type of in-depth marketing 'know how' of the ad agencies, and certainly aren't in the business of providing the creative brilliance that the best of them deliver.  Yet they recognize that being able 'talk marketing' when positioning their own marketing products and services is vital.  So how do they take it up a level?

It is clear to me there's a huge opportunity for the two to work together.  Just imagine a customer's surprise to be presented with a really tightly knit marketing solution.  The customer research, digital strategy and creative content that combines to form the marketing 'vision' from the marketing agency.    Let's bring it to reality with the best information management, data integration, reporting, CRM and advanced analytics technologies.  Maybe host it as an end to end marketing solution on a super-duper integrated data warehousing platform (HP Neoview comes to mind...).  The IT consulting company ties all this together so their customer doesn't have to.  Dreamy.

So, if it's such a great idea, why isn't this happening?  I mentioned that most software vendors and IT consulting companies just don't have the agencies on their radar.  But Pro Bose at also points out a key barrier -

"Cultural context is everything and product companies and agencies have cultures that are sand and water."

Hmm, no kidding.  Just try walking into the office of an ad agency suited and booted in your best consultancy clothes, only to find yourself terribly overdressed compared to the cool agency folk in their ripped jeans and cowboy boots. 

Software vendors and consulting companies have enough problems making their alliances with other software vendors and consulting companies bear fruit.  Meetings, dinners, promises made, not so many jointly closed deals. 

The same lesson about these 'traditional' alliances also applies to making new alliances with ad agencies successful.  It's all about relationships.  You can sign all the fancy agreements and alliances paperwork you want, but unless the person at Company A likes the person at Company B, nothing will ever get off of the ground.

So, a call to the Alliances organizations at marketing software vendors and consulting companies - it's time to shed the corporate clothing, change into your best ripped jeans and cowboy boots, and start brainstorming end-to-end marketing solutions for your customers.

Check out Pro Bose's blog!

Post by Simone Burrows
HP Business Intelligence Solutions
Health & Life Sciences Industry

Posted by HP Business Intelligence Solutions at May 6, 2010 10:16 AM