As our Head of Client Services Amy has her head (quite literally) in a lot of things. She’s a busy lady. But we got her to pause, for just one moment, so as we could turn the spotlight on her for a change and find out a little about why she loves doing what she’s doing, and more…..


You’re the glue between our agency and our clients, how does that make you feel?

Honestly, proud and privileged. I understand clearly what each of our clients needs to achieve (from a sales target focus) and it’s my priority to work with them to ensure the marketing strategy helps them get there as quickly and cost-effectively as we can.

Are clients all the same, ie: do you approach them similarly?

Yes and no. Yes, because we work primarily with B2Bs in the sustainability, tech, manufacturing and supply chain sectors, so there are some common issues, audiences and similar practices sometimes. But, no, each one is very different, with a unique infrastructure, culture and personality, that means fresh thinking every time which I love.

What’s a favourite part about what you do?

It has to be getting deep into an understanding of the client and what their specific needs are. Working on a strategy that directly answers this, gives me a real buzz.

I think that being one removed from the clients’ business is a huge help; myself and the team can see things from a more objective perspective and an impartial standpoint; when we apply our marketing minds to this, we come up with the magic! This is my favourite bit. 

And of course – results!

What don’t you like?

I don’t like it when I see decisions being made without the data evidence to support it. Digital marketing means stats are always at our fingertips and they are there to help assess what’s working and what’s not. Making decisions out of thin air, based on vanity and not value, is the same as throwing good money down the drain to me. I just don’t get it. I never will.

Do all clients see this?

Fortunately, yes, our clients do which is amazing. I think it would be very hard to build a working relationship with a B2B that doesn’t follow the data and doesn’t have a clear business plan that ‘gets’ what a major part marketing plays in their growth. It’s fundamental, and it’s developing and becoming even more important as B2Bs start to realise they need to have a proper presence in the online space. 

What’s your biggest priority right now (summer 2024)?

Scaling up our messaging around sales and marketing. The two should be one in any B2B because they are so intrinsically linked. Where we’ve been able to help implement this for our clients, the results have been incredible.

Creating ONE seamless team (instead of two separate sales and marketing departments) makes commercial business sense – why would anyone want these two critical groups of staff working in silo? It’s illogical.

Bring them together and working through a single CRM platform with full visibility of all activity, all contacts, all prospects, means staff are not only all pulling as one – and potentially likely to produce better end results for the business – they also feel more empowered.

Marketing sounds much more commercial, is that what you’re saying?

Yep. Never has it been more so. And so, it should be. Marketing budgets need to be bringing in a strong return. Marketing needs a seat in the boardroom, it needs to be accountable for itself and pulling its weight alongside other B2B departments.

It’s no longer a ‘nice to have’, the growth of online business means all B2Bs should be taking their marketing more serious than ever. It’s the critical part of a business and has the ability to unlock huge potential to more sales and more growth. It’s just using it in the right way and recognising the commercial sense in joining it up with sales.

Sorry, sermon over, I just feel so strong about this point………..Marketing can be overlooked, or even worse, ignored, by some business owners, shareholders and boards, and that’s simply because they don’t understand the important part it can now play in generating business for them. 

Pretty strong words Amy, why do you say this?

In my experience, we’ve come across a number of decisionmakers in big B2Bs who refuse to see the importance of marketing. Without being rude, their thinking relates to another era, perhaps when marketing really was about all things ‘fluffy’. 

I think it’s the ‘Old Boys Club’ mentality. If your strategy is fluffy, your results are fluffy.

For this reason, we’ve had to say ‘no’ or part company from these B2Bs because it’s not the type of partnership we want to develop. In today’s world, right now, our inbound marketing activity is directly generating leads. It’s making a tangible difference to B2Bs’ bottom line.
 

Where do you see marketing heading next?

We work in an ever-moving industry which makes working life challenging but also extremely exciting. It’s my job along with the rest of our agency to be on top of whatever the ‘next big thing’ might be – absorb it, dig into it, try it, pull it apart and try to break it, assess the data, read the reviews, check what our peers think – all of this, before we even consider mentioning it or making any recommendations to our clients.

For all of these reasons, it’s practically impossible for B2Bs and their in-house marketing teams to stay ahead of it all and that’s when we step in and help.

As an agency in this fast-moving digital landscape, we have a duty to stay ahead. Not only because we want to, for our own learning, but for those lovely people (our clients) who pay us good money to look after them. It’s a pleasure and privilege to be in this position and I think I speak for all of us here at MMA, we’re never going to take any of it for granted!