Insights

Is Your B2b Business Ready For Change?

Author - armstrong-admin
18.10.2021

There will always be different views within an organisation on how things can be done better and this is very much the case when it comes to digital marketing. A change of branding, a new website or a new digital marketing strategy are the most common ways to boost online presence yet there will often be conflicting views in a business on what the priorities are.

Differences can be generational or involve people with very different world views and the personalities involved will ultimately decide the direction a business goes in.

B2b business marketing has come a long way in the past decade, but many businesses still lag behind when it comes to their digital marketing. Change in this sector tends to happen slowly particularly in large organisations with more people involved.

Sometimes change is viewed as a threat while others see change as necessary for a business to break through some of the barriers holding back growth. This can be broken down into people who are more defence-minded and people who are more attack-minded.

Both these personality traits can be useful depending on the circumstances and both can come with disadvantages. Change for change’s sake isn’t always good if there is no strategy behind it. While business growth will require risks to be taken at some point, those risks still need to be calculated.

In the digital marketing sphere, the risk can be can we trust an external agency with our most valuable digital assets, our data, our website or brand strategy? Does that external partner have the capacity and expertise to support our business growth?

For many businesses, the relationship with external digital marketing partners has become one of the most important as online competition continues to grow.  The best partnerships are of course the ones that are able to bring change for the better. These partnerships will be based on mutual trust.

If a business already has an in-house team such as an IT department for example, change can sometimes represent a threat. Changing how things have always been done can bring its own risk and stakeholders will naturally have a responsibility within the organisation to make sure change doesn’t have a negative impact even if that might seem to be defensive.

Change happens all the time in digital marketing with technology evolving all the time. People who use the Internet expect ever more seamless experiences online. They don’t want to see poorly presented marketing material or websites that take an age to load. Measuring how customers interact with a website is crucial to understanding what if anything needs to change.

For change to happen there needs to be a level of trust involved when digital assets are being handled and this can mean opening up access to gather data that will inform marketing strategy as time goes on.  There is no harm in having people within an organisation prepared to do the relevant checks to ensure procedures are followed but often controls can be too rigid which reduces the level of marketing intelligence available to 3rd parties.

Then there are the costs to the business to consider. Those who are more attack-minded in the business will be less concerned about how much the process will cost. They will want to drive through change with cost being of secondary importance. Defence minded personalities may take the extra time to find a supplier that is less demanding and offer a similar service for less.  Deciding if your business is ready for change will mean that everyone in the organisation is on the same page. Appointing a digital agency partner is a big step for some businesses. Appointing the right one will mean opening up to new ideas and access to areas that were previously only accessible to in-house staff.

Those personalities in the business who fall on both sides of the attack and defence spectrum will have their roles to play in deciding if a business is ready for change and the best direction to move forward.