Time for a group hug – Why collaboration is key for building brands and generating revenue

It’s clear the ‘turf wars’ between search, social, content, PR, media and other agencies that have been going on for a while now has scope to continue for a lot longer. We used to be on the frontline, fighting for the search industry against those that would do us down.

But we’ve come to recognise that there are some non-search agencies out there well equipped to deliver fantastic search campaigns; more impactful and insightful campaigns than many specialist search agencies could deliver.

So, we’ve started providing consultancy for other, non-search agencies and in-house teams, to share what we know about search while learning from them too. It might seem counterintuitive to help potential competitors but it’s the right thing for our industry in the long term.

And it’s the right thing for customers who, when it comes down to it, don’t give two hoots about marketing and marketing agencies. It’s proved the right thing for us too.

In the process we’ve learnt a lot about our industry and how we can work better with those in others. Here are a few areas that have piqued our interest as we’ve explored:

• Strategy

Some agencies pay lip service to strategy without ever properly understanding what it is or framing what it should be. Increasing traffic isn’t a strategy. It isn’t even a tactic. It’s an objective. From what we’ve seen and heard we wonder how many agencies properly understand this.

• Simplicity

The push for collaboration needs to be built on simple foundations. It’s time to stop hiding behind acronyms and terms of art. We all have a responsibility to drop the acronyms and stop the gibberish. For example, ‘keyword research’ can be incredibly useful but it can also alienate people; let’s focus on delivering customer insight that everyone can contribute to.

• Collaboration

Attitudes need to change (and are changing) but so do ways of working too. Collaboration can drive changes in attitudes, particularly when the right tools are available to support it (which is why we’ve been developing tools like those found at perfectfit.io, coveragebook.com and answerthepublic.com). And collaborative working will, increasingly, be a major component in marketing and business success.

• Inspiration

Great agencies have a real craving for inspiration from outside of their respective ‘areas’ and so they should; search agencies that only ever send their people to search conferences will be well placed to deliver the same ideas as other agencies and that really isn’t going to cut it moving forward. Great agencies are inspired to deliver ideas that build brands to achieve multiple objectives – that’s where we should all be focusing.

• Measurement

The fact is that we continue to confuse people with ways of measuring. Where we (digital agencies) see ‘value’ too many people don’t. No wonder so many finance directors find it hard to understand the full value of marketing activities. Let’s choose some clear ways of measuring the positive impact we’ve had on a business and start there, rather than the less concrete or even abstract measures that too many rely on.

So, there’s good news and very good news. Ours is a story with the chance for a happy ending.

But there are lots of people talking about the areas we’ve mentioned above (and others) and far too few turning those words into actions. So, exercise selective listening and embrace inspiring action.

And don’t waste time fighting on the frontline; look for those organisations and people you want to join for a group hug and then make it happen.

Stefan Hull, insight director, Propellernet

Tel: 01273 760950

Email: stefan@propellernet.co.uk

Web: www.propellernet.co.uk

Twitter: @propellernet