Introducing Katie Cole, Marketing & PR Consultant – Head of Digital Marketing, at Macbeth Lankester, who joined us in 2023. We asked Katie to give us a snapshot of her career in marketing so far, her role with us and what she thinks are the main opportunities and trends for B2B marketing in 2024.
Tell us about your background, how did you end up working in B2B marketing and comms?
I had a love of writing at school, but I really wasn’t sure what I wanted to do once I left, and a difficult homelife meant my dreams of university didn’t materialise. At 18 I was working as a Junior PA at a London advertising agency and quickly realised I didn’t want to assist, I wanted to be the one creating.
What followed has been a 15-year career in marketing, including a good stint in the automotive sector, a role as head of digital delivery and even a job in Sydney for an Australian medical board. I was lucky enough to be supported by an employer to re-train with the CIPR and achieved professional qualifications in PR.
Working my way up, especially during a real growth period of digital marketing, has given me hands-on skills, including paid social media and PPC knowledge and expertise. As I’ve progressed in my career and moved into the more strategic side of marketing, I’ve managed to continue to hone those skills and I’m really proud of my strategic and tactical versatility.
After I’d had my son, I completed a contract as Head of Marketing for a B2B SAAS brand and this is where I truly learnt the power of B2B marketing. Telling the stories of B2B brands, and the people that drive them, is challenging but it also pushes you as a professional to be creative and really focus on the quality of your work.
How are you finding your role at Macbeth Lankester?
I’m really loving my role at Macbeth Lankester. I feel so lucky to work with some incredible clients across the property and facilities management sectors.
B2B marketing is a lot about relationships, and the ML and client teams make that part easy. The role has allowed me to get back to my roots of PR whilst giving me the opportunity to use my digital skills and knowledge to benefit our clients.
What I love about B2B marketing is that you’re often working with subject matter that at first glance seems dry, but you can tease stories out of it and create some really interesting content that people care about.
It’s an exciting time in marketing, especially in B2B marketing, with the growth of AI and data-driven intelligence that seems to be happening at the same time as a resurgence in storytelling and creative content marketing.
What do you think are the current opportunities and challenges for B2B marketing?
The thing that is on everyone’s lips at the moment is of course AI. I don’t think it will be damaging to the marketing profession as long as we learn how to work with it, not against it, and use it intelligently for our benefit.
My favourite quote about AI is “I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can paint, not for AI to create my art so that I can do my laundry and dishes.” I really try and apply that to my marketing content creation. How can AI help me plan and streamline without it replacing my human creativity? I think the challenge some marketers experience is when they try and rely on AI to create something that really needs to be crafted from experience and with a human touch. I’m really excited to see how AI is going to change marketing automation, data and, in particular, search.
Perhaps, that is because storytelling seems to be having a big resurgence at the moment, especially in B2B marketing. Crafting stories, teasing out the personal details and creatively illustrating the benefit of products and services, in my opinion, is still the best way to create engagement and trust.
What about marketing trends?
As I’ve mentioned, storytelling and personal stories are really having a moment in B2B marketing, whether that’s to illustrate DE&I, to give a face to an expert opinion, or even the humble ‘meet the team’, all are seeing a rise in engagement, and I think that’s because, especially in a service business, relationships and trust are key.
Podcasts aren’t new by any stretch, but they are trending in B2B, especially in the markets that we work in at Macbeth Lankester. They create space for interesting conversations and are fantastic at revealing the crucial nuances of B2B subject matter. Podcasts, when done well, showcase the expertise and talent of a business’s biggest asset – its people. Podcasts are also fantastic content generators and will often provide enough content for further articles, press releases, and video shorts for YouTube and LinkedIn.
LinkedIn in itself is having a bit of a revival. Anyone that’s been on the channel for a while knows it suffered a bit of blip, but the platform has seen some fantastic improvements and exceptional growth recently. The rise of LinkedIn influencers are helping this resurgence. LinkedIn recently reported that 9 million LinkedIn users have changed their profiles to ‘creator mode’, which is a content-driven mode that allows ‘followers’ rather than connections.
I love data so I get really get excited about the paid targeting capabilities on LinkedIn and the wealth of data that the campaigns provide. Strategic paid planning alongside intelligent data and retargeting possibilities means paid campaigns on LinkedIn can target your exact ideal customer at an almost personalised level.
I think it’s a really exciting time to be in B2B marketing and I’m looking forward to seeing how we can harness trends and new technology to benefit our clients and the excellent services they offer.