S1 E5 - Demand Agencies of the Future

Are you interested in knowing what the future holds for B2B demand agencies?Tune in to Episode 5 of The B2B POD and indulge in the conversations of our host Radwa Hassa with the guest Anthony Riley and understand the fundamentals of maintaining a positive relationship with the clients.

Take this opportunity to learn more about various trends, news, and future prospects of demand agencies and their impact on the B2B industry.

In this Episode, 

●    We introduce you to our lovely host Radwa Hassan and our guest Anthony Riley

●    Give you an overview of the future of Demand agencies 

●    Our guest shares his perception of old school agencies      

In closing, we'd like to say thank you for tuning in to The B2B POD this week. We hope to see you for Episode 6.

Episode highlight -

[00:08] Radwa Hassan Introduces the guest Anthony Riley 

[00:38] About Anthony

[03:22] Radwa asks Anthony about the disconnect of the consultant approach within an agency

[04:05] Anthony explains his perception of old school agencies

[04:43] Anthony explains about an intelligently integrated agency

[05:06] Anthony explains where the true value of an agency lies for a B2B marketer

[08:11] Radwa talks about the IT industry and their relationship with mature agencies 

[08:26] Radwa talks about the transformation of agencies

[09:13] Radwa asks about the agencies in North America

[09:40] Anthony explains the differences between the matured marketers and what they expect out of their agencies

[11:01] Anthony speaks about the MX group’s relationship with its partner agencies

[13:49] Radwa explains how an agency should function

[15:20] Radwa talks about the rise of the new age B2B Marketeer

[15:39] Radwa asks about Ecommerce in the B2B space

[18:18] Radwa talks about the importance of humanizing the brand and having engagements with the clients

[20:45] Radwa asks about what is the high turnover in organizations

[21:08] Radwa asks about how the change in the client’s organization impacts the agencies environment

[21:23] Anthony explains how the change in the client’s organization impacts the agencies environment

[25:23] Anthony talks about the importance of trusting agencies

[27:40] Radwa asks Anthony about how the MX group functions as an integrated agency

[27:48] Anthony explains about the MX group functions as an integrated agency

[28:22] Radwa asks Anthony to give three tips for the CEO of an agency

[28:31] Anthony shares his three tips for the CEO of an agency

[29:52] The End

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Transcript

Radwa Hassan
[00:51]
Hello and welcome everyone to another episode of The B2B POD. I have an exceptional guest for this episode, Anthony Riley. We are going to talk about something that is really interesting, just the relationship between the Agencies and the Clients and how the Demand agencies of the future will look like.

Radwa Hassan
[00:38]
Anthony Riley, President and CEO of the Annex Group is a veteran in the B2B industry and was an Active Duty Marine for the United States. From startups to Fortune one hundreds, Anthony has held multiple clients with a focused goal of ensuring their marketing and advertising activities have a measurable and real impact. Using his wealth of experience he will be joining us to discuss the future of demand agencies and what we can expect. Anthony, thank you so much for joining. Happy to have this episode with you.

Anthony Riley
[01:09]
Radwa, thank you for having me and I'm really happy to be here. It's great to talk with you today. 

Radwa Hassan
[01:14]
Thank you. So for this episode, we're gonna talk about something that's really interesting to me personally. Which is the relationship with the agencies and the clients and how the demand agency of the future will look like. We can't have a better person than yourself, Anthony, to speak about. So I would really like to take this topic through the different challenges that we're going through in our relation and engagement with the agencies and also how the agencies are going to shape up and look like in the future. If we're going to talk about how would the incredible amount of change, growth and evolutions in the B2B space agencies are struggling in some situations and also the clients are not getting what they want in order to pursue their digital transformation journey and capture all the opportunities that's out there with the help of the agencies. B2B practitioners are experiencing this transformation in both agency and clients. So we cannot just say that, oh, it's the clients who are struggling. Oh no, the agencies are not connecting but also with the agencies being a little bit in some situations unaware of what's going on the client side or to not address it in the right way. We'll look at one of the challenges that I'm seeing just in the B2B brands. I do not find the cohesiveness and accountability in the agency partners today. With digital transformation and the accelerated evolution of marketing within the B2B space companies end up working with several specialists. So for branding demand generation when I go to the agency they tell me to work with that person on one project and with another person on a different project. In some situations they try to bring an account manager, but then it's still all at the same time, they would push you to one specialist if you want a different area. These specialties, I think is also creating that bit of  disconnect and you don't find this consultant approach within the agency. So it becomes dis-joint market, the whole ecosystem has a bit of an issue coming together. What is your view there, Anthony? And from your experience, how do you see it?

Anthony Riley
[03:37]
Yeah, Radwa it's a great question that you asked because we do see that happening a lot these days and so if I take a step back obviously there's a lot of growth happening in the B2B space. We're seeing an increased level of spend in B2B that we've never seen before and I think from talking to our clients that comes from a level of accountability that they haven't experienced before. So it's only natural to think that  level of accountability and that growth is going to trickle over into the ecosystem and how the agencies are then operating in. If I look at the model that we're kind of using today, where you might have your brand agency, your demand agency, your social agency, a media agency, maybe even like a digital agency, that model feels a little old-school. I think there's a newer way to think about that because the one thing that B2B marketers don't have today is time and they don't have time to work across all of those agencies to activate them to do the dot connecting for those agencies and I think there's a smarter way to do that, what I call that way, it's an intelligent integration or an intelligently integrated agency. What I mean by that is we've gotten so hung up over the years in the capability of an agency and trying to find an agency that might be a little bit better. In one area over the other, we've added all of these niches and specialties that we've lost sight of and where  the true value of an agency lies for a B2B marketer and that's in the depth of understanding of their business. In B2B it's more important than any other space to deeply understand your client's business. You need to understand not only the brand, the sales channel is at one step or two step distribution. Who's the buying group on the other end? What's the kind of sales process or evaluation process they go through? And so if you step back and you look and you say the agencies that provide the most value to steal a word from you can actually consult and be a good partner to me are those that have that depth of understanding. Then you can hold that agency accountable and say,  what, this is what I expect from you and allow that agency to bring in agency partners. As they see fit, leveraging their knowledge of the client's business in order to manage and lead their other agency partners in the efforts on the client's brand, that's going to one it will take down the complexity of the management of agencies for the marketer so it's going to lead to better work because everybody that's working on that client's behalf will be operating with a similar level of business knowledge that that agency has and then three, it fuels learning. In your key agency that will make them an even better partner and so I can definitely see a shift from this kind of old school. Hey, I'm going to have five, six different agencies I'm going to manage, and I'm going to spend all my time kicking those agencies often and navigating between them, to a model that looks at a partner agency that knows your business and we'll bring in other agencies as they need fit. So, that marketer can then hold them accountable for the brand, the demand and the digital experience. 

Radwa Hassan
[06:57]
Yeah certainly and if you remember from our discussion when we were talking about the system integrator agency model, I have this IT background and having a system integrator is really one of the things that helps any organization for talking about it is just like someone who's your consultant who can bring the latest and the greatest of technologies out there and offer it to you tells you exactly what fits for you and what doesn't fit. If you have an agency that would be technology agnostic or rather service agnostic that they don’t care about what you want, but rather what's your journey would you want to achieve and how can they best bring the different services together to create the story you want to tell to your clients? The problem is that not all the agencies have that and pretty much as I see it, even here in my region, those back to two-folds one is of course, the maturity of the agency.And the maturity of the client as another side, but also the industry itself. Let's say, if I'm going to again reflect on the IT industry, you'll find many of the IT organizations they're quite mature and they need to work with mature agencies and that's basically here in the middle east, but even in the Americas, we're in north America. You may have a different experience and if we say that agencies are now transforming, how long will the transformation take? I mean, you would question, it's going to take maybe two to three or five years in North America, but here in the middle east, maybe it will take longer until that change really becomes a mandate. And the issue with the skills, like you said, it's more. Of how the agency can come out of this, building the capabilities and focusing on the different functions within its ecosystem and more going into what the clients want and their needs. So it's pretty tricky of course, but agencies need to realize that this is the change that's required  and how do you see it in North America as to the man with the maturity level and the speed of this change? 

Anthony Riley
[09:19]
Yeah,by the way, I just have to say real quick, I love the way that you put that, the idea of being service agnostic and kind of story focused. I think that's an encapsulation of what I was describing and I think that speaks exactly to that kind of systems integrator role. So I love that,but to answer your question I think you're right, that there is a difference between the less mature marketers and the more mature marketers and, and then what they expect of their agencies. If I start with the first part of the question, which ishow quickly will this happen? I think it's happening very rapidly, especially in the B2B space, because what we're seeing in North America is rapid consolidation within the B2B agency community. Every single week. There's news of another agency that's within the top 30 and the league tables being purchased by another agency there, because I think all of us see that given the same growth that we talked about in the B2B space, there is. An increased need to deliver globally for the global marketer and so I think that that consolidation is doing a couple of things. One it's leading to agencies in the B2B space that are larger, that have more capabilities that can deliver on that intelligent integration promise. For the agencies that aren't part of that consolidation.It's forcing them to form partnerships with other agencies to deliver on that same promise and so while they might not be able to mature as an agency as quickly, they will have partners in order to be able to deliver on that same promise and I, and I can speak to that from the MX group perspective about maybe two years ago. We have formed a partnership with an agency that's been critical in our growth and it's not only brought in additional capabilities in different parts of the world but additional capabilities  just generally that we didn't have or service gaps and so we've now gotten very comfortable in a partner model and probably have five or six different agencies that we partner with and it's true. Become a very easy conversation to have with clients where we can come to the table and say, Hey, we really think that you need this and here we've got a partner that does that and then we bring them in and manage them on the client's behalf and so I think the consolidation is going to force that to happen in a pretty short order, especially within B2B  now, where I see that probably happening the most, it might sound counterintuitive, but I think. Where it will be adopted. First is with the less mature marketers. The reason being, what I see in North America is the more mature marketers, the ones that have maybe larger budgets, larger marketing teams, they come from a background where in the B2B space, they have now built up this agency ecosystem and for a long time, that's felt like part of their maturity curve is getting to manage those agencies and identify those agencies. Where if I look on the other end of the spectrum with the less mature marketers, they're the ones that are just getting off the ground. They're looking for a partner and asking what should my relationship with an agency look like? They're open to hearing that and building that model from the ground up and so I think that's kind of interesting because no matter what category you're in the big large companies always look at the smaller ones to see, all right, are the smaller startups, the ones that are newcomers, are they doing stuff that I should pay attention to? Right? And so you start to see that. 

Radwa Hassan
[13:09]
I mean to name them as teenagers, but I mean, it's just like looking at the younger generation and saying, oh, what are they doing? That's really cool that I may need to copy. So you're rightly set up. I mean, absolutely. 

Anthony Riley
[13:21]
Yeah, I think that's where we'll see rapid change in this ecosystem model because of the impetus in B2B that leads to a lot of consolidation in those discussions or in the ecosystem space and then, , that leads to some really great work with some less mature marketers that will then  get the eye of those more mature and larger established marketing team. So it's kind of a pretty exciting time to be in this space. 

Radwa Hassan
[13:49]
Yeah, certainly and I really wish this comes faster so that I would work with that type of agency that understands my needs and at the same time, they get out of their comfort zone and start to look at projects, not as a task. We need to tick that off. We need to get up here. Oh, we'll get this out and get paid. But rather as it's a win-win, it's a project that we want to see our client winning and getting this buy-in from the different stakeholders.And we're going to touch on that later on as how the different stakeholders and the complex environment and ecosystems within an organization really impacts how marketing delivers. It's worked through the agency. So, yeah. great point. And if we can also wrap up on this, on this point and say that the agencies can then become the clients consultant.The market bleeds with everything the client needs. So when they become that, , partner, I believe they're going to deliver amazing work. So if we move to another point, one lead to the other will be the  rise of the new age, B2B marketeer and shifting expectations in the marketing landscape. The marketing approach has definitely changed and shifted.I see that even in the B2B, your clients look at things from a customer experience kind of  point of view as with e-commerce they want to get the same service that as end-users on e-commerce or with marketplaces, they see that happening. How can you relate to that? And what's your point of view?

Anthony Riley
[15:53]
Yeah, I feel like this is not a term that I phrased or  coined, but when I talk about that, I think that there's this business to human experience, if you will, that's happening  inside of the B2B space and so what I mean by that is we have now recognized that just because you and I are in our work environments, we don't become robots. We are still humans. And that has led to different types of work and different ways to reach our B2B buyers, whether that's e-commerce or other, what excites me about that is all the new canvas that we now have to  play with in the B2B space right? We can use OTT or over the top streaming services, We can use digital billboards or we can use Facebook, Instagram because we recognize that we can reach you as a B2B buyer even in those B2C channels or in your consumer life. Now we have got all of this great space to play with and utilize that is leading to some exceptionally great work and it is also leading to better results for marketers because we can buy that media more effieciently.  So now we have much more to work than we did before when we just kind of in the silos of trade media and print advertising and that is leading to some amazing experiences for that B2B buyer that we believe converted at a much higher rate. So I'm definitely seeing it. I think it's a positive for us in the industry and I'm loving how it's impacting the agency world.

Radwa Hassan
[17:32] 
Definitely. And one thing that I also like to do in my discussion with any agency, I tell them we need to hanize this brand. We need to make people at, and I think with the pandemic. Many organizations have realized that this is how they can connect with our clients. And they were really forced to do that because a lot of them were quite disconnected or acting like robots or just brands. And they didn't need to bring that han side to their engagement with the clients, but they were forced into it. How you can feel as a client that this brand speaks to you, even in the B2B space. And if the brand doesn't do that, then you will feel disconnected because another brand is going to do that for you.  So really hanizing your brand and making sure that you're connecting in your process with the engagement, whether you're a client that you understand their challenge and what they want to do, clients or rather the different stakeholders with complex organizations with multiple stakeholders, how they can. Create disconnection, how they can build the buy-in internally with all the different functions, because it's not only marketing is not the only stakeholder for an advertising or an agency, an advertising agency, or any agency they work with.But rather it's more the sales, , the channel because they all come together to talk to the. So, if you don't understand their needs, let's say for example, I'm in marketing and I work with complex stakeholders. They have specific needs. If the agency cannot cater to the demands of the complex stakeholders and understand the position of.

Then we're all going to fail because we're not going to achieve what we want. So it's quite critical.

Anthony Riley
[19:11]
If I could just, I think you've hit on a real sweet spot for us, because what I talk about is exactly what you just said. I mean, you and I couldn't be more aligned once you connect with that han, , in the business space. It's not just about correct, creating those emotionally resonant brands that connect it's then your responsibility. Once you connect with that han to enable them as a buyer. And I think that's where I see the best use of digital work is when you've, you've done some good work you've connected with that individual, but then you're smart enough to understand those dynamics that you just described that are so critical in the B2B space and you use digital to help them rationalize the decision for their stakeholders to bring them along. Because to your point, if  the B2B brands stopped just at hanizing and they don't do the enablement, there's only so far that'll go. 

Radwa Hassan
[20:23]
Yeah, most certainly. So great points there. I mean, we could go forever on these points Anthony and  focusing on, on people on the different stakeholders really will get the agencies at a different place. And that leads to. One other big challenge. What's the  which is the high turnover in organizations, whether it's on the agency side or on the client's side. So many people are changing roles in the client's organization. And when a client point of contact leaves, all the expertise that person had leaves with them. Despite all this  change occurring with client organization, there is a continuous. Expectation for agencies to perform at high levels of communication, engagement, and innovation to produce results now. So how does this rapid change impact the agency environment? 

Anthony Riley
[21:23]
Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, we're, we are seeing this every day where we're having you, I know a client that we've worked with might leave and then to your point, that changes the whole, the whole structure. We're not isolated that either agencies are seeing that change, , as well. I think that what we're emphasizing as an organization is, , first and foremost, The importance of education and how you're setting up your onboarding processes so that we can bring new people on board to a team, or even if it's with a client in a much more rapid way that kind of leads, I guess, the bigger picture, which is how are you using your agencies?  If the agency, like we talked about at the top, is that really intelligently integrated partner. Then marketers should look to their agencies to help them as they're onboarding their new clients or their new team members that are now going to be that client at the agency. If they're that partner, that consultant, that system integrator, that storyteller, they're a great person to help onboard the new marketing team members and the agencies need to use that same sort of storytelling to make sure that it's their onboarding, their new talent that that talent can get up to speed to continue to deliver against that promise of, of knowledge and depth of understanding of the client's business. And so I'd say double down on your onboarding, , materials, what kind of content are you doing to capture the expertise that you currently have? How is that content made adjustable? What's the format around that?  because that's going to be critical over the next couple, , probably 12 to 18 months, I think before we start to see a slowdown on this turnover. 

Radwa Hassan
[23:02]
Most certainly. And, if people would, again, back to the comfort zone or rather to protecting the roles, as I would see, in many organizations, they don't want to share the information they have or have other people being introduced to the different stakeholders, so being too much of gatekeepers, whether on the agency side or on the client side. So we find sometimes, some marketers don't want to introduce the agency to the other stakeholders, maybe because there will be engagement discussions, anything that would impact their image in an organization or even to feel like the agency can replace a marketing professional. And I've seen it happen in some organizations where they could like, all right, we're going to have an agency model, which is basically someone to manage the agency and we don't need the marketing skills or different marketing resources in an organization.Which is basically, I mean, each organization has its needs, so that could be a good model, but letting go of the skills or when someone leaves an organization, I feel like there's a major chaos until you get back on track with the engagement with the agency or with the projects that we're running, that just really sets back the business and the relationship with the client. So it is a win-win and I think for, for the marketing professionals on the end side, And leadership and marketing leadership positions. They need to prepare for the occasion that people on their team, for example, will leave the organization. So they need to open up with the agency and make sure that they have the assets, and of course, with protecting their data and information, of course that's a given, but I mean, at least to fill them in with all the details so they can be always in a plug and play.The other aspect. Yeah, please.

Anthony Riley
[25:13]
Oh, I was just going to say, which was probably a good concluding point to this, which is, the challenges we've discussed to do that you really need to, to really trust your agency.  And I think that if there's any like parting words that I can provide for the group listening to this is get back to that level of trust with your agency. You have to be able to have those types of dialogues and conversations and what's interesting to me is that arguably one of the most valuable assets that any company has today is its brand. And we will trust an agency too. Create the outward expression of that brand yet not trust an agency to have the conversations about what's going on and within their organization where we need them to evolve, to help us, or what type of working model we'd like them to fit in that level of trust needs to come back into our industry, because it only does good for both the marketer and, , the agency, , at the end of the day. So I couldn't agree more with what you just said there, that level of. 

Radwa Hassan:
[26:16]
Yeah. I mean, building that trust, understanding the stakeholders within the organization, who are we serving and who are we supporting? Really for the agency to feel like when they get closer, they're going to deliver better and quality work and have this relationship rich. They may reach a point where they can propose to the marketing team in an organization. How to approach their sales, what would really click, what would make everyone shine? , if you come to me with an idea and you tell me it was like,  what, this stakeholder's personality builds that persona for an organization. I'm on the agency side and I know in this organization we have different personas. We have the CEO, we need to draw the CEO. We need to have a profile for that CEO and understand what ticks with him. And it's just like, When you do proper customer journey, or it can pay, you need to have this persona, the cohorts, and really understand what would get you into that person in the agency reached that point of maturity, where they have the personas, the different personas laid out on and you'd roll them. And you understand how to approach yours. You are going to really achieve amazing stuff. So, yeah. So Anthony, if I may ask you, what does the  MX group bring to the table as an integrated agency.

Anthony Riley 
[27:48]
I think what we pride ourselves on is that the dr that I've been beating,through this podcast, we get to know a client's business deeper and as well as our clients do  and that's from the ground up, it started with sales rides and going to visit manufacturing facilities. And we do that because we looked at. For very long lasting and deep partnerships where we can provide a lot of value. And so I think there's a lot of integrated agencies out there. We provide the level of depth and integration at a scale that many others cannot  deliver on.

Radwa Hassan
[28:19]
Awesome. Anthony, if you are going to give three tips to the CEO of an agency, what would that be? 

Anthony Riley
[28:31]
So for the CEO of an agency, three tips would be,one, be open to thinking about new ways of working. And that requires some vulnerability. I think a lot of agency CEOs are very proud of what they've built, a little bit less open and more vulnerable about where they can improve. Two, would be to get comfortable working with different partners and not asse that you can do everything on your own, what you do very well and what value you provide and then be comfortable working with agency partners that  can support you in furthering your value. Three, start pushing your clients to be a part of the change. If we don't as an organization or an industry start having these types of conversations with our marketing clients about how we can do things better and how we can evolve, then the change won't happen. So start pushing from the top.

Radwa Hassan
[29:30]
Awesome insights, Anthony, thank you so much. This was an amazing episode. I really hope our audience and listeners enjoyed it as much as I did. And please share your feedback and questions. We'll be reading and thank you Anthony.

Anthony Riley
[29:45]
Hey, thank you for having me Radwa. And I really appreciate what you guys are doing with the B2B pod, some great content, and I'm really happy to be a part of it.

Radwa hassan
[29:52]
Thank you so much. Have a great evening.