In Oil and Gas?

I was listening to an episode (#610) of the Six Pixels of Separation podcast today featuring an interview with Tim Matthews, author of The Professional Marketer and The SaaS Marketing Handbook. The topic of discussion was, “How to Hire Great Marketers.” During the interview there was a lot of banter between the host, Mitch Joel, and his guest, but the message was clear. 

The skillset, responsibilities and requirements that cutting-edge B2B organizations are looking for are taking a whole new shape which may leave some marketers scrambling to remain relevant.

Top three characteristics of a great B2B marketer:

• Personality
• Knowledge & Expertise
• Math-Orientation

01. Critical Personality Traits

During the podcast, Matthews touched on three personality traits he places at the top of the pecking order when hiring. (You can see the full article and list of six on LinkedIn.)

A great marketer is fearless.

I keep hearing this phrase; in fact Marketo’s upcoming summit is using Fearless Marketer as their 2018 theme. I think it means different things to different people, however in the context of this podcast, Matthews referred to fearless in this way, “You can’t be afraid to make mistakes; it’s going to happen."

Companies need to seek marketers with perseverance.

The idea behind this trait is that marketers need to accept that, “You will never be finished; you will never be done.” In a nutshell: Today’s marketing pace is much faster than in the previous years, and the rate of change is impossible to keep up with. Marketers need to embrace and understand that there are no longer huge pinnacle moments, but rather incremental and frequent marketing projects that create complexity and volume. Downtime might be harder and harder to come by.

Marketers need to be curious.

Things are changing at breakneck speed and stagnation isn’t an option. Marketers need to be willing to learn new things or risk becoming obsolete. They also need to be much more curious about their buyers in order to generate effective content.

Patience is more than a virtue.

Marketers in oil and gas must possess the ability to recognize that adopting new marketing techniques in this industry is a marathon, not a sprint. If you are new to the industry and are used to a fast-paced marketing environment where robust technology and a large marketing team is already established, you will need to reset your expectations and dust off your entrepreneurial spirit. Many of the largest oil and oilfield service companies are in need of Change Agents in marketing that can lead the way, and won’t get frustrated by the slow pace of adoption. Creating synergies between Sales, Technical Marketing and Product Management will take time and education, but with this alignment comes a tidal wave of opportunity.

You might be the Lone Ranger... for a while.

Marketing teams in the oil and gas industry tend to be too lean to keep up with the pace...even for traditional-style mass communications. Although technology can play a vital role in introducing efficiency, you might be required to be the ‘jack-of-all-trades’ until you can effectively convince others to adopt new practices and methods, and/or invest in talent. You’ll need to be comfortable working in a small-team environment, keeping up with the workload of the ‘old way of marketing’, while you slowly introduce proven change. Often the person in charge of marketing within the oil and gas industry doesn’t have formal training as a  marketer and may be tackling this role in addition to their main function. Hiring managers who aren’t formally trained in Marketing should look for people that possess drive and stamina, and should also help these new purple unicorns survive by paving the way with executive sponsorship of their ideas and initiatives.

You'll need to be Hypothesis-Results oriented.

You will need to demonstrate small-scale, in-house experiments that use the scientific method to establish some baselines and show real value. Embrace math and analytics when presenting your results, but be sure you know exactly how those stats are tabulated. Engineers are inherently curious and they enjoy knowing how things work and why. You will be questioned about your method, repeatability and scalability; make sure you run your experiments appropriately so the evidence can’t be refuted. As a risk averse industry, most organizations in oil and gas are reluctant to adopt the marketing techniques of Silicon Valley. Citing B2B marketing stats or using analogous industry examples and concepts is difficult for this highly scientific and engineering-minded community to accept. Hiring managers need to look for marketers that are capable of conducting pilot projects to help sell their vision, and can be objective in their findings.

02. Domain Expertise for the Future

Another critical takeaway from the podcast, B2B companies need to be looking for marketing skills beyond their current needs and slightly (or substantially) out of their traditional comfort zones. 

“A lot of senior [B2B] marketers don’t even know where to begin… So many of them don’t even understand the basics, much less some of the more advanced techniques, and more importantly wouldn’t know how to hire the right person,” said Tim Matthews. 

When Joel and Matthews were discussing the above point they were referencing marketing concepts such as Inbound Marketing, SEO, Demand Generation and the measurement of these types of programs as areas of deficiency in today’s B2B senior marketers. Matthews referred to it as “blank stares” when he’s brought these ideas to the forefront over dinner with highly-regarded marketers. They also talked about a trend Mitch Joel is seeing where many organizations are hiring and creating large marketing departments because Marketing is now viewed as a ‘business critical’ function. Companies investing heavily in marketing see it as a competitive advantage.

This means the talent pool of highly skilled B2B marketers with an understanding and/or experience in programmatic marketing, content marketing, and Marketing ROI is shrinking. Matthews indicated the job market in Silicon Valley for marketers with this experience is highly competitive - in favor of the candidates. 

If Silicon Valley is finding it hard to find B2B marketers with these core competencies, I think it might be exponentially more difficult to find and attract this talent in oil and gas.
 

For those that will be returning to the oil industry, I hope you were afforded opportunities to gain new skills in the above referenced areas and will generate fresh ideas. For those interested in exploring the oil and gas industry for marketing roles, it’s an excellent time to bring us your expertise. Now that the dust and price per barrel is settling, many companies will be eager to reshape their Sales and Marketing organizations. This is a prime time for senior marketers to suggest marketing automation, nurture streams and inbound marketing as ways to gain operational efficiency, and to transform Marketing into a profit center.

There are a ton of amazing resources that can help marketers of all experience levels in oil and gas gain these critical skills. According to Harvard Business Review, oil price volatility is the new norm and as countries in the Middle East begin to explore their shale reserves, over-supply will continue to threaten operations. The opportunity for oil and gas marketers to demonstrate Marketing ROI is of tremendous importance so companies can maintain continuity in their sales and marketing despite impending volatility. Adopting an Agile Marketing mindset and creating a seamless Marketing and Sales Pipeline can be a tremendous competitive advantage - especially in a downturn. Invest in learning and help build your team’s expertise in new marketing techniques so you are well-organized and prepared to help the organization meet business objectives no matter the market conditions.

03. Mathy: Find Marketers that understand (and aren't afraid of) data

This last topic has been a source of many jokes for decades in marketing circles. Although we are not necessarily mathematically inclined, there is no excuse for not understanding how to leverage data and analytics to meet business objectives in this new age of marketing. Matthews refers to this as being “Mathy” and describes it as,

“Looking for people who really see into the numbers. [For example] The difference between 1.5 and 2.2 is not .7, but it’s 50%; a huge improvement… People who can have those types of insights are super valuable, and I think as a Head of Marketing you have to start looking into the numbers.”

In the oil and gas industry, I see this as a huge challenge and an amazing opportunity. Right now, we have large organizations dedicating several hundred-thousand in marketing spend that aren’t able to derive or demonstrate real value for the effort. Many of the mainstream channels such as trade shows, print and online advertising, third-party sponsored content, webinars and customer appreciation events are typically using registrations as their measure of success, or are relying heavily on subjective, qualitative data. 

The problem with measuring success based on registration or participation is that you aren’t capturing the real value of the marketing effort. A registered person could be anyone and not necessarily those in your target audience, or those individuals with purchasing power. It used to be sufficient to ‘pack the house’ and ‘fill the seats’, but we need marketers that will look beyond the buzz and into the efficiency of the effort. Did the marketing effort generate the intended outcome and was it a valuable use of company resources?

Assuming HBR is right and the oil price remains unsteady as the new operating norm, companies will need to monitor their investment and budget closely and proactively pivot. Knowing which activities contribute to positive marketing ROI and which deliver minimal value is a necessity to remain competitive. Hiring managers should be looking for ways to help the company operate with agility which means your Marketing Leadership needs to have the skills to know when something is working and why. Look for marketers that not only can manage a budget, but understand operations, return on investment and data. You want to hire someone that isn’t afraid of being measured because they accept that marketing is not just an art, it’s also a science.

The other reason you want a marketer who can appreciate data is because as you adopt more of these new marketing techniques, you’ll need to invest in data mining and data scientists who can help you understand the customer buying journey. Data scientists are in high demand as every major industry is looking for help understanding the mountains of data at their fingertips. 

In the oil and gas industry, these jewels are incredibly rare and are usually part of a much larger strategic initiative around Digital Transformation. The likelihood of the Marketing Department snagging one of these gems (and hanging onto them) is going to be tough. Finding a senior marketer that is mathy will give you the ability to invest in future training to fill this gap in personnel. If your most senior marketer has a math-orientation, the trickle-down effect in hiring will ensure your entire team understands the premise of measurement. It will also afford you greater opportunities to augment their skill set if/when data scientists and analysts are in short supply.