Change is constant and it is difficult to ensure people, process, and technology adapt at the same rhythm…difficult, but not impossible!
MEDIA 7: Could you please take us through your professional journey?
ANDREW ADDISON: I’ve been working in marketing technology for around 25 years now and I remain, after all these years, a tech and data geek at heart. Throughout my career, from small MarTech consultancies, major consumer organizations, and multiple technology vendors, pushing the capabilities of technology has been a core part of my interest.
A little over ten years ago, I started Purple Square with a desire to work with brands to maximize the potential of their marketing technology – the very same thing we continue to focus on today. At that time, the business focused on the Unica suite, as that’s where my background experience lay. Over the years, we’ve “gone international” with offices in Australia and Europe, and as a vendor-agnostic business, we now work with a number of leading marketing technology platforms including Adobe, Salesforce, Unica, and Acoustic.
M7: Purple Square just turned 10! Looking back, what are some of your biggest achievements?
AA: Many of the Purple Square team members have been with us for a long time now and have become good friends. The bringing together of this group of strong marketers, technologists, consultants, commercial and operations people, is most definitely our greatest success. For me, this became particularly obvious over this last season, during the COVID-19 pandemic, when I have seen just how much the team care about each other and Purple Square, taking the time to check in with each other, doing what it takes to support one another, and generally being understanding that these times are not normal.
We’ve had many milestones as a business, whether that’s been launching new services, expanding our presence, or working with new vendors. But where we really see and feel a sense of success hasn’t changed since day one. The achievements we always feel most proud of are those we share side by side with our clients, helping them reach their strategic marketing automation goals.
One of the biggest areas for marketing teams to focus on is going to be how effectively they can use these technologies to meet their strategic marketing goals.
M7: If a business is looking to maximize its marketing automation investment, how would Purple Square’s consultancy services help them achieve that?
AA: We always say, technology is the enabler, not a magic bullet. What we do as a strategic partner for our clients, is to look at the whole picture – that includes people, process, and technology. This powerful trio working together is what really ensures the success of a marketing automation investment.
For example, we often run a marketing automation health check for brands who are struggling to see returns on investment or understand how effective their marketing efforts are – this process, without fail, will always surface issues in each of these areas, which are generally interconnected. Marketing platforms constantly release new features which are not adopted, team members come and go and take with them their level of expertise, processes fall into the traps of ‘we’ve always done it that way’ or ‘it’s just a temporary workaround’. Change is constant and it is difficult to ensure people, process, and technology adapt at the same rhythm…difficult, but not impossible! Our consulting and service teams work with our clients and partners to build a roadmap to deliver both, short-term tactical advancements whilst also keeping an eye on the strategic, 3-5 year vision for marketing.
M7: What are some of the strategies and tactics you have in place to help your clients drive revenue?
AA: We see ourselves as long-term strategic partners for our clients. As such, their goals become our goals. We support our clients in a variety of ways and this changes as their needs change. Strategic and technical consulting to understand the best way to achieve a goal may sit alongside daily campaign execution via our Campaign Delivery service. We become an extension of our client’s team, offering them an attrition-proof resource that can step in for either more strategic support, a technical capability they may not have or need in-house all the time or, day-to-day campaign support.
We collaborate closely with our clients and partners to understand their business objectives and immediate pain points, putting in place appropriate plans and solutions to help the client achieve success, mitigate risk and build meaningful capabilities with their customers. Sometimes those solutions might not be the most lucrative for Purple Square, but then we know our clients’ success is a priority and results in incredibly trusting relationships, which means we’re the first port of call when the next project or challenge arises.
The good news is that marketing management technology has been around for a while and is evolving at a rapid speed to meet the demands of our new hybrid way of working.
M7: According to you, how should marketing teams restructure their processes and methodologies to cope with the changing shifts in the market?
AA: Over the last eighteen months, we’ve moved into a world where marketers have had to work remotely and that has created a real advancement in the way we build and use marketing technology to support our marketing planning and execution. We’ve moved into a hybrid model of working now, where partial or full remote working is a reality that brands have adjusted to and this kind of working is not likely to go anywhere. The knock-on effect of this is a greater reliance on technology, so marketing teams really have to ensure their processes are tight and that everyone is following them. The good news is that marketing management technology has been around for a while and is evolving at a rapid speed to meet the demands of our new hybrid way of working. The technology to support the changing shifts in the market exists and continues to advance. One of the biggest areas for marketing teams to focus on is going to be how effectively they can use these technologies to meet their strategic marketing goals. Again, people, process, and technology must be aligned to cope with the changing shifts in the market.