The transformative power of marketing: insights from former OEE CEO Mark Palmer

These days, the importance of marketing is no secret. But for many companies, marketing has become table stakes to such an extent that it feels almost like a utility – something essential, but hardly transformational. That’s why stories like Mark Palmer’s are so important – reminders of what can be achieved through a proactive approach to marketing. In this article, Mark – former CEO of OEE Consulting – describes how in the right hands, marketing can become a powerful driver for long-term success.

Marketing: a catalyst for growth

Mark breaks OEE’s early business growth into two distinct phases. The first, he says, was powered by referrals – but Mark and his colleagues quickly recognised that this approach had its limits. “We realised that if we were going to get to a scale where we could be a saleable asset, then we needed to have more effective, enduring channels that depended less on individual relationships.”

Phase two saw marketing play a central part. After not fully committing to marketing as a driver for growth, Mark hired an experienced marketing director to take the reins – a move that allowed them to completely revamp the brand and kickstarted OEE’s growth over a five-year period. “That was a fundamental part of how we scaled and then sold,” he says.?

Mark sees this early investment in marketing as completely transformational for OEE and its fortunes.?

“That marketing transition was a complete upgrade on how we went to market, how we presented ourselves visually, and how we described ourselves.”

Being market-led, to become a market leader

Mark describes how, in those early days, OEE were serious about being market led, and working hard to understand their client’s challenges and their client’s markets. This led them to develop a new, narrow value proposition that allowed them to directly address the needs of the market.?

“I'm a big believer in going narrow with a value proposition, on the basis that if you market like a generalist, you're never going to be easy to find.”

OEE’s focus was on helping large-scale service companies improve customer onboarding, and so this key competency formed the basis of their new, slimline value proposition. This helped to clarify the brand’s offering in the eyes of potential clients, and in Mark’s words, “greatly increase the probability of a collision with somebody who is looking for your capability, and make yourself so much easier to refer”

From content to context

In those early days of OEE, the workforce was largely “engineering and technical”, so Mark and the leadership team had to encourage a shift in how staff thought and spoke if they were to market effectively. Mark describes this as “teaching people to speak in context rather than content.” Instead of talking about OEE’s capabilities, the team would focus on benefits directly related to the client’s business context. Mark explains how they adopted a strategic account management approach to level-up their marketing efforts even further – with a dedicated account manager able to understand each client’s business context and market challenges, and position OEE’s services accordingly.?

“The things that kept our clients awake at night – we knew what they were using our marketing analytics capability. Then we had our content person developing content that corresponded with that market, and positioned ourselves relevantly within it.”?

Mark relates this approach to one adopted by successful politicians: “they always start with the why, then they go on to the what.” Mark and his team hired a full-time marketing analyst, a full-time content marketing specialist, and a full-time events manager to ensure a holistic approach to their marketing efforts was maintained across every touchpoint.??

Navigating pushback, earning buy-in

It’s one thing to develop an aggressive marketing strategy, and quite another to implement it with the full support of investors, board members, and senior management. Mark recalls initial reticence from the leadership at OEE. “I got pushback because I took the marketing spend from $30,000 to $1 million,” he explains. “That’s quite a big increase. But we did take the business from $2 million to $40 million.”

Initially, Mark’s strategy saw margins drop a little, but EBIT as a quantum (earnings before income and taxes) were growing. Mark used this observation to make his pitch to senior leadership:

“My promise to them was, yes – in the early years we might erode the margins, but you’ll make more money down in absolute terms. I was prepared to own that deal, and it worked out.”

Not everyone bought into Mark’s vision, and some engineers initially left the business. Others stayed, and new blood was brought into the team. “It worked,” Mark explains. “We knew we had a bunch of people who were pro the values-based business we were building, and were willing to learn new things.”

Compelling conversations lead to conversion

The idea of ‘thought leadership’ is increasingly prevalent in effective marketing – helping brands establish themselves as authoritative voices in the markets in which they operate. Mark and OEE adopted a typically radical approach in this area: “we built a club that was built on best practice, networking, and thought leadership,” he explains. “We didn’t even use our own brand. We wanted to make it as un-salesy as possible – we just wanted it to be about starting a conversation.”

OEE’s ‘club’ took clients to the Mini automotive factory in Oxford, the world-class Fujitsu facility in Peterborough, and even to Williams F1 facility. Each trip featured a special guest speaker with a connection to the event, including a leading heart surgeon who had based his methodology on Formula One pit stops. This innovative approach attracted a significant percentage of the FTSE-100 companies to join.

“They came because of these three tenets: content (thought leadership), industrial tourism, and networking. Success breeds success. More people joined. And the people who joined were then interested in us – partly because we weren't pushy. They loved the environment, and we got great referrals.”

The numbers never lie

Mark describes marketing as “a science rather than an art.” At the heart of his methodology is a data-driven approach that allows the marketing department to demonstrate its value to the wider business, and measure its impact. “You should speak with numbers when you're running marketing – marketing is there effectively to make markets,” he explains.?

“With marketing, the clue is in the title. It’s about understanding markets, and it's about learning how to win in those markets. You're going to do that by getting underneath the skin of the people who occupy those markets, be data driven, and respond accordingly.”

Mark explains how this data-driven approach to marketing helps teams better understand their customers, and deliver exactly what they need. “If you've done your work properly, you’ll have a better insight into what customers and clients need than they do themselves,” he adds.?

Parting advice for CEOs

When asked how he would advise CEOs looking to support the marketing function, Mark advocates strongly for investing in top talent, and offers three pieces of advice:

1. See talent as an investment “You need to hire people who are really good. Don't look at it as a cost: look at it as an investment,” Mark explains. He suggests that CEOs should look at hiring like “trying to win a race – find the fastest sprinter.”
2. Evaluate their values Mark first vets his candidates by establishing whether they understand what drives value in the business, before asking: “do they understand how the business makes money, in other words, its business model” This relates to the commercial approach to marketing that has served him so well in the past.
3. Make sure they’ll get their hands dirty Mark sees marketing as a “strategic function,” and wants marketing directors who will do whatever it takes to understand their clients and market. Mark recalls how he and a former marketing director rose early one morning to “ride the dustbin lorries” so they would better understand a client company, and the challenges its workers face.?

Conclusion

Mark’s experiences act as a reminder of the power of marketing, and that while it may be table stakes for many companies, to truly understand and extract full value from the function means something different entirely. “I think there's a misunderstanding of what marketing is,” Mark explains. “Marketing people can be to blame for that as well, because I see some weak examples of marketing. It’s not there to build pretty logos and run websites.”

For Mark, marketing is a strategic function – data driven, impactful, and repeatable. He contrasts this with the view of marketing as a “fluffy function” that can be lumped in with communications “because we don’t really understand either function.” But when marketing is fully embraced – as it was under Mark at OEE – it can act as a catalyst for growth and a powerful market differentiator. Once he had buy-in and support from senior leadership, Mark was able to activate the marketing function and springboard OEE’s growth from a $2 million business to one worth $40 million in just a few short years. That’s the power of marketing.?

Mark Palmer worked with OEE Consulting for more than 17 years. Now, he provides boutique consultancy services for organisations with ambitions to grow. You can follow him on LinkedIn here.