As marketers, our why should be the foundation of everything we do.

But we all too often lose sight of our why behind promoting our products and services.

Recently, I talked with Rob Hughes, VP and Head of Marketing for EU at Automation Anywhere, about the reasons marketers should hold on to our why more tightly than ever.

“After 15 years of listening to lots of business pitches, I woke up one morning and said, RPA is going to be the future, and I’ve got to decide whether I talk about it or whether I get involved with it,” Rob said.

In the climate of COVID-19, robotic process automation is more timely now than ever before as we are relying on digital to redefine our normal.

“I joined Automation Anywhere because I believe in the vision that the company has,” he said.

Our job is to own that whole customer journey from beginning to end.

Rob Hughes

Keeping our why at the forefront

Rob is a strong advocate for the transactional approach to marketing — that is, making sure communications, campaigns, and messaging are aligned to the company’s mission and values.

It all comes back to our why as marketers.

Rob comes from a sales background, which gave him insight into creating pitches. “In that consultancy space, you have to create your own marketing and your own ideas because you’re selling intellectual property and you’re selling a vision,” he said.

Marketers, especially marketers of digital, aren’t selling a product someone can see or touch. We’re selling an idea or an approach or a solution to a problem.

Rob focuses mainly on gathering data to understand the market and the target audience… about six months of the year, actually. “If you think about how marketing influences a specific person, it’s marketing’s responsibility to influence the messaging,” he said.

From the very first touch point, the overall campaign has to be tied to the why, otherwise the tactical approaches (and in particular the sales/marketing alignment) will not resonate.

This why-based approach has so many positive outcomes:

• Every touch point positively influences the customer
• Each transaction is part of a wider, unified story
• Marketing supports sales through the whole lifetime of the customer experience
• Marketing supports customer relationships through messaging

“You have to figure out why we’re doing this in the first place,’ he said. “Our job is to own that whole journey from beginning to end.”

If you don’t believe in your story, You’re going to struggle to have real enthusiasm behind what you do.

Rob Hughes

Why for prospects & customers

When marketers keep their why at the center, that influences how they build relationships, particularly with prospects and with customers.

It’s a somewhat different approach for each group, but it’s still based in the one underlying why:

We need to relate our products and services to solving a problem.

“Quite often, companies are way too focused on what they do and not enough focused on what the outcome of the markets that we’re serving is,” Rob said.

For prospects, you’re providing enough information that they’re interested in coming to talk to you.

For customers, you’re focused on building trust and supporting their success.

You can’t just expect admiration because you build robots, for example. In other words, your product won’t do the selling for you. 

“It’s about supplying companies with the information they need in a professional manner so that they trust your source,” Rob said.

From a mission perspective, you have to believe that you’re having a societal impact.

Rob Hughes

Believing in your why 

Rob shared that he joined Automation Anywhere because he believed in the leadership’s ability to deliver on a mission that meant something to him personally.

“As you get older, you realize that the world goes way beyond marketing and sales. This is how we live our lives,” Rob said.

Stuff doesn’t make you happy, so marketing the products themselves isn’t meaningful.

Rob said that while marketing is often seen as a creative field, it’s relying increasingly on analytics and less on art. “If your story is not good enough and you don’t believe in it, you’re going to struggle to have real enthusiasm behind what you do,” he said.

Remembering our why as marketers is the reason we run our teams and do our jobs with so much passion.

When we are spurred on with the belief that we’re making the right impact, then we can change the world with our excitement.

That’s why marketers should never forget our why. “From a mission perspective, you have to believe that you’re having a societal impact,” Rob said.

“You have to figure out how your product or service can tie into doing something positive. Almost every product in the world can have some kind of positive impact on the environments that we serve,” he added.

Reach out to Rob on LinkedIn or on the Automation Anywhere website.

To hear this interview and many more like it, subscribe to The B2B Revenue Acceleration Podcast on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, or on our website.