Engineering Consulting and Modern Marketing

I am a huge fan of the McKinsey Quarterly - I never miss an issue.  The current issue has an article by Jonathan Gordon and Jesko Perrey (The Dawn of Marketing's New Golden Age) that highlights several of the key opportunities that lie ahead for professional service firms in terms of marketing.

The article highlights five marketing insights for this century.

1. Science - Big data, modeling, and automated analysis are creating new ways to targeting and measuring your marketing ROI.  Most of the marketing science has focused on consumer goods.  But look for science, statistical analysis, and technology to play a bigger role in relationship and performance management.  Effective marketing leadership will require blending the success of relationship management at the individual level with science rooted in technology and domain knowledge.
2. Substance - Better science and information will lead to the development of new services. Arming client relationship managers and business development specialists with feedback on client experiences will help directly shape a more client centric experience.  A focus on science and substance will force the setting of new client experience standards based on client-care and consistency.
3. Story - Engineers have some of the best stories.  Unfortunately we are the worst storytellers. Technology (the Video Revolution and the Era of Small Screens) will bring forward the power and importance of the story.  In the story and Video Revolution world, creativity will be in greater demand than ever.  In many cases, digital interactions with clients will become more frequent.
4. Speed - Engineering consulting will need to escape a history and comfort level with marketing as a "batch" process.  Velocity is the new dynamic - marketing agility and urgency will be the new management and marketing culture.  Relationship management will need to embrace the speed of the new digital tempo.  The feeling of real-time marketing will dominate.
5. Simplicity - Complexity is the enemy of speed.  It is also the enemy of story.  Look at the AECOMs of the world.  Too often, expanding geographic footprints, service proliferation, and new arrays of channels and digital specialties have led to complex hierarchies, silos, communication gaps, and redundancies.  But don't allow simplicity to come at the expense of creative output.