More than a necessary evil — effective oil and gas services marketing can be a powerful, measurable tool

The marketing of upstream oil and gas services businesses, in its truest sense, is seen by many as a necessary evil. It's not surprising therefore that the trusty presentation, brochure and price list tend to be the principal tools of the trade for sales reps looking to develop leads and win new contracts.

However, in a global industry led by emerging, disruptive technology, a greater focus on building equally innovative strategic marketing campaigns that establish measurable commercial targets can help demonstrate to executives that a company's marketing dollars are being effectively deployed and having a real impact on sales.

Take your own advice

For marketing campaigns to deliver commercial rewards, their effectiveness should be measured and analysed with much the same rigor as a new technology.

Embarking on the launch of a new innovation, an oil and gas services company will make every possible effort to understand and improve its effectiveness from day one. In simple terms, it will consider what works, what doesn't work and, crucially, in what area of development it should next invest.

The same should be true of any marketing efforts. It's not about placing adverts, building exhibition stands and producing brochures. It's about benchmarking and measuring for a continuous improvement in the buyer's perception of the product or service and how that positively influences their buying pattern.

Marketing can be your best friend — if you treat it right

Building a marketing effectiveness culture demands that you identify qualitative and quantitative measures that show you are delivering valuable commercial results which can be felt on the bottom line. How many new business leads did your last marketing investment deliver? If you don't know, perhaps it's time you looked into it.

In oil and gas services, engineering-centric and technical marketing drives every stage of the customer lifecycle. Business development executives must identify and attract high-value customers, maximise sales conversion rates, enhance customers' service quality and expand their lifetime value (the value of a customer over a period of time), and determine technical up sell and cross-sell opportunities. Without a well structured, unified marketing strategy and campaigns to support these aims, their job is made considerably more difficult.

Take up the challenge

The next time you take on a marketing brief, your first response should be: ‘How we are going to measure the success of this campaign?'

The role of marketing can extend far beyond the tactical collateral used by business development executives in client meetings, but any activity must be measured, evaluated and refined to make a significant impact on your business.

The technology you provide is innovative, effective and, often, game-changing. Why should your marketing campaigns be any different?

Here's a very simple ROI calculator to get you started.

See the latest posts by everyone in our team