Tell us about yourself.

 I'm Lorna King, Head of Marketing at Hymans Robertson. I've been with the firm for six years, in my current role for the last year, and have worked in marketing for almost 20 years. My experience spans mainly B2B financial services, though I started at an agency working across various industries, primarily Scottish food and drink, before moving into financial services.

In my role, I lead a team of 20 marketing professionals, also working closely with our PR and policy team and our in-house design team. We support a broad range of business units across the firm, helping them promote their propositions. Layered on top is the brand piece, ensuring Hymans Robertson represents itself in a way that truly differentiates us. My role is to ensure we have a high-performing team that designs and implements effective marketing strategies with the overall aim of business growth and enhancing the brand's presence across financial services as well.

How do you see your role as a B2B marketer in driving broader sector or industry change?

For me, it’s about influencing positive change within the financial services industry. Hymans Robertson is all about building better futures and how we help improve retirement for people in the UK: the current workforce as well as generations to come. We aim to leave a lasting legacy that ensures everyone has the best possible future. A lot of that is about financial aspects, but we absolutely appreciate it's broader than that because having a positive future isn't just about finances.

We’re a purpose-led firm and we're a B Corp, so environmental and wider corporate social responsibility elements come into everything we do. We also focus on diversity, equity and inclusion, social mobility - that's as much a part of the business as creating commercial growth. It's ensuring we see the bigger picture, understanding our impact on the environment, what we do for clients and the way we operate as a business. We’re also really proud to have the Hymans Robertson Foundation, and 2% of all our profits go to our charity partners. 

From a B2B marketing perspective, it's about educating our audience at each stage of the customer journey, understanding their needs, providing relevant products and services to meet those needs, but also weaving in the CSR and DEI elements.

Day-to-day, this means showing we understand our buyers’ issues and showing how we can help, plus ensuring we have our share of voice. As we’re a consultancy and people buy people, expertise and credibility, thought leadership is a huge part of what we do. We show that we understand the audience, the market, the legislation and the trends and execute this through webinars, blogs, reports, podcasts and videos, both independently as well as working with the broader industry. 

When interviewing candidates, we always ask what attracts them to Hymans. I suppose we'd be a little disappointed if they haven't seen on our website that purpose is a core part of what we do! It's part of our mission and values, and it seems to resonate - nine times out of ten, candidates are aware and genuinely attracted by it.

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What's the most provocative idea or strategy you've implemented in your marketing and what was the response and the outcome?

Financial services is generally quite a conservative industry so "provocative" isn't a word that's often used unless it relates to challenging government policy or something similar! But in 2021, it was Hyman's hundredth birthday, which coincided with the middle of COVID. We had to execute everything virtually rather than having face-to-face events. But celebrating this milestone it still worked out brilliantly.

We ran our Better Futures 100 campaign, made up of four different campaigns throughout the year, one each quarter. The example I want to share was the campaign I led on the topic of the role technology plays in helping with the savings crisis. People might not traditionally think of Hymans as a tech firm, but it's actually core to what we do. We use a lot of technology, build complex models and our IT team is core to what we do.

What I wanted to do was make technology as relatable as possible and share a message with our audience about the importance of embracing technology and what it meant for future generations. We aimed to raise our profile amongst peers and position ourselves within financial services as tech experts at the forefront, sharing content and generating conversation around tech.

What I wanted to do was make technology as relatable as possible and share a message with our audience about the importance of embracing technology and what it meant for future generations.

The provocative element was that we worked with an external speaker who was just 15 years old, an amazing young man named Femi. He got into coding when he was about 10 and as well as being so young, he also struggled with Tourette's. Coding allowed him to immerse himself completely in something he was really good at and he became a master at it. He likes to put everything he's learned back into society, running coding camps in deprived areas of London, travelling to India and encouraging and supporting other young people.

He was our keynote speaker during this campaign, presenting to the traditionally older, quite male-dominated audience. He passionately conveyed how technology can help engage younger audiences about the importance of finances and financial wellbeing. It was brilliant, it challenged traditional authority, questioning the notion that expertise only comes with age. Rather than older people telling the younger generation what they should be doing, here was someone that age actually doing it.

Can you share an example of how you've used storytelling to provoke change or shift perceptions in your industry?

I think our podcasts are a good example. We have several podcast series which I helped develop when I started about five or six years ago. It's interesting how podcasts have gone through cycles of popularity. They're really popular right now, but there was a time after they first appeared when interest waned, before possibly COVID brought them back again.

We have various podcasts including Hymans Robertson On which covers the broader firm. But the example I'd highlight is The Fintech Feed podcast which I started within the firm, growing out of the campaign I just mentioned. We've continued producing it and now have around 50 episodes. It brings together industry leaders across technology and financial services to discuss topics like AI, digital engagement and innovation in financial technology.

For podcasts to resonate and maintain engagement, I personally feel that storytelling is key. The biggest compliment we received for one of our first podcasts came from the production agency, who said it was "just like listening to two guys down the pub having a chat." That's exactly what it should be like! It should tell a story, engage the audience and include some emotion.

We've done episodes on robo-advice in retirement savings and ethical considerations surrounding AI in financial services. When putting the script together, which is deliberately loose to keep it conversational rather than fully scripted, we make sure to include personal stories, failures and elements that humanise the content as much as possible.

The approach we take isn't just churning out the same content. The format typically starts with "Where are we now?" or "Why are we even talking about this?" or "What problem are we trying to solve?" Then we move on to different elements, drilling down into various solutions or opinions depending on the topic. We usually finish with some future gazing. So we're taking listeners on a journey through different conversations. We have planning meetings but try not to over-rehearse because the participants know exactly what they're talking about.

What is the biggest change needed in your view in B2B marketing right now and how are you contributing to that shift?

I was thinking about whether this is a change that's needed or a change that needs to be embraced, but I'd say it's around AI. It's not going away, and if anyone shies away from it, they'll be left behind. All consumers, whether in B2B or B2C context, are becoming more familiar with AI, so there's an expectation that we would offer its benefits through B2B as well.  

When it comes to making data-driven decisions and experimenting with content and engagement, AI is something we all need to embrace.

But it's about using AI in the right way. It's brilliant for many things, but especially around content. Anyone can go on ChatGPT and get something in 30 seconds. So it's about not losing that authenticity. If we position ourselves as thought leaders, we can't just churn out the same content as everyone else. That's definitely a challenge.

At Hymans I'm part of an AI steering group, and we have a separate AI marketing group where we discuss different tools and agents we're using, to share best practice. We have to be very conscious of privacy, compliance and ethical elements, so we ensure everyone is properly trained. When it comes to making data-driven decisions and experimenting with content and engagement, it's something we all need to embrace.

We've got an event at the end of the month with an AI session where we're looking at different AI agents we could use to bring things to life. Within our AI team, our head of innovation is driving an exploration of avatars that delegates can ask pension-related questions to, creating interactive conversations. I've been testing conversations with these avatars, which has been interesting!

There are always conversations around the threat to jobs, but I think AI allows marketers to focus on other aspects of their role, freeing them up to concentrate on areas where their time and skills are best utilised. During our AI marketing meetings, we identified use cases where AI might solve problems, taking these to the AI steering group. 

How do you encourage your team or organisation to think more boldly and embrace change in their marketing approaches?

We definitely try to share our work as much as possible. We have 20 people in the marketing team, which isn't huge, but they all work on different areas. For any major campaigns, we share the results. After every campaign, we do a post-implementation review to capture key learnings we can take forward. In larger campaigns, our design team will come up with different concepts to test, and we'll do A/B testing with various emails to see which performs best.

I'm a big advocate of looking beyond the firm to see what others are doing. I've been a member of The Marketing Society for several years, and for the last two years we've had a business membership so everyone in the team is a member. It's quite active in Scotland with lots of events, both face-to-face and online seminars. We encourage team members to be judges at various awards, which I think they get a lot from.

We also work closely with our partners. Our research agency came to our away day last year and did a session on research. Our website agency did a session on AI a few weeks ago. Bringing in external perspectives rather than being solely internally focused is really important.

Ultimately, we foster a culture of experimentation. When I started at Hymans, the person who led the broader team told me, "If you've got a good idea, just crack on with it until someone tells you to stop." It's that idea of seeking forgiveness rather than permission, within reasonable limits of course!

For example, we're currently going through a customer journey review. We have so much content, and it's easy to fall into the habit of "I'm delivering this quarterly newsletter because we've always delivered this quarterly newsletter." We look at stats like click-through rates and open rates, but after a while, you have to ask if this particular format is still needed and fit for purpose, or not.  So we're now looking at doing a comprehensive UX audit to inform our approach going forward.

What makes marketing 'changemaking' in your view, in just one word?

I'd say "advocacy". In B2B marketing, you're fully advocating something, and in Hymans' particular situation, we're advocating better financial futures for all. We champion this through the ethical side of things, sustainability and inclusive practices. So yes, advocacy is my one-word answer, though I've taken longer to explain it!

What is your one piece of advice to future changemaking marketers on how to be more effective in their roles?

I'd say collaboration. You can get bogged down in the silos you work in, but there's so much to gain from working alongside those around you or at least being aware of what they do. It's really important throughout your career to understand your industry, your markets, your target audience and your competitors. These are standard elements when developing a marketing plan.

But these days it's not just about direct competitors. You're competing for the attention of individuals across all sectors, both B2B and B2C. People are time-poor and there's so much noise that getting cut-through is really difficult. Attention spans are probably shorter because people are using multiple devices simultaneously.

If you want to understand more broadly what's happening, you need to work with colleagues and broader teams. For us, it's our consultants who are speaking to clients daily. Checking in with them to find out what conversations are happening, beyond what's officially logged in our CRM system, is invaluable. It's those general conversations that yield the best insights.

Connect with Lorna here.

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