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Category: B2BMarketingTrends

B2BMarketingTrends

  • Create a Marketing Strategy That’s Not Annoying, Says Bombora VP

    Create a Marketing Strategy That’s Not Annoying, Says Bombora VP

    “It’s really about customer experience,” says Nirosha Methananda, VP of Marketing at Bombora. “I think that is something fundamental to marketing. I feel like we have gone down this path of almost over automating and having to constantly pounce on people without necessarily being conscious and mindful of what their experience is on the other end. From my experience, it’s leading to me switching off and ignoring messages. I’m sure I’m not the only one. That’s basically why I’m passionate about creating a marketing strategy that’s not annoying.”

    Nirosha Methananda, Vice President of Marketing at Bombora, discusses the challenges of marketing without annoying your potential customers by bombarding them with marketing messages in an interview with Logan Lyles on the B2B Growth Podcast:

    Marketing Is Really About the Customer Experience

    As a B2B marketer, I get marketed to a lot. It’s something that I have increasingly noticed and I’m probably not the only one. That’s just becoming part of the experience in terms of being inundated with different messaging and different calls and this, that, and the other. Use this, do this, buy this, whatever it is. It’s really not a great experience. It doesn’t necessarily provide value. Marketers are so busy as it is, and I know that is applicable across the board with everyone we are marketing to. Being able to cut through the noise and having an understanding of all these different things is very challenging. 

    Having on top of it being inundated with this constant flow of messaging like meet me, meet me, meet me, is not very helpful. That’s one of the things that I’m passionate about. It’s really about customer experience. I think that is something fundamental to marketing. I feel like we have gone down this path of almost over automating and having to constantly pounce on people without necessarily being conscious and mindful of what their experience is on the other end. From my experience, it’s leading to me switching off and ignoring messages. I’m sure I’m not the only one. 

    Create a Marketing Strategy That’s Not Annoying

    It also leads to this annoyance and irritation which leads to distrust of brands and that’s not great for this industry. From a customer perspective those bad experiences, unfortunately, more than good experiences, they stay with you for longer and you remember that. Another thing that we don’t necessarily think of is that it’s wasteful. It’s wasteful of time and it’s wasteful of money especially for marketing and sales where money is a precious resource. It’s not something to be wasted. That’s basically why I’m passionate about creating a marketing strategy that’s not annoying.

    As an example, our Intent Event was our first flagship event that we did last year. It was a closed event so we did have limited numbers and we were limited as to what we could do with promotion. What we did was try to have mindfulness around what we were sending out and ensuring that it was helpful. Making sure that the recipients, the people that we invited, were given all the relevant information, but there was brevity in the communication as well as encouraging them to participate without forcing them to be there. 

    There was certainly some urgency around some of our communication but it wasn’t you need to attend this and this is why you must attend this. It was more about being a bit more subtle in presenting them the idea and the concept of what it was, why it would help them, and exactly the information that they needed. What that meant was not sending out multiple emails, being very controlled around it, really thinking about what the experience was before the event, to during the event, to after the event. We were really focused on the customer and making sure that all of the content and communication was educational and helpful.

    Create a Marketing Strategy That’s Not Annoying, Says Bombora VP Nirosha Methananda
  • B2B Influencer Marketing Adds Up To Nurture and Ultimately Conversion

    B2B Influencer Marketing Adds Up To Nurture and Ultimately Conversion

    “We co-create content with (B2B Influencers) in concert with brand messaging,” says TopRank Marketing CEO Lee Odden. “So now instead of people just ignoring the press release we actually have storytelling happening with these different voices. You have this intersection of one or two or three or four influencers talking about this topic and those audiences intersect and cross. Your customer is hearing this credible message not only from the brand but also from people that they trust in different channels. That all adds up to yes. That all adds up to nurture and ultimately conversion.”

    Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank Marketing, discusses how B2B influencer marketing can be a highly effective force in driving leads and conversions for companies. Lee was interviewed by Tim Washer at the 2019 Content Marketing World Conference & Expo:

    Influencer Marketing Is Powerful Because Of Influence Itself

    Influencer marketing is powerful because of influence itself, not about the people. Influence has always been a factor in being persuasive and being effective as a communicator, as a marketer, and really being able to tap into the dynamics of that. The psychology and sociology of that is something that is everlasting, it’s evergreen. While there are trends in terms of tactics that come and go, there’s this consumerization of B2B. B2C influencers are misbehaving and have fake followers, etc. and some of that’s leaking over into B2B. But I think that’ll reconcile a little bit and kind of clean itself out. In the future brands are going to be looking at influence as a really key component of their holistic marketing strategy internally and externally.

    A lot of people when they think of influencer marketing they think of a Kardashian or some people think of something like Baddiewinkle, a 90-year-old woman who wears hip-hop clothes and now has her own makeup line on Sephora versus someone like Tamara McCleary interviewing an executive at Dell about the right IT infrastructure for doing edge computing. That’s really what it’s about in B2B.

    B2B Influencers Actually Have To Have The Main Expertise

    One of the big differences between B2B and B2C influencers is that in B2B you actually have to have the main expertise. You actually have to be knowledgeable and have a depth of that expertise in what it is that you’re influential about. It’s also important to have a network for distribution and a place to publish your content. It’s great to have a personality and that’s less common in B2B, where you have charisma. Well, lack of personality is a form of personality I suppose. 

    The good thing is that we’ve figured out ways to coach folks that have that domain expertise and an active following but they’re not necessarily used to being social. We are coaching them in how to activate themselves and to pull out the best of what they have to share in a way that’s very promotable. Many of them start to open up a little bit after we show them how to do it.

    B2B Influencer Marketing Adds Up To Nurture and Conversion

    In the planning stages (with a client looking to promote something) we’ll look at the topics that are important around the announcement and how it affects customers and how customers will think of that news and how it’ll affect or change their lives. Those topics are then what we want to be influential about. We’ll use those keywords or topics to search our network using influencer marketing software to find who is influential around those topics, who’s publishing content, who self-identifies around that topic, and whose audience is actually activated around that topic. We find those people who have trusted voices with an active community and we invite them to collaborate on content and give their opinion about the announcement. 

    We co-create content with them in concert with brand messaging. So now instead of people just ignoring the press release we actually have storytelling happening with these different voices. You have this intersection of one or two or three or four influencers talking about this topic and those audiences intersect and cross. They intersect across channels too. Your customer is hearing this credible message not only from the brand but also from people that they trust in different channels. That all adds up to yes. That all adds up to nurture and ultimately conversion.

    B2B Influencer Marketing Adds Up To Nurture and Conversion – TopRank Marketing CEO Lee Odden
  • Amazon CEO Andy Jassy Pivots Away From Bezos’ Number One Priority

    Amazon CEO Andy Jassy Pivots Away From Bezos’ Number One Priority

    Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is already making his mark on the company, including by focusing less on Jeff Bezos’ top priority.

    Jeff Bezos founded and led Amazon from a tiny startup to one of the biggest, most valuable companies in the world. Throughout that journey, his top priority was always the customer. In fact, according to Forbes’ Bill Murphy, Jr., in the 23 shareholder letters Bezos wrote, the word “customer” appears 443 times, more than any other keyword he normally talked about. In contrast, “Amazon” only appears 340 times.

    There’s no doubt that Bezos’ almost obsessive focus on the customer is much of the reason Amazon has been the success it has. Whatever other missteps the company has taken along its journey, whatever other issues it may have, Amazon became the behemoth it is by delivering what the customer wants at a price they want it.

    Interestingly, at the company’s most recent quarterly call, Jassy appeared to be shifting focus away from the customer somewhat. As Murphy writes, Jassy outlined his priorities as follows:

    1. “[P]robably the No. 1 priority that I spen[d] time with the team on is reducing our cost to serve in our operations network …”
    2. “The second thing, priority-wise, I would talk about is just speed. We believe they’re continuing to get products to customers faster, makes customers happier, and they also converted a higher rate when they can see promises of deliveries that are faster …”
    3. “I think pricing being sharp is always important. But particularly in this type of uncertain economy, where customers are very conscious about how much they’re spending … we’ll continue to work really hard on being sharp on pricing … “
    4. “And then just the customer experience improvements that we’re working all the time … we will continue to work very hard on those customer experiences, and we have a lot more planned …”

    Putting aside that Jassy has four priorities — which Murphy argues is broad enough to count as not having any real priorities — Jassy lists the “customer experience” as the fourth and last priority.

    It is true that Jassy mentions ‘making customers happier’ in his second priority, but that’s not the focus of Number Two. The focus is having faster logistics…which will result in the customers being happier.

    While Jassy is clearly concerned with happy customers, it appears he does not have the same focus on that metric as Bezos did. Whether this works for Amazon, or undermines what has made the company great, remains to be seen.

  • Twitter Charging Businesses $1,000 to Keep Gold Verification

    Twitter Charging Businesses $1,000 to Keep Gold Verification

    Twitter is reportedly implementing another major change, one that would see it charge $1,000 for businesses to maintain their gold verification.

    Since Elon Musk purchased Twitter, the company has been looking for new ways to monetize its platform. According to Matt Navarra, Social Media Consultant, the company is already contacting businesses to tell them it will cost $1,000 to keep their gold verified status. In addition, it will cost $50 per month for each affiliate account.

  • Microsoft Adding ChatGPT Email Creation Into Viva Sales

    Microsoft Adding ChatGPT Email Creation Into Viva Sales

    Microsoft is taking another crack at Salesforce, integrating ChatGPT email creation into Viva Sales to make it easier for salespeople to communicate with clients.

    Microsoft unveiled Viva Sales in mid-2022, touting it as “a new seller experience application.” The app is designed to work with various CRMs and integrate their data with Microsoft’s suite of apps.

    The company is now integrating ChatGPT into Viva Sales so salespeople can use the AI to write emails for them. According to Bloomberg, the software “will cull data from customer records and Office email software. That information will then be used to generate emails containing personalized text, pricing details and promotions.”

    Microsoft is investing heavily in ChatGPT and its creator, OpenAI. The company is planning to unveil a version of Bing that utilizes a new and improved version, and has invested billions in OpenAI.

    The company clearly sees potential for ChatGPT to help it in its efforts to take on Salesforce’s dominance in the CRM market.

  • Conversational Marketing Closes the Gap Between B2C and B2B, Says Drift Marketing VP

    Conversational Marketing Closes the Gap Between B2C and B2B, Says Drift Marketing VP

    Conversational marketing is a whole new way of thinking about marketing and sales, says Dave Gerhardt, VP of Marketing at Drift. “We go to our jobs in B2B and none of the tools that we use match how we actually buy as real people,” he says. “That’s the most exciting thing to me about conversational marketing. It’s really closing the gap between B2C and B2B. We just call it B2P, marketing to people.”

    Dave Gerhardt, VP of Marketing at Drift, was recently interviewed on the B2B Growth podcast by John Rougeux who is VP of Marketing at Skyfii. Gerhardt discusses conversational marketing as a new B2B product category and how it is changing marketing from reaching out to you later to a conversation that is happening now:

    Conversational Marketing is About Connecting You Now

    Conversational marketing is a whole new way of thinking about marketing and sales. The traditional way of doing marketing and sales is all about later. Come to my website and fill out this form and somebody is going to reach out to you later, when it’s convenient for them. The big shift that is happening in marketing and business over the last five to ten years is customers have all the power today. You can’t make people wait. Information is free now.

    I can find anything I want to know about a company without ever having to go to your website. It’s crazy to think that you are going to force people to go to your website, fill out a form, wait three days to hear back from your sales team, and then get a demo. Conversational is all about connecting you now with the people who are ready to buy now while they are live on your website.

    B2P – Marketing to People

    It’s not about buyers. It’s not about sellers. It’s not about sales. It’s not about marketing. It’s about people. That’s how people all communicate online today. I pressed one button in my car and I got a list. I ordered something from Amazon while I was here this morning to send back to my house and it’s going to be there tomorrow when I get home. There are countless examples of that. That is how we all behave online in our real lives today.

    But then something happens weird happens. We go to our jobs in B2B and none of the tools that we use match how we actually buy as real people. That’s the most exciting thing to me about conversational marketing. It’s really closing the gap between B2C and B2B. We just call it B2P, marketing to people.

    What Ties Our Products Together is Conversation

    We have an email product and we have a landing page product. Black and white versions of those people would say everybody has email, everybody has landing pages. The thing that ties those together is conversation. That forces us to think about what is conversational email? What is conversational landing pages? What is conversational whatever? That one word forces our product team to think about how can we change this? If our fundamental stance as a company is that the internet should be one conversation, then how does that weave into everything that we build?

    Ultimately what we care about is that email becomes a conversation. Meaning, the way that marketers have had to use email the last decade is a one-way channel. Email is meant to be a two-way channel. Marketers have been using it as, “John come to my webinar.” What happens if you actually respond to that email? Most of the time you can’t because it’s donotreply@ or it just goes to some inbox where nobody is answering it. That is a terrible experience. Our belief is that if you reply, “Hey actually I can’t make it. Can you reregister my colleague?” That should get handled. We are thinking of that from an evolution standpoint.

    The same thing with landing pages. Most landing pages today are static. You go to the landing page, put a bunch of info in and you are gone. What if that was a real-time conversation on the page? That one topic has to weave itself into everything we do from a product perspective.

    >> Listen to the complete interview with Drift Marketing VP Dave Gerhardt on the B2B Growth podcast.

  • TrenDemon CEO: We Connect Content Marketing to Sales

    TrenDemon CEO: We Connect Content Marketing to Sales

    The CEO of TrenDemon, Avishai Sharon, says that they created their cloud-based software solution in order to help companies prove that the marketing content they produced also achieved business goals and sales. In order to show this correlation, the TrenDemon software analyzes all of the different touchpoints the customer has had over his lifecycle and then reverse engineers those successful journeys in order to find out what content is working.

    Avishai Sharon, Co-founder & CEO of TrenDemon, discussed their software on ILTV:

    How Do You Connect Content Marketing to Sales?

    My personal background was heading a marketing agency for many years and one of my biggest struggles was how do I prove our value and our effort to our customers and how do you connect the impact of what we call content marketing to business goals and to sales? When we couldn’t find an easy way to show that correlation three and a half years ago we went ahead and founded TrenDemon to help companies do just that.

    We connect their marketing efforts, which today rely mostly on content, you want your audience to consume valuable content, as opposed to just advertising. The big challenge is how do you attribute those efforts to sales? There’s actually a prior problem, how do you actually map the customer journey? How do you track those different touch points into one picture?

    Reverse Engineering Successful Customer Journeys

    The first thing we do is look at all the different touchpoints that a customer has had over his lifecycle. We ask the question, not just where do they come from, but how deep was their engagement? Did they actually watch the video? Did they actually read the article? Then you can start reverse engineering those successful journeys and say what’s common about all of these successful journeys.

    What we found, and this is the interesting thing, we’re working with over 90 companies today worldwide and the vast majority of content the companies produce, over 90 percent, is ineffective at driving business goals. As you guys know it’s very expensive to create quality content and it takes a lot of effort.

    If People Read the Right Content They Will Covert to a Sale

    The second interesting thing is that if you do manage to find those 10 percent and you find a way to get it in front of the right people you’re actually able to improve dramatically your results. So there’s not just a correlation between what buyers did beforehand, there’s also a causation, a causal relationship, that if people read the right content at the right time they’re more likely to follow a path. We’re not probably as sophisticated as we believe that we are.

    We’re a SaaS company, a cloud-based solution. We’re working a lot in the US and one of our biggest markets and growing markets is Japan. They’re investing a lot of content and a lot on technology. Essentially, because we look at the customer journey and not necessarily specific languages we can operate in any environment which allows us to grow pretty much anywhere. As long as they have content, which means that they’re producing something other than just advertising, they want people and audiences to actually engage with what they’re producing and they do have some business outcomes that they’re looking to measure.

    About TrenDemon:

    Founded in 2013, TrenDemon is the world’s leading content marketing attribution and optimization solution, helping marketers prove and improve their content’s impact.

    TrenDemon insights can help you uncover your content marketing ROI, impact on business goals, and engagement to help guide the content strategy. Our optimization units will help you increase conversions and shorten time to convert on your owned assets.

    TrenDemon proudly serves a wide range of customers, from Fortune 500s and brands to SaaS, B2B, and financial companies and is backed by leading VCs.

  • 3 Digital Marketing Methods Every Business Needs

    3 Digital Marketing Methods Every Business Needs

    As a business owner in the 21st century, it’s important to take advantage of the tools and technology available when engaging with your customer base. Not only will this help you reach wider audiences and maximize your revenue,  but it will also help you to stay competitive and current.

    One of the great things about digital marketing is it can be done from anywhere as long as you have an internet connection and a laptop. Check out these options for travel laptops.

    As marketing methods such as print advertising and direct mail have begun to be phased out and a greater number of people consume content online a traditional approach alone will no longer cut it. If you are reluctant to embrace the digital age, or don’t know where to begin, this article has outlined three digital marketing strategies to help you connect with your customers and capture the attention of new ones.

    Content Marketing

    Content marketing is a type of marketing strategy that focuses on creating and sharing valuable, relevant  and consistent material in order to stimulate interest and attract and retain customers. By distributing high-quality material such as blogs, emails, videos, podcasts, articles and eBooks, a business can engage with its customer base while indirectly generating interest for its brand.

    Well-written content which is relevant and informative can reveal more to your customers about your business, its values and ethos as well as the products and services you offer. Content marketing can even help you present yourself as an authority in your field.

    Coca-Cola’s ‘Share a Coke’ campaign is a good example of content marketing that used personalization to increase customer engagement. By establishing stronger relationships with your potential customer base you can also help build brand awareness and loyalty.

    SEO

    Search engine optimization (SEO) is a process of improving your website to increase the quality and quantity of traffic to it. As a result, it will rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs). As your business becomes more visible online, you will improve your chances of attracting more customers and increasing your revenue. 

    As well as more potential clicks to your webpage, SEO is also beneficial when it comes to establishing the credibility of your business, as sites that rank more highly on SERPs are considered to be of higher quality and seen as more trustworthy than those that rank lower. Strategies to boost SEO include keyword optimization, building backlinks and removal of zombie pages. 

    Email Marketing 

    By building a relationship with your email subscribers through relevant and personalized content, you have a low cost way to deliver targeted messages to an already engaged audience. This is also advantageous for gauging feedback on ways to improve your service, better meet customer needs and develop new products.

    Email marketing can also help you to nurture leads by sending personalized messages in set intervals designed to convert readers into paying customers.

    By implementing the digital marketing methods mentioned in this article you can help your business reach a wider audience while retaining and nurturing the valuable customer base you already have.

  • How HubSpot is Using Surround Sound Marketing Strategy to Drive Sales

    How HubSpot is Using Surround Sound Marketing Strategy to Drive Sales

    “There is a very smart individual at HubSpot named Alex Birkett based out of Austin, Texas,” says Scott Tousley of HubSpot. “He is working on this concept that is really starting to take off called Surround Sound Strategy. Essentially what that means is that it runs with the notion that marketers are selfish. All we care about is how do we drive more traffic to our website.”

    Scott Tousley, Senior Team Lead of User Acquisition for all products at HubSpot, was recently interviewed on the B2B Growth Podcast by David Kelly, General Manager at Sumo Dojo. Tousley discusses how HubSpot is using Surround Sound Marketing Strategy to drive leads and sales:

    Surround Sound Marketing Strategy Starting to Take Off

    There is a very smart individual at HubSpot named Alex Birkett based out of Austin, Texas. He is working on this concept that is really starting to take off called Surround Sound Strategy. Essentially what that means is that it runs with the notion that marketers are selfish. All we care about is how do we drive more traffic to our website. I don’t care where it comes from. Whether it comes from search or social or referral traffic or email, it doesn’t matter. You’re always looking at how do I get more traffic to my website? The reality is that when we are trying to buy something you don’t go to one website. You go to multiple different websites when you are trying to make a purchasing decision.

    For example, I’m in South Lake Tahoe right now. One search I just did recently was “best bars in South Lake Tahoe.” I wanted to see a list and I wanted to see some reviews from a couple of different websites. I also like to surf, so let’s say I’m in the market for a new shortboard. So I search for “best shortboards 2019.” First, I’ll read a listicle, then I will go back to Google and I will click on the next list. Then I will go back again and click on the next list. Then I will start to narrow my decision based on seeing the same thing over and over. Once I narrow it down I will do a versus search such as “lost puddle jumper” vs. “channel islands average joe.” I’ve narrowed my decision at that point.

    We Want To Be At All Stages of the Purchasing Decision

    What we are trying to do at HubSpot right now is figure out how to be everywhere. We want to be at all stages of that purchasing decision when people are searching for “what is the best blank that exists today.” Well, there are a ton of lists that are out there and a ton of review sites and HubSpot’s B2B software (has to be there). There are a lot of review sites just dominating search engines right now like Capterra, G2 Crowd, and Software Advice. A lot of those are pay to play. You have got to pay to get listed on what appears when you land via search. Most of them are.

    But listicles are free. Not only are they free to get added to, but they are free to create. That’s one of the biggest things we are working on right now. How do we change our mindset from being so obsessed at driving traffic to our website? How do we make sure that HubSpot’s brand is everywhere when you are doing your product research and you are on many different websites? We actually sometimes prefer that we drive traffic to multiple different websites where we are listed versus just to our own. It’s good for social grouping.

    Listen to the full interview with HubSpot’s Scott Tousley.

  • A Look at the Asphalt Economy

    A Look at the Asphalt Economy

    Asphalt (sometimes called bitumen) is a prized construction material.  It has structural strength, powerful binding capabilities, and offers incredible resistance to extreme temperatures. This  petroleum product is composed of 5 main elements that are mostly organic: hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and sulfur.  A mainstay in the construction world, bitumen is used to create parking lots, roads, and shingled roofs.  While bitumen is occasionally found in nature, it is more common for asphalt to be manufactured from other forms of crude oil.  The largest natural reserve of asphalt known to humanity is located in Alberta, Canada. This impressive reserve covers 140,000 square kilometers.

    The Asphalt Economy

    For those not blessed enough to find bitumen in its natural state, bitumen extraction from crude oil is a well established process.  Vacuum distillation separates the compound from the other valuable components of crude oil, such as gasoline and diesel. The resulting material is typically further treated to extract small but worthwhile amounts of lubricants, which are put to use elsewhere.  In a de-asphalting unit, the crude asphalt is treated with either propane or butane in a supercritical phase to extract molecules that are lighter, which are then separated.  Further processing is possible by “blowing” the product, which generally means reacting it with oxygen. This step makes the product harder and more viscous.

    Asphalt Recycling: Why it Matters

    The US produces a dizzying amount of asphalt, to the tune of 420 million tons in the year 2019.  At the same time, this country claimed 36 billion barrels of asphalt as its own.  Unfortunately, asphalt produced new can have several negative impacts on the environment, such as damaging waste products and carbon emissions.  One way to avoid these negative side effects is to recycle existing asphalt.  Asphalt is a completely renewable construction resource.  In recent years, an entire economy has grown up around the use and reuse of asphalt.

    How does asphalt recycling work?  The process is easy to follow.  Whenever asphalt is discarded by its former users, it is handed off to a recycling company.  Recycling companies then extract usable asphalt from any waste that collected on it during its lifespan.  Consider roof shingles in the following example. In closed loop recycling, bitumen is pulled from the shingles with a specialized solvent.  Next comes a proprietary extraction process with 4 steps. 

    The first step is milling, where asphalt shingles get ground up into coarse chunks to remove nail debris.  Next comes mixing, in which chunks become mixed with solvent to create a fluid slurry capable of dissolving the bitumen.  Third comes extraction: solid waste sinks to the bottom while bitumen and the solvents rise to the surface.  Lastly, distillation happens.  The remaining solution is heated to separate all solvents from the oil, which lets the solvent get reused in another cycle. The oil can also be cleanly packaged thanks to this step. Following that process, recovered materials get resold to providers for shingling, paving, waterproofing, or other tasks.  Roughly 99% of all asphalt pavement is recovered every year, providing economical and environmental protection to all.

    In Conclusion

    The benefits of asphalt recycling stretch beyond environmental concerns.  Reusing petroleum products reduces US dependence on foreign oil, a political issue that can run a tab of 7.86 million barrels daily.  Sending shingle waste to a recycling company keeps up to 11 tons of shingle waste from clogging up a landfill, sparing city planners some of the pains of expanding waste collection sites.  Approximately 10 million tons of shingle waste are construction scraps from installations or re-roofing.  For perspective: a normal shingled roof from a house, where siding contractors are also important in home construction, provides enough asphalt to pave 200 feet of a highway.

    The Asphalt Economy - Asphalt Recycling Matters More Than Ever
    Source: InvestSkyQuarry.com
  • How to Master the Art of Industrial Marketing

    How to Master the Art of Industrial Marketing

    94% of B2B customers research extensively before they buy a product. This statistic is especially applicable to technical buyers, those purchasing components, architectural products, materials, equipment, and other technical services. Wendy Covey, CEO & Co-Founder of TREW Marketing, says that “Technical buyers spend more than half of the buying process online before engaging with sales, and those under 45 years of age spend even more time online than their older counterparts”. This shopping scrutiny makes technical marketing an essential proponent of sales.

    What is Industrial Marketing?

    The purpose of industrial marketing is to build brand trust in the market and convince industrial buyers to purchase products and services. Yes, industrial marketing is a type of B2B marketing; it’s marketing to businesses instead of consumers. But marketing to industrial buyers is anything but typical B2B marketing because of the involvement of various factors like the complexity of products, persuading expert buyers, and niche marketing.

    Industrial products range from off-the-shelf bearings to robust, custom machines, and selling these complex commodities requires a high level of technical knowledge. Industrial marketers often sell products into multiple industries, requiring a high level of knowledge to market and sell. Even a seemingly simple component like a bearing has essential specifications that engineers need to make design decisions, and with 62% of engineers completing at least half the buying process online, presentation of features, performance, and overall fit are the cornerstones of industrial marketing.

    Industrial Buyers are Expert Buyers

    And are uniquely knowledgeable and they analyze products closely.

    Engineers and procurement departments evaluate industrial products based on measurable specs, data, lead time, and ROI. Industrial sales teams, however, don’t always speak directly with the final purchasing decision-makers. Achinta Mitra, President of Tiecas, Inc. and founder of Industrial Marketing Today, says, “Today’s industrial buyers are in self-serve and self-select mode, preferring to remain anonymous for most of their buying journey. This makes it difficult for industrial sales teams to get in front of key decision-makers until the very end of the buying process, where they may face unexpected objections that could scuttle deals”. This means that industrial marketing strategies must be as engaging as they are informative.

    Industrial products require niche marketing. In light, statistical market research methods don’t always find the right data, and when targeting campaigns, finding the right title and seniority level can be tricky. Joe Sullivan, Thinker & Founder of Gorilla 76, says that “One of the most important pieces of advice I can give is to consciously choose an audience segment. If you don’t, your content won’t resonate with anyone in particular and won’t gain the traction you need to make progress”. Additionally, the buying processes for industrial products can be extensive, with buyers’ journeys averaging from months to years. Marketing must secure and maintain buyer interest for longer periods of time than for consumer products, making a focus on engagement a must.

    Using B2B marketing tactics to sell materials, products, and components is a complex and artful process. Master industrial marketing by reaching design engineers at the right time with the right information.

    Industrial Marketing
  • Building the Factory of the Future

    Building the Factory of the Future

    The COVID pandemic, despite its disruptive effects on every aspect of our lives (not to mention all the painful losses we’ve endured since 2020), has caused us to re-examine and rethink how we function in almost every area. From personal interactions, to how we work, how we conduct healthcare procedures, to how we eat and how much we cook, and everything in between; COVID has induced a multitude of changes, and many of them have been for the better. Let’s learn more about building the factory of the future below. 

    One industry that has been greatly affected by COVID is that of manufacturing. Manufacturers saw many issues arise due to the pandemic. They saw supply chain disruptions, delivery delays, increased costs,  rapid changes in demand, and general uncertainty. All of these issues only served to highlight the fact that manufacturing already needed a facelift. 

    Manufacturing Needs an Update

    A pandemic is certainly not the only unexpected event that could affect manufacturing. Other concerns are things like geopolitical unrest, natural disasters, and shipping disruptions. These, and other potential problems, mean that manufacturers must be prepared and have plans in place to keep moving forward, despite these harmful events. 

    Of course, the potential for the unexpected is certainly not the only reason why manufacturing needs to be updated. The manufacturing process itself is in great need of change as manufacturing, production, and distribution is currently responsible for a large portion of the world’s pollution. In fact, altering these processes to “greener” methods could eliminate 45% of global emissions. 

    Not only would updates to manufacturing processes be good for the environment, they would also be beneficial to manufacturers who are feeling the strain of trying to fill orders quickly, maintain product quality, work efficiently, increase flexibility, maintain safety, and improve sustainability, even as they reduce costs and increase production complexity. These manufacturers are under massive pressures which create other sustainability issues from within. 

    Manufacturing With Sustainability in Mind

    Bringing manufacturing up to speed with modern digitalization would increase both sustainability and efficiency. Not only that, but currently manufacturing represents 54% of the world’s energy consumption and 20% of global emissions. Rethinking just 5 areas of manufacturing could reduce emissions by an amount equal to eliminating all forms of modern transportation. With new AI and IoT technologies, these changes are 100% possible. 

    Sustainability in manufacturing is beneficial to all and could be invaluable. For instance, responsible waste management would reduce costs. New ideas behind sustainability drive innovation; green processes ensure early completion of regulatory requirements; and the company image is strengthened by its embrace of environmentally friendly processes. 

    The first step to achieving all of this is through shared data and connected tech. Manufacturing factories of the future must include adaptable technology, scalable production, and a versatile workforce. It also must include smart technologies such as wearable sensors for manufacturing workers, virtual twins to explore products and processes prior to manufacturing, industrial IoT, and cloud software for faster connections across physician and organizational barriers. 

    Through updating manufacturing processes and procedures, manufacturers can not only make a significant positive impact on the environment, but they can also plan for the future and be prepared for the unexpected without missing a beat.

    Learn more about building the factory of the future in the infographic below:

    Factory of the Future
  • Ecommerce Nearing $1 Trillion

    Ecommerce Nearing $1 Trillion

    “We’re forecasting that ecommerce spending this year will be somewhere between $850 billion and $930 billion,” says John Copeland, Vice President of Marketing Science and Customer Insights at Adobe. This would be a 14 percent increase over last year. That would be more typical of what we see year over year in the ecommerce channel.”

    John Copeland of Adobe, predicts that ecommerce spending could be $930 billion, or just under $1 trillion, in 2021:

    COVID was a catalyst to the ecommerce channel last year. What we saw when you look at the full calendar year of 2020 was $813 billion dollars in ecommerce spending, 42 percent growth over 2019. That’s like combining two years’ worth of growth into a single year. Consumers have really embraced the online channel to meet their needs during these challenging times.

    We’re all kind of wondering what (the vaccine rollout) is going to do in terms of ecommerce. We’re forecasting this year somewhere between $850 billion, only a 5 percent over last year, and up to $930 billion, which would be a 14 percent increase over last year. The 5 percent increase would be if everybody gets vaccinated and rushes out and we see kind of a slowdown. The $930 billion, 14 percent increase, would be more typical of what we see year over year in the ecommerce channel.

    Buy Now Pay Later Up 215 Percent Over Last Year

    Buy Now Pay Later is very much good for retailers. In fact, what we’ve seen in February this year relative to February 2020, which is kind of on the cusp of the pandemic, is a 215 percent increase year over year in buy now pay later orders. In terms of retailers, it comes along with larger average order values. What we’re seeing is 18 percent larger orders when customers are using that service. Unlike layaway, with buy now pay later you actually get the goods upfront, you don’t have to wait until the payment’s done.

    Another trend is Buy Online, Pick Up In-Store, also known as BOPUS. In February of this year, we’re already seeing it growing 67 percent year on year. It’s always been huge and growing during the holiday season but now people are clearly working it in as part of their fulfillment options. Picking up in the store gives consumers the ability to schedule it according to their availability and knowing that stock will be there for them when they want to pick it up.

    Ecommerce Nearing $1 Trillion, Says John Copeland of Adobe
  • Intuit Acquiring Mailchimp for $12 Billion

    Intuit Acquiring Mailchimp for $12 Billion

    Intuit has announced it is acquiring email marketing service Mailchimp for $12 billion.

    Mailchimp is one of the leading platforms for email marketing. The company was founded some 20 years ago, and is used by companies around the world. Intuit sees the acquisition as a way to improve its small and medium-sized business offerings, providing its customers a marketing solution to compliment its other services.

    “We’re focused on powering prosperity around the world for consumers and small businesses. Together, Mailchimp and QuickBooks will help solve small and mid-market businesses’ biggest barriers to growth, getting and retaining customers,” said Sasan Goodarzi, CEO of Intuit. “Expanding our platform to be at the center of small and mid-market business growth helps them overcome their most important financial challenges. Adding Mailchimp furthers our vision to provide an end-to-end customer growth platform to help our customers grow and run their businesses, putting the power of data in their hands to thrive.” 

    Ben Chestnut, co-founder of Mailchimp, echoed those sentiments:

    “Together with Intuit, we’ll deliver an innovative small business growth engine powered by marketing automation, customer relationship management, accounting and compliance, payments and expense, and e-commerce solutions, creating a single source of truth for your business. We’ll also be able to offer more personalized support and onboarding, expand our international footprint, and scale our teams to innovate faster and deliver the solutions you want and need.”

    The deal is worth $12 billion, in stock and cash, and subject to the usual regulatory approval. The deal is expected to close before the end of Intuit’s Q2 2022.

  • Salesforce Adds AI-Driven Improvements to Service Cloud

    Salesforce Adds AI-Driven Improvements to Service Cloud

    Salesforce has announced AI-driven improvements to Service Cloud, aimed at helping service agents and their customers.

    Salesforce is the leading customer relationship management (CRM) vendor and a powerhouse in the SaaS industry. The company recently acquired Slack, and is a major proponent of a digital-first workflow moving forward. Salesforce is positioning itself as the provider of a “digital HQ,” bringing together the services and products companies need to thrive in the new hybrid workplace.

    As part of that, the company is improving its Service Now platform, recognizing that top-notch service is one of the defining features of companies that have survived the pandemic.

    “The businesses that have thrived over the last 18 months are those that embraced digital tools to deliver excellent customer and employee service experiences with trust and transparency,” said Clara Shih, CEO of Service Cloud, Salesforce. “With new AI and process automation for Service Cloud, as well as Slack to provide a digital hub to quickly resolve issues across teams and departments, we’re giving agents more time to focus on providing human-centric service and giving customers fast, proactive service to build trust and loyalty.” 

    To help companies better meet the needs of customers, Salesforce is introducing a number of new AI-driven workflows, including Customer Service Incident Management, Omni-Channel Flow and Robotic process automation capabilities (RPA) for Service Cloud.

    The company is also introducing new and improved digital contact center capabilities. These include Einstein Conversation Mining, a Natural Language Processing (NLP) system to help prioritize customer interactions; persistent in-app and web messaging; virtual remote assistant; Workforce Engagement Intraday Management; and Service Cloud Voice for phone, digital channels and CRM data.

  • Twitter Introduces Communities

    Twitter Introduces Communities

    Twitter has introduced Communities, a featured designed to help people connect around common interests.

    Twitter has been experimenting with new ways to drive engagement. The company introduced Spaces, and has been expanding the feature to include Paid Spaces. The company also experimented with Fleets before killing that feature.

    Communities is the latest feature, aimed at helping people to connect with like-minded users.

    The company described the feature in a blog post:

    Some conversations aren’t for everyone, just the people who want to talk about the thing you want to talk about. When you join a Community, you can Tweet directly to that group instead of to all your followers. Only members in the same Community are able to reply and join the conversation so it stays intimate and relevant. 

    While you can Tweet only to your Community for a focused conversation, Community pages and timelines are publicly available so anyone can read, Quote Tweet, and report Community Tweets. We want to continue to support public conversation and help people find Communities that match their interests, while also creating a more intimate space for conversation.

    Moderators will be able to set the rules and focus for a Community, and invite individuals who will add to the conversation. Twitter is currently limiting Community creation, but the feature will become more widely available in the coming months.

  • How To Use Concept Mapping To Improve Your Business

    How To Use Concept Mapping To Improve Your Business

    At some point in our lives, we all have used mind mapping to cover a topic for exams or explain a concept in a presentation. It is an effective way to break down complex ideas and make them seem more straightforward. And, just like that, concept mapping is also a visualization technique that can help you understand and act on ideas by making connections.

    If you’re a business, you can organize ideas using a concept map during brainstorming sessions to help the team make better sense of them. However, there are many other ways a business can benefit from concept mapping tools to boost their employees’ productivity and to prevent information overload.

    What Is Concept Mapping?

    If you want to present relationships between concepts and ideas, concept mapping can prove to be a handy tool. It is a diagram or graphical tool that depicts ideas as circles or boxes, also called nodes.

    These nodes are structured to create a hierarchy and show connections with arrows or lines called arcs. You can explain that connection by labeling these arcs with linking words or phrases.

    The base of these concept maps comes from a focus question that you need to solve. This question helps you maintain the context or direction of the concept map. It is a reference point that serves as a reference point and helps guide the learners through it.

    How Is Concept Mapping Different From Mind Mapping

    Although mind mapping and concept mapping sound alike, they are different, so people usually have trouble differentiating between them. However, you can know a few ways if you’re working on a mind map or a concept map.

    Concept mapping represents tactic knowledge and academic knowledge. For instance, an existing concept or theory is usually generated externally in a more formal context and setting.

    In these maps, you will find general knowledge usually close to the top and the concepts arranged in the hierarchy below. Moreover, the topics will be cross-linked to show multiple relationships.

    On the other hand, mind maps generate a new set of ideas internally and present them systematically. They are used to represent a variety of concepts and tasks, allowing their application to be more flexible.

    In the center of a mind map, you will find a single word, phrase, or image with a related idea radiating away from it in all directions.

    Types Of Concept Mapping

    There are various types of concept mapping where the basics are the same, but the arrangement is different. Following are the four most commonly used concept mapping types:

    • Spider Map: As its name suggests, a spider map arrangement is a lot like a spider web. The main topic is in the center, and the rest are set outwards in a radial pattern.
    • Hierarchy Map: This map is set in the arrangement of hierarchy to show order.
    • Flow Chart: A flow chart is used to show the steps of a process.
    • System Map: This type of concept map is complex and is used to show different parts of a concept and the relation between them.

    Ways To Use Concept Mapping For Business

    While concept mapping is usually used in academic settings, businesses can benefit from it, too, as it is a great tool to develop new valid and creative ways of looking at the already established business concepts. In addition, you can communicate these complex ideas to your employees in a holistic and straightforward way.

    It can prompt their creative thinking, in turn helping them in business analysis. Moreover, since it is a group activity, businesses can use it to lead team meetings. So, team leads can use concept mapping for project management. Moreover, concept mapping tools are elementary to maintain, so every technical or non-technical can conveniently keep up with them.

    Concept mapping tools are a great way to bring a results-oriented and creative approach known as design thinking. This approach makes it a good technique for helping employees understand concepts through storytelling. Hence, they can be used in an organization for inspiration, ideation, and implementation.

    This mapping technique can be used in a business organization to serve a variety of purposes:

    • A better understanding of business requirements across the company
    • Identifying and simplifying complex connections among ideas
    • Spotting contradictions and gaps
    • Establishing a consistent language for a project
    • Limitless expansion of ideas
    • Identifying potential dependencies of requirements
    • Learning the client’s “language.”
    • Product development
    • Decision-making
    • Modeling cash flows, inventory flows, relationship flows, etc.
    • Market research and analysis
    • Mapping team knowledge
    • Creating a shared vision
    • Formulating research projects
    • Archiving expert knowledge
    • Generating advance organizers
    • Software design
    • Training new employees
    • Ontology-building

    Conclusion

    Using a concept map, you can do a lot for an organization to dig deeper into the presented ideas in detail. You will be able to explore subtopics and build an exciting understanding of the connection between them. In addition, you can organize your thoughts systematically and logically. All of which contributes to making concept mapping a great tool to help your employees see the bigger picture with a clear vision.

    So, if you are an owner of an organization, integrating concept maps into your business model can give you the chance to explore new possibilities.

  • Microsoft Blocks 300,000 Advertising Accounts In 2020

    Microsoft Blocks 300,000 Advertising Accounts In 2020

    Microsoft Advertising has released its 2020 year-in-review report, giving a glimpse of the state of online advertising.

    The company blocked some 300,000 accounts from its advertising platform, a 30% increase from 2019. Microsoft also removed 1.6 billion bad ads, as well as 270,000 sites from its system.

    Given the year that was 2020, it’s not surprising what Microsoft’s five key areas of focus were: the pandemic, political advertising, third-party government services, tech support scams and advertiser safety.

    Microsoft emphasized its approach to advertising, one that uses a combination of artificial intelligence and manual reviewers.

    Advertising fraud is fast-moving, and we continue to see new patterns surface globally. We take an all-hands-on-deck approach to ensure we continue to deliver the highest quality content possible. We constantly update and refine our policies to ensure we meet evolving needs. Our fraud detection technology makes use of a wide variety of signals and uses the latest machine-learning algorithms to find fraud patterns which can otherwise be difficult to detect. We also have a geographically distributed team of experts working round the clock to help us conduct detailed investigations on any new patterns we’re seeing, by making use of smart and scalable tools. Detecting fraud before it has a chance to reach customers is one piece of our approach.

    We also address escalations and complaints from customers to quickly remove low-quality ads. In 2020, we received a total of ~50,000 complaints related to ads not being compliant per our advertising policies. We investigated each complaint and found ~ 65% of the reported ads to be in violation of Microsoft Advertising policies. Most of the complaints were related to trademark infringements. As we continue to roll out new products and make it easier for brands to engage with audiences, we made additional investments to protect and respond to advertisers’ concerns around trademark use and were able to reduce the trademark related complaints by ~ 25% year over year. We also received a few complaints related to unlicensed gambling sites, phishing, unauthorized government service provider websites, and other user safety concerns. We have a highly responsive operations team working 24/7 to promptly address concerns relating to our ads. In response to complaints, our operations team took down nearly 400,000 violating ads from our network.

    Microsoft’s 2020 report shows the challenges the advertising industry faces, as well as provides insights into how to manage those challenges.

  • Everything You Do is The Brand, Says ShipMonk CEO

    Everything You Do is The Brand, Says ShipMonk CEO

    Everything you do in the company drives you toward the vision and the mission of the brand and the company itself, says Jan Bednar, Founder & CEO of ShipMonk. “Something we have learned in the last few years is that once you communicate those values and what the brand really means to your employees and to your customers, it kind of does the job itself,” he says. “You don’t really have to spend a lot of time maintaining it.”

    Bednar adds: “Everything you do at that point is the brand.”

    Jan Bednar, Founder & CEO of ShipMonk, talks to Logan Lyles of Sweet Fish Media and host of the B2B Growth podcast. Bednar tells how he grew ShipMonk to a $30 million business and how the company’s values have helped drive their success:

    Our Values Are the Pillars of the Organization

    The one important thing in the way we look at our products and our brand is we try to figure out who are users are and what does our brand mean. We have a certain set of values that are associated with our brand. It’s not just a bunch of text that we put on a whiteboard three years ago and we never look at it. We have them everywhere and everyone knows them. They basically become the pillars of the organization. It’s something that everybody looks up to. You know what they are.

    Everything you do in the company drives you toward the vision and the mission of the brand and the company itself. Something we have learned in the last few years is that once you communicate those values and what the brand really means to your employees and to your customers, it kind of does the job itself. You don’t really have to spend a lot of time maintaining it.

    ShipMonk Values

    Everything You Do is The Brand

    Everything you do at that point is the brand. It’s how you answer the phone. It’s how you decorate your office. It’s how you go to work. It’s what you wear to work. Every single detail, as long as you have those values in the back of your mind and you know what the brand really means, it’s almost like a self-sustaining organism at that point.

    That’s been really important for us. We really see with our customers that once they like our brand and they see what we are doing they become part of it. It’s one of the most rewarding things. They love coming to our office. They love sharing their thoughts and improving the product. It becomes this one big ShipMonk family in a way. Everything we do from a branding and marketing standpoint surrounds those values and the proposition of the brand.

    >> Listen to the full podcast at Sweet Fish Media…

    About ShipMonk

    From their inception in 2014, ShipMonk has operated with a singular guiding principle: to help small and medium-sized businesses scale by offering technology-driven fulfillment solutions that enable business founders to devote more time to the things that matter most in their businesses. Put simply, ShipMonk helps eCommerce companies stress less and grow more.

  • How Amperity Uses Machine Learning To Unlock Data and Supercharge Marketing

    How Amperity Uses Machine Learning To Unlock Data and Supercharge Marketing

    “Nobody was using machine learning to point at the underlying consumer data to help make sense of it and bring it together,” says Matthew Biboud-Lubeck of Amperity. “We put together cloud computing that was scalable with better economics alongside a machine learning algorithm that we were pointing at the data to help make sense of it. We realized that what we had was a pretty scalable solution to help brands get to that nirvana of a single view of the customer.”

    Matthew Biboud-Lubeck, VP of Strategic Services at Amperity, discusses how their platform helps brands create a complete view of their customers in an interview on the B2B Growth podcast:

    Helping Brands Create a Single View of Their Customers

    We are a CDP (customer data platform) based in Seattle that is helping brands create a single view of their customers and to unlock personalized experiences from that data. If you look back to the founding of Amperity about three years ago our founders were canvassing the marketplace. What you saw was a marketplace using a lot of buzzwords but having a lot of trouble executing them. You heard about personalization, customer 360, and a 360 view of the customer. Marketers across major consumer brands were super frustrated.

    They spent a fortune trying to cobble some view of their customer. They invested in technology to help them send better emails, to make their media more targeted, and to unveil better analytics. All of those tools that they have invested in talked about the notion of a single view of the customer because they fundamentally needed that to operate. The reality was that nobody was getting to the solution. We came in to say maybe there is a better way.

    Machine Learning Helps Brands Get To Nirvana

    There were two things that changed in the marketplace that we capitalized on. First of all, it was that cloud computing got a lot cheaper. It used to be that if you were a big brand and got hundreds of millions of customer interactions, it’s just a lot of data. Part of the reason that no one was able to create an easy solution to putting that all together was because it was cost prohibitive.

    The second really interesting evolution in the market is that machine learning has become much more mature. What we found was that everyone in the marketplace was using machine learning to make that last mile to the marketer a little bit better. It was used to decide which products to show a customer or to decide which offer to show a customer or to create a customer care solution that’s automated. You go online and type toward a solution and some bot talks back to you. Nobody was using machine learning to point at the underlying consumer data to help make sense of it and bring it together.

    We put together cloud computing that was scalable with better economics alongside a machine learning algorithm that we were pointing at the data to help make sense of it. We realized that what we had was a pretty scalable solution to help brands get to that nirvana of a single view of the customer. That’s how we were born. What’s interesting is that the customer data platform space is a little bit confusing. You have a lot of companies that started as something else that rebranded as a CDP. We were purpose-built from the ground up as a customer data platform designed to bring all of a brands data, reconcile that data to create a notion of identity on it and then to unleash that data back to the brand anywhere that they want to use that data.

    >>> Listen to the full B2B Growth podcast here.

  • How To Track Your Customer Journeys in Real-Time to Empower Your Sales Team

    How To Track Your Customer Journeys in Real-Time to Empower Your Sales Team

    The four pillars of measuring marketing ROI are key to improving sales says Jonathan Rowe, Chief Marketing Officer at nCino. “It’s really understanding your costs specific to the activities you are doing in marketing, tying those activities to your sales opportunities, and then measuring results.”

    Rowe says that taking in data on sales prospects and making it available to salespeople can drive results: “When you are bringing all of the data into one real-time place, then you can start empowering salespeople to use the data. You can track your customer journeys in real-time.”

    Jonathan Rowe, Chief Marketing Officer at nCino, discusses how to use data to track and improve marketing ROI in an interview with James Carbary, the founder of Sweet Fish Media on the B2B Growth Podcast:

    The Four Pillars of Measuring Marketing ROI

    Knowing Your Costs

    There are four variables that we use to measure ROI that have proven very successful for us. It starts with your costs. Whether it’s headcount costs where you are investing in people, whether it’s the cost of investing in PR, whether you are doing webinars or podcasts, whether you are advertising, etc., it’s really making sure that you have a good understanding of here’s where I’m actually spending my money and how much. So it starts with your costs.

    Identifying Marketing Activities

    The next step from there is here are all the different activities that we are spending money on. It’s advertising, attending conferences, or doing podcasts. Here are the activities. You have your costs and you have your activities.

    Connecting Activities to Sales Opportunities

    Then the next big step is connecting those activities to actual sales opportunities. As a B2B marketing organization at nCino, we are selling and marketing to banks. Whenever we initiate a conversation with a financial institution it often takes us 9-12 months from that initial interaction to hopefully when they become a nCino customer.

    Over that 12 months, there are hopefully going to be a lot of different marketing activities where that bank and different individuals at the bank interact with nCino. We want to be able to capture that information. So we take the activities that we are doing and we actually connect them to a specific sales opportunity at the financial institution and the individual at the financial institution.

    ROI: Measuring Results

    The fourth pillar is the results, where we actually turn that prospect into a nCino customer. Then we can say that marketing played this role. At the end of the day, we are in a business where it’s more than marketing. We have sales groups and others involved.

    When we sign a financial institution to become a nCino customer I’m always very proud to say here are all the different marketing activities (that led to the sale). Whether it’s white papers and thought leadership or press releases or attending a conference in a booth, how all those activities played an influential role.

    It’s really understanding your costs specific to the activities you are doing in marketing, tying those activities to your sales opportunities, and then measuring results.

    You Have to Be Committed to Data Analytics

    One, you have to really be committed to data analytics. You want to have that marketing driven organization knowing it’s going to take time and costs to get there. Then two, you want to make smart decisions around the technology you use because connecting all of the dots around your data is probably the most important thing. I want to be able to go onto two or three systems which are what we have at nCino and be able to look and see all that data together.

    I can see, for example, that Mary who works at a financial institution that we are talking to was on our website yesterday, that she looked at all of these different pages, that she spent seven or eight minutes on each page, and she actually downloaded one of our whitepapers. Then I find out that we are going to see Mary at a banking conference that we are going to in a few weeks.

    With all of that automation, I know that the salesperson will log in and see all of that information on the financial institution and Mary.

    Track You Customer Journeys in Real-Time

    That sales rep will have literally on their phone before they have that face to face conversation at the conference all of Mary’s interactions. Some things you probably don’t want to tell Mary, which is hey, by the way, we’ve been tracking all of your website activity on the nCino website. But what you can have is a conversation around the fact that she downloaded our artificial intelligence whitepaper around banking and you can talk about that.

    When you have fewer systems and you’ve made the commitment and you’ve gotten to the place where you are bringing all of the data into one real-time place, then you can start empowering people to use the data. You can track your customer journeys in real-time.

    >> Listen to the complete B2B Growth podcast interview.