Designing a B2B Content Strategy
This episode provides key insights on B2B content strategy, including data-driven storytelling, leveraging AI with human oversight, adapting to search algorithms, B2B social platform innovation, overcoming content challenges, and coordination. The guests on the podcast discussed these topics and emphasized the importance of understanding user journeys, maintaining cohesive narratives, and filling buying journeys with consistent content. They also discussed the lack of innovation in B2B platforms and the transformative role of generative AI in automating content creation. Personalization and segmentation were highlighted as crucial for effective content marketing.
Host
Joaquin Dominguez, was joined by three marketing experts to discuss the topic.
Guests
Matt Churchill, Social Media & Content Manager at AVEVA.
James Ricketts, Content Manager at Foodtitude.
Will Bodansky, Head of Demand Generation at Virtual Internships.
Transcript
Joaquin Dominguez - [00:00 - 01:14]
Well, let's kick off. Hello and welcome everyone to another episode on the future of B2B Digital Marketing podcast. Today we are talking about B2B content strategy, specifically about content design. We will explore data driven analytics with also with an emotional pull of storytelling. We will also explore the transformative role of generative AI. Of course, we will talk about generative AI. We will discuss how Google's evolving algorithms impact your content visibility and what you can do about it, and how to distribute the content on LinkedIn, content syndication, etcetera. And finally, we will get into the challenges of B2B content design, from maintaining a cohesive narrative to making the most of your marketing funnel. So to dissect these topics, we gather a panel of industry experts, and I will love to to hear from you. Please share a sentence on yourself. Matt, Matt Churchill - [01:14 - 01:42]
my name is Matt Churchill. I lead social media and content at a software company called Aviva. And we essentially create software for designing, building, operating, optimizing large assets like manufacturing facilities, transport networks, smart cities, that kind of thing. And I've been playing on the internet professionally since 2007 now, and working with anyone from trainer manufacturers, folks who sell video games, pharmaceutical firms, and of course, B2B technology companies. Really happy to be here.
Joaquin Dominguez - [01:42 - 01:46]
And thank you very much, James.
James Rickets - [01:46 - 02:20]
Good afternoon. I'm James James Ricketts. I work as a content manager at a company called fortitude. We're a contract catering company, and we deliver cooked from scratch meals to offices, office canteens across London. And at the moment, during hybrid working, it's really a great way to bring people together around a table and to create the essence of collaboration. So yes, that's me and that's food.
Joaquin Dominguez - [02:20 - 02:24]
Jud Riedel thank you. Will.
Will - [02:24 - 03:11]
I guess I started off within the world of, I guess, within the world of data, within the world of business intelligence, and then kind of moved more to the more to the startup world at various different startups, including, you know, facial recognition company and more recently, edtech at virtual internships as some within demand generation. And vie offers basically remote internships to students and graduates. And aside from that, I'm also kind of. Help help companies implement their tech stack, whether that's from marketing or sales and how essentially try to try to try to find a balance between the two and how the two can best integrate in a cohesive, cohesive like full funnel journey.
Joaquin Dominguez - [03:11 - 03:17]
Amazing. Well we will we will talk about the full funnel strategies and Adrian.
Adrian Hobbs - [03:17 - 03:33]
Yeah. So good to meet everybody. Adrian Hobbs I'm VP of customer success at Adzact so I help our customers maximize their return on digital advertising by making sure they're advertising to the right companies. Joaquin Dominguez - [03:33 - 04:09]
Well, and I'm Joaquin Dominguez, I'm head of marketing of Artsact, and we are hosting this podcast, The Future of B2B Digital Marketing. So let's kick off with our first point, which is how do we balance data driven insights with human storytelling? Of course, that to create good content, we need to analyse our we need to understand our prospects, our clients. Everything starts from there, right? So how do we balance that data driven insights also with, with with the human side of things? Will - [04:09 - 05:57]
So I think obviously with the quantitative and the quantitative side, you start off, I guess, with the data and probably always start off with the quantitative side. And I'd probably ask two questions. Right. What is what's the value proposition and what is and what the of these value propositions appeal to these ideal personas. And how do you once you got those then you can sort of, I guess, start to approach that. So you might have the, I guess the personal demographic data points such as the demographics, title, industry, etcetera. And then the more kind of, I guess, intent driven pieces such as what are they engaging with? Is there a specific piece that you're that you're noticing a specific bit of behavior that can tell you something about them and that kind of that can heavily relate to content? Right. Which is, I guess, the topic that we're here to discuss and, um, tracking, tracking this and understanding their journey, what they're interested in, what they're what they're not can help you define that persona in a better manner. And then once you go on from this and then go on to more of the quantitative standpoint within this, I do think understanding customer stories is very important. Um, but usually I kind of, I guess some, some companies do like to run sort of focus groups to understand what that persona might be like. For me, I would often, I often on, um, just, I guess getting feedback from the relationship with your existing customers and based on their conversations, their product usage, um, you can relay this information effectively to the marketing team to use in perhaps in campaigns. What appealed to them? What did they like? Will - [05:57 - 06:01]
What didn't they like, what they would like? In an ideal world, um, and.
Joaquin Dominguez - [06:01 - 06:05]
This consistently like weekly meetings. Monthly.
Will - [06:05 - 06:55]
Um, it's to be honest, with clients it's more it's always going to be more client driven. It is. When can you have conversations? When is it appropriate to ask these questions? Because like, you're you know, you're you're selling a product to you're marketing a product. And that's the primary goal is to is to fulfill that product delivery. So it's more in a contextual sense of when you can get that relative feedback from them, when it's appropriate, without without kind of negatively affecting the relationship and asking them a bunch of questions that are like, well, you know, um, this isn't, you know, I kind of just want you to deliver the product. But if you do, I guess provide it in the sense of we want to improve it for you, then you know, that that kind of can help with that willingness.
Matt Churchill - [06:55 - 08:38]
It's really interesting. We've kind of had a lot of conversations at Aviva about this in terms of relying on data to kind of guide our content strategy. And we kind of, you know, really dig deep into understanding, you know, on a micro level, what content is driving interactions and engagement and all that lovely stuff, but also on a macro level, like what are the bigger trends in terms of that contextual landscape as well? And we found that a lot of our kind of more kind of people focused content, the initiatives that we run at Aviva around Dei and so diversity, equity, inclusion and that kind of strand of content performs really well. That's really interesting. And then when you kind of touch on what Wil was talking around about, about what the what then kind of happens when you have conversations with, with your customers, a whole different story and picture emerges. And we've just kind of had this kind of. Not necessarily a revelation, but a really interesting kind of counterpoint in terms of we had a we hold regular partner customer sessions and we were talking to them about, you know, what do you want our content to do for you? And the answer from them was, we want to know more about the product and what it does and how it can help my business. So so the kind of the balance in terms of kind of taking what the data tells you and then taking what your customers and actual people telling you can sometimes be completely off and totally skewer. So we're trying to apply kind of a almost like a 50 over 50 perspective in terms of we know what content works well, but we know also what our hopefully what our what our customers, what our partners want to see from us as well. Matt Churchill - [08:38 - 09:28]
So we're trying to kind of blend the two in terms of the way that we're telling those stories around who we are and what we do and how we're operating as a business. It's quite complex, and I love the the kind of the, the thoughts around building those personas out. And I don't know if you've seen there's a meme which has got side by side, it's a picture of King Charles and Keith Richards, and it's got, you know, 70 year old man does this, does that, does it. And it's exactly the same information applied to these two different individuals have obviously got completely different interests, completely different characteristics. So as good as the data is, you've always got to kind of have that that gut instinct, that contextual knowledge that only a person behind the screen can kind of give. It's it's so complex, but it's utterly fascinating to to delve into both aspects of that.
James Rickets - [09:28 - 11:09]
I think what Matt was saying there sort of got me thinking, you know, with the film industry was absolutely baffled that the same people would go and see Barbie and Oppenheimer on the in the cinemas, you know that. And I guess that that lesson is quite relevant for fortitude because, you know, the decision makers for who decides these are going to be our caterers, the people who make those decisions. Quite. Yeah, quite often they might be totally different in regards to who they are. You know, one side we got sort of business leaders. We have office managers and facilities managers, and they're very different in their generally overall of who they are. But one thing I think they want to see from fortitude in our marketing when it comes to storytelling, is the authenticity of what we've got to say. So, you know, as much as Barbie was as Barbie as you can get food, Jude has to be as fortitude as you can get. And of course, data still drives that. We of course use data to sort of understand pain points that is shared by this group. And I guess it's just to make sure. However we say something, however we tell the story, it's still relevant to the issues and challenges that people in charge of workspaces are sort of trying to solve. So that's my take on it. I'm sure there's some gaps in what I've just said. I don't know if anyone would like to expand on that, but.
Joaquin Dominguez - [11:09 - 11:22]
Let's continue with the second topic about the role of generative AI in transforming B2B content. Do you have examples of how a has made a difference in your content strategy.
Matt Churchill - [11:22 - 13:18]
I love this topic. I absolutely adore it so much because there's so many discussions around the pros and the cons for it. And in terms of kind of using it on a day to day basis, the potential for using generative AI platforms is just infinite, I think, let alone kind of thinking about. You know, ChatGPT is a basic function. Then all the different plug ins and the different tools that you can then use to, to, to really harness its power. It's fascinating. So thinking about like using it on a day to day basis, I think we're only scratching the surface. And that kind of looks like from a very practical level, writing copy variants, coming up with creative suggestions around campaigns. It's around kind of democratizing skills that are in short supply. So a little bit of data analysis, for example, and in terms of kind of that broader communications piece, you can automate kind of basic processes around like media development and press release writing. And like we know that, you know, Google and folks are going to media outlets in the US and saying, hey, we've got this tool that can help write content for you in seconds, and you can publish it, and it's going to sound like a person. And one of the big challenges for us think is B to B marketers is is then standing out in not only the content that we're creating so that it is not kind of homogenized, and it doesn't sound like it's been created by AI, but also thinking about like, how do you create content that is then? When platforms are ingesting that content, that is then going to be useful and helpful and be guiding the output. Matt Churchill - [13:18 - 14:14]
And. I don't think we've kind of got to a point where we kind of go, oh, is is like running the show here, but against kind of like the previous point. It's it's super critical to have a person kind of that's overseeing the, the output but also the input because of data biases. You know, OpenAI isn't going to go and do any harm unless we let it, for example. So so where we're in a when we're kind of in this embryonic stage of development, I think we've got a real opportunity to consider how we can automate a lot of those basic tasks so that they're done quicker, they're done more effectively so that we can kind of get on and do the the thoughtful piece and that creative piece and, and use our kind of skills. And again, the contextual knowledge to kind of utilize the power of, of what is going to bring us.
Joaquin Dominguez - [14:14 - 14:41]
I would love to hear from I have a point of view regarding inputs and outputs, but I would love to hear from you. Will and James. Adrian, if you like. Uh, how do you get like generative AI to work? Well and and what's important of giving good inputs. And then as you mentioned Matt checking also the output to to ensure that it's good quality.
Will - [14:41 - 16:23]
Yeah. We have, we, um, we actually ran training sessions on prompts and all the, the, you know, the different prompts that you can use and how to get the right output. I think one of. I completely agree with you, Matt, that there needs to be someone overseeing it. Um, we definitely have a policy. You know, you should never publish anything that's completely that's 100% machine made. Right? But what it has helped us to do is it's empowered the the team that is not within the content team to produce content. And it's removed that kind of bottleneck where everything is, you know, a request will go through to the content team to create something, and it might be starting from scratch. Um, and there's just a massive a massive backlog for the content team of all this different, whether it's copy or visual or otherwise, to create and, and, and with, you know, if people are able to use ChatGPT well or other tools, whether it's for imaging or other types of content, then they can basically take a first stab at it. They can get it to a, you know, a reasonable level so that at the point that it comes to the content team, then it's more reviewing, tweaking, making sure it's in line with the, you know, with the company branding, the tone of voice, all of this stuff. So that and essentially empowering the rest of the team, the rest of the marketing team to become content producers. But obviously everything in the end will still be approved and and signed off by the content team. Um.
Joaquin Dominguez - [16:23 - 16:32]
And how do you ensure that the tone of voice marketing, branding, just taking the output or also focusing on on the input?
Will - [16:32 - 17:49]
Um, so in the input, you can sort of you can include some of that within, within prompts, within the tone of voice, obviously, you know, let's say ChatGPT is, you know, it's the, I guess the initial one and. In terms of your your your define your career or define the parameters of what you're looking for and the output that you're looking for. Um, and then the follow up responses, the follow up prompts that you that you might follow up with. Those will then focus more, more on the tone of voice. Let's say you get a specific copy or content that you want, the structure and all of that. Then the follow up might be like, um, you know, can you can you make it a more in line with, let's say, um, the branding on this website or, um, describe it in your best words. It's of course, it's never going to get it perfectly. And that's why, you know, you should never publish anything that's, you know, 100% machine made. But it definitely helps in terms of speed and gives you the ability to just create, um, create a lot more and, and not always, not always just hammering on the content team to, to create that for you.
Speaker F - [17:49 - 17:52]
Yes. Yeah, I think we can.
Adrian Hobbs - [17:52 - 18:50]
We've talked in other podcasts around the importance of giving making employees advocates. Right. Um, and one of the big barriers to that is a lot of employees don't feel confident in generating even a simple post or, you know, it's outside of their experience. And I think this this is an enabler as long as well you said as long as you give them the tools to get it right, you know, so there is a skill in writing a prompt and there's a consistency needed to get the outcome that you want. But it is a, you know, as you've always said, it's a massive step towards the democratizing, the ability to create content that is of value because the people have that, you know, we all have value. We all understand our business, we understand our customers. But to turn that into something that I'd be happy to publish is quite a lot of people is quite challenging. And this done well, this removes a big part of that, that inertia if you like.
James Rickets - [18:50 - 20:30]
I guess to explain where I'm coming from. At Foodtitute, we're a team of two in marketing and sales, so I of course I've dabbled in it. I'm probably speaking here as someone who's, you know, nowhere near the sort of using the capabilities of what they can do. Um, however, I do find it as a useful assistant in regards to even it writes the wrong blog post. At least it gives you a sort of, you know, like when you're reviewing work, you always think you've got a better idea. So it's almost like having someone write the wrong blog for me. So something that hopefully is the right one. But one thing that I find interesting is asking, let's say, putting myself in the position of a prospective client, asking questions such as, you know, who's the most sustainable contract caterer for workplaces in London? So I wonder if it's, you know, how can we ensure that our company appears on get suggested in AI chat bots? I'm sure someone's looked into it and already written papers on it, but I found that interesting the other day, sort of seeing who I suggests. Who are the best, you know, versus our competitors? Who's the best sort of candidate for their their issue there? Um, so yeah, I don't know if that's another element, but I'm interested to see how that will unfold in the future. So maybe you have some insight into that already. I'm a bit of a newbie to it, to be honest.
Will - [20:30 - 20:38]
So yeah, this is one thing which I which I find quite useful instead of asking. Um.
Speaker G - [20:38 - 20:40]
Instead of.
Will - [20:40 - 21:03]
I guess, setting the setting the parameters yourself or asking yourself one thing that can be useful is turning it around is asking, let's say interactivity, asking ChatGPT what information do you need to be able to answer this better? And that can be can be a good way to basically get, you know, obviously get the machine to tell you what information it needs to then answer it more in line with what you want.
James Rickets - [21:03 - 21:04]
Joaquin Dominguez - [21:04 - 22:26]
That's a that's a very good one. Something that we, we ran internally was crossed interviews like the CEO interview, interviewing the CTO, CTO customer success, etcetera. Making series of questions that of course we prepare in advance. We recorded those conversations and we put the script into into cloud and GPT and everything. So you start training GPT understanding very well your value proposition, your pain points, your client's pain points, etcetera. So basically at the end, you have an assistant that knows really well, like everything within the company, you know. So if you want to, let's write a blog post about pain points that B2B marketers have, and it will tell you very in detail, like based on on the conversations that are already in, in the system, I don't know how to call it. So that considerably improved the results of the output, like having a good input. And the other thing of course, are, as you mentioned, will the prompt. I think having a good prompt, which is not easy helps a lot. Speaker F - [22:26 - 22:27]
I think this is really.
Matt Churchill - [22:27 - 23:50]
Interesting because what you're kind of talking about there is essentially kind of having a bespoke AI that is part of your, your, your organization. So, you know, imagine, you know, you've got. James and and and and colleague to folks in the marketing like how invaluable is is having that assistant that knows everything about your company, knows all the messaging, knows all the different audiences, knows what makes them tick because you've given them. You've given the AI all the analytics that you've got from Google ads, from from LinkedIn, from whatever it is that's incredibly powerful for for two people to then kind of upskill and all of a sudden you've got like two plus an AI assistant. And then when you go into. Creating content for marketing teams where you've got ten, 20 plus people. That is super interesting in terms of thinking about how you can do a B, testing, how you can go to a hyper personalized content creation for ads. And you've got the eye that's just kind of doing that and analyzing it every, every day, every every week, whatever it might be. All of a sudden we're talking about customer centricity a little while ago. All of a sudden you're laser focused.
Speaker F - [23:50 - 23:51]
And what you're.
Matt Churchill - [23:51 - 24:42]
Content consumer, whether that's customer partner, whoever is is getting that's got to be a good thing, especially in the B2B space. That's got to be so powerful for us. Think I, I can't imagine in a year of ever not having this individual, I don't know if the management are listening, but can you imagine having an AI to kind of go and do all that analysis and take all your messaging and going, do you know what? We need to tweak the language here because it's not going to work for CTOs. That is incredible. And the opportunity for for us to then go and use that to tell better stories, to sell, to tell simpler stories. I think it's we're only just sort of opening the can. I think it's incredible.
Joaquin Dominguez - [24:42 - 25:19]
I agree, I agree and sorry just to something you mentioned, how important is for the knowledge of an organisation. You will mention before that you've got a like a policy about generative AI. I think never allow people in your organisation to to use their personal emails with this because they can take like as you mentioned, Matt, all the information about the company in after a couple of months just working it because everyone is you're putting a lot of content, not only content information within this, these models.
Speaker F - [25:19 - 25:19]
James Rickets - [25:19 - 26:07]
But maybe if we're inputting marketing information into a chat bot, that would actually give very informed results to customers. Looking to find out. Who knows? You know, if chat. Chat. You know, I was scanning blogs and it learned more about fortitude that way. I guess competitors could access it, but maybe it would. If it's being used to discover a particular service by people, you know, replacing Google's search engine, maybe we want. Yeah, maybe it's how what we input into AI to better inform other people using the AI system. But yeah, again, sorry, this is just me having a bit of imagination here rather than actual knowledge base on. But I think.
Joaquin Dominguez - [26:07 - 26:43]
That that connects very well with the with with the next point, which is how do we ensure that our content remains discoverable. So adapting our content strategy to Google's search generative experience, the implication of these search algorithms on B2B content visibility. So have you have you seen changes in the last years in Google, Google's search algorithm because of AI or just changes in the B2B industry?
Will - [26:43 - 26:43]
Will - [26:43 - 28:17]
I think it's still very early days with this, but I think one thing I guess moving forward, it's less about, um, as as Google I guess is, how are potential prospects refining that query? So it's going to be as well as just understanding the persona who they are. It's also going to be about understanding what, journey they're going through in their mind, finding out this information. So you could answer the first query. But then you've got to understand, okay, once they have that answer, what's going to be the next question. And then once they know the answer to that, what's going to be their question after that? Okay. So how do I structure my content? How do I structure my blog, my website, whatever it is, so that when they do have these, let's say these follow up queries or they have the initial query, they're not just going to, let's say, an FAQ at the bottom of a hidden page. They're going to they're going on the journey that you want to take them on, and that journey that you want to take them on is in line with the journey they're going through in their mind. To understand more about a particular topic. If it's a thought leadership, how do they understand more? If it's about your product, what initial feature are they interested in, then what feature after that might they be interested in? What missing bit of information do they still have? How can you take them on that journey? So understanding that I think it's more it will be less about. Will - [28:17 - 28:31]
The perhaps demographics or other kind of information and more understanding what you know, the journey they'll be going through in their mind to find out about your product, or perhaps about the topic that you are maybe a thought leader in.
Adrian Hobbs - [28:31 - 29:53]
I think this is quite interesting because it links back to something Matt was saying earlier about the difference between when you want to attract people's attention, you put a piece of content out there which draws them in. Whereas with search you're providing information that people are looking for. And, you know, there's two different approaches there. One of which is, you know, we talk about making B2B advertising more provocative, more interesting, and more clever content, but that's to that's to create intent and attract people in. Right. Whereas with Google, I need to make sure that what they want to find is available, because one of the most, you know, if you're searching for a company and product or service and through Google, you surface what you want. That's the user experience you want, right? Because you're getting what you need at that point to move you on your buyer journey, whatever that buyer journey happens to be. Um, so I think that's where, you know, this balance between interesting content to attract people. And then, you know, as you were saying, that when you went to your customer and they said, we want more product content, we want more value as to how to get more from from the service or product that we're buying. So, yeah, I think it the content strategy obviously varies. And um. Yeah. You can't hide. Well you if you're if you're not delivering the content on Google, then your customers are probably not getting the experience they want. Joaquin Dominguez - [29:53 - 30:14]
And what do you think is the role of other B2B content distribution platforms like LinkedIn in on this? Do you see a shift in the audience preferences or content consumption patterns?
Matt Churchill - [30:14 - 31:59]
The thing that I've kind of realized over the last maybe two years is that. Each channel kind of goes in cycles of being the big thing and then the not big thing, and then it kind of disappears and then it rears its head again. And I think one of the challenges is kind of trying to anticipate what that is going to be. So you probably remember, like two years ago, email was was heralded as not dead. Well, no news here. It's still not dead. It's still really, really effective. And. Lectin kind of goes through these fits and spurts of being, you know, great at driving engagement and then it's terrible at driving engagement and love LinkedIn to bits. But it's like stop playing with your algorithm and just kind of give us five minutes to catch up kind of thing. And and by the way, Google that applies to you as well, my friend. And and it's really interesting that I think we've kind of seen think about kind of thinking about LinkedIn actually, like we've really seen a shift in terms of. How you can kind of communicate in a more kind of natural way on that platform. So, you know, typically two, three years ago, a lot of corporate content would be quite stilted and quite dry and that would that perform really well? And then all of a sudden that's fallen off the, the face of the earth and authentic kind of in the moment is working really well on LinkedIn. And you think, well, why is that? Is it because they're kind of trying to lean into. Gen Z millennial folks who are now kind of not necessarily decision makers, but they've got the ear of the decision makers. So that's the kind of content that they're consuming. Matt Churchill - [31:59 - 33:30]
So LinkedIn is prioritizing valuable content that isn't necessarily highly professionally produced and beautifully crafted, but it's kind of tells it gets straight to the point and is genuinely useful. And I wonder kind of at what point will that kind of downturn again? And then all of a sudden, you know, email is is the the big channel and big news here? I think it will probably always be the main channel. And, and I think the interesting piece would be kind of tying back to the Gen II piece. Where does that then plug in almost in terms of can you give a prompt to say which of these three channels, email, social, whatever is most effective for my audience, and then kind of track that on a six month rolling basis and see kind of which is performing better alongside your own analytics and your own measurement and. Because I think that the audience is at the moment, from what I've seen. Anyway, I'd love to get your perspective on this. Um. Uh. James aging well is the audience is kind of seeing quite stable at the moment in terms of there's not a lot of kind of flitting around. I think everyone's so time poor that it's not like we're all dashing off to. Whatever the new quarter is, or the new Twitter or X or whatever, everyone's kind of just kind of comfortable where they are and consuming content as they would expect to at the moment.
James Rickets - [33:30 - 34:39]
Yeah, I would agree with you on that one. I think we've decided to keep to our, you know, threads appeared the other day with meta. And you know, we've got a few followers without posting anything, but we just got it there. And to be honest, just I personally feel like I've got no time to. For my personal life. Just to go on two threads, I guess old habits die hard. We've got these established networks now and. Yeah, I think we often we'll start an account with a new channel clubhouse that's been and gone, hasn't it? The audio. So when something happened, new happens. We tend to give it a few months and nothing yet has emerged worth exploring outside of sort of LinkedIn and Instagram and X a little bit. So yeah, I guess I'm stuck in my ways. And by the sounds of it, my audience too. So yeah, good point there, Matt.
Adrian Hobbs - [34:39 - 36:21]
Well, I mean, I'd be blunt, you know, from a B2B point of view, in reality, there's a lack of innovation in terms of digital advertising because. What we've just talked about. Most of those are B to C propositions, right? Which we are trying to make work for business. Now LinkedIn is, you know, the difference there in that. You know, although it started as a people network, it very much now I think, you know, I think we'd all agree is a viable B2B network and platform, and we use it extensively for our customers. But as soon as you start to look outside that for a genuine B2B offering it from, you know, where you want to generate content. Let's say if you're not relying on, you know, search, it's really difficult. So yes, you've got the DSPs and display and, you know, and the lack of control you have there and the lack of quality you have there. So. The. But so how long has it taken thing to establish itself and how much horsepower has it got? It's huge. It's huge. But you know, you kind of feel that. We're at the moment, we're stuck with that because there isn't a genuine B2B alternative, and I think it's going to be super interesting to see what other big publishers do. So we've had conversations with the Financial Times and the Financial Times have now developed what they call an platform, but you can actually give them a list of companies, and they will do internal matching so that you can reach subscribers they know are associated with that company. So in a way, that's the kind of first step towards another B2B targeting platform, because it's a business publication as much as a personal publication. Adrian Hobbs - [36:21 - 36:46]
So yeah, so I think we're partly from B2B point of view. I feel we're stuck because actually there isn't anything new yet that's genuinely viable for B2B. Um, yeah, obviously there are ways of using Metro and, and, and Instagram to support your brand and support your engagement with your customers. But in reality, I think we're we're stuck at the moment. Might be a bit harsh, but that's kind of how it feels.
Speaker H - [36:46 - 36:49]
Yeah, think.
Will - [36:49 - 38:10]
Think everyone's we're all people of habit. Right. And kind of get going on what you're saying. And um, whether we kind of treat channels, um, depending on kind of, I guess, what the goals are that we want. Is it brand awareness, is it conversion? Is it are we nurturing existing relationships? If it's brand awareness? Yeah. You're probably go towards your you're going to try and make social work. If it's conversion, if it's nurturing existing relationships like email is probably by far going to get you the best results there. Um, but with the I guess with the if we're going top, top of funnel at the awareness, I think Adrian, you're completely right that there there is not a purpose built solution. We try to make we try to make LinkedIn work with, you know, paid, paid ads. But in reality, the the cost per lead on LinkedIn compared to, let's say, if you are going B2C via something like Facebook or Instagram, is just it's just astronomically high. Um, so there's just there is that there is that gap, which yeah, I would agree, definitely needs a definitely needs a solution because at the end of the day, LinkedIn is where the B2B audience congregates. How do you meet them and how do you, you know, get in front of them in a way that you can afford?
Speaker F - [38:10 - 38:10]
Matt Churchill - [38:10 - 39:07]
I think you've hit the nail on the head where it's like the budget thing is like it's massive. You know, if cost per clicks, a cost per conversion are going up, but kind of reach and engagement is either declining or at best kind of plateauing, making that case to go and wrestle for more budget is becoming so tricky. And to go and kind of explain to stakeholders every six months, oh well, it's £16 per click, it's £18, it's 22, whatever it might be. And they're getting the same results, if not quite as good. Then all of a sudden, that kind of investment in LinkedIn, kind of feel like we're beating LinkedIn with a bit of a stick here, but you kind of go, okay, so where else can I spend my money and and how can we do it really, really effectively and efficiently? And like you're saying, Adrian, like, there just isn't that kind of offering yet. And it's kind of struck me, but maybe we should all go away and work together to come up with that offering.
Adrian Hobbs - [39:07 - 39:50]
So somebody somebody gets it. Right. But it. Yeah, it's just one of those things that. With all the platforms have come, you know, have come from a surge of consumer support, right, in that, you know, over the last 20 years, one after the other and some today and some have gone and it's difficult to see how. That same enthusiasm will be will be generated to enable a B2B platform to to appear. But yeah, if one does, there's there's huge money to be made. I'm sure it's one of those things where Google I've never fully understood how they. How they haven't figured out a way to reverse this slightly. Um, yeah. But.
Speaker F - [39:50 - 39:52]
Yeah.
Adrian Hobbs - [39:52 - 39:54]
It's interesting.
Joaquin Dominguez - [39:54 - 41:45]
I think it's really interesting what you mentioned about the Financial Times. Also The Economist, the ability apart from having a a list of readers that are very highly educated and. And also the ability of targeting companies. I think that's really interesting. But what what I've seen in both platforms is that their partnered content is is really good quality as well. So you can engage with content in different formats. For example, videos in print, engage with the content with infographics. And then when you're listening to podcasts, they are also mentioning that we had someone from the Financial Times the other day in the podcast, and she mentioned that the audiences are six times more likely to consider a brand if they have seen the same brand in print and digital. Like, it's huge. And that's because they they are doing a, I think, a very good work in that. Engagement with, with, with the content in how easy to to digest is finally that omnichannel finance, that omnichannel strategy. Well, don't get stuck here because we we have one last section, which is about the challenges that you have in your content design. Matt, you you work in a very large organization like Aviva. And so everyone has something to say, right? So how do you maintain that narrative consistency across multiple stakeholder needs?
Matt Churchill - [41:45 - 43:36]
Yeah, it's it's really complex. Um, so we use we use LinkedIn as our primary communication channel. Um, and their best practice guidance is to post 4 to 5 times a week. So assume that's once a day. At Aviva, we've got multiple solution offerings and I have got no idea how many. There are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. They've got multiple products across seven solution offerings. And imagine they've all got five products. That's like 35 posts. If you're assuming that each of those different buckets get one post, if you then kind of say to those products over the course of the year that you get three posts to do, so you get a top of funnel, you get a middle funnel, you get bottom of funnel spread throughout the year. That's 105 posts. And before you kind of then start factoring in talking about proof points from from customer success stories or testimonials or doing all the good, fun brand building content like, you know, the strategic vision messaging award wins, nominations, amplifying media coverage, talking about internal initiatives, partnerships. There's 200. I googled this earlier because I was thinking about it. There's 260 working days in 2023. Half of that content. There's potential content slots of one a day is taken up by assume it's. Those initial 105 posts talking about the different solutions and what have you. And when you kind of break it down into what you're publishing, it kind of. Goes back to what we were talking about earlier in terms of using data to kind of analyze the success of what content works, so you can kind of push back where you need to or go and knock on someone's door and go, hey, your content worked really well last time. Matt Churchill - [43:36 - 45:15]
We'd like to do some more with you and to kind of try and prove that success or otherwise, of different platforms and, and then looking at whether that content is being seen by the folks who need to see it. And. Of brand and creative teams do an amazing job of tying this all together. And like the creators are like, especially in in kind of our world. Their world. They are for me, like the unsung heroes of of what we do because they, they not only need to kind of deliver the assets, you know, they need to go and make the pictures and make the videos. They've got to make sure they're done in a consistent fashion. They've got to keep the content on brand. They've got to make sure that they're interesting. They've got to make sure that they're. And please forgive the 2018 buzzword, their thumb stopping. And the creators have got to act as a voice of reason. They've got to tell you when you go to them with stories that actually not sure that's going to work. And I need a headline that captures what you're trying to say in six words. Then they kind of crunch it all down and produce something amazing and beautiful, like they're incredible. I love creatives and our content studio, for example. They're absolutely amazing. So to kind of prioritize that. Entire kind of gamut of content and stories. We're trying to make sure that we're prioritizing our business objectives. We're trying to prioritize how our customers kind of want to have content served to them, and what the stories that they want to to, to be told. And what are the the what's the information that they need and require to then go make a decision. Matt Churchill - [45:15 - 46:23]
And, and it means that we've got to look at that entire ecosystem as a whole. We touched on the omnichannel piece. We've got to make sure that when we're telling a brand story, it's consistent across. The digital offline broadcast and and it's really difficult. And I think it comes down to sheer discipline. And having really good processes and structures in place, which is a really quite a boring answer I think. Yeah, but but it's it's super critical. It's super critical if you don't have the right, the right tools and the right humans in place to kind of run the show and keep, keep the trains ticking on time, keep trains running on time, it's going to go to pieces. And having that kind of back end in place is so important. And it tends to kind of start with an Excel spreadsheet and then or a Gantt chart and then explode outwards. Um, and thank heavens for project managers.
Joaquin Dominguez - [46:23 - 46:30]
And then you use specific tools to two instead of spreadsheets. Right?
Matt Churchill - [46:30 - 47:29]
Exactly, exactly. So. So for example, within within Aviva we use a platform called Wrike, which I'm sure you're familiar with. It's great. We we use it across the globe. And you know, we've got a lot of teams in multiple different time zones. It enables us to communicate. It keeps everything. It keeps all our conversations in a single thread. We can look at who's doing, who's responsible for web design, who's going to be putting the pictures that are going to go on the on the web page, who's responsible for the copy that goes on the website? On the web page. Once that's completed, who's responsible for the content creation from a social perspective? Who's going to be responsible for visuals? Who's going to be responsible for publishing right down to who's responsible for the measurement, and then kind of have feeding back into the business the success or otherwise of that piece of content, and having that kind of structure and that process in place is utterly critical.
Joaquin Dominguez - [47:29 - 48:07]
I imagined. Yes. And another challenge that we discussed in our briefing calls was how long the buying journeys were in B2B. Not in all the cases, but in many cases. So sourcing content to fill that time is also a huge talent. So how do you tell a coherent story? And also if you have different verticals I don't know, will James, do you have that problem? The challenge?
James Rickets - [48:07 - 48:54]
I guess we just know we stick to our. Pain points of our customers and try and answer them. That's I think that's what we really try and stick to. And also working within food. Food is a very easy, easy. It's a exciting topic. Um, and I guess. Whatever we talk about, there's always some sort of consistency there. You know, and I guess there's only so much people actually want to hear from their contract caterer about sustainability, about food, and about how we solve their problems. And. I think that as long as we stick to sort of certain points, we are telling a coherent brand story. It's kind of how I manage it. Will - [48:54 - 49:48]
I think it's with with all these things, whether it's different verticals, different people, different, having a different voice, it's always important to just just relay it back. What are you what are you I guess, what's it all coming from? And and it's it's all coming from, you know what. What personas have you identified and and how your whether it's a specific vertical or how do you communicate with those personas and how do you align in that sense? Um, so it's more just making sure that the different, different people and different teams are aligned on, on their understanding of, of what that might be. Because obviously, you know, everyone can have a different understanding even with the same information. So just, um, just ensure that then that, that normally what I found that normally um, then relates to what, you know, the different, I guess, content and branding that different teams might produce.
Joaquin Dominguez - [49:48 - 50:10]
Well, that's a great way to to close. And I want to say thank you so much for for your time, for your honesty, for all the good tips that you've shared with, with, with this panel. I'm sure our audience will enjoy a lot this conversation. So thank you so much and I hope to see you soon.
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