Bringing Emotion into B2B Marketing

During our conversation with a panel of marketing experts, we explored the power of emotional marketing strategies in B2B campaigns. We delved into the benefits of employee advocacy and the potential of individuals taking on dual roles as both consumers and business representatives to promote products within their social circles. Our discussion also covered the significance of integrating multiple platforms to optimise marketing efforts and the impact of AI on the future of digital marketing.

Thank you to the panel for your collaboration

Agustina Caprino, Digital Marketing Senior Lead at BCG.
Cheryl Jadav, Senior Media Associate at Bain & Company.
Keyari Page, Content Producer at ICIS.
Ying Wang, Digital Marketing Manager at Vodafone.

Guests

Agustina Caprino, Digital Marketing Senior Lead at BCG
Cheryl Jadav, Senior Media Associate at Bain & Company
Ying Wang, Digital Marketing Manager at Vodafone.
Keyari Page, Content Producer at ICIS.

Transcript

Cheryl Jadav 2:11
So my name is Cheryl. I currently work at Bain and Company as a senior associate consultant in their marketing segment.

Tom Gatten 2:19
Thank you. Augustina. Yeah,

Agustina 2:23
nice to meet you everyone. I am Augustina I work at Vcc doing employee advocacy and content marketing.

YIn 2:34
Thank you. Yang. Hello, everyone. It's B BT. You're all in. I'm a digital manager in waterphone.

Tom Gatten 2:45
Thank you very much. And Chiari.

Keyari Page 2:49
Hi, everyone, lovely to meet you all. I work as a content producer, I say yes.

Tom Gatten 2:57
Fabulous. Thank you very much. All right. So the theme this week is the role of emotion in b2b digital advertising. Now, we all know that dog food ads use big puppy eyes in their in their commercials and the use of that consumers needs emotional needs and let's say non physical needs.

In consumer marketing has been a mainstay of culture for for many, many decades. In b2b, digital advertising, Growth Intelligence, we get the feeling that this is a slightly more latent and unused technique. Although the most successful b2b campaigns are starting to help individuals and businesses and understand and think through the positive things they believe about their own role, and help to associate that brand's image with those positive things. So for example, last summer's sage advertising centers, obviously AP and accountancy software, perhaps you would think not particularly well suited to emotional based advertising, but you may have seen their adverts on TV, which had small business owners talking about the campaign was boss it so I'm the boss. I don't know whether any of you saw these but it had like a small business owner of of like a car repair shop kind of smearing engine oil or brake fluid or something on their face like a commando in a in a jungle or something. And you know, it was all about about working with what business owners believe positively about themselves, which in this case was I'm a boss, I'm in control, and simply associating that with the brand sage. And it was a successful ad and they spent a lot of money on it.

So we have seen our own marketing that's connecting.

Connecting with current events like Valentine's Day has, you know, when we did a similar sort of event A few months ago, and associated it with Valentine's Day, we got three times that click through rate. We've had people coming on that event talking about hijacking consumer trends. So for example, when last September there was a relaunch of the of a launch rather of The Lord of the Rings prequel and there was a lot of sort of latent thinking in people's general day to day life about Game of Thrones and fantasy novels in fantasy kind of settings in general, putting people with bows and arrows on the images of, of adverts apparently had significant the increased click through rates and engagement rates. So what what good examples you have seen whether you have used the motion consciously in your own campaigns? Perhaps we could start with Augustina your work in employee advocacy explicitly leverages the emotions associated with relationships, I suppose because you made clear to Joaquin that it was sort of incomparable the more effective to leverage an existing relationship the same article, the same words, the same theme, written by someone that, you know, gets kind of dramatically more engagement from prospects than that that comes from a generic account.

Perhaps you can tell us a bit more about what effects you think are underlying that. Yeah.

Agustina 6:56
So that's completely true. So it's proven that actually, individuals tend to take action several times, seven times more if the recommendation or whatever the action is associated with comes from network connection or a friend or someone that they know, rather than a brand. So that's kind of like the base that we start building, the employer Bookazine strategy, and I think something really interesting like, maybe to note is we have a different approach a slightly different approach. So instead of like trying to generate new emotions, it's more about making sure that we are there to satisfy the emotions that are already appearing. So for instance, if there is a recession and like people are talking about the the current economic environment and how that's unstable and how their business is struggling, the content that we produce for our employees to promote or for our employees. To share is more focus on like, Great that long term resilience and how we can give you tips on how to improve and basically how we are here to help you navigate that emotion that is currently happened. So I think that's slightly different to b2c marketing. Because b2c marketing is always trying to push integrating more new emotions rather than reuse the ones that are already present, if it makes any sense.

Tom Gatten 8:32
I mean, there are there are direct equivalents, I think, to employee advocacy in the consumer world, which are you know, things like Tupperware parties and you know, these very famous lipstick, makeup brands that where they go and they have people that are essentially hybrids of a consumer and a business person because they are regular people. They're speaking with their regular friends, but they are in some you know, they are promoting a brand they're promoting a product, and of course, famously works unbelievably incredibly well for them. So why wouldn't it work for you, I suppose.

YIn 9:09
Exactly.

Agustina 9:10
Yeah. Yeah, sorry. I was gonna say now that you mentioned it. It's funny because I came my first first experience was that Avon cosmetics,

Tom Gatten 9:24
oh, there was I was thinking the way

Agustina 9:27
they approached the customers I thought back then was like so old school and I was like doing the whole external communication. piece. And I was thinking like, why are they see like building magazines and sending people and then I ended up like going towards the employee advocacy path. And I said, of course this is exactly the same in a digital world because it's a little bit less magazine focus, of course, but it's still the same concept just like evolved into LinkedIn or social media.

Tom Gatten 9:59
Wow, interesting. Have you ever seen any businesses try to go beyond their employee base? As in, what you're doing is obviously leveraging the huge numbers of consultants you have around the world. So that's a really really strong base, you can empower them with the content they need to to adapt and change and edit and then share, but is there a way for you to go beyond that into engage influences?

Agustina 10:27
More broadly, I I have seen that we don't do that at BCC that much. That, for instance, I used to do that with partners essentially on my previous job at ICP, and the way you target them is kind of like a little bit less influencer marketing more kind of like Advocate Marketing, and help them develop their own strategy by also incorporating a little bit of your brand into that strategy. So I used to work with different software partners that we have to help them build the whole marketing funnel and in that marketing film, you know, of course, like SAP was mentioned and our resources were used or our products like kind of like blended in at one point on the content promotion.

Tom Gatten 11:19
Cheryl, you work with consumer brands? And b2b brands? Do you see a strong difference between their approaches to well, let's just talk about using emotion in marketing.

Cheryl Jadav 11:32
Yeah, absolutely. I think as marketers ourselves, what we often tend to forget is even though it is b2b marketing, you're still actually reaching out to an individual. But the focus is always on what the product offers rather than the solution it offers, or rather than solving problems. So for example, the makeup brand that you're talking about. A lot of times they're highlighters, this is your skin, this is your issue. This is our solution. But what we tend to offer is we take the individual out of marketing, but focus on this is our product and this is how it helps your business. And a lot of times I think that so badly it is not twice as many click throughs or as many leads as b2c Because we're focusing highly on product we're more sales inclined to rather than reaching out to the emotions of an individual.

Tom Gatten 12:34
And have you seen people do it? Well, in b2b, have you seen any examples recently of any kind of use of including the individual in the marketing narrative?

Cheryl Jadav 12:46
So going back to your previous question on influencer marketing Well, while I was working at Oracle, we slightly adapted influencer marketing but in a different way. So for example, if we are reaching out to audiences within the supply chain vertical, we would have the MD or the CEO or the supply chain head up, say for example, Vodafone, in our creative so it's sort of an influencer marketing because you're using a brand that influences other businesses. You're using the position that influences other decision makers, but at the same time, they're not really LinkedIn influencers. If that's the right way of thinking, though, I think brands are trying to adapt and then at the same time, let's, for example, which is a b2b company was advertising heavily on Tik Tok. And even though it was b2b, they were focusing a lot on user generated content. And again, I think it's basically understanding where your audience sits currently and at the same time, where your audience is going to be five years down the line or two years down the line and then trying to warm up to them and then trying to build a rapport with them. And hopefully, that leads into high volume of leads a year down the line or two years down the line, depending on what sort of industry you're in and what sort of business side your says.

Tom Gatten 14:19
Do you think it's fair to characterize the development of a consciousness of emotion in b2b marketing as sort of parallel to an increased awareness of the importance of brand? Is it the same thing basically, in a simpler way of saying it? Is, is use of emotion in advertising the same thing as building a

Cheryl Jadav 14:42
brand? I would say yes, and no. Because a lot of times, especially when it comes to b2b, the brands that you associate with or the brands that you are using they're just an added value, rather than it doesn't always drive that sort of loyalty. I would say it's just an added value to your day to day, work your day to day environment, but then at the same time for you to get that first click or that first engagement from that brand. Emotions are important.

Tom Gatten 15:23
In you serve a number of different stakeholders at Vodafone. Many of the people that are relying on the website are in the consumer side of the business, but also I suppose the business side of the business, the direct selling business side of the business must rely on the website as well. Do you see a difference in their approaches? When the b2b marketing team the people that are responsible for selling

the Giga cube for example to small businesses want to use the website for something some sort of marketing or narrative or sales flow? Do they go about that in a different way? Significantly then the consumer side of the business?

YIn 16:07
Yeah, so are your students know quite a lot in this telecom area? I do find so the in terms of the b2b sales, definitely, I mean, they have different priorities, in terms of the product services and to be more tailored to the business partners by race for consumers. So we got some similarities. Even we look at the homepage more than for naughty although UK which I'm looking after. The are quite similar kind of products and services. But the messaging wise there will be different and how to position different as they serve a style package that also will be differentiation, differentiated because of the different audience and then that actually it just reminds me another kind of proudest interesting point within this telecom industry. So for instance, I work with all different I say terminals like Samsung, Google's, and then it's more like a b2b partnership. However, you mean

Tom Gatten 17:32
Vodafone is is Vodafone then reselling G Suite or something? Is that is that Google juice? Well, kind of what you mean?

YIn 17:38
So, yes, so we obviously sell it sell all different handsets from Apple from. Yes. That's Yes. So this is like from consumer lands. To however we are dealing with the b2b partnerships. So that's also a way of doing the b2b business. But then we're utilize the how we sell so the marketing we use for the consumer for instance, we're using the emotion, the touch point and then to resonate with customers and demonstrate like a while ago, I did the animations, the videos for the new product lounge for Samsung as 23 Ultra and that kind of showing the animations and then rest all night with the consumer bring out how our like customers restaurant the way that the marketing campaign, and that is an example we're working with the business partner, I say was farmstyle Google, so it's quite interesting is utilize the emotional resignations, with consumer marketing and then that is a show pay while working with the business partner. I mean, that's also a way I mean, do you mean your

Tom Gatten 19:14
do you mean you're able to show to Google, for example, the great work that you've done with the Samsung handset?

YIn 19:22
Yes, I mean, I get the promo thing rather. If we just say one other Google our Samsung is probably just agnostic in terms of the brand. But it's just a way to demonstrate like the emotional marketing and how we resonate with the customers and that is a way to showcase how we run the marketing with the business partner as well. Yeah.

Tom Gatten 19:56
Do you have b2b stakeholders so I was just sort of taking that for granted earlier that you do but it's probably just worth checking because that would be really interesting because then as you said, at the beginning, you were essentially selling the same product, let's say handset, but it might be you know, with a mobile plan attached to it, of course, but to a business and then to a consumer. There might be two very different approaches. Or maybe it's the same sort of approach.

YIn 20:23
I do found Yeah, so like in my previous role, I was the business like a customer's like the small business, like the Giga cube or your mansion that's definitely targeting all the smaller stops. So those type of business and then also like work with home, home office, in my previous role, so the mess from the messaging point of view, so when the time work with home office, and that is deliver the UK emergency service network. So even though working with the home office is our maintenance day that the customer is the customer, however, we're kind of delivering the messages about how important the network can be, especially for the emergency network that life to death, kind of every call every call and then this situations is save the life. So if you're kind of using the I found I'll maybe is in this contacts is still using the consumer kind of emotional marketing tactic and to to run the business with the business partner.

Tom Gatten 21:50
Thank you. I'm Chiara your, your LinkedIn process at ISIS is is heavily there's a lot of content there you clearly investing heavily in in content and promoted content. Do you oversee this is information about resources, pricing, distribution. Do you find opportunities to use emotion in your marketing? Or is that something that you think isn't less appropriate for you?

Keyari Page 22:27
I think we have to always remember that even though we're selling a product or an item or whatever we are selling. But there's people behind that set product is people behind that is interested in their product. So whether you're selling to a consumer directly or you're still into a business is still people involved in that. So I absolutely think that emotion plays a huge part of that because when you're working with your sales team, you know they're working on what is the need of that customer. What is the need of that business? How can I help them provide the facts and the press reports from my point of view, but also it's like you have to relate to that person who's on the other end of the phone or the end of the email. You can't just be like, I'm great. Take my product. You can't do that because everyone's like, well, this person says they're great too. So what makes you better? So you have to find that connection. And that does that requires building a relationship? With people that goes beyond just like focusing on their product that focuses more on the messaging that what is your marketing messaging says, What is your company says as well like, how is your company presented online as well? It plays a huge role into that when you're propositioning a product or any type of item that you're selling. Because then if you're just lacking that human element that I like to refer to, when you're presenting to customers, then what's going to happen when they say customer satisfaction and like when your client success team is collecting the data to see how happy are they with the service. If you don't connect with them, they're going to not re renew their contract with you. They're not going to repurchase this item. You have to build that connection with people and that's a huge important part of marketing. I always am a firm believer believer in

Tom Gatten 24:18
do you do you think about emotional elements to your brand's development? Do you think about you know, and what would those be? What would the kind of emotional elements of your brand be? So we've talked about relationship development. And I think it's interesting to kind of explore that whether whether that's the same thing whether investing in emotional b2b marketing or somehow considering the emotional needs of your of your prospects is the same thing as leveraging existing relationships. But just purely in terms of kind of how you go about developing your brand through your content and your sponsored activity on social.

Do you think about the emotional characteristics of your brand at all?

Keyari Page 25:06
I will say it's a mixture of understanding our customers and also just understanding what our product product is and understanding what that represents for the company. So it's so there's two sides to it, you need to be like, You need to understand the product first of all, to be able to sell it and showcase it and why your company exists in the first place. But then also, when you're talking about having a messaging that's going to be able to touch existing customers, but also reach new potential customers. Do you have to have that emotional element, whether that is relationship building, whether it's using keywords such as together, we together or showing an inclusive environment where it seems exclusive, not everyone has it, but also you can be invited into this party. So it's a fine balance, and it's a tricky balance to find as well, because of the simple fact that you have to remember the product. Remember, you're not selling yourself, but also still connect to your audiences. So then you get into tactics of repetitive messaging, what is your company stand for? And it takes a lot of strategic work behind it and it takes a lot of data tracking and data finding of what works for you, because you can try a lot of things but you have to find what works for your company for sure.

Tom Gatten 26:34
I met someone yesterday who works for a business that's grown incredibly fast. In four years, they've gone from nothing until 250 million pounds in revenue last year like four years incredible growth but he spent most of his to incent documentary. So nature documentary filmmaking company, very interesting, based in Bristol, but most of the time in talking about this company has spent talking about how the founder of this business who is a woman has just created this this documentary series entirely created by women like every direct every one camera operate absolute everyone is female that's created this series and that they have created this extremely good culture. Where the management are very open about what they can do, what they can't do, and getting in place people that do the things that they can't do. And that was what he spent most of his time talking about, not the fact that they you know, how would they created 150 million pounds worth of revenue in four years. So I think you're right theory to talk about inclusivity as in talking a bit more about the identity of the company, why the company exists in the first place and what the company stands for, aside from the product. I think I'm sure that is very, very important.

But again, I don't know quite know and I'm sure it has changed recently. I would guess they don't else think that the kind of identity of a company from its sort of social utility or kind of social identity has changed and become more important over the last few years. For prospects I mean, shall carry on

Cheryl Jadav 28:27
Oh, based on this, yeah, I think I was just still wanted to add that it also depends what stage your company is at. So I've seen a lot of startups for example, they would focus a lot more on inclusivity. The fact that they're they've got more women in leadership, the fact that so they're more focused on sustainability and so on. But a company like Oracle, for example, or something that would also apply to Vodafone or BCG for that matter, is they've already created that sort of leadership. And hence, the people that sit within that brand. They become less important, but the brand and the value or the emotional value that the brand derives from its prospective customers tends to become more important. So for example, when we were advertising for Rachael, a lot of focus would be on the fact that we're trustworthy, we're reliable and we're customizable rather than who is sitting behind that brand, if that makes sense.

Tom Gatten 29:38
Yeah. Do you think things are changing? Chiari has, have you seen your use of the style of marketing or the messaging of marketing in b2b change over the last few years?

Keyari Page 29:54
I will say it is changing. I think we're, I think most b2b marketing campaigns are trying to find a good balance between how to showcase their product without showcasing their product, right. And it comes back to like, what's relatable, what do people need what's going on in the current world and actually using current trends and market trends in whatever market market that you're currently working in right now to really belly up those conversations with your experts and conversations with your sales team to build those products. So a part of it is that like it's a brand identity, you want people to know their brand but again, it's like you still have people behind it. And at the end of the day, as well, it's like if we if you can showcase why people choose to stand behind your brand, why they decide to work for your brand, as well as showing why customers are satisfied with your product and getting their testimonials. Then you are playing upon an emotional element. Yes. Back to understanding what is the need of people of your current market right now. What is your audience needing right now? What do they want to hear? Because if you can relate to that, then you can essentially master how to build your brand and how to bring build your messaging because you're taking the feedback of the customer interest in the new customer interest and also understanding the trends and markets of your market to be able to play upon those relationships and to be able to build that brand identity that you want. So you do in a way b2b marketers rely on their customers to tell them exactly what they want to play upon those feelings to keep that relationship open.

Tom Gatten 31:46
So kind of a perhaps a shortcut to ensuring that as a b2b brand, you are understanding thinking about the emotional needs of your prospects and relating to their emotional identity is to just think about people make sure that everything you're doing on your website is not talking about your product, as you say, but talking about why people want to work for you. Why your customers want to engage with you, and putting everything where you are positioning your product through the lens of a person's relationship with

Keyari Page 32:14
it. Yes, it's just basically you want your brand to be a part with their customers. Essentially, you want your brand to be at every step of the customer's journey of whatever customer journey that is. And if you can't showcase that through your left side, through your content through your emails, through your display ads through whatever, then then it's like you're losing the interest of the customers very slowly. You don't want to do that. Yeah,

Tom Gatten 32:42
yeah. Explain everything through people I think is a really useful kind of trick that Augustina please, please carry on. You don't need to raise your hand by the way, you can just please just chip in in a perfect world. I don't speak at all.

Agustina 32:54
I wish I was following Sherry lead. So raising the hand I want to kind of like to connect with what Cheryl said as well. Because I do believe that there are four, four components when you're talking about emotional marketing. One is making sure that the people behind the brand and the consumers are represented on the brand on the promotion that we do and we also target those emotions. Another one is that the brand identity that you want to showcase to your customers or like to the external audience represents the value that the brand originally stands for. Another one is also considering that the product will serve a purpose or has will add value to your customers. And finally, I would say the last one is to make sure that you are integrating those three components into one that kind of like works jointly, but I do agree with what sharing said that it depends on the phase that every brand is because if you are more startup, one component, but of those three might be heavier on the mix. than if you are at a BCC stage because VC she's already has been doing this for 50 years, we are already more like on being creating that loyalty. And I stayed in that trustworthiness that show was mentioning rather than putting out ourselves out there to like get known so maybe the product doesn't play that much of a part, you know. So I think taking that into consideration there is no really like a recipe for it all. I think it's more you define the mix as you go depending on on what the need is at the moment or the stage Study Abroad days. Again, feel free to

Joaquin Dominguez 34:55
thank you. Thank you so much. Well, I have a question for you actually, based on what I was seeing and what we have been discussing about the importance of persons are following the brand guidelines and given gene that you manage, but iPhones main website main webpage. Many people wants to put something there can and how do you manage to follow structure and respect the Vodafone's brand guidelines and values? How they met? Can you tell us a little bit about that? Sure. So

YIn 35:33
I think that is probably also Sharon touched a bit on the big brands so there's already established like a brand image and then the visions and so trying to that is like the baseline and backbone I do always kind of align across with different marketing channels. And then to make sure like the timing wise and the messaging and everything is consistent, and then reflecting the Vodafone brand. And then from the also the visual side is everything needs to be consistent and deliver that message. So jumping up to answer your question, yes, there's a lot of color for coordination work behind that. And then perhaps also involved sometimes that need to balance. So what kind of image or headline or content we can use we want to use and then given the there the limited limitation of the space and timing. So there's certainly need to balance out and also the demand is from the other parts internally externally. So that is how I work currently, to ensure everything is consistent.

Tom Gatten 37:17
Over the last three or four years, there's been a really dramatic increase in spend in b2b digital advertising. So in 2019, in the US, the spend was something like 6 billion and last year it was 14 billion. So it's a really, really big change. A lot of that money is going on Google. And Sheryl, you talked about in your in your preview with Joaquin, you were talking about researching what search trends appear to

indicate where a b2b brand in this case should be emphasizing whether messaging should be going geographically and in terms of messaging, etc.

But I suspect that if that continues that that trend is very similar to the trend from let's say 2004 to 2007, and consumer digital advertising. And from that point onwards, there was a huge surge in new people entering digital consumer advertising, many more people have skills now in search engine advertising than than was the case in 2007. If that was the case in b2b as well, if that trend continues, what do you think are the skills that people in the future will be deploying in b2b digital advertising? That doesn't happen today? As in what are the new skills that b2b marketers might need in five years time? If more and more and more more money is poured into b2b digital advertising?

Cheryl Jadav 38:45
They don't have today perhaps. I can start it that's okay. I think one of the key things I have observed is that b2b often works in a very siloed environment. So ad percentage of our advertising at Oracle, for example, was on LinkedIn. We tested a bit of Facebook on and off, but these two platforms never really interconnected or talk to each other. We never did leverage the audience's but at a very minimal capacity. Of course, I'd been I think we have seen a more integrated approach but that is also the very strategy level because we are just designing a strategy which then gets passed on to the in house marketers or gets passed on to the agencies, but then in terms of execution and implementation and optimization phases. Well, I'm pretty sure the leveraging of audiences and how these various platforms or even various channels speak to each other is very, very limited. And I think in the future for a marketeer to be successful. Of course, you will need a channel expert or you will need a platform expert but then at the same time, right now, for example at Oracle we have a head of social we have a head of programmatic. But there needs to be a head that kind of speaks to all these standard folks and understands how to leverage different platforms and different audiences more effectively and also which platform is more impactful depending on the journey that your audience is. And of course, advertising on LinkedIn has the the spend on LinkedIn has increased, but then at the same time, the cost of advertising also has increased. And a lot of times I think for a smaller business, it's next to impossible to sustain advertising on LinkedIn because your cost per lead is really high. And the average time taken to convert the lead is always higher on a b2b platform or in b2b advertising. So yeah, I think there has to be a lot of testing a lot of learning and then understanding what sort of integration and what kind of optimization works best for your brand.

Tom Gatten 41:17
You're totally right that in the default these days is to have a team that's doing Facebook, and a team that's doing LinkedIn might be the same people, but they're defining an audience entirely separately. Using LinkedIn drop down menus over here using Facebook's drop down menus over here doing email marketing to a different audience. And then the sales team are often calling an entirely different audience again, defined by the CRM and very poorly coordinated whereas in perhaps in a consumer world, you'd have more discipline around here are our audience segments. This is how we're going to go after them and this is the media they tend to consume. Yeah, but also, it suggests to me that perhaps like in consumer world, there was a obviously the emergence of Facebook in 2007 onwards, that there might need to be new tools as well in b2b

because if, if LinkedIn alone is just too expensive for for marketers to use, it's very unlikely that people are going to go back to telemarketing. Which is equally or if not way more expensive. So, so yeah, b2b marketers needs need a solution.

Agustina 42:28
I also if I can stand here. I also think that the recent outbursts of AI will definitely play a big role there. A lot of digital marketing marketing tools are already implementing AI and I think there will be new marketing tools. So to your point, and to what Sherry was saying, I think the technical role of market years will become a little bit more important now. Like, they are going to be experts on like aI marketing and and different to management's and also I do believe that AI is going to be like the driver of that one. So we'll see what the future lead as I said, this is moving faster than expected. So a lot of people were saying this work, like were like, do we expect it for 2025? And I honestly feel like by next year, we are gonna have so many changes already on the digital marketing world. So maybe we need to move faster as marketers with those changes.

Tom Gatten 43:35
We're thinking about content and emotional marketing Facebook last year brought out a tool which allows them to change your to change your content, right. So initially, it was just to change the format so you can put in place this is my ad and then it would reformat it automatically into different different kinds of ways. But now it will also cycle different images for the different messages and you as a marketer lose control of basically how your product is being promoted. And Facebook is doing it in a way that will maximize a metric like click through rate or something. So potentially, it might be an opportunity for marketers to be challenged in what they think works in b2b by AI because if you can hand over and say actually you know, I need to promote this accountancy product or this report about the price of energy or whatever. I don't know in what format the content should, should be to be most attractive. The AI can create lots of different versions of it and probably come out with something that people are clicking on. For all the wrong reasons. Suppose but yeah, that might be an opportunity for to break the break the mold a little bit.

YIn 44:50
If I may jump in, also for the b2b just feel, probably something to be could also learn from the b2c like the dynamic is much faster paced on the beat to in a b2c words. versus B to B is kind of a bit laid back I feel like all the marketing and is is quite business driven which is is absolutely like that's that's the main point. But however, there which means that probably a big potential for b2b Word and especially for the marketing and then add in this emotional element which probably quite easily to be ignored in terms of the b2b marketing, so that's why I feel it's probably needed the more kind of dynamic and experiment a bit more and trying different ways and then maybe something can borrow from the b2c word.

Tom Gatten 45:58
Yeah, I strongly suspect that the removal of the telemarketing element that was such an important part of b2b is go to market before COVID has not really yet fully the implications of that are that I think that businesses b2b companies will need to have a brand because they need to rely less on obviously, Augustine in your case, and Cheryl, you have these 1000s of consultants around the world employee advocacy, that kind of Avon cosmetics model works really, really well because you've got a pre you know, you've got 10s of 1000s of people that are ready to promote your brand.

Most companies they don't have that they used to rely on STRS big teams of telemarketers and without that they also don't have the employee advocacy options. I think they're going to have to develop a brand and rely on their brand. Yeah, that's

Kiara, maybe I can ask you have you seen Cheryl was talking about the cost of LinkedIn and how perhaps it's become a more competitive space given there's much more money being spent on it by everybody. You have. You've used a lot of LinkedIn for a long time. Have you seen any changes significantly in the cost of of ads or the strategies that you need to use to get through?

Keyari Page 47:22
Absolutely. First of all, it's just like, even when just for simple for building your profile on LinkedIn, to add additional sections, it costs more. And then like it used to be free where you could just add the sections that you want, so that has to change or the fact that when you're setting up these lead generation campaigns and building these display ads, like it costs way more per click through rate, whatever minimum maximum that you're looking at, to actually reach people now because it's highly It is highly competitive, because everyone is using LinkedIn. I call it the formal business place of Facebook. Really, what is LinkedIn that everyone is on it? Everyone uses it and it's global. So LinkedIn is capitalizing off of that. So one, I will say that like, what are our strategic ways that a company can decrease their cost per click? What are ways that they can decrease that maybe you're decreasing the time that this ad was showing? Or maybe you're doing campaigns that are more organic and just lean on more support that not every, like, not everyone can do that? Because obviously you have to make money somehow. But like, you still have to find that balance of, you know, what are you willing to spin in? Like, where are you going to place your money and it's actually becoming more of serious conversations, but hopefully through this digital transformation that we are experiencing? With b2b marketing, that we can have other outlet outlets in the future, not just LinkedIn for social work, or give Google for display ads or an email campaigns that we can actually build more and connect with our customers in more ways than we are currently. doing right now.

Tom Gatten 49:12
Yeah, and have you seen people getting back to the theme? Is there an option to change the content to make it more emotional? Have you seen examples of that actually reducing your cost per click? Or have you not really changed the content? In that way to have those effects?

Keyari Page 49:32
The content that we're always doing is always with our brand messaging that is very inclusive to our audience. So like I there is just wording that can actually decrease your spend on marketing or like your keyword search and who are you targeting? And like, what are people actually clicking on? So it takes it takes a while to build this data? It's not gonna happen overnight to find what works for your company, but it's, it's something that she can look into into build a data taste around it.

Tom Gatten 50:07
And just finally, the final question I'll ask is, how do you think CEOs or let's say the heads of marketing, are reacting if people are coming if people in b2b want to use emotional style messaging or promote or invest in a brand, you know, prospects emotional reaction to a product or just kind of a brand? I think

it traditionally this would have been very hard, I think for a b2b company, midsize b2b company. Traditionally marketing units or b2b companies have been underfunded, and have played second fiddle to sales. Do you think that is changing? Do you think people are if if a marketer wanted to do a more brand focused or emotion focused b2b campaign today, do you think senior management would be more open?

Keyari Page 50:59
I think senior management will be open because they're learning more about their customers, the wishes what like what is the customer likes, where the customers do not like? And even whether your customer is like another business where their customer is many people within one business you are essentially identifying what that customer needs are, how you can play upon them, and how you can help them achieve their outcomes and goals and their commercial objectives while moving your own commercial objectives. So I think when it comes to emotional marketing, I absolutely do believe that VP CEOs are connecting to that human element and how we can achieve this commercial objective and that goes back to that brand messaging, that strategic marketing plan and understanding your customer insights of getting that data and really driving home on who you identify as well as who is your company? Who are you guys? You know, it's not just about the events you go to. It's not just about what your product sells, or what the news reports that you're tagging and commenting along. It's also about the culture. Why do people decide to work and represent your brand, There's love in it. If you show more of that they can just show more of the human element you get to show more of who you are and who you represent. And that is really important when you're talking to a customer and when you're aligning with your sales team as well when you're feeding them this content in this brand messaging, because essentially your sales team has to believe in it. And if they don't believe in it, how they can convince the customer to believe in it.

Tom Gatten 52:43
Thank you, Augustine. Have you seen the Have you seen the content that you're asking your team's to share change? Is there any kind of is it more emotional than it would have been five years ago? Or?

Agustina 52:57
It has changed? It's s slow transition, I would say and it's it requires a lot of numbers and data on the side. For me. For instance, we started our employee advocacy strategy from scratch two years ago. Now we are like, now we are huge on it. And we are across the globe live and running. Through it but like for me to get from where I started at PCC till now took a lot of convincing to the leadership to be on board and showing them that actually the metrics that they actually look at whenever they do our LinkedIn or LinkedIn ad or organic social campaign were double or triple sometimes we are employee so yes, the emotional element and pitch is nice, but leaders want to see numeric numbers and numeric results as well right so there's this Exactly, yeah, correct. But he's changing slowly.

Tom Gatten 54:06
All right. Well, look, everyone. Thank you so much for coming along today. We're just coming to the end now. So I wanted to say thank you all so much for contributing today. Really, really appreciate. It's been a fascinating, fascinating discussion. Thank you. We will use this recording and whacking will write up a document which will go over with all of you next week to make sure you're happy with it. And thank you all so much for the survey and

thank you thank you very much for participating. It's been lovely to meet you

Unknown Speaker 54:36
thank you for having us. And nice meeting you all. Thank you. Thank you Thank you have a good Night.

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