ScreamingBox Technology & Business Rundown

Dave Erickson 0:03
b2b marketing is just the same as b2c but bigger right? Not at all. They are completely different challenges needing completely different strategies. On this ScreamingBox Podcast, we are going to look at b2b marketing and how to focus your b2b marketing towards enterprise companies. Please like our podcast and subscribe to our channel to get notified when the next podcast is released.

Dave Erickson 0:46
What do you need to think about when marketing to b2b technology companies? How do large enterprise companies actually buy technology products and what are they looking for? Welcome to the ScreamingBox technology and business rundown podcast. In this podcast my honorable co host Botond Seres and I, Dave Erickson, are going to see into the global world of b2b marketing with our guest, Reggie James, founder of digital clarity, getting his start in publishing and then working for AltaVista and Yahoo. As a business development leader for search and publication services. Reggie gained a deep understanding of how to sell and market b2b with some of the biggest global companies. 20 years ago, he founded his digital marketing agency Digital Clarity, which is focused on digital marketing and customer acquisition strategies, paid search and SEO campaigns across various vertical sectors, and helping CEOs grow their business in the digital economy. So Reggie, why did you decide to focus on b2b early in your career?

Reggie James 1:48
Dave, Botond. Really nice to join you. Thank you very much for that wonderful introduction. Great question. One that I questioned myself quite a number of times as I go through my day to day activity. Quite simply, we dealt in those early days with a lot of different businesses, both b2c and b2b. The reality is that b2b was generally very badly served by the marketing community. And we made a decision pre-pandemic, way before the pandemic, but really consolidated around 2018 - 19 by calling in a consultancy, to say, why do companies work with us, why companies, why do companies, why did they work with us? And what was the value that we brought two companies because we were too close to the business. And we found out from that exercise, that companies wanted to know what was in here in our heads, and wanted to, for us to apply all our experience of working with some of the biggest brands, some of the biggest agency partners that we’d worked with, and the technology that we had built a built to an exit to different companies. So we understood the pain points. And so b2b was a natural fit for us. And we understood the pains and challenges of b2b boards, their investors, the stakeholders, and really how buyers would buy technology, and software. And that's and we set out on a mission to try and streamline that, streamline that and develop a process to help our customers understand how b2b lines are blurring, and it's no longer b2c, or b2b. It's very much human to human. And that's really where we come at it from.

Botond Seres 3:54
Oh, that's a beautiful sentiment, human to human instead of b2b and b2c, I just have to say, I love that. And we were wondering if you could share some insights into the unique challenges that b2b tech companies face when it comes to marketing their products or services?

Reggie James 4:18
Absolutely Botond, there are many b2b companies, both hardware and software, SaaS. Of course, we deal with a lot of companies now in the kind of, FinTech market, as well. They have some of their own unique challenges, but fundamentally, they all boil down to quite a number of core pain points. Most b2b businesses in the tech space look for a very, very quick win because everyone around them they're surrounded by amazing unicorns, great tech success stories and they want to emulate that. We have a phrase here at Digital Clarity called the marketing circle of fear. It's where companies try and mimic what they see. They try and get a quick win. They don't go into understanding what the company actually does fundamentally at its core, the services they offer and the customers that they serve. And we start off in our process by helping them define what that is. These are some of the biggest challenges. And it's trying to shift their mindset from trying to have that quick win, to actually understanding that it's a journey they need to go on. It's a wonderful journey, if they're willing to strap themselves in and go on the ride. We all want the six pack. But no one wants to get up at six in the morning and do the run, or go to the gym. And I think we'll be trying to teach them is, to, fall in love is probably the wrong terminology, but most founders or boards of companies, especially those early day founders, had a reason for why they started that company and somewhere down the line, they lost that purpose and that value that they offered, and that excitement. And they sometimes wake up almost dreading their organizations and where they've ended up. They're like a turtle on a fence. They know they're on the fence, but they don't know how they got there. And they're wondering what to do, whether they should jump off, stay there, or do what they, do what they can. So a lot of people over the years have ended up where they are, without really understanding where they are and we help them go back to basics and understand who they are, what they do, why they do it, the customers that they serve, and why customers should choose them. And it sounds like a very simple process, but it's one of the hardest things they'll ever do, because it involves them looking deep inside themselves in their organization. So there, if you like the bottom, the core challenges that we find and then, then we show them a way of actually fixing that. Through our years of experience a very practical could be a go to market strategy, but these are all b2b tech companies love three letter acronyms, ABM, you know, even b2b in itself, and GTM. And, you know, I could, I could run them off BDRs SDN, it's kind of like, become fashionable. But when I sit down to a board, and I've got five directors set, and I asked them to write down each of them on a piece of paper, yes, we still use paper, we're quite analog in that way. We love analog, actually. We say, write down what you do. And then when the alternative paper around, you wouldn't be surprised if I told you that all of them are completely different in terms of what they do, let alone what their goals and targets. So we're already seeing the challenges there. And then. So that's kind of like the process that we go to, it's very holistic in the sense that it's joined up. It's never about marketing. The marketing is a byproduct of brand and value propositions and all these other lovely things. But you can never arrive at those without understanding and going through that journey first. And I think hopefully, if that answers your question, is that they're the core barriers to growth that we find the big challenges.

Dave Erickson 9:11
Yeah, I mean, founders start their companies and they start getting barraged by the day to day and the company's growing and they're overwhelmed and, you know, a year or two down the road, all of a sudden, they're just working really hard. And they've kind of lost what they originally began with because they just got buried in the day to day and I can see how going back to kind of, the basics and trying to remember why you started the company in the first place can kind of help give a company's vision back.

Reggie James 9:42
Yeah, absolutely. And I think there's a lot of you know, I used to, you know, marketing circle of fear, which involves lots of weird and wonderful things, you know, there's a lack of clear strategy. People have plans, but that's not strategy. The a lot of, when I ask people, "What's your, what's your strategy I normally get like a to do list, this, this, here's my strategy sort of thing, and I'm going okay. And it's, they just need some direction, need some help, they need to sometimes just pivot five or six degrees, and look at things slightly differently, like we all do. I'm no guru, I'm always learning. And, but I, you know, it for me, it's all about sharing, and showing them what's worked. And if, if we can add 60% to 80% uplift, which is what we do for good, you know, for a lot of our customers over a 12-18 month period, they kind of tend to listen to that, because that's what they're looking for. And we show them, some of the companies that we've worked with, and what they've done and that's if they're willing to do the work. This is a doing program and it's not prescriptive, and involves a lot of work, because, you know, it's their business. We're there to help them with a kind of Apache helicopter that's flying above and can kind of dive in, you know, with a, with a Navy Seal. I'm going to stop using the army analogy, so forgive me. But it's, but yeah, we have special ops that can come in and help with our experience.

Dave Erickson 11:39
If you are a company, a startup, or an established company, an SMB, or even another enterprise company, you know, and you want to sell technology products to enterprise companies. So let's say you're a SaaS business and you have your product developed, you want to start formulating a strategy for b2b sales. How what advice would you give such a company to start, you know, developing their b2b sales strategy or marketing strategy?

Reggie James 12:08
There are two clear distinctions for SMBs and for enterprise sales, in terms of their approach, but fundamentally, if you look at it, they're kind of, they follow a very quite similar structure. You know, from from basic foundations, we've worked with companies who are enterprise companies and sell to enterprise, a very large one, they've got acquired by a very other large company, I don't know how much I can say about it, it is actually on our website, but they were acquired for a billion dollars, which was great for them. Not so great for us, because we lost a great client and that company was Workfront, they were acquired by Adobe. So I can speak about it, because it's in the public domain, but we, they were they were they very much were looking to acquire enterprise customers and, and, and with other companies that we've worked with, unless you have a strategy, unless you have, if you keep knocking on those doors, it's very, very difficult for that company to try and understand what you do. The only real way that you can do that is take a step back, and devise a very, very cohesive strategy and game plan. And we, we help them with shaping blueprints that we've used over the years, and reshape it for them. But fundamentally, it's all about some of the things I've just touched on. It's about understanding the market, the, the way people buy; so in enterprise, most companies have buying committees. Using data from Sixth Sense, the software company, they say that large companies normally choose 4 vendors. And by the time if you're not the first vendor, 83% of them end up working with the first company that they work with. So if you're second or third in line to come in and demonstrate demo your software or they're engaging with you, you've pretty much missed the boat, you're just making up the numbers. So it's, great companies help customers buy. Companies that are looking to be great, or companies are not so great. Try and sell their product to those companies. And the only way you can do that is still use the old BBC thing which is the broad British Broadcasting Corporation over here. They use their, their ethos to educate, inform and entertain. And I think those principles apply to many technology and software companies. And if they can apply some of those elements to educate, inform, and entertain, then the medium to long long term gain will be very, very powerful. If you just bombard people on LinkedIn, just because they liked your software and downloaded a playbook, or requested some information, you think, Oh, my goodness, we've got to sale, stick in Salesforce. And they start sort of getting all excited and spending the bonuses and buying BMW's and things before the deals over the line, it's just not going to work. All that person is doing if, if I go into a gated piece of content, and I want to download a white paper, or understand or read a playbook or, or whatever it might be, or a piece of research. The reason I'm doing that is because I'm interested in that piece of content by attending a webinar, the reason I'm attending that webinar is because I'm interested in the speakers, I may not be in a position to buy. And there's some great research that says that when a customer engages with you, this is from LinkedIn. And they call it the 95/5 rule that there's only ever 5% of b2b buyers, especially in tech were ever in play and 95% of them are either researching, engaging, understanding, and looking at a problem 3, 6, 9 months down the line. And that's that's, that's something to think about. When somebody does engage with this bearing in mind, if someone does engage with you, there's many companies who think they're getting leads. But there's many companies that are not getting leads. And when we interrogate those leads, they're not actually leads at all, or just inquiries, or whatever. So that's so the challenge isreal out there.

Dave Erickson 17:06
Most companies think, Hey, I'm just gonna throw up a bunch of content that is about our product, and people want to read it, and if they read it, they'll want to buy it. And they kind of just assume that's the process. But, you know, digital outreach, you know, using a lot of spam techniques through LinkedIn or other ways, developing email lists that you constantly message, you know, people are getting to the point, I hear it all the time now, they don't even like opening up their emails anymore, they don't really like seeing it. If I see somebody trying to reach out to me, I can pretty much tell if it's aI reaching out to me, or even if it's a person, that they want to sell me something and so now a lot of people are really resistant to that. And so they're, they're, I don't know, looking to buy from a person they know. So it's hard in the enterprise space to be a person you know, it used to be you go to a bunch of trade shows and get to meet the people in enterprise companies and develop relationships. But that doesn't seem to be that popular anymore. Companies are cutting back a lot of those kinds of trips and stuff like that. And the trade shows aren't that full anymore. And a lot of companies aren't exhibiting at trade shows anymore. So that that avenue is kind of going away and so I'm curious, what are some of the, the marketing avenues that are actually still functioning for b2b?

Reggie James 18:41
I think you've kind of Dave, you've hit the nail on the head in many ways. Trade Shows are still around, the big trade shows that we remember back in the day, you know, the big mega shows with the big guys at the front as you walk in and then the tiny guys that are back in some of the stalls, those things have gone. I think what you have now is very more focused trade shows smaller trade shows, companies setting up their own little content hubs. You know, if you're about five, six years ago, a lot of companies tried to become media businesses, and started creating channels and all these kinds of things. I think it's, it's the things that work now are still very much all about human to human interaction. And anywhere where you can set a small group together of like minded people, hypothetically, if I got a load of IT directors or in a room and created a closed shop, didn't sell to them, but just said what are your biggest challenges right now? What do you find? And created a forum for them to discuss things and everything else without even just hosting it? That, that’s what we’re finding. It's very popular, it's communities, everyone wants to, sometimes the role of your target market can be a lonely one, as is the role of the entrepreneur and CEO. As people say, that's the world's smallest violin, nobody actually cares. But what they do care about is being part of a community where people can share and say, you know, I need to buy 100 IBM blade servers or I need to buy whatever. And it's, it's or I need software for this, or there's challenges here, which you try. Just forums of people can talk and creating or generating those things. Also work. Trade Shows are still important, very specific trade shows. I wouldn't call them trade shows anymore. There's that kind of face to face engagement, arenas, where you can meet people in different different places. And, you know, people like that they like getting back out there, and pressing flesh and talking about, hey, there's John, I remember him from 15 years ago, it was X, Y, Zed company, or whatever, those things still work very, very well. I think that the thing is, you know, before I go forward, none of these things will work unless you're, is what you said there, people don't want to open up their emails, because they're dreading picking up the email, because you're gonna get the, Hey, buddy, I emailed you this thing two weeks ago, or I'm just pumping and you're pushing this up to the top of you, all the old classic lines, probably written by something. Last year 2023, the word of the year on Merriam Webster Dictionary was authentic. And that's what people are looking for. In the world of AI, people are looking for authenticity, something that's real. And nothing is more reaI if I'm using my grammar correctly, then being face to face with someone and talking to another human and saying, Hey, how are you doing? What are the challenges you're facing right now? How are things and just talking as one human talks to another not selling, just talking, listening, understanding, those kinds of things are what builds rapport, builds trust, but not in a disingenuous way. But a way in which you're starting to build another very powerful word, which is relationship, because business is done on relationships, and on trust. So before we start anything about a trade show, or because all of the channels work, email works, email works very well. We're finding that, you know, brand is a big area that people are going back to, because in many ways, brand is all you really have, because you have no other choice. It's what people say about you, when you're not in the room. It's, it's that essence of how people make you feel, it's all part of that brand essence and we focus a lot on helping people understand who they actually are, their why, to coin an old fashion phrase, but really help them develop that brand. And from that brand, if it's a cascading kind of way, develop all those value propositions and all those met and that messaging permeates throughout the company. And so it's very, very uniformed, and everyone gets behind it, etc. And that's, that's really what works. So it doesn't matter whether you're a trade show or creating a piece of content. People go oh, that's x y Zed company. And that's, that's an old fashioned kind of thing, but it's coming back big time now. And it's, you know, it's what Oracle used to use as what IBM used to use, you know, that one of the best campaigns ever. No one ever got fired for buying IBM. I mean, for goodness sake. It's, it's, it's beautiful. And it's coming back that's a tech company doing that right. So some some some of the best campaigns have come from tech business and and you know, even Apple and all these other you know, the, the, these are great brands doing things

Botond Seres 24:33
Apple has got the branding locked down, for sure.

Reggie James 24:39
They've got it down. They've got it down, but it took them, took them years as this stone said at Twitter, or was it Jack Dorsey where the Twitter guide said, when they started getting really popular Hey, you guys, you've done so well. And said, yeah, you work hard for 10 years and everyone says you're an overnight success. No one sees the hard work. It's like, it's like an iceberg. You just see the top of it, you don't see all the other stuff that's underneath. It's, you know, this beautiful ice thing that is almost like a swan you know, just floating along, but eventually it's paddling like crazy under the water. And I think that's what we're entrepreneurs, and for leaders, tech leaders, that's the bit that we've got to work on. And get that right. But to the outside world, it's, it should be flawless. So yeah.

Botond Seres 25:36
Reggie, did literature a lot on human to human contact in building out these relationships? But then we sort of move towards a discussion of Branding, I suppose and the thing about branding, in today's world, I feel is it's mostly online, it's mostly on social media. So I wonder where the, the overlap is. So on, on this podcast, I think one of the things we like to do is just be ourselves and meet new people and learn new and interesting things. And then sometimes when I'm watching content or listening to content, I feel like there is this facade that people are trying to sell me. And that's that's never been been attractive to me very much. But I'm wondering if you have some insights on on the why certain individuals feel that they have to, to put on a show when they try to get out there.

Reggie James 26:51
I think this is a topic that's been discussed so many times. There's nothing more embarrassing than seeing a 55 year old or even a 35 year old CIO trying to do a dance on tick tock trying to appeal to new

Botond Seres 27:13
Some may even say it's cringe

Reggie James 27:15
it's very cringy, it's very critical because they're not being themselves. I think branding over the years has been accused because people because of the online world see as dishonest delusional

Botond Seres 27:33
I see a lot of content on Tik Tok, that's just weird. Like, especially huge companies like Blackrock like here's a day of an intern at BlackRock and they just fill up my bones that is not not a day of an intern.

Reggie James 27:49
This is what your days gonna look like now get in front of that camera. Yeah, I think there's a there's a there's an agenda. There's a corporate agenda that just doesn't fit. Large corporations just missed the boat so many times, because they never ever, because they, they have very little accountability. But you know, but you have to be careful, look at the layoffs in tech recently. And, you know, they, they these these people were unstoppable. Apple share price, you know, it's dropped dramatically. And mad money is spent on this cert car they were developing. This is a company that could not fail. And they miss the AI boat. They’re only now, Tim Cook's talking about Oh yeah, you wait until you see our AI. And he's probably screaming at the guys in the labs go, What the bloody hell's going on with our AI? Why? It's kind of all of all of those kinds of things. Google never launched a social media channel. I'm old enough to remember them launching some crazy stuff that there was kind of social, you know, weird, wonderful. Google Wave or something I got, I can't I can't even remember the names of it that, that are interesting. But it goes back goes back bottom to the, the need for people there. They're reactionary. They react to what they feel they should do. There's also a lot of you know, given all the geopolitical stuff that's going out there and supply chain issues and and the need to look right. They're putting on these very corporate thinks there's nothing more off putting than seeing a corporate day in the life of sort of thing. And they picked that up because of somebody somewhere down the line had a very long liquid lunch and decided, hey, this is a great idea. I've seen this, let's do this. And, and they, and they kind of it's like buying likes, you know, like as lovers,

Botond Seres 30:14
It may have been a powdered lunch. But

Reggie James 30:18
Indeed, indeed these happy days. So so the these are these are all things that are elements or the byproduct, if you like, of brands trying to appeal to a wider audience without really thinking things through. And I don't want to be drawn into some of the other areas of political elements that large brands try and portray, which are just so grating for normal buyers and for people generally. And they feel they have to do that. They don't actually believe in it, but they're doing it to appeal to their board, or to appeal to a wider audience. And it's, it's, it's very disheartening, because everything is disingenuous, it's not real. And I will gravitate to something that is real.

Botond Seres 31:18
That is so strange isn't the right world word. But it is so interesting to see that the you in these massive monoliths are driven by that same needs for approval as is we our individual level.

Reggie James 31:34
Great point. Great point. Absolutely right.

Dave Erickson 31:36
I mean, I see these commercials on TV, here in the States, where it's, you know, these large billion dollar fortune 100 companies, making these ads with kitty cats and housewives and talking about how you know, their brand is so important for everyone's life, and I'm watching these things. Who are they marketing to? Like, what is the goal, right? If you want to give me some information, then just say it, right. But I mean, some of the images that these ads are, don't connect with the company, even if it's a tech company, especially if it's a tech company, it's like, I'm really not good. I watched your commercial, I do not understand why you even made the commercial in the first place. Right? If it was a boring commercial, here's our product and here's what it does and here's how you can apply it to your life. Fine, at least that has a logic to it. But kitty cats and sunrises and people running around and Oh, some tagline like, you know, your life is full, let us help you like, like, you know, who, what is your product? What are you actually selling? It? Some of it just doesn't make sense. But yet, I know these commercials are, you know, millions of dollars that they spend trying to, quote, shape their brand, but, you know, it doesn't need shaping; people already know their brand. And they don't even sell the consumers. Why are they putting it on TV? It's a, it's a b2b sale, right? I mean, I've seen security stuff, where companies or who sell security products to other enterprise companies have a commercial on TV with kitty cats and unicorns and whatever talking about how they make the world more secure. I'm like, why?

Reggie James 33:36
It's some of the areas that we've just talked about. It's people looking to try and reach it. People who are misinformed, misjudging at a point look at what happened with Bud. I know this is not a technology thing, but Bud Light, I think it was in the US made a huge mistake by trying to do the, what they thought was the right thing.

Botond Seres 34:03
I remember that's one of the slides that

Reggie James 34:07
They're still reeling from it now. I mean, I think there's still I mean, that's a harsh lesson because they alienated their core customer base and it's a real, I mean it, it should be in the Harvard book and marketing or something I mean, this is like you know, like you know marketing 101. What are you trying to do and it wasn't even though it's just, makes me oh, there's ways and means of doing things certainly not that always understand your core customer first. If you want to go after a new demographic. Goodness me launch another brand or do some you know be a clever launcher. Just, just put it in a lab first and test it. See what the outcomes would be not just kind of go we should be doing this because all these other guys are doing this or You know, we're missing out on this marketplace. Well guess what, that marketplace won't be around in five years, your core customers will be, they'll be going drinking something else.

Dave Erickson 35:09
Well, it goes back to this, what I call forced tik tok showmanship, right? The company said, Hey, we want this demographic, let's, let's, let's initiate some, let's force something to happen. Let's start this marketing initiative, instead of just letting it organically grow, right, and providing support in a very organic way; they tried to force something, they tried to make a connection, they tried to social engineer something. And I think sometimes, you know, when you're going after those niche markets, sometimes you’ve got to start it with something very organic, right? Otherwise, it is going to upset the core and it is going to create problems, if they see it, I think that's probably the thing that hurt Bud the most Is it their core market said, Oh, my brand is going after somebody else, right, they're forcing this connection, they're putting it in my face, they're rubbing my nose in it, they're going after this market, right? If they had just kind of let it organically develop, that market, and support it by making very small contributions, that were organic versus force, I think it would have had a very different result.

Reggie James 36:30
I totally agree. I think there's a lot that b2b in tech companies can learn from consumer brands, especially the, the mistakes that they make, that they've made, but also some of the great campaigns, you know, Porsche, you know, back in the 70s, and 80s, these guys were doing amazing campaigns. But, but really, this is when a customer, where a brand understands its customers so well. They played on the kid walking into a showroom, and the salesman saying sit in the car and the kid just getting in locking the door touching the steering wheel, saying, you know, future customer of Porsche in 20 years time sort of thing. And, and that's, you know, every grown man that was buying a, that kind of sports car, at some point as a child could understand that it was aspirational. It's not something available. It's, it's open to everyone, but it's not for everyone. That makes sense. And it's, and they played a lot beautifully. And to this day, it's still a, even a massive range. Porsche, their cars are still one of the number one design thing if you, if you're a tech millionaire, one of the first things you do is go out and buy one of those, not Lamborghini, it depends how much you want to show off. Luckily, I don't have that challenge right now. It's, I'm sure your guys have got it got yours parked outside, but it's a bit yeah, you know, it's horses for courses, as we call it here, we say here, you've got to understand your market, understand your core audience, and really enhance and develop that relationship. So yeah, I would say that, that's we can learn a lot from those, those great campaigns and great brands. And as they say you like, like jokes, there's only ever two or three great jokes, and everything else is a variation of a plot, a build up, a punch line and, uh, you know, and, and great brands tell great stories. And if you can really work on that and understand your story, then you're kind of a lot of the way there and develop that. Because that's what people want. They want to know your story.

Botond Seres 39:00
I mean, I do feel that’s quite, quite profound. I mean, I never realized why but, but, really the best advertising campaigns that I've seen all how they will have been internally consistent. Like they all kinds like, some brands were silly, then all their ads were silly, somewhere reserved, and all their ads were reserved as a result. And what, I always found so strange is when, say luxury brands like Mercedes, they came out with like something absolutely baseless and I really feel it was just manufacturing outrage at some level. I do feel that that is missing the point. Like their customers are generally I think reserved people who like to not show off their wealth excessively, but, but to like to appear like they've made it and they have earned it. And I just, I just don't think those are the same people who, who would love to have manufactured outrage around their car of choice.

Reggie James 40:29
Totally agree. Totally agree. I think, I think there's so many lessons over the years of brands going off and doing crazy things and then trying to come back. But you do, as the old saying in life always goes, you do something right and it's fine, you have never the minute you do something wrong, then everyone starts talking about it, you get more noise about if you do something wrong, everyone talks about how they did this is terrible. If you're doing it right. And so really, there's a, there's a lesson in that by trying to do the right thing. You know, whatever, philosophy of stoicism or whatever, you know what's right, you know what the right thing is, therefore focus on that, and understand that and be authentic about it.

Botond Seres 41:27
That's sort of the issue that sometimes people and legal entities, they just don't remember what is right, and what is wrong anymore in their own frame of reference.

Dave Erickson 41:41
The Drowned in profit. The concept of profit drowns out all their morals and ethics.

Reggie James 41:51
Yeah, and I think I mean, we are all in here, we're not in business as a charity, but we are, there are ways of doing things. I mean, profit is not a dirty word. But equally, it's, it's where it sits within the framework of what you're trying to achieve. If you do something, right and do something well and people like what you do, you will make money. If you try and do something, because you're trying to make money, you'll invariably fail, because people will see right through you. Yeah, the best way to lose money, and we look at someone like Apple, who, for years known as the, you know, all they did was build Macs and do this and the other, and they went off and created a phone. And it just built into something, you know, the biggest game changing piece of tech, you know, probably for many people's biggest pain. But, but you know, one of the most popular things that ever came out of any technology. But that took a long time developing, getting it out.

Dave Erickson 43:07
I do see some, some kind of hope for this. And that is some of the young younger generation, you know, millennials, Gen Z, you know, a lot of people complain about them in some ways, but in other ways, you know, a lot of these people are starting SaaS businesses or other types of b2b type of businesses and they do usually have some kind of giving back component. They're either supporting an initiative, a charity, a lot of them are, save the Earth, you know, climate change initiatives, because they're, they're obviously concerned about their future. But I've noticed that it is more visible in some of these younger generations. In the newer startups or, you know, look at Canva. You know, they do a lot of charitable support and initiate initiatives for helping different types of people and others into their business. I see that less in the more older established enterprise companies, or if they do something, it's usually like, hey, we have a tax form, and it says, if we do charitable giving, we can deduct some money. So let's do that. Versus a company where they actually want to do something and it's part of their, you know, DNA in a sense. Do you see that changing in digital marketing as well?

Reggie James 44:29
Yeah, I think so. So so we are, we are we are on the sort of Digital Advisory side and we always say to companies that if it's something that your company believes in, and you genuinely are going to pursue that, because it's it because you live and breathe it then great. If you're going to do it because you feel you have to do it or it's going to tick a box to get you funding or get an ESG fund or, you know, whatever it might be, then then don't do it. We always say that you should be part of that anyway. But we're not going to be prescriptive or force a company to change the way they do things. If you're going to do it, you'll do it. If you don't want to do it, you won't. But when you try and force someone to do, do that, it's never gonna work. You know what I think? What's the term greenwashing? I think is the term used? It's a terrible thing. Because big is big washing is huge these days. Yeah. It's it's no, it's when when shell or a big oil

Botond Seres 45:33
I’ll give you an example of greenwashing that, I'm sorry to interrupt your agenda is he's just so good. Whenever I buy a plane ticket, it's like, give us more money. The flight? How is that going to make the flight more green? If I give you more money?
Reggie James 45:49
Carbon offsetting, yeah, no, I know, it's not. It's a it's, you know, you're an oil company. You're a gas company, you know, you cars run on this stuff. And the world goes around and the stuff that does the whole world, the whole world. And we tried to, we’re a few years off having clean energy. But at the moment, if we didn't use that, I think a lot even probably wouldn't be on the screen now. Talking.

Botond Seres 46:26
No, for sure, we wouldn't be anywhere near to this level.

Reggie James 46:31
Absolutely and I think and I think that's why, you know, you see China and India and all this, but you know, they've, they're still burning a lot of stuff. I mean, they’re are a lot more responsible now. But that for years, the western societies were the years of just using coal or whatever oil for hundreds of years, just, you know, exploiting everything, they could minerals, everything. So it's a bit rich for us to say to them, these emerging economies, Hey, how dare you do all this stuff. And rightly so they're going well, you know, we'll do what we have to do. But I think bringing it back onto, onto, onto clients and to and to the b2b and the tech world, I think that technology burns a lot of energy. But I think what a lot of companies are trying to do is offset that by saying, we did this, however, we planted X amount of trees, or we did this, they're trying to do something for you, if you're trying to do something and you show willing, and it's genuine and authentic. I mean, we're touching on the same same kind of buzzwords at the center all the time, because they are so important in this crazy world. Then people will genuinely say, Well, you know, what, these guys are trying to do something they're in a technology based business, you know, if you're buying Bitcoin right now, which is going through the roof, or certainly was, it is burning a ton of energy, just mining this stuff. So it's getting rich at the expense of all these other things, and there's nobody, when Satoshi set up that coin, there was no kind of green agenda in terms of actually saying, okay, all the older miners have to plant trees or be, you know, do all these other things. So there's some real conundrums that won't probably affect everyone on this, in this room, but it might do in, for future generations, which is why they're very audible about it.

Botond Seres 48:44
So, Reggie, what do you think? In your opinion, what is the future of b2b marketing?

Reggie James 48:52
The future is so undefined. You know, if you'd have asked me the question of the amount of business plans I saw back in 2015 to 2018 that had gameplan 2020, our project for growth, and then this kind of pandemic thing happened in 2020 and everyone went, Hey, what happened there? The Black Swan moments are coming thick and fast and the only constant in life is change. And I think the future is about trying to adapt to change, being nimble enough and flexible enough to adapt to where the future lies. There are, there are future technologies that are growing AI. It would be rude not to mention those two letters that today and what that will look like in 18 months - two years is going to be completely different. I'm, I was involved in the.com, boom and bust. In those early days where the likes of Sun Microsystems would add.com to their name and their valuations would go through the roof. And they don't exist anymore. So Silicon Graphics, remember those guys. All of the there's a lot of very, the world is not what it seems and the future will be shaped. Probably not by technology, but the things that will impact. And if you think so, I was talking to someone the other day, and we were talking about you and the NFT's and web3, we're going to be like the big thing like two, three years ago, and everyone was like buying into these board eight NFTs and yet, will they come back? Probably,

Botond Seres 51:05
they're still in the sun back then.

Reggie James 51:09
I think we all were, you know, lots of other technologies that are random. At the time, you know, nothing lasts forever, we know that. That's life. If you look at the Fortune, top 20, top 50, 30 years ago, and look at it now, I think there's only one company that still in that, which is Exxon, Exxon Mobil, and, and all the rest are brand new companies, if you look at that in 10 years time, it'll be completely different. And, you know, 100 years ago, it was a completely different thing, nothing lasts forever. The perception is, is that we these big companies, these bet emails will be there. General Electric, you know, GE, all of these guys. Nothing will last forever. In fact, a lot of those companies are companies that we don't know, a lot of the largest companies are companies, which are funds, big, huge funds out of the Middle East, big oil companies, big companies that fund lots of other things. And yep, so it's really fascinating. And I think we talked about very briefly touched on in a humorous way about bitcoin and cryptocurrency and I think that's going to have an impact on a lot of things. If these kind of layer two sort of chain technologies and coin technologies and blockchain starts developing, because I think the one thing if we look historically, at what happened, the growth of the internet, it was like, Oh, my gosh, this is never going to happen, then it was thrust upon us, then it failed. It took a while for it to establish, then it built momentum. And then here we are. I think the same is happening with AI. b2b marketing is going to get more, to an answer to your question Botond, is that it's going to get more human to human, the lines will blur, you're gonna get more kind of consumer based type stuff. At the end of any campaign is a human buying something, or a group of humans buying something. If you can talk to them in a certain way, in their way, on their level, on a variety, you know, because it's never, never the first person that engages with that. It's not like somebody's buying a phone, and they go on that website, the person engaging you with, you could be the 10th guy in the deal team, who's just doing some research, and they're taking that thing through, and they might buy something three to six months time. So it's understanding your buyer, it's all of that kind of stuff that's going to be absolutely key. So be real, be authentic, be yourself, understand who you are. And, you know, define who you are, before you define anything else. So yeah.

Dave Erickson 54:14
yeah, I think the pendulum on AI, particularly with b2b, has got to be swinging around a lot. Because people are just going to say, Okay, I'm tired of the AI, I want to actually talk to a person. You know, AI, then, you know, is great at getting through some of the initial steps that don't really necessarily need a person, but it people are having a hard time figuring out when to go from AI to a human. I can't tell you how many customer service calls I've been on, where after three minutes, I'm like, I just want to talk to a person. The robot isn't working. Give me a person, right? You know, and I think in b2b marketing and sales, you know, I like, I don't even look at my LinkedIn, I tried to avoid it because I get so much automated spam now. So many of the messages, it's just, I can read the first four words. And I already know, this is an AI contacting me to try to sell me something, right. And I think that, that that people are going to be sensitive to that and want more of the human connection, right? Next week, I'm driving into LA for three or four lunches and it's, it's actually easier to ask somebody to go meet you for lunch or coffee or something than it is to get them to respond to an email about some query that will do a sales lead, right? People kind of want to talk to other people nowadays.

Reggie James 55:47
Funny that that's a new concept we'll never catch on Dave. The idea of lunch, oh, my goodness me, no that, It's so true. It's so true. And I think that's coming back in a way like we were talking about trade shows, not the big trade shows, but some of the big trade shows to work. But people do want that human interaction and it's a lot easier getting a lunch meeting nowadays, people love

Botond Seres 56:15
Well, Reggie, Thank you so much for exposing us to the strategies and techniques of b2b marketing.

Dave Erickson 56:24
Well, dear listeners, we are at the end of the episode today. But before you go, we want you to think about this important question.

Botond Seres 56:33
If you're trying to get enterprise customers, how are you going to develop your b2b Strategy? For

Dave Erickson 56:40
our listeners, please subscribe and click the notifications to join us for our next ScreamingBox technology and business rundown podcast. Until then, start thinking strategically.

Dave Erickson 56:55
Thank you very much for taking this journey with us. Join us for our next exciting exploration of technology and business in the first week of every month. Please help us by subscribing, liking and following us on whichever platform you're listening to or watching us on. We hope you enjoyed this podcast and please let us know any subjects or topics you'd like us to discuss in our next podcast by leaving a message for us in the comment sections or sending us a Twitter DM. Till next month. Please stay happy and healthy.