Right About Now - Legendary Business Advice - B2B Marketing is Ready for an Injection of Humanity - w/ Ryan Alford & Robbie Fitzwater
Episode Date: January 21, 2020B2B Marketing has changed but there is a long way to go. On this episode of the podcast, Ryan and Robbie discuss the enormous opportunity for B2B companies to leverage more B2C tactics while infusing ...a bit of humanity along the way. Think B2H - Business to Human Tons of great tips here for businesses of all sizes. Please share a review after listening! Links from this Episode: YouTube Video of Podcast - https://youtu.be/yjLA-MjwURQ If you enjoy this episode please check out the rest of our episodes on our channel. Please share, review, and subscribe! Radical Podcast is always looking forward to meeting both aspiring, and grounded professionals across the country! Slide Ryan or Radical a DM on Instagram and let's make it happen! @radical_results @ryanalford www.radical.company Sponsorships: off for this episode If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE. Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding. Learn more by visiting our website at www.ryanisright.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Hey, I'm the latest edition of the Radical Company podcast.
We're back to podcast Friday.
You never know when you'll be listening to this, but it's Friday here at Radical.
Things are a little bit loose, but I'm excited to be joined by Robbie Fitzwater again,
one of our growth marketing strategists.
and just all around one of my favorite people, Robbie.
You are.
It's a dear honor to be that.
Ryan, you're that for me too.
But I actually mean that because, Robbie,
you know, being in the marketing business and all that,
it's, I feel like we're on the same wavelength
as it goes with both, you know,
marketing strategy tactics and just kind of that fuel
and energy and hunger for knowledge and more and more stuff.
So I appreciate you coming on again.
again, Robbie, and I know we're going to be rapping about a lot of different things in the future,
but today we wanted to talk about the changing nature of B2B marketing and really how B2B is
becoming more human and needs to be more human and the convergence really with how B2B marketing
tactics have a great opportunity to leverage more of what traditional B2C has been,
Robbie, and so I'm excited to kind of get into that with you.
Yeah, it's a fascinating space.
And anybody says B2B, you generally think stuffy, a little bit more, a little bit more buttoned up than you get on a normal consumer-facing marketing.
But the world is changing and expectations are evolving.
You're getting a younger group who are taking the role of buyers and organizations.
You have people making decisions who have grown up with social platforms, social proof, and Amazon as their context.
for so much and the expectations are different and companies really need to understand how do I use
this to my advantage and how do we also make things more efficient on our own teams and save
ourselves some time in a lot of ways. So I think there's some cool opportunities that people
aren't always taking advantage of that really could and unique ways that sales and marketing
could want once in overall come together and be friends. So true. You know the irony
in this for me and certainly the proliferation of the tools, the technology, and the data
is enabling some of this thinking and some of this ability. But at the end of the day, companies
have always been run by people. People work for businesses, but people who are consumers,
consumers are business people. It's a little bit of irony that we haven't gotten here a little
faster for the humanity and just the realization that Johnny decision-maker also is on social media.
Johnny decision-maker has kids at home that have soccer practice every other day.
Johnny or Sally business decision-maker is buying a business decision-maker is buying a
things on Amazon every day.
And, you know, that's not new.
And, you know, I'm, and to think that, you know,
newsletters and conferences were the historic ways to, you know,
talk to businesses.
Why we haven't gotten here a little faster, I'm not sure,
but I think it's important in 2020,
that we approach it differently,
and we counsel both our clients that we work with,
but in trying to educate the masses here, as best the radical podcast can, the real opportunity at hand.
So I think, and this is going to get super in the clouds really fast, I think a lot of it in some ways comes back to kind of the emotion around B2B decisions altogether.
People think a B2B decision is completely, matter of fact, it's completely objective, it's completely perfect.
I don't necessarily think that's the case.
I don't think any human makes a decision completely objectively.
And when you can win their head, you also have to win their heart.
And I think that's one part that doesn't come into play as much with some of these decisions.
And I think they kind of undervalue the level of passion that that person probably has for that industry.
And when I think about this, I think I lean towards content.
I love content.
I love content marketing.
But there's no Netflix for IT security infrastructure.
structure. There's no Netflix for plumbing. There's no Netflix for ABCD industry, but those people
who are passionate about the work they do, there's probably a desire for good content in that
vertical that they would engage with. That's right. And if you can provide that, even if it's average
comparatively to a lot of other businesses that, again, sexy, it's not going to be Red Bull
like content, granted, but if it's adding value and helping them with the process,
of doing their job better and you can position yourself as an expert and authority,
then that's really valuable information that you can give to them and respect and credibility.
You can build ahead of time.
And like I think we were talking about this ahead, you can save your sales team and your organization
a lot of time on the tail end because if that person is being educated through the course of
their buyer journey, they're already qualified by the time they get to the sales decision.
And your sales team knows they can close 80% of their sales as a lot.
opposed to 10% of their sales because they have a qualified lead who they don't have to worry
about handholding getting on early phone calls that are never going to convert at the end of the day.
So there's so much that they can be done for the buyer to kind of help them through that journey,
allow them to go through it themselves, and really satisfy their emotional need in a lot of ways too.
And right now, you know, the big companies are starting to get their hands around this with hubs
and different things for content.
But YouTube and LinkedIn search
are really the only like hubs or destinations
for people to really find that type of thing.
I'm sure there's one off.
Someone's going to inevitably DM me or text me later
that listens to this and go,
hey, well, you forgot about the symposium of plumbing.
Sorry, we forgot about that.
But mainstream.
And maybe there's a business idea here
that we're cracking on or finding here.
but you know.
I mean, allowing yourself to be found, if it's published on YouTube, it's indexable.
And if you're doing yourself justice, you're probably publishing, posting that through your
blog that's hopefully keyword rich that's going to, you're identifying keywords you want to focus
on or problems, problems that you're solving.
And if you solve a problem that people are searching for, you're going to be answering it
right there at the top of the funnel.
If you can have content through the rest of the funnel that they see, they're going to also
enjoy that too saying like hey I have a I have an issue this is my problem here's the
solution here's other ways that you can work about go about solving that problem here's what you
should be looking for in the product that does solve that problem here's what you who you
should be looking for as a resource and a partner in solving that problem and oh yeah we solve
that problem for you give us a call here and it's it kind of goes back to I mean
providing a value before you ask for the transaction and it
I mean, it's a tenant of so much of the business that goes on, but you allow that person to go through that journey themselves.
And I think the typical B2B funnel, if this were in 1982, I realize I have a problem.
I probably look up a few people.
I put my yellow pages.
I look up a few businesses in that space, and I pick one or two of them.
I call them.
I maybe call two or three to see who has the best initial phone call.
and then I let them walk me through the process.
That doesn't exist anymore.
If I have a problem, I search for it,
and I start working to solve that problem myself now.
And I'm halfway through solving that problem
through a bunch of DIY videos on YouTube
where they're generally being created by just individuals on their own.
Why can't that be done by a brand?
Why can't they be the ones taking the risk
and taking the chance to do that stuff
because they probably have the experts in-house.
They just need to find ways to package that
in a way to bring that expertise into the digital space.
And the scary thing is, you know,
a lot of the B2B companies that I've worked with over the years,
it's amazing how much stuff they're doing.
You know, they're doing a lot of stuff.
They're doing it.
Like, there's collateral everywhere.
They've kind of got a couple videos and all this.
But they don't, they're either,
they're not optimizing for SEO.
they don't have like true digital marketing around it.
They're not atomizing the content for use across other things.
It's just like they check the list off.
I've got a brochure.
I have a flyer.
I have a video.
We have 30 million of them depending on how big the product is
or how big the category or the brand is.
And they're doing a lot of stuff,
but they're not, it's, the left is not talking to the right.
And that's one of the biggest things within these companies is the larger one,
B2B companies, is the silos of the,
organization.
But the real opportunity for them is getting that into a hub type environment, getting that
in a feed type environment, and then atomizing it, sharing it, and then leveraging, you know,
what we're doing with some of our clients, that wall of sound, you know, across mediums,
because a lot of these companies are sitting on tons of tons of data, customer data, information.
It's like, it's almost like sitting there with a pizza in front of you going, I'm hungry.
I mean, really, you know.
I'm hungry.
I need an knife and a fork
and some of it
and some of it probably comes down to fear
and just not wanting to make a mistake
not wanting to try something different
and fall on your face
but that's the way marketing's been done for so long
and so many people tell themselves
hey that's true and that's true over there
but not in my industry
not in my industry my industry is different
we've done this for years
this is the way things are done
yes human relationships and human connections
are always going to be valuable
in a B2B context
but if you can
improve your marketing and improve the way that they feel about the brand leading up to that
human connection, it's probably going to be a lot better and a lot more beneficial for your brand
as a whole. And then you can do the long-term play of positioning yourself as an expert in the
long run and then have them as a client for the long term because if they have a problem
next time they, next time they have an issue they're looking to solve, you're going to be the first
person on their radar or you're leading them down a journey of, hey, people who have this
problem normally do this. Also, they, you may see this, this, this, and this, and this is how we can
help you solve all of those, or be ready for all of these problems that may also arise later
and later on down the road. So it gives you the opportunity to kind of hold their hand,
walk them through that first time around, but also keep them the second, third, fourth,
and fifth time around because you're adding value, you're providing providing information that's
going to be relevant to them. And at the end of the day, like I said, that emotional side,
you're giving them the Netflix for Blummers,
and they're excited about it because you get them,
you see them as a, not just a prospect,
but you see them as a person.
And you can distribute that through your channels,
but you can also give that to your sales team
to let them distribute through their individual channels
and talk to their, talk to their clients, their list,
and then, yeah, sorry, I may cut this two seconds bit.
I went down a tangent.
I apologize.
All good.
But the interesting thing to that end, back to kind of the purchase funnel for B2B,
it used to be that purchase would take place only at the bottom of the funnel.
And because they've been led through the sales process like you talked about earlier.
But now, if you're serving up the content and letting themselves serve their way through the funnel,
purchase can happen actually further up the funnel
so that everything doesn't have to be so
salesperson pressure focused
and what's interesting is
okay I think people may be hearing that nodding
okay that makes sense I get that
but what you have to do is then
your messaging and your approach from your salespeople
has to recognize that is happening
and thus not turn into the shark
and know that he's already has someone qualified
that's been pushing them down the funnel
and be reactive to that,
knowing that that funnel's changed,
knowing that that person's at a different place in the journey,
and not having to approach and communicate with them
in a way that they would before.
Yeah, so it does come down to a lot of communication.
I think that's a huge point
because if you're not communicating that
and they think they need to start from zero,
they're going to be wasting everybody's time.
If that person's already down there,
the sales funnel to a certain extent if they already know, hey, I know this, this, and this,
I feel comfortable and safe which one of these individual products I maybe need a suggestion
on, but I know what category I need to be buying it now. I just need some handholding that last,
that final touch. So I think that's where marketing and sales need to need to find, we need to
need to find ways to get those groups together. If somebody needs to have a pizza party,
I don't know what it needs to be, but a lot of organizations need to find ways to break
down those walls. And I think some ways you could bring the sales team into that marketing side
of the house also. There's probably a great way to humanize your business is to build that
informational content with your sales team, with those experts who are helping people with those
common questions they get. And what if they, I think it would be a fantastic opportunity for a lot of
businesses to take their sales team, they created a video series with their sales team, and that
somebody goes down the buyer journey of using that information to help them find a decision.
And then, oh, yeah, here's the first time they get on a call, they're going to be like, oh,
that's Adam, I know Adam, you were in those videos.
I loved you in those videos.
And you could put a human face to a brand and you can put a, ideally make an influence on that end user.
What's your thoughts on, I think it's highly related to this discussion.
and to me it's almost the metaphor is probably not the right word.
The change of LinkedIn, what's going on with LinkedIn content,
what's going on if anyone's paying attention,
I feel like is a prime example of the opportunity
and the changing space of B2B.
And you see now with LinkedIn,
people are posting more regularly, obviously,
there's definitely this cross of consumer content type,
objects, I'll call them, whether it's videos, whether it's, you know, people are talking more about
their kids' soccer games on LinkedIn and, you know, what they had for dinner last night and their
favorite TV. And where, you know, 18 months ago, two years ago, 90% of it was just
hard selling or here's what I did today at work or like very specific to the business
side of things. Download this white paper. Oh, God.
I got like a little shake, you know, because of how many of those in-mails I got.
Yeah, yeah, just anybody doing using LinkedIn as a channel,
please do not try and connect and send a message right away that pitches your business.
That's just the wrong way to approach it.
Oh, God. Everyone does, though, still.
I mean, I get, I probably get 15 messages, you know, ask and connects.
And I usually don't turn someone down unless it's just like,
you know, Charles in another country,
and it's so obvious that it's either fake or spam or something.
If it's not that, I'll probably connect with you.
But geez, Louise, do not message me the same day,
but it's usually within an hour, but the same day going,
hey, we really want to sell you X.
And no matter how, look, we're in an ad agents,
we have copyrighters, I know what you're doing.
You can word it however you want,
but you're asking for a sale.
When you don't know me, you haven't done any.
any work or earn my
respect or trust
anyway. Jeremy Cash
Off the soft box. Jeremy
Jeremy Cash T-shirt mogul of
Sandusky, Ohio. I don't necessarily need to know
you or have any
interest in communicating on LinkedIn, but
it's a space that's changing
really fast. People are spending more time there.
It's less of that resume, I think, in a lot
of ways for so many people, because it was
always a stuffy place that, oh yeah, my parents
are on LinkedIn. Great. It's the
stuffy place that
that nobody spent a lot of time on.
And now it's becoming a place where you're finding a little bit more rich connections,
you're finding more information that you're consuming in a little bit longer form.
People are going there once or twice a day as opposed to once or twice a month.
And it's becoming almost what Facebook was in the early days,
when the algorithm pushes things through a little bit farther.
It's not so content saturated that content still moves pretty well.
the people are doing it well, are doing it killing on it
because you have this beautiful network you've been cultivating over years
and you can suddenly leverage it in a space in a little bit different way.
And I love one thing, the behavior isn't necessarily set in stone yet.
Like you haven't had that Twitter.
Twitter is snarking and irreverent and like it has a certain behavior.
Facebook is baby photos and news stories in a certain way.
LinkedIn really hasn't had that set behavior yet, which makes it kind of a cool opportunity
because it can be a little bit of both.
You're going to have your more buttoned up professional aspect of things going on, but you
can also have the human side of things brought to the table that probably makes for a nice
impact.
And if people are spending time there, those are eyeballs that's kind of the promise of social
media.
You have those organic eyeballs that you wish you had on Facebook or wish you still had on
Instagram.
and it's kind of that open field and that blue ocean that people are looking for from the social perspective.
That's right.
And it's funny you say that, and I think about the last few posts I've had,
they've been on all different ends of the spectrum.
Like, you know, one minute I'm talking about a client and, you know, showing it.
And the reach is just crazy.
Like, you know, like 2,000 people within a couple of days.
And just the algorithm alone, if you aren't leveraging LinkedIn right now as a business,
and I might
would even argue as a B to C company
you're missing the boat
because I don't know when that
I don't win that you hit
scale of content because this is all
about they've got an active audience
there's a certain number of content being posted
and so they can play the algorithm game
at a certain point that tips over
and the algorithm starts showing less
because there's so much feeding
going through the tube
so much content
but it's crazy.
Yeah, I don't know.
I almost wonder, because I always think about this
and the economics of the platform,
and I know we're going down in the rabbit hole of LinkedIn right here.
But it's good.
I think it's related, though, to the changing landscape of business and B2B.
So it's owned by Microsoft.
Microsoft has multiple streams of revenue.
Like, if this were Facebook, Facebook sells ads.
Facebook makes most of their money from selling ads.
They're owned by Microsoft.
They have a diversified advertising portfolio on their
on LinkedIn too because you have the in-mail which is kind of expensive you also have the
recruiter tool which is really expensive for businesses that can afford it so you have a diversified
pipeline of information coming in and revenue coming in they don't have to optimize for ads on
that platform they have to optimize for content and engagement but they're not going to be forced to
optimize for ads at the speed that Facebook or Instagram was so the I mean I think it's a I think
takes a little bit longer before that algorithm hits that tipping point where it's content saturation.
And I think people are still hard to, it's hard to get people on board with it still.
Like I speak at a million classes or undergraduate college students.
Like you're never going to be around this many people in your life ever again.
Connect with the people around you because that's probably the most valuable resource you could ever have.
That's right.
And like what used to be somebody's Rolodex is now your LinkedIn account.
And it's a lot bigger.
It's a lot more efficient.
and if you need to reach through your network, it's a huge opportunity.
Yeah.
And whatever you do, don't DM immediately if you're a salesperson.
But what you can do if you're a brand, maybe to flip it back tactically for brands and business,
you need to be telling your stories there.
You need to be showing behind this.
You need to be both that human side and the business side.
the products and services that you sell
the information and education
of those products and services,
but also the humanity of your company.
Because people are researching you, they go to your website,
yes, they go to other sources, YouTube,
depending on your business.
Maybe Facebook, your business is still huge.
But they're definitely going to LinkedIn,
especially on that B2B side.
And I think the more robust,
the stories and the depth of those stories that you can tell,
it's a perfect place to be leveraging that
and showing that level of humanity.
Yeah, like people process and product.
I mean, if you can show the people that are making the donuts,
the process they're going through,
it's going to make for a lot more rich relationship in the long run.
And I think if a business is smart,
they can get ideal on board with that
and show behind the scenes what's going on,
how their business functions,
what the process they look like,
what the process looks like,
they vet new products or even if they're having a vendor come visit them.
Like how great is that to position themselves as an expert?
Like, hey, we're having this vendor come in to visit our business because they want to
show our team how their new products are run or they want to do a training on these new
products they have so we can help educate the market.
There's so many easy things that they could do that just even I am just showing what's
going on in the day to day doesn't even have to be exciting and sexy.
doing it. And that's a space that truthfully and full transparency I'm always
horrible about. I don't do a better job of and I need to hold my own feet of the fire
a lot better on. But it's a way that they can probably, you can consistently create easy
content that isn't going to take moving heaven and earth to publish. If you're big
enough and you're starting, you know, I would have said Facebook two years ago probably
like if you're a big enough business and I'm talking B2B right now, B2B marketing.
Two or three years ago, I would have definitely just said your community manager, your social manager internally, focus on Facebook, definitely, you know, have a LinkedIn presence.
But I would have someone, depending on the scale and size, I would have someone 100% focused on LinkedIn right now from your business standpoint.
From a recruiting standpoint, from a telling your story, from leveraging your products and services.
And now, I mean, there's features coming out like LinkedIn Live.
There's so many opportunities that it's becoming that hub.
it's always kind of been there,
but it's definitely becoming more a hub.
It was like you said, the resume
and the connection kind of building,
you know, networking of sorts,
a networking platform, and it still is,
but now it's so much more of that hub
that you can leverage.
I'd love to transition, Robbie,
as we kind of maybe close out
the final 10 minutes or so.
And before we do,
we want to shout out to our sponsor LinkedIn
for this podcast.
Yes.
LinkedIn, if you'd like to sponsor,
the next version of Radical
company podcast. You can
dial us at
1-800 LinkedIn.
In all seriousness,
let's get tactical.
So, B to H,
B to human, business to human,
let's maybe a little lightning round
of
maybe between the two of us, four to five tactics
and I'm going to throw it back to you first.
Since I'm talking right now, you get to be thinking
about practical one. We kicked a lot of
these around before. But maybe
let's come up with four to five granular tactics for businesses listening for how they can leverage
and operate and take advantage of being more human and leveraging some of the B to C opportunities
that are out there.
Work with, grab a sales team member.
And again, I sound like a broken record so much of the time.
Grab a sales team member.
Take your phone out and ask them, what's the question you get asked the most on every
phone call?
What's the question you answer on every single?
phone call, record that, and use it as, use it to upload to YouTube, transcribe that,
add it as a blog post, and that's a great easy piece of content you could possibly use.
If that's a common question that people are asking, make sure it's worded the way that
people are asking online, use like a answer the public to make sure it's going to be worded
in a proper context and maybe give some sub answers of people also ask this, this, and this
maybe, but take some low-hanging fruit, humanize your sales team, but also use that in a way that
you can find some benefit for the business and then give that to that sales team member and have
them distribute it to their contact list of people who are their larger accounts or better accounts
that would fit in line with this.
Like take the account-based marketing approach of really focusing on individual accounts and
really, hey, this fits in line with your business.
I thought of you when we made this, and I thought you may, you might find some value here.
they're going to be able to, again, humanize themselves, use content in the way that a business
that any other B2C business would and trying to help provide value beyond the transaction.
And then it doesn't take moving heaven and earth either because it's pretty low-hanging fruit.
And when it's not perfect, it doesn't matter because you're probably going to see a positive
revenue coming from that really quickly.
And that salesperson is going to hopefully get excited about it and on board with it.
And hopefully they can grab more of the sales team to get.
more of them invested in
into this easy content that you can build.
Love it. So I'm
going to go back to one of the things we talked about
leveraging digital marketing,
true digital marketing as a
B2B company. So what I mean
by that? Google Analytics
setting up the proper
tracking codes. Doing
all of these things, we're leveraging really
this, we talked about this a little bit earlier,
the wall of sound notion, because
B2B people are just like B2C.
You can do custom audiences based
on your prospect lists or your customer list.
You can retarget the traffic that comes.
It's just like some of the 101 of digital marketing
that a B2B company should be using.
And somewhere out there, not in their head,
yeah, we're doing some of that.
But you need to be using that first-party data,
not to follow them around and scare them,
but if they're interested in your products and service,
you can be adding value throughout that purchase funnel.
You can retarget them on Facebook, LinkedIn, like we talked about,
other areas that are relevant,
whether that's business websites and other things.
You can be retargeting them
or serving up some of the cookie crumbs,
if you call them, or breadcrumbs,
of those solutions that Robbie was talking about,
you know, a partial clip of a video
that's leading them, helping them.
Because they've been, again,
they're already a partner or they're a prospect for a reason.
You know they're interested in your products and services.
This isn't selling spandex,
leggings to
a big buff guy that would never
wear them or selling sunglasses
to someone that lives
in the darkest place
on earth. Again, this is relevant content
at the right time, at the right place
and leveraging some of that
101 of digital marketing, whether
that's SEO, whether that's retargeting,
whether that's
one-to-one marketing via these channels,
but really leveraging the building
blocks of traditional digital media.
I mean, yeah,
You take it from using digital marketing to build a relationship.
Sales team isn't the only one who can build a relationship.
Suddenly your digital team can be the ones that are doing that.
And if you can walk them through, you're going to have more trust, more authority,
and it's going to be an easier transition for them to be making.
And one thing I want to come back, I don't know, I keep thinking about everybody that lives in a world where we use Amazon every day.
We use products like Amazon.
We use our expectations are set by that.
That's how we make buying decisions.
Why should B2B be any different?
Think about that, like we would be making a product decision
because everybody makes hundreds of product decisions all the time.
There is like B2B takes a lot more time and effort.
It's different, but it's no different than buying a car.
You want to be making the right decision.
You probably need more sources of information,
but you want to know that you're making the right decision at the end of the day.
For cars, you're probably doing more research than just going to a lot
and letting a salesperson walk you through it.
Because if you are, you're probably not doing yourself any favors.
You're probably losing yourself a lot of money.
A lot.
Yeah.
But it's using those channels in the way that they're most useful.
And it's what marketers in the B to C space are doing every day.
And it seems natural for them.
But it's difficult for people to take that leap, I think, in some cases on the B2B side.
That's right.
A lot of this is just getting out of their comfort zone.
I think you nailed it earlier talking about, I don't know if you use these exact words.
but I think the B2B space has been known for being very calculated and quote unquote perfect.
Like whatever we put out is this perfect example of the product.
And it's exactly this and it does exactly these four things.
And like, you know, the mundane and just very product focused or whatever.
And I think you've got to break out of that perspective.
And it's not about putting your company a bad light or looking unprofessional.
You're the experts.
Otherwise you shouldn't be in the business.
If you're not the expert and you don't know what you're doing,
then you're just moving widgets.
And you're not adding any value,
and you're going to, somebody's going to take that place.
And that's kind of some of this opportunity is too.
The B2B space, it's a blue ocean.
It's not consumer cosmetics.
It's not, like we talk about supplements.
It's not a bloody red ocean because you don't have so many competitors.
And honestly, in B2B, if you do it okay,
you're going to set yourself apart because very few people know,
what they're doing. And that's probably going to change. But right now it's the best time
to be moving, like you could have been doing it yesterday, but right now, today is the best
time to start something new and trying something new. So that probably comes down to doing
what a lot of B2C marketers is doing, taking more risks, finding ways to use that white
space that's still available right now because that's probably going to go away eventually. But
utilizing a platform like LinkedIn to use the platform when it's not necessarily over-saturated
by content or other behavior.
And we talked about this,
finding, learning, growing, and experimenting.
And really comes back to how do they approach marketing,
how do they approach the work they do,
and can they keep moving that work forward?
Yeah, exactly.
And the last thing I would say,
you know, one of the most common levers to pull
is trade shows and experience, you know, like the trade show.
Just think about the experience
that you're delivering at your trade show
or your booth, you know, make it more human, make it more interesting.
You know, like, I think it's leveraging, whether it's, you know,
leveraging the power of social media and doing live streams when that becomes over on LinkedIn.
But I think that's always going to be a big tactic and a big medium,
the experience side at trade shows and events and networking and those kind of things.
But I think businesses need to really be thinking through how to make that experience more human as well.
We could probably do a whole podcast on this, is how do you take that trade show and make it from a, hey, you can have this, have this here.
You give me your email, you get the stress ball.
Make it from this awkward transaction to, hey, I want to be part of what you guys are doing because I think your brand's exciting.
I think the way you approach this business is exciting and I want to be part of this.
And if you can find ways to get them on board and excited about your brand and excited about the work you do, then you can win that.
experience because they're going to be walking through and having lots of stress ball transactions,
but if you can get them on board and finding you on a digital space without this awkward
stuffy transaction, then you can really win. And there's lots of ways that people can do that
ahead of time and even finding ways to prime that trade show beforehand. And hey, why don't we,
why don't we work on targeting any attendees who may be coming from these businesses? You can
get in the weeds and granular and tactical and targeting people with certain job titles
in certain industries on LinkedIn to saying, hey, if you're going to this conference, come see us here.
So positioning on the front end using data the way you should.
Well, I know B2B is a passionate for you.
It's becoming a bigger niche for radical.
I know we'll have more sessions.
I know we talked about getting down the account-based marketing and the channel
marketing side is a whole another you know rabbit hole we can go down yeah these are these are fun
honestly it's it's stuff that the we live in exciting times and and that's one of the best parts
about this is they're still the wild wild less and so much of marketing yeah and b2b a little bit more
so than than the b to c but if you can take the learnings we're seeing and people that are doing b2c
really well those just apply so well and it's it's pretty fun at the end of the day because
you get to do stuff that works well
and you get to make an impact for the businesses
you work on. Totally agree.
Well, I hope you enjoyed today's episode
of the Radical Company podcast.
You can find us online at radical.company.
Yes, radical.company is a web address.
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at Radical underscore results
and we are on LinkedIn.
Please follow along, like,
and share this podcast.
Hope you have a great day.
See you guys later.
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