The Most Underutilized Tactic in B2B Marketing

WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.540 --> 00:00:02.740 Yeah. 2 00:00:05.640 --> 00:00:09.020 Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of GDP growth. I'm your host, 3 00:00:09.020 --> 00:00:12.720 timmy Bauer. I'm the content strategist here at Sweet Fish. And my guest today 4 00:00:12.720 --> 00:00:18.360 is Isabel papoulias. She is the CMO at Media fly. Isabel Welcome to the show. 5 00:00:18.740 --> 00:00:21.560 Hello thank you for having me and that's a good way to start. I just lost 6 00:00:21.560 --> 00:00:25.940 my earring but hey that's why body casting its life. So we're going with 7 00:00:25.940 --> 00:00:31.190 the flow here. Well it's not live so I could edit out you losing your earring. 8 00:00:31.200 --> 00:00:36.550 But uh yeah so it's about the last time you and I were talking I asked you you 9 00:00:36.550 --> 00:00:41.130 know what's under utilized tactic and B. Two B. Marketing and you said something 10 00:00:41.130 --> 00:00:45.050 to me that felt really no brainer which is why I'm interested in doing an 11 00:00:45.050 --> 00:00:49.900 episode with you on it and that is not being hyper targeted and not doing the 12 00:00:49.900 --> 00:00:53.630 I. C. P. Evaluative work. So first of all, before we go any further what do 13 00:00:53.630 --> 00:00:59.260 you mean by that? So I see p ideal customer profile. I know some some 14 00:00:59.260 --> 00:01:02.690 folks when I mentioned it don't always know the acronym but it's definitely 15 00:01:02.690 --> 00:01:08.610 common uh with marketing and CMoS. Yeah. You know the reason why that first came 16 00:01:08.610 --> 00:01:13.820 to mind when you asked me was really two fold one was because we and media 17 00:01:13.820 --> 00:01:18.570 fly. You know my team and sales were actively going through nicely. We kind 18 00:01:18.570 --> 00:01:24.590 of exercise right uh to hone in on our target audience. And then second 19 00:01:24.590 --> 00:01:31.010 because I am um it was surprising to me to find out that when I do talk to cmos 20 00:01:31.010 --> 00:01:36.060 or marketing leads at how how many don't haven't applied it. Right. And so 21 00:01:36.940 --> 00:01:39.910 that's I don't know if that's your definition of underrated. I think again 22 00:01:39.910 --> 00:01:45.550 as a concept it's very well concept. It's more like it seems like it's not 23 00:01:45.940 --> 00:01:50.000 as frequently applied that I would have expected. So that's that's where it 24 00:01:50.010 --> 00:01:54.980 came from. Why do you think you're you've so often seen it not being 25 00:01:54.980 --> 00:02:01.480 applied or not being applied diligently? You know, I'm going to guess it's 26 00:02:01.480 --> 00:02:07.830 because there is so much pressure on us cmos and you know marketing leaders to 27 00:02:07.830 --> 00:02:15.890 create demand that we often forget the quality and we go for volume, right? 28 00:02:15.900 --> 00:02:19.540 And and that's a big statement to make. Of course we want quality. But I think 29 00:02:19.540 --> 00:02:24.490 there's a pressure right to just kind of more is more there's a feeling that 30 00:02:24.490 --> 00:02:27.800 more I need more demand, I need more pipeline, I need to keep the funnel and 31 00:02:27.800 --> 00:02:33.430 so I'm gonna talk to everybody and I've done it. So this isn't a criticism. I 32 00:02:33.430 --> 00:02:38.860 think that is just so much pressure. Having been someone who's done it. Why 33 00:02:38.860 --> 00:02:43.400 do you think it's the bad way to do things? Why do you think that instead 34 00:02:43.410 --> 00:02:47.720 you need to be hyper targeted? Yeah. And by the way, it's maybe not always 35 00:02:47.720 --> 00:02:51.130 the bad way to do things right. But what I'm, what I'm seeing again from my 36 00:02:51.130 --> 00:02:57.080 own experiences and it's a bit counterintuitive, but we went through 37 00:02:57.080 --> 00:03:01.050 the exercise and I'm happy to talk about this if you ask me later and 38 00:03:01.050 --> 00:03:05.460 honed in on truly are are ideal customer, like what, you know, what is, 39 00:03:05.470 --> 00:03:09.890 what is more, what do our most delighted customers look like and what 40 00:03:09.890 --> 00:03:14.650 do they have in common and how do we build a profile to find more folks like 41 00:03:14.650 --> 00:03:21.550 them? Right. And and by doing that by honing in, we kind of decided to let go 42 00:03:21.550 --> 00:03:25.890 of a huge portion of our total addressable market, like the potential 43 00:03:25.900 --> 00:03:31.120 and and all the folks that we could have been talking to and industries and 44 00:03:31.130 --> 00:03:36.090 size of companies one not right? And it was partially counterintuitively, 45 00:03:36.090 --> 00:03:39.600 partially nerve wracking because you're like, what's going to happen to my 46 00:03:39.600 --> 00:03:44.760 demand? Like, wow, like lead the inbound leads are going to plummet. And 47 00:03:45.340 --> 00:03:48.990 so psychologically it was a little scary, but it's happened all of that 48 00:03:48.990 --> 00:03:54.890 has happened. So you got a lot less in leeds and a number of opportunities, 49 00:03:54.890 --> 00:03:58.740 but what you lose in volume, your makeup inequality at least, has been 50 00:03:58.740 --> 00:04:03.230 our experience, right? Why? Because you're going in front of the eyeballs 51 00:04:03.230 --> 00:04:08.030 that really matter. And so other things start to change, right? The quality of 52 00:04:08.030 --> 00:04:11.690 your opportunities, the size of your opportunities, the your clothes rate 53 00:04:11.690 --> 00:04:15.160 goes up because you're actually talking and pulling in the right folks, right? 54 00:04:15.170 --> 00:04:21.200 And so it's been interesting to see to see the impact on the business as a 55 00:04:21.200 --> 00:04:24.510 result of the SCP exercise. And it's always, you know, I mean, it's always 56 00:04:24.510 --> 00:04:30.420 iterative. We're constantly revisiting, you know, we we uh we revisit both ways, 57 00:04:30.420 --> 00:04:33.650 right? The discussion is like, do we go even narrow, more narrow? Or do should 58 00:04:33.650 --> 00:04:37.100 we have we gone too narrow? And do we need to broaden a little bit? Right. 59 00:04:37.100 --> 00:04:41.420 And so it's it's every Every few months, like once a quarter we come back 60 00:04:41.420 --> 00:04:44.180 together and it's very much a conversation with marketing and sales, 61 00:04:44.180 --> 00:04:48.720 like, and I should stress that this should in no way be marketing, like 62 00:04:48.720 --> 00:04:51.530 most things in marketing, I'm not a believer in marketing going there 63 00:04:51.530 --> 00:04:55.210 corner and coming up with their own stuff. I mean it's absolutely 100%, but 64 00:04:55.220 --> 00:05:01.070 you know the buzzword of sales and marketing alignment applies. Yeah. Yeah. 65 00:05:01.080 --> 00:05:05.190 So before we get to how to iterate it, let me just talk, let's just have you 66 00:05:05.190 --> 00:05:09.050 unpack how you, you folks did it. And so for somebody who's listening, who 67 00:05:09.050 --> 00:05:13.150 wants to do what you did, what did you do? Yeah. So we had we had some 68 00:05:13.150 --> 00:05:17.110 hypotheses already from from the past and what we've seen work and whatnot. 69 00:05:17.110 --> 00:05:21.660 And uh but then what we did is we we go to sales and marketing in a room, you 70 00:05:21.660 --> 00:05:27.650 know, and and like I said, started with everybody came in with their list of 71 00:05:28.240 --> 00:05:31.950 The 15 most delighted customers in their from their standpoint, right? So 72 00:05:31.950 --> 00:05:35.750 we also had a customer success in the room. So by cells, I mean, you know, 73 00:05:35.750 --> 00:05:39.690 our hunters as well as our account reps and customer success and everybody 74 00:05:39.700 --> 00:05:43.810 brother perspective and truly delighted. As it not just happy. Like I said, 75 00:05:43.810 --> 00:05:48.170 truly delighted, right? The ones that are gonna have been with us for a long 76 00:05:48.170 --> 00:05:53.220 time are constantly expanding are giving us referrals are doing case 77 00:05:53.220 --> 00:05:56.390 studies and press releases right? Like that kind of relationship. Then we 78 00:05:56.390 --> 00:05:59.590 dissected those relationships. We we actually there were a lot of 79 00:05:59.590 --> 00:06:04.050 commonalities you know, which is great. You know everybody come came in with a 80 00:06:04.060 --> 00:06:08.280 similar list and then we kind of went down the list like one by one. Okay, so 81 00:06:08.280 --> 00:06:12.330 let's talk about this relationship like what makes relationships so special. Uh 82 00:06:12.340 --> 00:06:16.560 and then we found more commonalities there. And so that's how we, I would 83 00:06:16.560 --> 00:06:21.120 say that exercise for us didn't necessarily yield something completely 84 00:06:21.120 --> 00:06:25.690 new, like radically new as much as it is, it's validated our initial 85 00:06:25.690 --> 00:06:31.510 hypothesis of what the I. C. P. Should be and uh refine it a little bit, but 86 00:06:31.510 --> 00:06:37.600 you might want something a little different. Hey everybody Logan with 87 00:06:37.600 --> 00:06:41.650 sweet fish here, if you're a regular listener of GDP Growth, you know that 88 00:06:41.650 --> 00:06:45.470 I'm one of the co hosts of the show, but you may not know that. I also head 89 00:06:45.470 --> 00:06:49.660 up the sales team here at Sweet fish. So for those of you in sales or sales 90 00:06:49.660 --> 00:06:53.770 ops, I wanted to take a second to share something that's made us insanely more 91 00:06:53.770 --> 00:06:57.710 efficient lately. Our team has been using lead I. Q. For the past few 92 00:06:57.710 --> 00:07:02.220 months and what used to take us four hours gathering contact data. Now takes 93 00:07:02.220 --> 00:07:07.600 us only one where 75 more efficient were able to move faster with outbound 94 00:07:07.600 --> 00:07:11.960 prospecting and organizing our campaigns is so much easier than before. 95 00:07:12.140 --> 00:07:16.470 I'd highly suggest you guys check out lead IQ as well. You can check them out 96 00:07:16.480 --> 00:07:23.880 at least I Q dot com. That's L E A D I Q dot com. All right, let's get back to 97 00:07:23.880 --> 00:07:30.590 the show. Yeah. What were the criteria or categories that you you know, we 98 00:07:30.590 --> 00:07:35.540 look at. Yeah. Look at this and you know, it might vary depending on again 99 00:07:35.540 --> 00:07:39.380 your customer base and you know what they have in common. But you know, it's 100 00:07:39.390 --> 00:07:42.490 it's looking at things for us. It was looking at things like industry. Like 101 00:07:42.500 --> 00:07:46.830 we definitely saw a couple of industries our much more relevant for 102 00:07:46.830 --> 00:07:53.480 us company size. You know some very very detailed specs there a couple of 103 00:07:53.480 --> 00:07:56.950 use cases that very much like the rose to the surface. And I would say those 104 00:07:56.950 --> 00:08:01.730 those three elements were probably the biggest characteristics for us to build 105 00:08:01.730 --> 00:08:07.200 the around was the industry, the company size and then the use cases. So 106 00:08:07.200 --> 00:08:12.630 how do you iterate on this? So like I said you're a visit because then you're 107 00:08:12.630 --> 00:08:18.330 going then you go to market with an I keep in mind and so what I call it is 108 00:08:18.330 --> 00:08:26.560 like I. C. P. Or bust. So now we're I want to make sure that we're spending 109 00:08:26.940 --> 00:08:32.580 most of our calories as I call it. Which is our energy on getting in front 110 00:08:32.580 --> 00:08:37.320 of that right audience right? Whether it's with like our outbound efforts 111 00:08:37.320 --> 00:08:41.990 right? And are targeting and the list building that we're doing with sales 112 00:08:41.990 --> 00:08:46.960 and making they're going after the right companies. Whether it's even from 113 00:08:46.970 --> 00:08:52.550 uh like a field marketing even side of things like when we do digital events I 114 00:08:52.940 --> 00:08:55.620 I don't want to go abroad. I mean just because we're in the sales enablement 115 00:08:55.620 --> 00:08:59.200 business. Right? So just because it's a self enablement event doesn't that we 116 00:08:59.200 --> 00:09:05.200 should be there right? I wanna only be present at events where that customer 117 00:09:05.210 --> 00:09:09.120 is present and if they're not there then I'm just not going to do that 118 00:09:09.120 --> 00:09:12.330 event. Right? So that's another example of like how you started applied account 119 00:09:12.330 --> 00:09:15.750 based marketing from a digital marketing standpoint and looking at 120 00:09:15.750 --> 00:09:21.230 intent data. And so again it's it's made were only targeting those accounts 121 00:09:21.230 --> 00:09:24.310 that fit the ICMP. Right? So we're trying we're trying to do is we're 122 00:09:24.310 --> 00:09:29.400 trying to really limit the waste and I think limiting the waist, it's always 123 00:09:29.400 --> 00:09:32.060 important for marketing, but it's more important than ever. Now. You know, 124 00:09:32.440 --> 00:09:36.040 we're still in covered, you know, hopefully soon to be post covered, but 125 00:09:36.050 --> 00:09:41.150 lots of us have experienced, you know, marketing cuts. Yes please marketing 126 00:09:41.150 --> 00:09:45.810 budget cuts. You know, there's a lot more, there's even more scrutiny on 127 00:09:45.810 --> 00:09:50.410 budgets and how hard the budget is working on performance. And so there's 128 00:09:50.410 --> 00:09:55.590 less appetite for waste correctly. Right? And failure. And so I think the 129 00:09:55.590 --> 00:10:00.780 more you can target, like I said, your calories including your dollars to um 130 00:10:00.790 --> 00:10:05.090 the audience that will have the biggest impact the better. And, and it's not to 131 00:10:05.090 --> 00:10:08.740 say that we're not gonna talk to be clear, that's the ideal customer, It's 132 00:10:08.740 --> 00:10:09.760 not the only customer, 133 00:10:10.840 --> 00:10:14.570 right? And that's something we also remind ourselves of internally, you may 134 00:10:14.570 --> 00:10:18.920 have catch some, some folks in your net right through inbound that don't quite 135 00:10:18.920 --> 00:10:22.890 fit that, but for other reasons, they're still good to talk to write. It 136 00:10:22.890 --> 00:10:26.520 just means that we're not going to proactively spent a lot of effort 137 00:10:26.520 --> 00:10:30.730 trying to reach them. But if they're coming to us and it's a sizable 138 00:10:30.730 --> 00:10:34.630 business opportunities and we'll still, you know, still talk, how do you figure 139 00:10:34.630 --> 00:10:39.120 out if you've gone too narrow or too broad? I mean, frankly that's, that's 140 00:10:39.120 --> 00:10:44.060 pipeline, you know, I mean, if it's at the point of being very targeted, it's 141 00:10:44.440 --> 00:10:48.010 getting quality pipeline and turning it into revenue, right? And so if you're 142 00:10:48.010 --> 00:10:51.270 seeing your pipeline and your revenue negatively affected by those efforts 143 00:10:51.270 --> 00:10:53.570 and you're then you're doing something wrong, then, you know, you need to 144 00:10:53.570 --> 00:10:59.360 adjust how often are you folks revisiting your and finding out like, 145 00:10:59.370 --> 00:11:03.960 oh we've definitely we definitely need to change this, I would say once a 146 00:11:03.960 --> 00:11:09.520 quarter. I mean, you know, we like, like most startups, we, you know, we 147 00:11:09.520 --> 00:11:13.740 plan, we have quarterly goals that we need to hit and uh that seems like the 148 00:11:13.740 --> 00:11:18.050 right cadence for us to be revisiting the I. C. P. As well as other parts of 149 00:11:18.050 --> 00:11:21.130 our business strategy. You know, as we go into as we finished one quarter and 150 00:11:21.130 --> 00:11:25.280 we go into the next one, what have we learned? We revisit some things and, 151 00:11:25.280 --> 00:11:31.380 you know, the cps is one of them. Also, if I'm wanting to follow your advice, 152 00:11:31.380 --> 00:11:35.260 making an honest effort to follow what you're saying, how could I mess it up? 153 00:11:35.640 --> 00:11:40.640 Mhm. How can you mess it up? I mean I think you messed it up. I think first 154 00:11:40.640 --> 00:11:46.570 of all it makes a messing up might be okay because it's trial and error, so I 155 00:11:46.570 --> 00:11:51.630 don't know they're messing up is bad, then you course correct. So so that's 156 00:11:51.630 --> 00:11:55.620 that's one thing. I mean you you would mess it up by probably the biggest way 157 00:11:55.620 --> 00:12:01.570 to mess it up is, but not if you're gonna go through the process of truly 158 00:12:01.570 --> 00:12:07.130 defining your I. C. B. Then your messaging really needs to be relevant 159 00:12:07.130 --> 00:12:09.390 to the audience. That's the whole point, right? And then you're you're really 160 00:12:09.390 --> 00:12:14.120 holding on the right message for them. So if you're not addressing everything 161 00:12:14.120 --> 00:12:17.310 else, so if you find you you define the I. C. B. But then you're not really 162 00:12:17.320 --> 00:12:20.980 developing the right message or you're not revisiting your digital marketing 163 00:12:20.980 --> 00:12:27.240 strategy or other approaches to hit on the audience, then you're you're not 164 00:12:27.240 --> 00:12:31.870 getting the most out of it. I love it, Isabel, I love this episode. It's good 165 00:12:31.870 --> 00:12:34.530 to just folk, even though it's so fundamental, the fact that you're 166 00:12:34.530 --> 00:12:38.970 saying that you've met so many folks at your level that are not doing this work 167 00:12:38.980 --> 00:12:42.380 um I think makes this relevant. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. 168 00:12:42.380 --> 00:12:46.790 How can listeners connect with you? The best place to find me through Lincoln? 169 00:12:46.800 --> 00:12:52.870 So Isabel papoulias looked me up and send me a message there and I'm much 170 00:12:52.870 --> 00:12:58.390 better responding on linked in than I am on email and that's why I'm I'm 171 00:12:58.390 --> 00:13:02.900 sharing Lincoln and nothing else. I also media flight, Media media Fly dot 172 00:13:02.900 --> 00:13:08.610 com. I wanted to mention that obviously you can track me that way or others on 173 00:13:08.610 --> 00:13:13.020 the leadership team uh and also the involved selling institute which is 174 00:13:13.020 --> 00:13:17.910 part of media fly. It's our leadership platform. So that's another another 175 00:13:17.910 --> 00:13:22.600 entry point point. There's also a lot of great content there around our 176 00:13:22.600 --> 00:13:26.360 categories. So awesome. Isabelle thank you so much for being on the podcast. 177 00:13:26.740 --> 00:13:28.760 Thank you for having me. Mm 178 00:13:31.240 --> 00:13:34.900 one of the things we've learned about podcast audience growth is that word of 179 00:13:34.900 --> 00:13:39.580 mouth works. It works really, really well actually. So if you love this show, 180 00:13:39.580 --> 00:13:43.500 it would be awesome if you texted a friend to tell them about it. And if 181 00:13:43.500 --> 00:13:47.830 you send me a text with a screenshot of the text you sent to your friend meta. 182 00:13:47.840 --> 00:13:51.470 I know I'll send you a copy of my book, content based networking. How to 183 00:13:51.480 --> 00:13:54.920 instantly connect with anyone you want to know. My cell phone number is 184 00:13:54.920 --> 00:14:01.450 40749033 to eight. Happy texting