On this episode of The Radcast, Ryan and Robbie discuss the opportunity for B2B companies to leverage more B2C tactics with a human touch, offering tips for businesses of all sizes.
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Ryan Alford [00:00:08] Hey, guys, what's up? Welcome to the latest edition of the Radical Company podcast. We're back to the podcast Friday. We don’t know when you'll be listening to this, but it's Friday here at the Radical and I'm excited to be joined by Robbie Fitzwater, one of our growth marketing strategists and just all around one of my favorite people.
Robbie Fitzwater [00:00:35] It’s an honor dear, you are the same to me too.
Ryan Alford [00:00:41] But I actually mean that because Robbie, you know, being in the marketing business and all that, it's like I feel we're on the same wavelength, kind of like fuel and energy. So I appreciate you coming here again, Robbie. And I know we're going to be wrapping about a lot of different things in the future. But today we wanted to talk about the changing nature of B2B marketing and how B2B is becoming and needs to be more human in the convergence and how B2B marketing tactics have a great opportunity to leverage more of what traditional media has been Robbie. And so I'm excited to kind of get into the details with you.
Robbie Fitzwater [00:04:05] So I think this is going to get super informative really fast. I think a lot of it in some ways comes back to kind of the emotion around B2B decisions. '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. There's no Netflix for plumbing, there's no Netflix for the “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. And if you can provide that, even if it's average comparatively to a lot of other businesses. But if it's adding value and the process of doing their job better and you can position yourself as an expert in authority, then that's really valuable information that you can give them and also the credibility you can build ahead of time. And I think we were talking about how 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 bio journey, they're already qualified by the time they get to the sales decision. And there's your sales team that knows they can close 80 percent of their sales as opposed to 10 percent of their sales because they have a qualified lead and they don't have to worry about hand holding, getting on early phone calls that are never going to convert at the end of the day. So there's so much that can be done with 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.
Ryan Alford [00:06:20] And right now, 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 hubs or destinations for people to really find that type of thing. I'm sure there's one off and someone's going to inevitably DM me or text me later that listens to like hey, you forgot about the symposium of plumbing and I'm sorry we forgot about that, but maybe there's a business idea here that we're cracking.
Robbie Fitzwater [00:06:56] Allowing yourself to be found, if it's published on YouTube and if you're doing yourself justice, you're probably posting that through your blog. That's hopefully keyword rich. That's going to be identifying keywords you want to focus on are common 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 there can also enjoy that too, saying, OK, I have an issue, this is my problem. Here's the solution. Here's other ways that you can go about solving that problem. Here's what you should be looking for in the product that would solve that problem. Here's what 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 kind of goes back to, I mean, providing a value before you ask for the transaction. And I mean, it's a tenet 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 1982, I realize I have a problem. I probably look up a few businesses in that space and I picked 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. I don't think that 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 seem to find ways to package that in a way to bring that expertise into the digital space.
Ryan Alford [00:08:52] Yeah, and the scary thing is, I know a lot of the B2B companies that I've worked with over the years, it's amazing how much stuff they're doing. They're doing a lot of stuff. They're doing it like there's collateral everywhere. They've kind of got a couple of videos and all that. But they're not optimizing for SEO. They don't have, like, true digital marketing around it. They're not atomizing. The content is for use across other things. It's just like they check the list off. I've got a brochure. I have a flier. I have a video. We have thirty million of them, depending on how big the product is or how big the category of the brand is. And it seems like they're doing a lot of stuff, but they're not. 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 are the silos of the organization. But the real opportunity for them is getting that into a hub type environment, getting that in a in a fee type environment and then atomizing it, sharing it and then leveraging what we're doing with some of our clients, that wall of sound across mediums, because a lot of these companies are sitting on tons and tons of data, customer data, information. It's almost like sitting there with the pizza in front of you going, I'm hungry.
Robbie Fitzwater [00:10:15] I need a knife and fork and some of it really comes down to fear and just not wanting to make a mistake, not wanting to try something different and fall in 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. My industry is different. We've done this for years. This is the way things are done. Human relationships and human connections are always going to be valuable in a bit of 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, the 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, the people who have this problem normally do this. Also, you may see this, this and this. And this is how we can help you solve all of those or be ready for all of these problems. It may also arise 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 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 Netflix for Plumbers and they're excited about it because you get them, you see them, as not just a prospect, but you see them as a person. And you can distribute that through your channels, but you can also give it to your sales team to let them distribute through their individual channels and talk to their clients, their list.
Ryan Alford [00:12:18] The interesting thing to that end, back to the purchase funnel for me, 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 them self-serve their way through the funnel, purchase can actually happen further up the funnel so that everything doesn't have to be so, um, salesperson pressure focused. And what's interesting is, OK, I think people may be hearing that, nodding, OK, that makes sense. I get that. But your messaging and your approach from your salespeople has to recognize what is happening and thus not turn into the shark and know that there’s already someone qualified that's been pushing them down the funnel and be reactive to that, knowing that that funnel 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.
Robbie Fitzwater [00:13:25] So it does come down to a lot of communication. I think that's a huge point, because if you're not communicating and they think they need to start from zero, they're going to be wasting their time, wasting everybody's time. That person's already down 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 maybe need a suggestion on. But I know what category. I need to be buying it now. I just need some. I've seen some hand holding in that last final touch. So I think that's where marketing and sales need to find, we need to find ways to get those groups together. If someone 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 those marketing sides of the house. Also, there's probably a great way to humanize your businesses, 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'd be a fantastic opportunity for a lot of businesses to take their sales team if 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 big. Oh, that's Adam. I know. Adam, you were in those videos. I loved I loved you in those videos. And you could put a human face to a brand and you can put a and ideally make an influence on that and user.
Robbie Fitzwater [00:16:11] Just anybody doing any business using LinkedIn as a channel. Please do not connect, try and connect and send a message right away that pitches your business. That's just the wrong way to approach it.
Ryan Alford [00:16:23] Everyone does though still. But I mean I've heard 15 messages connect as it connects and I usually don't turn someone down unless it's just like 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 Jeez 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 we work in an ad agency, we have copywriters. 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 work or earn my respect or trust.
Robbie Fitzwater [00:17:08] Anyway, cash off the softball.
Ryan Alford [00:17:10] so budget
Robbie Fitzwater [00:17:12] Mogul of Sandusky, Ohio, I don't necessarily need to know you or have any interest in LinkedIn. But it is 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 aren't like that. Great. It's this stuffy place 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 on 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 and the people are doing it well or are making are doing a killing on it because you have this beautiful network you've been cultivating over years and you can certainly leverage it and in a space and a little bit different way. And I love one thing. The behavior isn't necessarily set in stone yet. You haven't had that. Twitter’s snarky and irreverent and like it has a certain behavior. Facebook is baby photos and news stories. It's 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 a social perspective.
Ryan Alford [00:19:04] 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 women. I'm talking about a client and showing it. And the reach is just crazy, like two thousand people. And that just the algorithm alone, if you aren't leveraging, LinkedIn right now, is a business. And I might even argue as a B to C company, you're missing the boat because I don't know when you hit the scale of content because this is all about they've got an active audience. There's a certain amount 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.
Robbie Fitzwater [00:19:55] But it's crazy. I almost wonder because I always think about this and the economics of the platform, and I know we're going down the rabbit hole of LinkedIn right here,
Ryan Alford [00:20:03] But it's good. I think it's related, though, to the changing landscape of business and B2B.
Robbie Fitzwater [00:20:08] So it's owned by Microsoft. Microsoft has multiple streams of revenue, like if this were Facebook, Facebook sells that Facebook makes most money from selling ads there owned by Microsoft. They have a diversified advertising portfolio on LinkedIn, too, because you have the email, 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 the 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 that I mean, I think it takes a little bit longer before that algorithm hits that tipping point where its content saturates and I think people are still hard. It's hard to get people on board with it. Still, like I speak in a million classes or undergraduate college. It's 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. 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,
Ryan Alford [00:21:26] Whatever you do, don't do it immediately if you're a salesperson. And 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. Other sources, YouTube, depending on your business, maybe Facebook or business is still huge, but they're definitely going to LinkedIn, I suppose, 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.
Robbie Fitzwater [00:22:26] Yeah, like people process and product. I mean, if you can show the people that it’s the people that are making the donuts, the process they're going through, it's going to make for a much richer relationship in the long run. And I think if a business is smart, they can get a deal on board with that and show behind the scenes what's going on and how their business functions, what the process they looked like, what the process looks like when they vet new products or even if they're having a vendor come visit them. Like, how great is it 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 training on these new products they have so they can help. We can help educate the market. Now, there's so many easy things that they could do that even I am just showing what's going on in the day to day doesn't even have to be exciting and great just doing it. And that's a space that I can act truthfully and have full transparency. I don't do a better job of and I need to hold my own feet to the fire a lot better. But it's a way that they can probably consistently create easy content, isn't going to take moving heaven and earth to to publish.
Ryan Alford [00:23:37] If you're big enough and you're starting 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 have a LinkedIn presence. But I would have someone winning on the scale and size. I would have someone one hundred percent focused on LinkedIn. Right now, from your business standpoint, from a recruiting standpoint, from 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. Um, it's always kind of been there, but it's definitely becoming more of a hub. It was, like you said, the resume and the connection kind of building networking of social networking platforms. And it still is. But now it's so much more of that hub that you can leverage. I love to transition, Robby, as we kind of maybe close out the final ten minutes or so.
Robbie Fitzwater [00:24:39] And before we do, we want to shout out to our sponsor, LinkedIn, for this podcast.
Ryan Alford [00:24:43] Yes, LinkedIn. If you'd like to sponsor the next version of Radical Company podcast, you can dallis at one 800 LinkedIn. Um, in all seriousness. Let's get tactical, so be 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 that and I'm going to throw it back to you first since I'm talking right now, you get to be thinking about it when 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 and take advantage of being more human and leveraging some of the B2C opportunities that are out there.
Robbie Fitzwater [00:25:35] Work with grab grab a sales team member, and again, I sound like a broken record so much of the time, grab a sales team member, get it, take it, take your phone out and ask them what's the question you get asked the most on every phone call? What's a question you answer on every single phone call, record that and use it as you use it to upload you to transcribe that edit as a blog post. And that's a great piece of content you could possibly use if that's a if. That's a common question that people are asking, make sure it's and make sure it's worded the way that people are asking online use like and to the public for 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, humanized your sales team, but also use that in a way that 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 to their contact list of people who are there. Larger accounts are 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 I might find some value here. They're going to be able to, again, humanize themselves, use it, 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 I'm bored with it. And hopefully they can grab more of the sales team to get more of them invested into this easy contact that you can build.
Ryan Alford [00:27:21] 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 is the Google Analytics looking, setting up the proper tracking codes, doing all of these things we talked about 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 list or your customer lists. You can retarget the traffic that comes. This is just like some of the one on one digital marketing that a B2B company should be using. 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 product or 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, or breadcrumbs of those solutions that Robbie was talking about. A partial clip of a video that's leading us to helping them is because they're already a partner or they're a prospect for a reason. 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 one on one of digital marketing, whether that's SEO, whether that's retargeting, whether that's one to one marketing via these channels, but everaging the building blocks of traditional digital media.
Robbie Fitzwater [00:29:13] I mean, yeah, you take it from using digital marketing to build a relationship. Sales team isn't the only one who can build the 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 to, I don't know, I keep thinking about everybody's lives in a world where we use Amazon every day. We use products like Amazon. We use our expectations. That's how we make buying decisions. Why should it be any different? Think about that. Like we would be making a product decision because everybody makes hundreds of product decisions all the time. Varies like B2B take a lot more time and effort. It it, 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 be 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 go, letting a salesperson walk you through it. Because if you are, you're not doing yourself any favors. You probably lose yourself a lot of money. But it's using those channels in the way that they're most useful. And it's what marketers in the B2C 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.
Ryan Alford [00:30:33] That's right. A lot of this is just getting out of their comfort zone. I think you nailed it earlier, talking about it. I don't know if you use these exact words, but I think the B2B space has been known for being very calculated as in “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 I think you've got to break out of that perspective. And it's not about putting your company in a bad light or looking unprofessional. You're the expert. 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.
Robbie Fitzwater [00:31:16] And you're not adding any value. And you're going to somebody's to take that place. And that's kind of the opportunity as to 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 red ocean because you don't have so many competitors. And honestly if you do it OK, 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 yesterday. But right now, today is the best time to start something new and try something new. So that probably comes down to doing what a lot of the B2C market is doing and taking more risks, finding ways to 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 you to use the platform when it's not necessarily oversaturated by content or other behavior and we talked about this finding, learning, growing and experimenting and it 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?
Ryan Alford [00:32:24] And the last thing I would say one of the most common levers to pull is trade shows and experience. Like the trade show. They think about the experience that you're delivering at your trade show or your booth. Make it more human, make it more interesting. Like I think it's leveraging whether it's, leveraging the power of social media, doing live streams when that becomes available on LinkedIn. But I think that's always going to be a big tactic in a big medium, the experience side at trade shows and events and networking in those kind of things. But I think businesses need to really be thinking through how to make that experience more human as well.
Robbie Fitzwater [00:33:08] And we could probably do a whole podcast on this. How do you take that trade show and make it from a hey. 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 is 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, 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. Yeah. 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 work on targeting any attendees who may be coming from these businesses? You can get in the weeds and cringingly and tactical and targeting people with certain job titles in certain industries on LinkedIn to say, hey, if you're going to this conference, come see us here. So positioning on the front end and using data the way you should.
Ryan Alford [00:34:23] Well, I know B2B is passionate for you. It's becoming a bigger niche for Radical. I know we'll have more sessions. I know we want to. I know we talked about getting down the account based marketing and the channel marketing side is a whole another rabbit hole we can go down.
Robbie Fitzwater [00:34:40] Yeah, these are fun. Honestly, it's true that we live in exciting times. And that's one of the best parts about this is there's still the Wild West and so much of marketing of B2B, a little bit more so than the B2C. But if you can take the learnings we're seeing in people that are doing B2C really well, those just apply so well. And 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 with.
Ryan Alford [00:35:10] 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 DOT Company is a web address. You can find us on Instagram at radical underscore results and we are on LinkedIn. Please follow along and share this podcast. I hope you have a great day.