Is your brand being neglected right now ? Do you have 10 questions about digital marketing burning a hole in your pocket ? Well , it's your lucky day , because that content is coming up . Hello and welcome to the Marketers of the Universe .
I'm your host , Haydn Woods-Williams , digital Marketing Team Lead here at Brew Digital , and today I'm being put in the hot seat to test my knowledge on b2b marketing strategy . So if you want to see me squirm , stick around .
Marketers the world over , hold on to your headphones as it's time for the lightning round , where Marketing Moxie meets its match against the clock with next to zero planning , no point system and definitely no prizes , and this is a blitz . The biz name not finalized . Hello and welcome .
So my name is tominus , I am the content marketing manager for brew digital and I have the privilege of putting hayden in the hot seat . We are going to be asking him 10 questions . I'm going to give him roughly 30 seconds each . I don't know what the scoring system is going to be for this yet . Will there be points or prizes ?
Probably not , and afterwards we're going to talk a little bit about how you can get involved with something Brew is working on in the coming weeks . Hayden , are you ready ? Nope , good , I would hate it if you were . So we are going to set a clock for 30 seconds .
Like I said , you've got 10 questions to go through and I just want your immediate reactions to each question . Hopefully you're not talking utter nonsense , because there will be no fact checking and there will be no peer review , but I know that you work a lot on strategy , so this should be groovy , right .
What is the biggest mistake b2b marketers make when crafting their strategy not researching enough .
So many bad strategies are made for assumptions . I worked for a company who had like 100,000 organic traffic . Director was super happy we did the research into it . All of it was irrelevant . So we had to pivot , change the content , change the targeting .
And yeah , if you don't research and you don't learn your audience , you're not going to have a successful campaign or marketing strategy so it has to be research led and not gut led definitely , definitely . I know I mentioned audience research there . Actually it's the entire market research excellent .
So , um again , you going to have 30 seconds , but I'm going to ask for only one sentence . So if you want to take a little bit of time , we'll do some clever editing so it doesn't seem like you're taking ages to think about it . But in one sentence , what's the key to effective , account-based marketing ?
Am I going to make this a real complex sentence ? Use some of those AI em dashes . Getting on with your sales team is super important and just not leaving things to chance . So spending time to create custom content , yeah .
How often should a B2B marketing strategy be reviewed and updated ?
Every day , well , maybe every week . I think it should be something that is living like . It should underpin everything that you do , and that doesn't mean making a plan for 12 months . It means putting a group of research and knowledge and objectives and direction together that underpins everything you're doing for the next 12 months . You can still be reactive .
You can still be proactive .
Two seconds over , damn it . Am I talking too quickly ? I don't think you're talking too quickly , no , but two seconds over . If there were points or prizes , you would be missing out . I'm going to get fired if I don't pass this . That's a . That's a rich question . Cool , I am still here listening . So you're being judged . He's looming .
Yeah , you're william header , but at the top of the zoom screen . How important is personalization in b2b marketing on a scale from one to ten , and why ?
uh , I'm gonna put it at eight because if you don't do it you're missing out . And I'm not giving it a ten because if you're doing it but you're doing it badly because I gave it a ten , then it's much worse than not doing it at all . So , yeah , eight . And don't forget to personalise certain parts of the campaign to the hidden buyers .
So , finance and legal , like , you've got to influence those people too . And that's probably put me over 30 seconds again , isn't it ?
I had reset the timer already . You found a little cheat there by just pretending you'd finished . So what is the most underutilized channel in B2B marketing today ?
Reddit and I don't mean from a paid perspective , because that's really growing , but Reddit is one of the only places organically on Reddit that you can find a community of people who are interested in what you sell , who have self-selected to be there , and if you can authentically tap into that community , that is gold unfortunately this is quickfire questions , so I'm
not going to be following up on that , but we will , I think , have to do another podcast section on this , because nobody talks about reddit particularly or , if they do , they talk about it from a paid perspective .
Yeah , it's such a brilliant , brilliant channel , albeit a bit scary it can be nasher in the comments agrees with you as well . So there you go . There's your peer review of your answer Over delivering . That's the true digital promise . So what is your go-to metric for measuring B2B marketing success ?
I should say , as someone who worked in , paid for a long time , I should say robust and ROI and direct attribution , but I don't actually think that is the case . I'm going to say overall revenue and company growth because if you're all working together as a team , like it doesn't matter who had the assist , it doesn't matter who scored the goal .
The only measurable good outcome is that the company is growing in the right direction . That's not to say like just totally ignore attribution , um , but the overall kpi should be business growth in your opinion , what's the next big trend in b2b marketing ? would it be a cop-out to say ai , um , no , I'm actually going to go the other end of ai .
There's so much ai content at the moment that if you can give real world examples , both positive examples and negative examples , then you're going to disrupt all of the content that is being ai generated because it doesn't have that authentic experience so , in a world where AI is becoming more prevalent , you want to be more human . Yeah , I guess so .
Thank you for summing that up .
That's okay . That has cost you some points . What is one tool every B2B marketer should be using ? But probably isn't , and I will not accept Reddit as an answer .
Damn it . I'm not going to recommend a tool because there's no tool that is fits all . Um , I'm going to go back to research and I'm going to say don't just pin research on talking to a customer , it's more than that .
Use google , use ai , use reddit , use industry associations I know I said reddit , um , everything in that circle is going to help you understand your audience more and how your product or service fits in with that audience .
Like I don't feel you're respecting the rules here . Can you imagine if somebody went on like who wants to be a millionaire and they decided I don't want to answer that question , I'm going to answer a different one instead .
Okay , okay , no , no , no . I'm going to think of a tool , google Docs . And why Multiple people collaborating on one document ?
Very good .
Very good , very dry , very dry .
Yeah , that will be factored into whatever reward system is put in place here .
My .
God . So our final question . Your prize hangs in the balance In seconds , because this is a jeopardy round . What is your advice for a b2b marketer just starting their career ?
uh , have a good manager , and if you have a bad manager , find another job . Away from that , though , like listen to what people say , try and learn every week and be as curious as you can be , and don't be scared to make mistakes . I once got sued .
Lots of one pick there . 20 seconds , damn it . Secondly , does everybody need to have a bad manager ?
No , I think it's better if you don't have a bad manager . But if you are stuck in a position where you have a bad manager , you don't have a bad manager .
But if you are stuck in a position where you have a bad manager , don't just stick it out because you feel like you've got to be in a job a year or two years or whatever , like it's going to be so much better for your progression if you find somewhere where you are treated as a person , treated as a person with a life and you have the space to blossom .
Words to live by .
It's the most 15 seconds of my life . It's fine .
We'll make it work . We will make it work and at the end of this quickfire round , hayden , I can announce that you have got hey . So , future Tom , here there will be no point scoring system , because I could not work out how to make sense of the chaos . So everybody's a winner and it's all about the friends we made along the way . Wow , you did so well .
What a fair and transparent scoring system we've used . Thank you for joining or enduring us on our first and possibly last episode of Blitz the Diz , and thanks to Hayden for perching on the hot seat .
But the conversation is not actually over , because I promised a discussion on how you , dear listener , can get involved with what Brew Digital is sort of putting out there in the world , and we have a webinar that we are going to be running in the next couple of weeks and , hayden , you were at one point going to actually be hosting it .
Obviously , since we made these podcast plans , things have changed , but we're nothing if not dogmatic to approach , so I thought you would still be the best person to tell us about what's going on . So can you give us a very quick overview as to what the webinar is about ?
yeah , of course I think so . The , the webinar is called , is your b2b marketing strategy ready for 2025 , and we've got two marketers from outside of brew who are working in the tech space and our head of digital marketing services , rich , just talking about all of the really key things that are going to fall into strategy in 2025 .
You know , we've covered brand in the topic before this and we mentioned ABM in the quickfire questions . I think it's just digging into those things and working out how to stand out in a B2B world .
That is more interesting than people give it credit for , but still a little bit boring could you tell us a little bit about why you chose to focus on strategies ?
if it's , like , more important than people give it credit for , but it's still deemed boring , why are we doing a webinar on this ?
one of the things that I I think is is going to come out of the um , the webinar , and because it an open panel conversation , you never know what's going to come up .
But is that importance on research and researching landscape really beginning to change , with buyer group behavior changing and then with the economy in a place where spending cash frivolously is no longer viable and you have to kind of which is for good reasons , like justify every budget spend you have ?
But how will the webinar address the challenges of turning digital interest into qualified leads and loyal customers ?
So we will talk a little bit about demand gen and how demand gen has evolved from lead gen , but we're also going to look at brands in there as well , alongside ABM , to really understand what you are looking for when it comes to lead generation and qualified leads , because one of the things that we try to encourage our customers to do is to move away from
those unnecessary forms for your customers in exchange for leads . Having that content out in the open , like we spoke about last episode around zero click content it's really adding value up front , and with ai , it's more difficult than ever to actually add value .
So I think that is where there is going to be key and we will go through how we are using that method to create qualified leads and , interestingly , we've actually run this ourselves for brew digital , you know we we practice what we preach we practice what we preach .
Thank you , tom , but yeah , it's really , it's been a really effective strategy for us here at brew digital to grow our inbound leads and over the last 12 months , we've seen massive growth in both you know income inbound leads and over the last 12 months , we've seen massive growth in both you know income inbound leads , referral leads , and also pipeline and revenue
because of this strategy , and that's , I think , credit to it .
We do talk a lot about providing value to your audiences , and it's something that we always strive to do with all of the content we create . So what is the one key takeaway that you hope attendees will get from this webinar ?
I think , is that there is no one size fits all . And when it comes to there's no one size fits all , that means there's no secret sauce . There's no reason that this company is more successful than this company .
It all comes down to taking the time and effort to do the research to understand how your product or service impacts your customers and prospective customers , and then crafting content that shows you and your employees to be authentic , involved and knowledgeable in that industry . And from there you know , you can grow any brand .
Um , you can grow any product , any service , as long as the product and service isn't shit . If your product and service is shit , then you're screwed I don't know .
I think I can think of many products that are pretty shit and are still selling pretty well yeah , but you said pretty shit .
Pretty shit implies there's a little bit of goodness in there good marketing , there you go , uh , that's right . So hayden says you can't polish a turd . Tom polishes turds for a living is that in reference to the article my rain , the other world ?
who would benefit hayden from attending this webinar ?
B2B marketers . For one , I think , if you're in a company that is selling products , I'm about to define B2B marketing . Why the f*** am I doing that ? And B2B marketers ? Because , as I said before , the industry is evolving .
Ai is changing how we work and I think a lot of the time , ai is making us lazier than it is actually making us think and work harder oh sorry , smarter , not harder .
And I think if you're a B2B marketer who's maybe frustrated with the marketing and the direction that it's going , then hopefully we can give you a few tips and tricks that are just going to help you get to the next stage , find that next footstep , and it's all about taking the next footstep and taking the next footstep , because there's no magic juice .
I'm now thinking of Bugs Bunny's Space Jam , the special stuff , are you right ? We are literally on the last question , hayden space jam , the special stuff , Are you right ?
We are literally on the last question , Hayden , and it is how can our listeners register for the webinar and when is it taking place ?
The webinar is taking place on the 6th of March at 2 o'clock UK time . You can register by finding the link in the description of the podcast , or head to brooddigitalcom , go to our resource hub and it will be listed in there as well . Yeah , or follow us on social media and find it there , or sign up for an email and we'll send it to you .
All of those things work too .
Awesome . Thank you so much , hayden . Again , it's going to be a real shame that you're not going to be there in attendance , but I know the guest lineup that we have is incredible . So everybody who is remotely interested in strategy and , let's be honest , we all should be , if we want to be better marketers you should definitely attend Hayden .
Do you want to read us out ?
No , do you know what , Tom ? Today you're going to read us out ? Okay , today you're going to read it .
So , okay , that's all that we have time for today . Thank you so much for listening and we hope that you have found some useful snippets . We love that you've made it this far through your listen and we love making this content , so it'd be amazing if you could recommend the show to one friend that you think would enjoy listening .
To make sure that you check out our past episodes and subscribe on whatever platform you use to listen to your podcasts , and we will see you on on the next one . I've not been Hayden , but these have been the marketers of the universe , the positive energy . Okay , there's gonna be music . I'm gonna find some game show music .
I don't know how I'm gonna actually structure any of this , but there'll be game show music .