¶ Millennials' Impact on B2B Marketing
Welcome . This is the Public Relations Review Podcast , a program to discuss the many facets of public relations with seasoned professionals , educators , authors and others . Now here is your host , Peter Woolfolk .
Welcome to the Public Relations Review Podcast and to our listeners all across America and around the world . Now I'm very pleased to make this very special announcement that , as of September 2023 , apple has ranked this podcast among the top 1% of podcasts worldwide .
So I want to thank all of my guests for making this possible and to my audience , for your continued support . Now here's a question for you . Are you aware that millennials are reshaping business to business marketing as they move into leadership roles ? Millennials influence has also extended from the product to the process of how these products are marketed and sold .
My guest today will help us to understand what changes are taking place in B2B marketing and how we must adapt to keep pace . Frank Strong is a writer for the sword and the script . Here's the article . Six ways millennials are reshaping B2B marketing as they move into leadership roles certainly got my attention .
As a result , frank joins me today from Atlanta , georgia . Let me welcome Frank Strong .
Hey , peter , thanks for having me .
Look , tell me what was it that led you to write this particular article .
I'm a voracious reader , so I read B2B you know 20 , 30 articles about B2B , marketing , pr , social media every day , and I always like to keep an eye out for studies , and this one struck me as a good one , so I dove into it and wrote up some of the things I thought were interesting for me and , hopefully , for the people that I work with .
Well , let's talk about them . What to talk ? At the beginning , I think you said six items . What is the first one that you found that stood out ?
Just a quick background . So this is a survey by the Winterberry Group . They did it in partnership with the ANA , that's , the Association of National Advertisers . They're big on Madison Avenue .
If you're in the advertising space you've certainly heard of them , and one of the things I think this group was looking to do is kind of quantify some of the generational shifts that we're seeing .
So when you think about the boomers , those are people that grew up at the end of World War II , gen X in the 80s , the Lachke kids and the millennials were the next generation , and what makes them so different is they are the biggest generation since the baby boomers , and as the baby boomers retire , the millennials are moving into leadership positions and that's
having a big impact . So one of the first ones , the first finding to hear , was that 58% of B2B marketers that were surveyed said customers are spending more time researching products and services online before making purchases . That's not especially new per se . We've known this probably for the last 10 years .
I think Forrester Research wrote and published a book called , I think the Forrester Research . You know 12 or 14 or so that customers are . You know 80 to 85% of the way through their journey before they even talk to a salesperson . So we know this is happening . All we know is that this is accelerating with this next generation .
Mm-hmm .
Well , I can certainly say that that's one of the things that I do . I certainly look at reviews and so forth before I decide which product I'm going to buy .
Yeah , 100% , that's actually the six one too . Well , I'm there speaking generically here . Customers are looking , they're doing the research . They may be looking for studies , product sheets . You know comparisons If you have news coverage , right , yeah , those are the audience that works in PR . You know . Showcase that news .
I'm continuously amazed at how many clients will spend a fortune getting coverage and then not showcase it when it's done . And in this fractured media environment , right , when I was a kid growing up you turned on the television . There were three channels ABC , nbc and CBS . Today they're right .
So the media landscape is very fractured and what that means for earned media , the type of placements that PR can get , is that getting the placement , what you do with a placement is just as important as getting it in the first place .
Because , yeah , you certainly did mention that social media has become increasingly important as a source of information for consumers .
Yeah , that's right . That was the second one . The survey found 54% are looking at social media is increasingly important and I think this runs contrary to a narrative that has unfolded a blade that social media is dying or is changing or is going away or somehow it's not relevant anymore .
Some of that , I think and this is just my personal opinion I don't have any view , but as a market watcher , if you will , I think some of this is . Yeah , it's such a negativity that has unfolded around Twitter following the Elon Musk acquisition . He's making a bunch of changes and the number of people .
The volume of people saying that social media is over has grown . The fact is , the data says that's not true . So you still gotta keep your social media channels going , and it's gonna be increasingly important to you as money has moved into leadership positions .
That's certainly understandable . Now , what are some of the other things that you found that you will put this article together ?
So they had a couple of points . Another one all of these were close to 50% . So the third point was 51% said personalization is becoming increasingly important to media consumption for B2B .
We know this is true , right , and it's gotta move beyond having an email that can do dear name , dear first name , dear Peter , dear Frank or whoever your customer's first name is , personalization has to be a level of relevancy . We talk about thought leadership . Let's demonstrate some thought leadership .
Let's do some things that show people really smart and what this research is saying . People want and need buyers of your products because they wanna know you understand their industry , their problem and how to solve that problem for people in their industry . So personalization has a level of relevance , if you will .
Let's go to number four .
Yeah , number four 50% of customers now expect and are more likely to engage with brands that produce high quality and engaging content . So again , no brainer . People want high quality content . What's the problem with that ? The problem is high quality is a subjective term and quality can be in the eye of the holder .
There's a little bit of concern about AI and whether or not it's going to replace writers . I don't see that happening at this point in time . Maybe in the near future this stuff's going to be fast , but right now , I think the things that are at threat are the low quality writers .
If you have low quality content that you need written , ai can do that for you . If you're doing high quality stuff , complex stuff that's typically associated with B2B . Usually these things are complicated , enterprise software AI takes time to articulate the sales value , to showcase studies , demonstrate value , to build a case , to make a case for budget .
Those require just a different level that I don't think AI is going to be able to replace . That makes sense . Number five , the fifth takeaway , was 46% . So customers are increasingly accessing content on mobile devices . We know millennials are . They're the digital natives . They are the first generation that grew up completely digital . The generation X .
We're kind of a hybrid generation . We had one foot in the analog world and then computers and things got big as we were in high school and college . If you were smart in high school , you took a typing class and found out that was the most valuable class you ever took . Folks are looking at stuff on their mobile device and what does that mean for companies ?
We've known this for a while Desktop search in Google . Google says desktop search in Google surpassed , or mobile search surpassed , desktop search in 2015 . That was eight years ago . So people are searching for content on mobile devices . It isn't new , but some of the things that need to catch up are the friction points . We put in place B2B .
We love our created content . We want to trade valuable content , valuable information for somebody's contact information . If you're trying to do that on a mobile device super frustrating chances are people are just going to skip you over .
¶ B2B Reviews and Millennials in Business
Going back to number four , one of the things that I did want to bring up , because you talked about quality , and quality is a subjective thing , so how are they going to be able to manage , or did the survey reveal how that's going to be addressed ?
I guess I'd have two thoughts . One just as an experienced writer , you kind of know it when you see it . You can see good content , you can see bad content and I think for folks in the PR shop , part of your job is to counsel clients , counsel executives , if you're on the in-house side , of what is good and what isn't , and demonstrate why .
That's a little bit of a wishy-washy answer , if you will . So a better answer , or another one that should work in conjunction with that , is to look at the analytics . You have to be able to see analytics .
You have to see what is attracting readers to a site , to your site , what they're spending their time with , how much time they engage with that content and where they go afterwards . You've got to understand their journey on your site . They come to your page and read an article and lead . Do they come to your page and subscribe to your blog or article site ?
Do they come to your page Are they a journalist and start clicking around in the newsroom and sign up for your distribution list ? Are they going over to a landing page and typing in their information and giving you that contact information because they want to download the white paper or they want to take a demo .
So the answer to quality content is I think it comes with experience , and you have to augment that with analytics , because you're going to have to base , you're going to have to articulate it in something other than my 20 years of experience . Blah , blah , blah . People want to see data , and that's where the analytics comes to play .
Okay .
Talking about peer reviews , this is something that you said is reflective of your own personal experience . I think probably a lot of us have 44% said peer reviews and user generated content are playing a greater role in the purchasing decision making process . Look , a company is a commercial enterprise . It is going to act in its own interest .
It is going to say things in its marketing and communications that are flattering of itself , and People want that unvarnished view . Right , that's supposed to be public relations . Biggest claim to fame is that something written by a third party publication is more valuable because you've curbed your way into it .
You were written on the merits of the idea rather than the amount of cash you have in your pocket that can spend on advertising .
So let me know , if it's true , the only other thing I'd add there is with the user generated content .
It's been the wild west . It's still the wild wild west . Anybody can go into any of these review fights , trust , pile at Glassdoor , google Maps and write reviews of your small business owner . It can generate their own importance .
What I will say is there is other research studies that show if you get a negative review , how your business responds to that negative review can have as much impact on the buyer's decision as the review itself . So how you respond to something has an impact on shaping people's perception .
So if you get a bad review .
Don't be upset about it , just address it . Take it . Address it agnostic , independently and objectively as you can . They'll get wrapped up and know that your response counts . People consider it and obviously there's been other research studies . That wasn't in this one here , but I've seen this numerous times . It's been replicated multiple times .
If you have a site with all five star reviews , people just don't believe it . They don't think it's credible . Nobody has five stars right . Everybody gets two and threes every now and then maybe a one .
You can't make everybody .
That's just a fact of life .
Have you noticed any industries that are sort of lagging and getting involved in the B2B reviews at all ?
Yeah , so to answer your question , I haven't seen anyone lagging . I think one of the biggest things is that when these review sites all started getting built up , they started to get what was also called intent data . They have a website listing reviews from thousands of different products .
They can see what people are looking at and how much time they're spending with it and what are the features they're looking at . And then , oh , by the way are they going over and looking at a competitive product on their site at the same time so they can take that data and sell it ? I remember one of the first examples was a CMO .
That was like heck , you all pay for that . If someone comes to my webinar , fills out my form , and they're in my cycle , they're in my business cycle , they're in my database . I'm going to start trying to do some nurturing emails and get them interested in my product . Maybe they'll raise their hand and take a demo .
But if I have a review site that can tell me when that prospect goes and looks at a customer data , a competitive site , rather I want that information right away . Trigger that send that to me right away . I'll get that to the salesperson and then I'm going to send the salesperson to follow up with 24 hours .
So that's just an example of how sophisticated that can be and why I think those review sites have taken off , because it's not just the review , but they get data from those reviews and they're selling that back to the companies that are getting reviewed by customers . That's kind of a brief answer .
Hopefully that gets to the point here to the question you're asking .
Okay , now the other thing , and I've heard it mentioned from time to time that there have been fake reviews detected . Have you run across how that's being addressed by the industries ?
I think that's a classic crisis situation for PR . It should become second nature . If there's a problem , fix it . If there's a problem and it's taking a while to fix it , make sure you put out some notice about how you're addressing it . I think the review sites have gotten pretty good at policing reviews up .
One of the things that you'll notice they'll all do and you can see this on commercial sites on Amazon is they will verify the purchase . When you see a review , you verify the purchase at first .
I think it's not to say that it's not a problem , and some companies maybe get hit harder than others , but I think the industry's done a pretty good job of policing that up .
That's good to hear . I'm just wondering is there anything additional that maybe we haven't touched on in terms of how B2B or I should say millennial influencing is involved in the sale and production and movement of product ?
Yeah , I think the only thing is no matter . This study was about B2B , but I think and I'm speaking primarily from technology experience B2B tech experience , but I don't think it matters what industry you're in . We're all aging together .
The generations are all shifting together , so any industry that you're in is going to see more and more millennials in leadership positions . I know this is true , for example , in law . Legal is a huge industry in the United States . Depending on whose numbers you believe , anywhere between $100 and $300 billion trade hands around legal services in the US every year .
The US , not the world , just the US . So it's an enormous industry and we know that law firms are increasingly starting to see money as break into the partner ranks . So that's coming . That's going to happen everywhere you are . It doesn't matter what industry you're in .
Well , I think that you know you certainly provided some good information here , and one of the reasons , obviously , that we're talking is because I saw it and I thought it was important that our listeners hear about this and , you know , make sure that they're on board with why these changes are taking place and how they might have to come to grips with them in
the near future . So , let's say , do you have any sort of closing remarks that you think that we should hear ?
No , I think that's just it . It doesn't matter what space you're in , everybody's going to see this change so keep your eyes open and your ears listening for the changes in your space .
¶ Insights on Millennials Reshaping B2B Marketing
Well , my guest today has been Frank Strong . He's a writer for the script and the script , and his article Six Ways Millennials on Reshaping Business to Business Marketing has certainly opened my eyes to a lot of things that I was not aware of . Frank , once again , thank you so much for joining us today .
Yeah , thanks for having me , peter . It's fun talking to you .
And to my listeners . I hope you've enjoyed the show . Obviously , if you have or would like to get a review from you and also share this with your colleagues , and again , please join us for the next edition of the Public Relations Review Podcast .