INTERVIEW WITH
Scott Reis
HEAD OF MARKETING
MAIN INSIGHT 84
Scott Reis
HEAD OF MARKETING
In the digital age, what’s the human role in the buying journey?
It’s about meeting the customer where they are. Today’s B2B buyer is already very well informed, thanks to internet research, peer research and so on, so they come to the conversation with a strong idea of the market and of what they want. A recent article in Harvard Business Review suggested that 80% of B2B buyers already have a vendor in mind when purchasing software, and 90% of the time they choose from that list.
So I would say that empathy is important. The role of sales, now more than ever, is to be an educator – and to be honest and transparent. If someone has a problem they want to solve, the best thing a salesperson can do to be credible and add value for the customer is to set things out in a meaningful context – e.g. ‘Here's what the market landscape looks like, here's where we're good, and here's where our competitors are better.’ Being honest - in other words being a human - can add a lot of value in the buying process.
This isn’t about using well-worn business words like transformation, acceleration. It’s about speaking plainly, in a way that people will understand – particularly those who may not have heard of your product before.
I would also say that, whatever the ‘digital first’ emphasis to B2B buying now, there’s still great value in community and in events, where people can come together and share experiences, tips and ideas.
What does effective B2B marketing look like in 2023?
Although marketing is almost all digital now, in terms of how it's done, the fundamentals of marketing still apply. Those are positioning/messaging; understanding your customer; and content and channels.
To understand your positioning relative to your competitors, you need to talk to your customers so that you can address their needs in a clearly differentiated way. If you're just trying to copy your competitors, you're going to look similar whatever channel you use.
Content and channels go together. If you're a small company, you’ll ideally want to home in selected channels, and vary the content accordingly. If the priority is search engine optimization, long-form written content is likely to be most effective; whereas for LinkedIn ads you probably want short-form video content.
Determining how people consume content remains a human role, as is creating good strong content. Simply getting your CEO or a leader in your business to video themselves talking about issues in the market can be very powerful; then promoting and retargeting that content.
The need for human input is still very much there. The opportunity now is how to scale that in a digital way.
Content and channels go together. If you're a small company, you’ll ideally want to home in selected channels, and vary the content accordingly.
Lower-value tasks will be automated and the higher value human tasks, such as community building and educating, will become more highly prized.
Where does the potential for automation begin and end for you, in terms of marketing & sales?
Lower-value tasks will be automated and the higher value human tasks, such as community building and educating, will become more highly prized.
You see that on LinkedIn. If companies have an influencer joining the organization in a sales role for example, they’ll see a flood of demo requests and brand awareness, and gain a lot of benefit from that. So, there's a huge role for the human, even now.
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