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5 Steps to Build a B2B Target Audience (Samsung Marketer Explains) · The Crowded Market

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Today we sit down with Hailey Phipps, who is the European Regional Manager of B2B Marketing for Samsung.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Today Hailey talks to us about why she chose B2B Marketing over consumer and never looked back.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: The struggle is convincing the B2C teams that you are worth a seat at that table, and your marketing is bringing ROI into that company.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: My struggle is convincing people within Samsung to want to put their face on LinkedIn.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: I promise.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's not easy.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: As well as how you can create your very own B2B audience.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: We spoke about on our call building five steps to build a B2B target audience.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: So this feeds nicely on from building those AI personas.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get into it.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Haley, thank you so much for joining me today.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: B2B being, you know, the topic of conversation, B2B marketing, seen as the the unsexy cousin of maybe consumer marketing.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: You've worked in Ogilvie for a number of years directly with your B2B clients.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: You now work at Samsung in the B2B arm.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: You've done a number of years in B2B.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: What has kept you in that part of marketing?
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so there is this perception that that B2B is is this kind of hidden sibling.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that there is a lot of uh the the people that generally work in B2B are the grafters.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: So they tend to choose the difficult in that high risk, high reward kind of philosophy.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: So Ogilvie was a big kind of is a big huge agency, massive.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: We were talking about a little bit before, weren't we?
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um to give the people who are listening a little bit of a background as to who you are and your credibility in this sphere, what kind of what were you doing at Ogilvie?
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Who did you kind of are you allowed to talk about who you worked with or not?
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Or like what um and what kind of things did you get out to?
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: What what have you how have you seen the landscape change over your you know almost a decade in this in this part?
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the the B2B industry has gone through a massive shift, like where we used to be working on really data-heavy um content that was very like that we we were always doing loads of internal video pieces, lots of event space, like face-to-face things, and then we went through a shift where everything moved into digital.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, there's been a big transition through B2B, and now we've kind of exploded into this world of like influencers and like the the sea of content that is now available in the B2B space has uh has really like flooded it.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I think the there should now, you know, with the aid of AI, be a big shift kind of back towards hopefully gaining more insight and then going back to what is what is like the gold that is worth mining in B2B because I think the people that work in B2B need to like they're the ones that really, really dig deep to find those gems and like choose the hard pathway to go down and kind of shine at the end of it.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's a strange place to be B2B, and you were kind of part of that that strange transition period as I was, where LinkedIn started kicking up, and then now you say there's B2B, there's influences on LinkedIn and things like that, and it's turning into a very strange place, and classically because it's behind B2C and it kind of follows instead normally, doesn't it?
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um but that I find that the gap between like it used to be kind of like a decade later, B2B would cut on onto those marketing, like, oh, we need to be a bit more human, and then it was like, oh, we need to do this, and then now all of a sudden that gap's gotten a bit shorter, and now it's kind of like two years after B2C's does something, like B2B then follows suit.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's a bit of a it's a minefield, and like I think I was talking to you earlier as well about we used to be able to just go in and make a brand film and it would be like this huge new profound project for a business, and they'd be like, We there is no one else that has done this, we have cracked it.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Marketing, like big tick next to it, we've done it.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's not enough, is it?
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a strange, yeah, it's a strange place.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: So you're at Samsung now.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm assuming everybody knows who Samsung is who's listening to this.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'd hope so.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um but specifically you're in the B2B arm of it.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: What's what's that like?
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: If you want your business to have a podcast that looks like this, then you need to work with us to produce it.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: To work with us, link is in the description.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I am um the European marketing manager for B2B at Samsung.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I I work really closely with 16 local markets within Europe, and I also work as like a conduit between the Global Head, which is in South Korea, right, um, and obviously then into my local markets.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's like Samsung is in itself, and a lot of global corporations are like this.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: They they have hidden kind of fingers in B2B industries all over the world.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: So like Samsung works with in like construction, healthcare, shipping, and like uh semiconductors and microchips.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: So like there is a lot of B2B within that market space.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: The the struggle is convincing the B2C teams that you are worth a seat at that table, and your marketing is bringing ROI into that company.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: And also, but I mean B2C, you get that direct sale, very quick, very quick sales.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas B2B, the sales cycle is notoriously, let's just say longer.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: And uh there I say it, gruelling sometimes, right?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: How but the reward I would say is is much larger at the end of that, isn't it?
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, whereas those direct B2C campaigns, a lot of little wins, whereas the big B2B ones, it's like boom, huge contract, for example, right?
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, how do you market to that?
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like how what do you do to market to these audiences to make you know to make such big purchase decisions for from these, you know, these businesses?
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: There are so many ways that you can kind of pull levers within B2B.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's why I love it so much.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: There's, you know, you can you can run off with like sales enablement content, there's webinars, you can gamify some sort of training material for the sales teams to fully understand the product that you're talking about.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they're B2B can be creative in so many different ways that that the consumer teams, I sometimes think they're not thinking in the same way that we are.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they're not having to hurdle as many barriers over such a long-distance marathon in order to get there at the end.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, that instant reward that they're feeling and that you know, being able to go to senior leadership with like, I ran this campaign, here's all the sales that made that I made as a result of that.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um coming into senior leadership meetings with a, I've got a plan, it's going to like it'll run for six months and we won't start seeing returns for another year.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's really, really difficult to get their buy-in on campaigns that you want to run like that.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Do you ever feel like you're do you ever feel like the B2B arm of the business is I don't know, has it ever been overshadowed, or do you ever feel like that you're like the little brother or something like that or not?
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Or does it always feel equal?
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: I've always felt like a kind of plucky underdog in that space.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but fun way to be though.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's kind of a little chip on my shoulder, but it gives me so much motivation to prove myself and show up in those meetings, bring that data, and yeah, try and kind of I I'm quite an autodidactic person as well.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm very like, I learn as I go, like I won't ask for help on my way.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I found that that takes me in a like if I don't ask for help, I just end up going in circles.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas if I, you know, reach out to somebody, I can then speak to someone in the CRM team, and then I kind of go on this squiggly journey, and I've all of a sudden now I'm speaking to the retail team and the e-commerce team, and all of these people in the business now know who I am, and I've kind of created this amazing network of support and awareness for just B2B as a practice.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: How big's the B2B on then of Samsung?
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: So within the mobile like marketing team, um, I'm a team of one at the moment.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I've got so much support.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: So it sounds crazy for a company bigger Samsung.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, obviously each local market has has their own like B2B team in each country.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like they're a huge army.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they're tiny and mighty, uh, the B2B teams that work in the local markets.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, I have like I've there's a lot on the plate, like that's channel marketing, there's making sure like events are happening, uh, and obviously like digital campaigns, the global launches, you know, there's there's a lot that goes on as a part of that.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: But like I said, like there are other entire departments that run, you know, industry vertical B2B marketing content for like healthcare and construction, so like air conditioning that goes in hotels and things like that.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: There's like the mobile business that can like includes phones, tablets, laptops, wearables, is a small part of Samsung.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I'm like a small part within that.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Do you guys like get together or not?
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: Or do you know what I mean?
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like you seem to be all kind of these lone rangers out in the field.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there is a lot of like community within B2B.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think there is there's this unify like unity that brings us together.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we're really, really fortunate that actually the the team in South Korea, the global B2B team in South Korea, is like so supportive of us.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I've managed to get to Korea a couple of times and they've like brought some of the other local markets together.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we basically just get together, talk about our wins, share ideas, share content.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because you know, we don't have the resources that the B2C team often get.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's important for us to be able to share our content with each other um and find out what's working in other teams.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, speaking to the US team, speaking to Australia, um, Singapore, and you know, finding out what's working for them.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: What have they found, you know, new audiences in?
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, marketing can be a very lonely part of the business, I find.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a part of the business where everybody feels like they have an opinion about too.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: But it's it put like we go to a couple of events a year, and they're always just the you know, you leave with the juices flowing.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because I don't think you normally get that opportunity specifically in a job, especially in especially in B2B, because they're much smaller teams than consumer marketing, like you're a one-man band on like the m you know on the mobile side of it, but like that is one section of a huge entity, right?
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: And you're you're v there's seldom opportunities to have that bounce back.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um what are some stuff?
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: So for people who are listening thinking, what kind of things are you running?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: What kind of campaigns are working?
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: What where are you seeing rewards in in marketing at the moment for you?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: What we're really working on in in uh in our markets at the moment is trying to start using community-led marketing.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: So um we've run campaigns on Reddit recently.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, interesting.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: In a few countries.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: So um, yeah, we found that our particular audience, like IT managers, kind of cut their teeth on Reddit back when they were gamers who were trying to optimize their PCs at home or make their networks faster on you know, at home and and things like that.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: They they were troubleshooting these things in community channels, they're already familiar with that.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, we we're trying to kind of utilize that space in a really humble and honest way.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, yeah, it's a place that I think uh there's a lot of room to grow for B2B.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: Talk to me more about Reddit.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like what I've this has popped up a couple of times.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like I met with um somebody last time that we recorded who was seeing huge rewards from X.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, that's still going.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: If you like the way this podcast looks, then we can do this for you.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: LRB are a B2B podcast production agency that drive leads and sales for your business using the podcasting strategy.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: Link in the description.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: People are still on there, and he was like, Yeah, it's like it's where our community lives.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone talks about it.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: He was in um, I think it was Web3, things like that, which was straight over my head, right?
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: But he was talking about how, yeah, everybody that he's doing community-based marketing, but on X, but you're doing a similar thing on Reddit.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: How does that work?
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: What does that look like?
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: How's Reddit servicing you?
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so we've run um, we've run like security campaigns on trying to address like misperceptions um and uh really kind of myth bust on there.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um we've found some great results with particularly free form ads.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: So like long format content that uh you can really dive deep into the topics um as long as you're kind of targeting the right audience within that channel.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: And then also kind of secondary as a result of that, we're finding gains are happening with LLMs then picking up all of those keywords that are in that long format content.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think the research that we did would have was finding that you know, 50% all of the like AI overviews on Google are found from Reddit content.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: LLMs love Reddit, don't they?
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, if if we're not using that space in B2B, it's a it's a massive missed opportunity.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what, even as just a casual user, I don't really although I I used to use Reddit a lot more than I do, but even when I'm searching for an opinion or what is better to do this thing or this thing or to have this thing or to have this thing, I will normally search for the Reddit version of it because it's just people on a thread, having a chin wag, um, things getting upvoted and downvoted so you can see whether something's like, oh yeah, I agree or I disagree, and it's not just like an article telling you, right, that's a potential sponsored article.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, LLMs feed off it all the time.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't realise how much access they had to Reddit, but it was one of the most early adopters, I believe, Reddit.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: It was like letting LLMs in to kind of just infiltrate it and get all the opinions.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and the more content that's generated on there, the more context it's going to start learning and things like that.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, IT managers that are obviously on there searching for like what's the best defense against this like hacking or malware that you found, like what files are you using, like what tech are you using for this?
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: And or I'm looking at switching to a different like OS.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: What would you know, what have you found?
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I think definitely using question-based keywords is has massively shifted our like GEO strategy as well.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: What about LinkedIn?
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: What is the B2B arm of Samsung doing on LinkedIn?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's a couple of things that we're working on for this.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the first of which is we are utilising not necessarily influencers on LinkedIn, but we try and find dedicated like small business owners to to run several campaigns.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there was one that we did recently, a pan-European campaign called Break It Till You Make It, which was uh excellently received.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: So we picked three small business owners from across Europe, UK, France, and Italy.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: And um, we basically gave them a kind of a platform.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: We ran this video campaign and we got them to share their stories of how their determination and grit managed to kind of get their business to succeed.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and asked them to kind of give advice to small business owners who were potentially coming up against the same challenges.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and what we found actually, you know, we weren't heroing the product as part of that campaign.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: It was about these people.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then when we did the sentiment analysis on those posts afterwards, we were finding that the positive sentiment, people were starting to have conversations about Samsung products, like unprompted in the comments.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I think going in with a much more authentic, kind of humble view um with regards to influencers as well.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: The B2B market can spot hashtag ad from like a mile away.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: Massively.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah, that one has become quite a successful case study for future use.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: And the other thing that we're really looking at doing at the moment is employee advocacy.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Massive.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: I will bang on this door, huge.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I do I do really advocate for our Samsung staff to try and be present on LinkedIn themselves, utilize their personal um platform um and talk quite authentically about it.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: And one country that I think has absolutely nailed it is our French team.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: They've selected kind of five um executives from within their team, the B2B team, who post regularly um organically, and then they drive it with thought leadership ads to promote it to the right audiences.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and again, you know, I'm creating kind of case study toolkits from this great example of success that we're seeing, you know, up to 12 times more engagement on personal profile posts versus if we were to post it on the Samsung brand LinkedIn page.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it serves a purpose the the brand page, doesn't it?
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: It serves as that kind of landing page, as we as we could call it, but it'll never get.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're marketing to human beings.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it's funny what you said about earlier, like, you know, B2B audiences can see hashtag ad for a mile away, and that's because we've dealt with it on Instagram and everything in our personal lives for years.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: So of course we're gonna cut on onto it pretty quickly as soon as it comes over to LinkedIn and you're seeing ad spots and people doing paid ads.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I get nervous, you know, about LinkedIn.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: I get nervous that it's turning into something that we've all got there to get away from, which is this attention-grabbing short form content.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like my LinkedIn feed, I don't know about yours, is just full of vertical and it's weird for a business a video business owner to say this, but it's full of vertical, short form, fast-paced video, and like LinkedIn's re brought back the carousel system of scrolling through vertical videos, and they did it in the US, and now they brought they they trialed it for a bit years ago, they took it away, and now they brought it back again.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I'm like, I get it, but I'm also slightly nerfed.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is a place where people talk about their careers, let's not get that wrong, and yeah, it's turning into something slightly more diluted.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: My worry is now that we're gonna start to get the kind of consumer side of the businesses trying to infiltrate what we consider our B2B channel.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um and yeah, we're going to basically lose real estate to consumer content that's now gonna start getting posted because it's now seen as just another channel to add to that consumer like remit.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: And LinkedIn won't stop it because it's money, and they'll pay the big bucks to get those ad spots.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: And oh, it's sad.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't know, I'm a slightly nervous and slightly apprehensive, like the existing the nature of kind of influencers popping about and things like that.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Although it's interesting, and I you know I know a couple of like LinkedIn-esque influence people, and they're great and they're so fun at what they do, and they kind of made livings from sketches of kind of almost um you know, doing kind of impersonations of what it's like to work at like your Rob Mayhews.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you know people like that, and and and Heather Barnett, who we've had on last time actually, and they're great, and I love that stuff.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: I just get nervous about the stuff that's gonna follow and how much short form is gonna be blasted out, and then you've got these huge brands that are really corporate brands, and I think there's an element of like you do need to stay a bit corporate too, and we don't all have to kind of whack our make our have our CEO film a day in the life vlog for LinkedIn, do we?
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, we don't all need that.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like sometimes you need to remain a level of professionalism.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, I think there's a lot of that can be said for LinkedIn being a community channel as well.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, similar to kind of how Reddit is run, it's obviously there's less conversational, but I think the the building of B2B communities is done on on LinkedIn massively.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: So, in the campaigns that you're running, how are you how are you getting the creative juices flowing?
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: What are you doing to to kind of get that?
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: You're a marketer, you've got that in you, it's ingrained in you.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: What are you doing at in the B2B arm of Samsung in order to get those creative juices flowing?
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: We are now drawing quite a lot from AI.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think there's a lot that we can use to inspire us with with the use of AI.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it has to be done super, super carefully.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um we're we're using things like Gemini Gems to uh do some audience profiling, so create some target personas within Gemini Gems that we can then soundboard like creative ideas off um and things like that.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: So um yeah, we're we're trying to use a little bit of AI, but there's always got to be human kind of steps within that.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um there must be a huge amount of regulation of AI within the interest.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so so we've um we've kind of gone through a few transitions with AI.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Recently.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: As the software gets more advanced, kind of the global Samsung brand um team are always reviewing the processes and what we're allowed to do to make sure we are still showing up authentically.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like with the use of AI now, all anyone is ever doing is like judging content, like making sure people have got the right amount of fingers in anything that you're posting.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: And they're always really suspicious of anything that we're doing.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: So it has to make sure it represents Samsung as a brand.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it stays true to our uh values, um, but it enables us as a tool, like, and we need to make sure that we are using the best um version of that possible whilst still keeping that human element of review.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: What about content specifically then?
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: What kind of content stuff are you?
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: What what do you enjoy making as well, Al?
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: Just out of a human interest.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh, we do a lot of event stuff, and that's always quite fun.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, I I really enjoy the persona stuff.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like I really, really love diving deep into the people that we're marketing to.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then building out like strategic toolkits for all of my local markets because my role is obviously funneling content down from the global organization into the 16 European markets and then feeding feedback back up into the global team in order to improve and optimize on what's being created.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: But there are there are going to be gaps in that content as well.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't fit all of the 16 markets.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I try and create stuff that sits in the middle that can work for as many people as possible without becoming useless for everyone, but useful for everybody.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I I do really like analysing like what's going on in the industry, you know, what are competitors doing?
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: Can we create something that potentially kind of can surpass what our competitors are looking at at the moment and then build out something a little bit more strategic, more insight-led?
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that is a quick and easy fix for the markets to then kind of lift and shift into local uh distribution.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna bring it back to employee advocacy quickly.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: What are people doing?
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: So you said France have nailed it in in Samsung, what they're they've picked five execs, and these guys are championing the business and working for the business and what you guys are up to.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: What what in what way?
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like is that kind of is that dictated by the marketing teams on what they say and how they say it and what kind of content they need to be posting, or is it just kind of this is your brief.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: Enjoy.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's a lot of just free form kind of brief what they're looking at, which is like interesting in the business.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, it kind of has to relate back to what like products we're launching and trends that are happening within um AI and the security space.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um kind of driving from the CXPs that our audience are concerned about, but also trying to make sure each local market has their own kind of cultural moments that we kind of we don't want to dictate to them too much because the local created content is is going to perform often better than globally or even regionally created content.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: They know their market better than anybody else, and I don't want to like suppress that creativity.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: I really want to kind of hear of it.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, they're building stuff around what's going on locally, whether it's an event that they've visited or whether there's a new product coming out that they think there's a really great feature that can work for businesses maybe people hadn't heard of or thought about, a customer that we've now had in that market that want to have just a little sit-down chat with.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a but it's it's mostly video content that they're creating.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: Is it like just kind of user-generated?
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: So it's really natural, and you know, the difficulty with this is that you have to come across as wanting to do it.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: My struggle is convincing people within Samsung to want to put their face on the disk.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: I promise.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's not easy.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but huge thing that we hear a lot about on this pod as well.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's just like convincing people.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's really difficult because also the teams are hesitant, they don't want to kind of force people to do it, they don't especially these like high-profile executives that are really the ones that carry the experience and the authority and the credibility within those teams.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: That is really important with that piece.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: But um, yeah, we don't want to end up with like a McDonald's debacle.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, everyone's being told that they need a personal brand.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: Aren't they?
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's I think that's the scary bit, is like, oh, you're uh you're a business owner.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you need a personal brand.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think it's the case really, although I am a massive advocate of employee advocacy.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um I do think it's really important and it's and it's great to have your kind of employees active on a profile that's kind of I mean a massive thing for most B2B, every B2B business now.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's a platform where all of our customers live and we can directly connect with them and talk to them and build the relationships with them.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, sure, sure we should be sharing some content and stuff and you know, updating people.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's not too hard to snap a photo or film a little quick video on your phone and stuff like that.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't think that everybody needs to have a personal brand.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: I just like I'm bored of it.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'll and like people are banging the drum.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like, if you're a business owner, you need a personal brand.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: No, you don't.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like, there's been billions of businesses that have been incredibly successful without um having their CEO, you know, like I said earlier, filming that day in the live video.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, it just doesn't always need to be done.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um let's rewind a little bit more back to these AI personas that you touched on.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: How the hell how does one do that?
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: How do you build an A so an AI persona is essentially you building a person or a persona um who is your target market, is that right?
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yes from AI.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_01: So we work obviously very closely with the Android and enterprise team, and we learnt about Gemini gems and how you can kind of program them in any way that you really want to.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I've um created a selection of different personas.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: So for example, I've got a small business owner who's got like an IT one IT person, they're looking at refreshing their laptop fleets for their like 15 employees, whatever country they're based in, or whether I want to target a CEO that's looking at getting a new set of like set of phones for for the HR team.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: I can kind of create that prompt and then it adopts that persona for me.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: You have to kind of give it quite a few, quite, quite a few tries to get it to learn what you want from it.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: But from that, you can then start asking it kind of strategic questions around what are your main concerns at the moment.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: It can start to get contextual.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you can A B test kind of messaging lines off it.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's obviously never going to be as valuable as a lot of marketing research that you would get from from agencies.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it's a great starting point to kind of start.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's instant, it's free.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, we're using those to to just kind of soundboard some ideas off and you know, ask challenging questions like what do you think of the new product that's come out from X brand?
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's um it's I mean, uh as a business, all business owners are.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: I've heard of companies.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: We met I met with somebody the other day, and they're like, they've given everybody Friday afternoons off to figure out what they can do with AI.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think most people have just decided to take half a day off, but um, I've heard of businesses do this, right?
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it's always interesting in what people are doing.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think a business as big as Samsung, you guys are obviously incredibly regulated, and you've got to be incredibly careful as to what LLMs you let in and how much you use them.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: But I think everyone still personally, just on their even on their personal piece, is using it to go back and forth with whether it's a Claude or a GPT or anything.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um as we move on to our last kind of segment.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we spoke about on our call building five steps to build a B2B target audience.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: So this feeds nicely on from building those AI personas.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um let's go through that.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: You've got kind of five ways that you do it.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: We've kind of got step one, which is mapping out buying um uh mapping out your buying committee.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: We've got pain points, not passion points, AI playing a role, um communities and audience, not a channel.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: Think all of these things are what we spoke about on our chat, and I'd really want to dive into that and how people can do this themselves, how B2B marketers can do this themselves.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: So step one, mapping out your buying committee.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, mapping out your buying community.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: So you've got up to 12 decision makers within your buying committee, all with different motives and fears, and you absolutely need to list them all out and find out what their triggers are.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: So, for example, like boomers trust institutions, Gen X trust data, millennials and Gen Z trust communities.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, people, human beings.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: Good, like that.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: Then we've got step two, which is uh pain points, not passion points.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: In B2B, we market to pain points, i.e.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: data protection compliance.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas in B2C, you're marketing to passion points like gaming and photography.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: So for example for example, when I was at Ogilvie, we were creating industry value content, but we were taking it one level deeper.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: So looking at healthcare industry where they're concerned about data retention, like patient data retention.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: Right, got you.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's that I mean, we make a lot of films and a lot of brand films, and it's always problem solution.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: Tack the pain point.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: What's the solution?
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: How am I gonna fix that for you?
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: Simple.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds so simple, but like that I mean, I always relate it to the way that films are made, and films have been using the same three-act structure for a hundred years.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: And why?
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, because it works.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like every film's the same, really, it's just dressed in a different way.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um step three, AI.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, so step three, AI plays a role.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's no escaping it now, and don't be afraid of humanity being removed from that buying angle.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you have to understand that AI is helping you get on the list, on the short list, and then tapping into the emotional triggers are what get you across the finish line.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: Right, got you.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, step four community.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: This is this one's intriguing me.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: Communities are an audience, not a channel.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: I like it.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: You have to understand the nuances of your community and also understand that they're not followers, there is so much insight to be taken from them, and obviously there's loads of value in doing like more research, but being able to find them to measure the culture around you, they have to be treated in such like in that way.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and step five, bolster your customer profiles with intent data.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, step five.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um intent data has a massive role to play.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's a really underused format for gathering insights.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: So we we use it to find like keyword in-market searching for account targeting.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I just think it can be done to find like direct interviews, churn analytics, uh, and it helps you pinpoint the precise moment that your audience is like ready to buy.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, definitely bolstering your customer profiles with intent data.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: Five very good tips there.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: Every marketer's gonna walk out of that with a nice little book of uh things to do, I hope.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Haley, we've strangely reached time.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: We've absolutely smashed it today.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: We've got a number of topics that I've got right in front of me that we haven't even touched on.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna already tell you that you're gonna be coming back again.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: I would love to.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for coming on today.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's been great to chat to you and learn all about um a new world, really.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: Working for one of the biggest companies and most well-known companies in the world in the B2B arm is yeah, it's been a it's been an insightful half an hour for me.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you very much for coming.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me.