This article originates from a panel discussion at the Revenue Marketing Summit in London, 2022. Job titles and companies are correct as of the time of recording. Catch up on this presentation, and others, using our OnDemand service. For more exclusive content, visit your membership dashboard.
In the rapidly evolving landscape of marketing, understanding and identifying your customers is paramount to success.
More than ever, customers expect personalized experiences, meaningful interactions, and solutions that cater to their unique needs. To meet these expectations, businesses must delve deep into the realm of customer understanding.
In this article, we explore the multifaceted journey of understanding and identifying customers, uncovering key insights from industry experts across diverse domains.
Our panel:
- Charlotte Fords - Head of Brand Marketing and Engagement at heycar
- Lilian Oke - Field Marketing Manager at Indeed
- Luke Richardson - Senior Director of Brand and Comms at Pleo
- Ilias Tsatalmpasidis - Head of Growth at Superscript
From B2B to B2C, recruitment to tech companies, we delve into the approaches, challenges, and triumphs experienced by our panel in their quest to comprehend their customers.
Unveiling customer identification tactics: Assessing lifetime value and beyond
Ilias Tsatalmpasidis:
In the realm of insurance, particularly business insurance, each customer acquisition poses a unique challenge. This is particularly true for customers obtained through digital channels, as the premium and revenue they generate remain uncertain.
The diverse nature of businesses and their associated risks adds further complexity. Consequently, relying on a fixed cost per acquisition is impractical. Instead, we focus on the crucial metric of return on investment, prioritizing our overall return rather than ad spend per customer.
To address this challenge, we have developed machine learning models with predictive capabilities. One model aims to forecast the value of a customer, while the other predicts the tenure or duration of their engagement.
These models work in tandem, multiplying each other's predictions and enabling us to estimate the customer's lifetime value based on their retention.
We continuously feed data into this platform, leveraging it to optimize our efforts. While not an exact science, this approach provides us with a valuable directional indicator.
It assists us in determining where to channel our efforts, be it in campaigns, targeted audiences, or other strategic aspects. Moreover, it guides our creative endeavors, allowing us to identify effective tactics for attracting high-value customers.
Balancing long-term considerations with short-term revenue is another aspect we navigate. While we strive to assess the potential lifetime value of customers, which may unfold over several years, we also acknowledge the importance of immediate revenue.
This consideration plays a crucial role in maintaining cash flow and meeting the expectations of our investors. It's a delicate equilibrium we strive to maintain, as different stakeholders may have differing perspectives.
Finance teams, for instance, may prioritize short-term revenue, while investors often emphasize long-term growth potential.
Charlotte Ford:
How long does it take you to put in place that framework for predictive modeling?
Ilias Tsatalmpasidis:
There’s a trend toward adopting an iterative approach. Initially, we launched the first version, which underwent continuous improvements over a period of two to three months.
Subsequently, we have been refining it on a quarterly basis. It took us more than a year to identify the key challenges faced by our customers. However, we're now beginning to witness promising results as we have accumulated a substantial amount of data, and the system is performing exceptionally well.
Luke Richardson:
I can elaborate on that. The platform Pulsar has played a significant role in our operations. Pulsar enables us to gain insights and make predictions regarding the content and topics that our Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is most likely to engage with.
This platform helps bridge the gap between the information we can obtain through more general audience framework modeling and the actual content that individuals may interact with on platforms like Twitter. Utilizing Pulsar has proven to be immensely valuable for our team.
Furthermore, we have intensified our community-focused initiatives over the past year. For instance, we have been hosting CFO dinners where we engage with Finance Directors and Chief Financial Officers.
These gatherings serve as opportunities for us to understand their needs, challenges, and preferences. We view these events as an integral part of our user research, enabling us to align our marketing efforts more effectively with the requirements of our target audience.
Charlotte Ford:
It's an interesting aspect to consider, particularly when examining the scale of the audience under review. In my previous experience working with Amazon Alexa, we had the opportunity to analyze a vast audience encompassing millions of people across Europe.
Our assessment involved closely examining their behavior, drawing insights from Amazon's extensive dataset on how people utilize Alexa. This entailed gauging the number of individuals purchasing devices with Alexa enabled and understanding the frequency with which they engage with voice technology.
Amazon actively promotes the adoption of voice technology, making this information particularly valuable.
It's worth noting that the dynamics change when transitioning from such a large-scale, consumer-oriented scenario to a smaller-scale B2B audience.
The considerations and strategies employed differ significantly. As for your experiences, I'm curious to hear about the sizes of audiences you typically assess in the context of predictive modeling.
Ilias Tsatalmpasidis:
I agree. This is a significant challenge, particularly in the B2B sector within the EU, and more specifically, in our industry. The limited amount of time businesses spend in the market poses a considerable hurdle.
Some companies may never actively seek out new insurance providers, as they tend to remain with their existing provider indefinitely due to the complexities associated with switching.
As a result, the audience sizes we are dealing with are relatively small compared to the broader consumer market, such as the case with Alexa.
Given the smaller audience size, the accuracy of our models becomes even more critical. Their effectiveness relies heavily on their sophistication and ability to learn from limited data, allowing us to estimate and model aspects for which there is a scarcity of available information.
We don't have the luxury of dealing with large volumes of data, so it becomes paramount to extract maximum value from the small dataset we have. Each data point holds significant importance due to its scarcity and the associated costs of acquiring it.
Consequently, you are absolutely right in identifying this as the primary challenge we face in our industry - working with what we call "small data" and striving to make the most of it. The value of each data point is amplified, given their relative scarcity and the expense involved in gathering them.
Understanding the shift: B2B and B2C perspectives in the evolving landscape
Luke Richardson:
We offer an expense management platform tailored for companies ranging from one to 500 employees. One fortunate aspect of our business is that we operate in a space that is relatively easy to comprehend, regardless of whether someone is in finance, sales, marketing, or any other department.
After all, everyone needs to make work-related purchases. As a result, our brand and marketing efforts adopt a more consumer-centric approach in how we present our product, despite being a B2B company.
Internally, we often refer to ourselves as "B to Bob," reflecting the idea that we are targeting individuals like Bob, who represent our target audience.
We delve into understanding the kind of content that would resonate with them, the appropriate tonality to use, and their broader interests outside of expense management. We strive to grasp the value they seek to bring to their businesses.
This approach is crucial in shaping our creative endeavors and performance strategies. Lately, we have expanded our perspective, aiming to understand these individuals beyond their expense filing or monthly reconciliations.
It presents an excellent opportunity for marketers to consider factors like the cost of living crisis, inflation rates, and other external factors impacting businesses beyond the specific products or services we provide. Building empathy in this regard becomes paramount.
For instance, if we are targeting customers in Turkey, it is crucial to consider the significant inflation rate of 80% they are facing.
Similarly, in the Netherlands, where inflation stands at 15%, these factors naturally trickle down to business decisions and the adoption of new software solutions.
Therefore, we are delving deeper into understanding these external factors and considering them in our marketing efforts. We are moving away from focusing exclusively on our product and instead examining the broader influences on our customers' businesses and cash flow.
Charlotte Ford:
In our European performance review, we encountered a unique situation in September. Our colleagues from other markets inquired about the UK's slightly tumultuous week, prompting us to explain that it was due to the unfortunate passing of the Queen.
Consequently, all of our media had to be immediately pulled out of respect. This incident sparked a fascinating discussion that intersected with the ongoing topic of COVID-19 and its impacts.
Now, Lillian, I recall you have a similar perspective on the distinctions between B2B and B2C. Could you elaborate on your findings?
Lilian Oke:
In the current landscape, especially considering the impact of the pandemic, we have observed a heightened importance placed on the B2B to B2C transition. At Indeed, we play a unique role in assisting individuals in finding employment, and as a result, we possess a wealth of available data.
This data allows us to gain insights into various aspects such as when people make purchases, how they apply for jobs, their interests, and the reasons behind their decisions.
One significant shift we have noticed is the move towards a more business acumen-focused approach, while still retaining a B2C orientation.
Our ongoing objective is to bridge the gap between automation and personalized interactions, where AI plays a central role in our operations. We strive to strike a balance between automated processes and maintaining a human touch, ensuring that our customers don't feel disconnected.
In my role, I specifically concentrate on the enterprise segment. With this focus, we prioritize a personalized approach in all our endeavors. Rather than simply attempting to sell a product, we tailor our efforts to address the pain points and beliefs of our target audience.
We seek to understand what drives them to choose our platform and how we can support their goals and aspirations.
Our approach revolves around providing solutions that align with their needs and values, rather than adopting a solely transactional mindset. This shift towards a more customer-centric and empathetic approach has been significant and transformative for us.
Navigating the shift: Adapting to a human-centered approach in the changing B2B landscape
Charlotte Ford:
The boundaries between work and home life have significantly blurred, especially during the pandemic, and for many individuals, those boundaries have yet to fully return to their pre-pandemic state.
This transition towards a more human-centered approach in the B2B space is indeed a critical and essential shift. Recognizing the impact of this shift on our interactions and strategies is crucial.
Ilias Tsatalmpasidis:
Considering the way we target individuals within companies, some of whom operate as independent contractors or have small teams or apprenticeships, we recognize that their businesses often encompass their entire lives.
These individuals may not even distinguish between personal and business finances, as it all intertwines for them. This perspective is similar to what Lilian described in her experiences.
Consequently, our communication strategy needs to cater to this varied audience. While certain pieces of content may be more relevant to larger enterprises, the majority of what we produce is developed with a human-centered approach, taking into account the specific needs and challenges that individuals face.
Rather than adopting an outdated, traditional B2B mindset that solely focuses on case studies and typical business-related content, we strive to address the unique requirements of individuals.
We keep their needs at the forefront of our communication efforts, tailoring our messages accordingly.
As a modern tech company, we prioritize staying current and up-to-date in our communication practices. Our aim is to resonate with our audience on a human level, acknowledging their specific circumstances and delivering solutions that truly address their concerns.
We embrace a more contemporary and human-centric approach, which sets us apart from the conventional B2B strategies of the past.
Charley Gale
Charlotte Ford:
It’s crucial to recognize that the marketing landscape has undergone significant changes. At times, B2B briefs were perceived as dry and robotic, leading to uninspiring creative work.
However, it shouldn't be that way. Even when addressing organizations, the communication should be creative and resonate with humans. B2B doesn't need to be boring simply because we're speaking to businesses.
Ultimately, it's individuals within those organizations who make decisions and engage with our messages.
Touching upon the pandemic, I'd like to discuss how it's affected our understanding and identification of customers. As a three-year-old lead generation business that emerged just before the world experienced significant upheaval, we quickly found ourselves in the midst of lockdowns.
Our business model involves connecting quality customers with dealers, but we also directly sell cars online - a growing segment that constitutes around 15% of the market in the UK, although still relatively small compared to the traditional approach of physically visiting a dealership, inspecting the car, and test-driving it.
The lockdowns have significantly accelerated the shift towards online car purchases. When physical visits to dealerships became impossible, the demand for online car buying increased. We observed a remarkable 500% uplift in intent since the post-pandemic period.
However, it's important to note that these trends may not be universal, as I've observed in previous roles. For example, the growth trajectory seen with Alexa and voice technology didn't continue in the same manner.
It's essential to monitor and adapt to changes in customer behavior and trends. We have observed shifts in customer preferences and purchasing habits in our specific industry.
The pandemic has prompted us to reassess and refine our understanding of customer behavior, taking into account the changes in their needs and circumstances.
This continuous evaluation helps us stay attuned to evolving customer preferences and allows us to adapt our strategies accordingly.
Lilian Oke:
Indeed, we have witnessed significant changes, particularly in the realm of the future of work and how people approach their professional lives.
The pandemic has opened up new possibilities and emphasized the importance of work-life balance. It has prompted individuals to reflect on what truly makes them happy in terms of their work and overall life circumstances.
This shift has brought about changes in how people apply for jobs and their expectations regarding work as a whole.
Moreover, the pandemic has coincided with significant societal movements like Black Lives Matter, prompting individuals to seek out companies that take a stance on important social issues.
People are increasingly passionate about aligning themselves with organizations that share their values and actively support the causes they care about. In fact, statistics suggest that around 64% of individuals lean towards belief-driven consumption.
In other words, if they don't believe in a company's message or the values it upholds, their interest in its offerings may become obsolete.
Consequently, the human approach has become paramount. People want to know what a company stands for, not only in terms of the products or services it offers but also in relation to its values and social impact.
They seek alignment between their own beliefs and the company's mission. This shift towards a more human-centered approach, where customers consider the larger picture beyond the transaction, has been a significant development in recent times.
