What this BrandMasters episode teaches about privacy-first marketing

Music Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 12 of Brand Studio Live. I am Rameet Arora, I have a brand new set of Brand Masters with me today. Hosted jointly by HD Brand Studio and DMA Asia. Brand Studio Live brings together the country's best marketers to talk about the hottest topics in marketing. In the process we not only end up learning from the best but also being inspired by them. Episode 12 is a continuation of our Mumbai chapter of season 1 of Brand Studio Live.

We have moved out of the HD newsroom to the iconic BSC, formerly known as the Bombay Stock Exchange and we are actually on the old trading floor if there was anything more inspiring and you know a more fitting venue. Without further delay, let's get started with today's episode. Music In a survey conducted by a business news website ITProPortal with 300 global B2B organisations, 75% of the respondents said that their customers had demanded, and that's a very strong word, had demanded to buy online.

And three quarters of those guys gave ease of online purchase as the reason for this demand. The modern day B2B buyer also wants e-commerce solutions that mimic their best B2C buying experiences. She wants personalised services, multi-channel engagement and superior content. How then does a B2B brand deliver on all of these promises? Let's hear it from our esteemed lists of brand leaders, there's a reason we call them brand masters. My first guest is Roshni Das, Director of Marketing Intel India.

Roshni today will take us through the fundamentals of marketing to distinct B2B audience sets. Talk to us, tell us a little more. Thanks for having me here. I think the fundamentals of marketing, whether you market to a B2B audience or a B2C audience, remain the same, mostly the same. So, three things I would say is content, context and customer experience are the three key areas. But, what really defines or separates a B2B brand is the focus of building longer lasting relationships

in such a way that you are offering sustainable solutions to this audience. Creating and building credibility for this brand means not only that you interact with this audience, but very importantly how much you know about this audience. So, to us at Intel, understanding the audience, understanding the context and building credibility and trust with this audience are three areas of our marketing strategy. So, I am going to talk about two areas which would actually give you two distinct examples.

So, the first one I would like to talk about is marketing to a large enterprise. Like I said, to this audience what is really important is the fact that you are not only interested in making a buying purchase decision or a purchase decision that is hinged on the current core offering today. This audience wants to see a commitment that you are going to have an ongoing conversation with them, whether it be on support or whether it be on knowledge transfer or whether it is sharing trends for future offerings.

So, when you are talking to a large enterprise, there is an implicit commitment of keeping an engaging storytelling in marketing going. And we believe today that our employees, our sales leaders, their personal brand is really important when they go out and sell to the top accounts. So, what we did is we identified three social leaders, one leader that actually services a global SI, one that is a cloud champion, one that actually is a champion and sales leader for FSI, the business. So, three different verticals.

And what we also know from big businesses is that they are very interested to engage with audiences or brands that have a very, what they would like to know about the brand is about their social, their cultural context of the brand. What does the brand have in terms of their vision, their product roadmap from a longer term perspective. So, what we do is we sit with these three social selling, social champion sales leaders.

We look at customer intent modeling, which means you look at signals through search, signals through landing strategy, signals through interest, of course through, you know, what kind of content he is consuming. We talk to the customers of these large accounts and then what we do is we create a whole three month strategy where we provide to these sales leaders premium content in a consultative content approach that they then provide to their accounts through their online channels, right?

So, we use LinkedIn sales navigator, we look, we look at our, we use our social platforms and that engagement to our top accounts continues. So, we do use these tools very, very powerfully. I shift gears and I will talk about the second piece, which is selling to a small business. Like you said, the spectrum of B2B is a small business who's about, who's hesitant to make the transformation. So, what we did there was we had this whole campaign last year talking to small businesses.

And as you know, last year there was this whole wave of digitization that the government was looking at on the back of GST. And what we realized is small businesses, their biggest pain points today are inertia. They make incremental choices in technology transformation. And thirdly, I don't think they make the right cost benefit analysis at all. So, I think what we did for this audience is through cluster based marketing, we hit on a real insight that talked to their pain points.

So, what we said is every time you're struggling with an old PC, every time you're struggling not to embrace technology, you are taking away time from growing your business. So, what we did was we picked some very hard hitting facts, which said that struggling with an old PC drops your productivity by 28%. Or you spend X amount of hours just restarting your PC. So, now's the time to, you know, bring your, to upgrade your technology, upgrade your PCs. Of course, through hyper-local targeting, regional, mediums, etc.

We did go off and have a full funnel campaign online plus offline. And this has worked. So, like I said, you know, as you go through B2B marketing, one is the basic level is setting the right target definitions, right? How well do you know audiences through, you know, firmographic data, technographic data.

But what's important is, you know, layering it with a lot of attitudinal data and then setting yourself to say, okay, here's a larger audience that's gonna need commitment over time and a longer story telling about your vision, your culture, your roadmap. Versus, you know, other audiences in the lower end of the spectrum that may need, you know, a solution much faster. So, these are a couple of examples, I think, that Intel put together. Fantastic. You've actually set both the agenda and the tempo for the rest of the episode. Thank you very, very much.

Thank you so much. It's been wonderful having you here. Thank you for having me. Pleasure. My next guest is Rajesh Kumar Jindal, Vice President and Head of Marketing for India Region for UiPath. Rajesh is a global leader in robotic process automation. His experience in sales and marketing across companies such as SAP, Microsoft and Perfetti has given him an in-depth grasp of business transformation, processes over the years. In 2014 and 18, he was honored as the CMO of the year by War India Magazine.

Rajesh, talk to us a little bit about building authentic brands in the B2B space. So, I think the, you know, one reality is that traditionally B2B has been very sales led. You know, compared to B2C. Right? But I think things are changing, especially with the internet and all the things you mentioned earlier on the episode. You know, it's changing quite a bit. And what's changing the things also is the whole speed at which things are moving is quite a bit changing. And users have found a new voice today with social and digital which hitherto in some sense

got suppressed or at least was not visible. If you look at our case, and I'll give you an example because I'm not in a startup which is in a hyper growth, you know, situation where our revenues are doubling every six months. You know, and the industry is growing really fast. So, when I joined, you know, my boss said, you know, I went, wrote my traditional enterprise software hat. Here's my 30-60 day 90 plan. Can we talk once a month? He said, don't talk me on 30. Life changes in 30 days. And there is no time for one-on-one.

You need something, you call me. Otherwise, you go do what needs to get done. Right? So, I think what we realized, you know, one, there isn't time to, you know, have this big, bold, you know, approach to strategy. You sit back and think. I think life is passing you by as you wait or build that. So, we are really, in this scenario, software companies or any products are building strategy in flight. Right? And things change. And I think one thing which is served very well, and I would suggest it serves both the

idea of authentic brand building and, you know, this whole construct, new construct, is really bottoms of marketing, what we call. What's worked for us is really driven by users. We are in a category which a lot of people don't even understand. When we start talking to them, they said, oh, AI, machine learning, sounds very interesting. What can I do? And then, beyond that, they have no idea. They have no budgets. You know, the traditional qualifying the leads, you know, benting. There is no budget. There is no timeline.

You are selling them a completely disruptive thing which excites them. So, actually, the users are our friends and business people are our friends because they can see the benefits. For us, fostering this community on digital otherwise have worked very, very well. We took a completely opposite strategy. We said, it's a new thing. It's going to be not so much or at least not only about technology. So, we made all education free. We made all our products free for people to test for the developers to go. We put all content, everything out on internet.

We put major focus on people sharing, going all out on the, you know, sharing their opinions on social. Result, we are about six times the traffic of our nearest, you know, competitor. We are about five to eight times on social media. We have about 250,000, you know, users testing our product online. We have about 100,000 people certified. I think that's powering us. We are part of all meetups, you know. And this is information you don't read in magazines. People go to meetup groups to find out. And meetup groups actually don't cost you a dime.

You know, you just be there. And those sort of things are landing us in a lot of things. And people, small, you know, users are experimenting, taking their things to CFO. CFO loves it. They cut all the chains and say, we must do this. So, I would say it's a little bit of bottoms up and in some sense, you know, fierce, direct, authentic reaching out. And the other thing is once people get it, you absolutely make sure they get to use it. They see value. But we should sort of get to our brand masters and see if there's any reactions or questions. Can I?

Okay. So, Rajesh, given your experience with, you know, large software organizations and now with this hot new startup UiPath, do you really think early mover advantage is still relevant, especially from a product company? Because it's so easy for me to come up and catch up. How important is early mover advantage for a brand building, from a brand building perspective? I think, I think yes. I would say not say early mover. I would say early lead is a big advantage. So, we weren't the first.

But based on the user experience and number of people who are on the platform, we have far outstripped, you know, all the next round of competitors. So, we closed last year more than the next two competitors combined, which was not the case a year ago. But I think, you know, early lead is quite important and it has to be sustainable, not for the sake of it. Do you think the bottoms up approach would work for larger enterprises, the way you are experiencing it now? I think yes.

You know, it may not be in absence of your connection at the board level because when you want to move mountains, you need a connection at the board level. But I think in a large established brand, we tend to ignore it, voice of the user. It's impacting more and more because technology is getting democratized. You are not far away when the company rolls out a solution, but how many and who wants to use this choice of the user. So, if you lose that battle, then you know, you're not going to win it. Thank you so much Rajesh. Thank you so much.

That was fantastic. Thank you so much. My next guest is Srihari Gopinath, Director of Marketing, Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Srihari has worked in the sales and marketing function with leading technology and media brands for over 20 years. Now, he leads marketing for HPE's portfolio of products and solutions to drive adoption of the hybrid cloud, intelligent edge, technology transformation services, all in India. I am hoping you will talk to us a little bit about building resilient enduring relationships,

which I am assuming in the context of B2B means enduring resilient brands and what it takes, I mean both culturally for organizations and as organizations in the B2B space, what does it take to build those enduring relationships? What's the key to doing that? Srihari Gopinath, Director of Marketing, Hewlett Packard Enterprise So, the context I want to present is, you know, as part of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, I think if you look back at the legacy that HPHPE has, we've been in the business of technology,

of enterprise technology for over seven decades now. And surviving seven decades means that we have seen cycles of technology adoption and disruption several times over. But one thing which has always fascinated me about HP as a brand, Hewlett Packard Enterprise as a brand has been the warmth that we get from our customers, the trust and confidence they have in our ability to deliver time and again. I think that's huge. One of the big reasons that this has been made possible is the core value at our company is tied to innovation.

Right? So, unless that innovation engine is alive and kicking, in the B2B space, I think it's very difficult to sustain enduring resilient brand. For a long period of time, right? The reason is when you're talking about B2B and as a marketer, what we care about is the success of our customers. And our customers are pretty much large enterprises, medium enterprises, small enterprises, all of them who then blend in technology as part of their product and service offerings.

So, what they are looking for are strong partners, partners who can guide them, partners who can give them that confidence that they are with them through good times and bad. A lot of times, this resiliency is built by experiences you are able to give your customers when things go wrong. Because the expectation is to be right all the time. But as technology goes, there are occasions when you have to stand up for things which go wrong.

And how you deal with your customer because he is hinging his entire business on your technology. So, how you support them through those times absolutely matters. Excellent. I am going to open this up for some reactions and some questions. So, I wanted to ask you and this is not specifically for your company. I see two realities. I see companies, large brands talking about how they change the world. At the same time, I see a lot of large enterprise customers feeling they didn't realize the value. They didn't get full value out of their investment.

Where do you see this dichotomy? Do you see it is the model? And I contrast this to the new era where people are going on subscription, which is people grow gradually. And I see a lot less of that. So, what are your comments on what is in it for us to address? Yeah, that is a tough one especially for large organizations like ours. As we grow the business, as the portfolio grows, it is always that the customer expectations, managing customer expectations from the brand is always going to be key. Right?

So, what I mean is when customers bank on you for a specific piece of product or a technology and you are able to meet those expectations, that's fine. But as the scope expands, sometimes expectations are mismatched in that scenario. It is a changing equation between expectations and what we are offering as a brand. So, therefore, it is really important to go back to your customers time and again and tell them,

this is where we are, this is our portfolio, this is where we are headed and this is how we want to work with you, partner with you going forward. Do you think size is a big advantage or a disadvantage in the next decade for a large company like yours? Well, yeah, I mean, it depends on the context when you see, you know, in our ability to invest. So, for example, we believe that the edge technologies are, you know, just breaking ground now.

So, we are at the cusp of something really big. And so, the intelligent edge as we say is something that we are truly focused on. As a large brand, I guess we have the, you know, we have the ability to invest big as well. So, you know, recently our CEO, Antonio Neri, committed $4 billion to research on the edge. So, I guess in those contexts, it's good. Well, of course, we can't be as nimble as a startup. So, that's the other side of it. Well, we'll see how, you know, how the next decade goes. It's too far to see.

It's been wonderful having you here. Pleasure. Thanks, Ramit. Thank you. My next guest is Kostob Nande, Director Marketing MSC Software. In the last 15 years, Kostob has championed several brand communication programs and thought leadership campaigns in technology. He's a regular speaker at industry forums and conferences and was the winner of the 2017 Content Marketer of the Year Award. Congratulations. Welcome, Kostob. Kostob today will shed light on the customer journey.

Tell us how the buyer journey will evolve. What's going to happen to this market and to this marketing challenge as that journey evolves. In the 1980s, Ramit, we saw the traditional buyer journey being taught at most MBA schools, which was awareness, concentration and preference. I think today we are at a cusp in the last 15 odd years with the advent of the internet. We are more talking about the bonding, advocating and enjoyment of the brand. And so you can see the shift from a one-way standpoint to a two-way standpoint.

And my thesis is that in the next five to seven years, we will increasingly see a very simplified buyer's journey, which I want to call education, engagement and experience. That has a built-in one-way and a two-way loop. And that's basically how I am thinking about it. I am going to then ask for reactions and questions. We can start with anybody. I have one. So, you know, typical experience of organizational buying is there is no one buyer.

There are multiple people involved in a complex decision. So how do you interpret your model in terms of buying journey in that case? Yeah, so I am thinking about the three big marketing opportunities for marketers in the B2B space. And the first one is the buyer's journey is becoming a reality. Two decades ago, without the advent of the internet, this wasn't really possible as a marketeer. So I think we are in good shape compared to where we were, point number one.

The second one, which addresses your point, is really on the account-based marketing, a term that gets thrown around quite a bit today. And it's really a powerful medium of engaging with core accounts, customers, users, however you want to slice and dice them. And the third one really is the combining the power of narrative with the distribution power of social. And I think that is where I see, you know, those phases of education, engagement experience, tying it with these three levels of opportunity.

So this is going back to, you know, the whole, you know, you had this three E's, right, that you just spoke about. But coming to think of it, since B2B brands are a bit opaque to most users and it's a very limited set who have visibility toward the brand. How does, how do you, how are you thinking about reflecting the core values through, you know, for a B2B brand? How can it reflect? I think this is where content is king.

And I, in my, one of my quotes that I've used before is content is not king, it's the kingdom for the next decade of marketing and especially B2B marketing. Right. So, I do believe that that's the area in which the conversations, narratives, stories, and all the techniques of marketing will be played. And more importantly, businesses will win and lose with conversations.

So, I do strongly believe that the content is going to be a key important differentiator and narrative and your, of course, product differentiation and stories will play a very, very important role as we move forward. Thank you so much. It clearly is challenging times and, you know, thank you all for taking out the time and establishing at least some to-do's for building strong B2B brands. On that note, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us on episode 12 of Brand Studio Live hosted by HD Brand Studio and DMA Asia.

I just want to call out DMA Asia, the special thank you and Vatsal Ashar for helping power this wonderful event. Thank you to our radio partner, Fever, who helps us evangelize this show. And thank you to BSC for hosting us. Finally, thank you to everybody who's watched the episode. We'll come back soon with another episode. Please stay tuned.