What Saugata Bagchi teaches about privacy-first marketing

It's about what is it that you say, where you say it, most importantly why you say it and then comes how you say it. So that's content for me. Hi, so B2B marketing works very differently from B2C. What are the biggest challenges? Okay, so yeah, it does work very differently from B2B and I mean B2C works differently from B2B. I wouldn't call it a challenge, but it's a way of going around business which is slightly different in the B2B and the B2C worlds to be honest.

But one thing that we keep probably forgetting most of the time is at the end of the day, the customer and the consumer are the same. A B2B customer is also a B2C customer. Right. So if I were to, you still retain the word challenge in this conversation, I think the way things are shaping up, because of their experiences with B2C brands, B2B customers are expecting the same levels of service, the same levels of content personalization, the same level of messaging effectiveness and also post sales and after sales delivery and stuff.

You know, so that is changing the game in the way that B2B business has been operating historically. Now, given the fact that, you know, we're talking about infrastructural decisions, we're talking about large deal sizes which have their own sales cycles. Right. It is causing a bit of sleepless nights to, you know, most of us in that business. But yeah, that's where we are. Okay. So, tell us, what does it take to be successful in this space, which is B2B? Is there a blueprint?

I wouldn't say there's a blueprint, but I would definitely say that the core tenets of any marketing discipline essentially is around the customer and it's about putting the customer at the center of all that we do. Right. So today in terms of success, any brand which has a clear purpose of solving or it knows what the customer attention is and therefore solves for it. Right. Is the brand that is going to be successful. Right.

In today's era, especially in a market like India where digital penetration is really increasing and is only going to get better from here. And also the fact that the B2B decision making process, which was earlier limited to a few CX level individuals, has now got larger and more democratized. It's got, you know, millennials and Gen Z's as part of the decision making cycle. It's about going back to that whole concept of solving for the problem and being clear about it. Right. It's about putting the customer first.

It's about putting their needs first and presenting the product as a solution to what the customer problem and the need is. I think that is what the driver of success is. It becomes all the more critical because close to 75 to 80 percent of the decision making happens through online research even before the first sales representative is met. Right. So the brand selection, the consideration, all those elements have already been taken care of.

So while you build content, keeping the customer first, you build content being clear about what you're solving for and how your product is more of a solution than a product or a service. Right. You also need to focus on content discoverability. Right. So it's not only about push, but it's also about the inbound pulls that you create. Right. So that's where the, you know, the element of trust comes into play, which you need to consistently work on. You need to be relatable. You need to be reliable. I need to have meaning in what you say.

So it's, it's not just about blindly pushing out a product and a data sheet or any other kind of content out there. It's about having a meaningful engagement with what the customer wants. And as I said, putting your product as a solution rather than as a product. Right. How does one leverage content in B2B to influence purchase decisions? Two things. One is having a pulse or a finger on the pulse in terms of where the customer exists in their buying decision journey. Right. And content that helps them make decisions to move to the next level.

So relatively, relatable content, relevant content and engaging content. That is one. Second is content that allows you to leverage technology and operate at a scale of one. Right. So mass personalization, scale of one content, which does justice to that, which essentially builds the, you know, the bond with the customer of sorts, wherein they feel that their privacy is not being usurped upon. Yet as an individual, they are being welcomed into the brand's world. Right.

So that, that, that element of warmth, that element of, you know, homogeneity, that element of welcome and that element of they understand what my problem is. And therefore I can initiate a conversation with them. It's content that delivers. So to me, therefore, it's not about whether you do content on social media, you do it on website, you do it on your paid media campaigns, you do it on your performance campaigns. It's about what is it that you say, where you say it, most importantly, why you say it, and then comes how you say it.

So that's, that's content for me. Yeah. How does one offer personalized services at scale in the B2B space? See, it's like any other space, right? Personalized, or scale of one or mass care, personalization, whichever we want to call it, right? Is an outcome of an efficient and intelligent use of data. It's an efficient and conscious use of intent, purchase intent, information that we have. And it is last but not the least putting the customer in front of the organization, right? There are various ways and means to do it.

There is no one size fits all that happens. For example, the organization where I work, we have consciously decided to do away with firmographic and tier-based segmentations. But we are moving more towards interest-based segmentations. And we are also moving towards the space of sophistication-based segmentation, right? Because when we talk about interest, when we talk about different levels of sophistication, obviously dialogue with the customer changes, right?

And it also helps us create very clear differentiators for products which are otherwise maybe parity products, right? So technology helps drive personalization at scale. Technology helps drive, create meaningful connections. But it's also upon the marketeer to be conscious of what we want to use and leverage technology for. And at the end of the day, bring in an outside-in perspective, put the customer at the center of things. And let things take their own course.