The Future of B2B Marketing: Trends, Strategies and More with Tom Basgil

Will Ockenden: 0:00

Is there a silver bullet? How do we demonstrate this? You know what's the current thinking when it comes to demonstrating ROI.

Tom Basgil: 0:05

Yeah, I like to. I tell my client there's two different ways. So we've got the short term, we've got long term. If we want short term ROI, we're going to do advertising and it's going to... Y ou're going to burn money and when we turn the advertising off, it's done.

Chris Norton: 0:19

We've talked about the present and what you're find ing. What about the future then? What's the future of B2B marketing? What do you see it as?

Tom Basgil: 0:25

From a tactical standpoint; social listening, employee advocacy, erm... For a more, maybe, strategic standpoint, I think it's going to be a lot more focusing on authenticity and helpful content.

Will Ockenden: 0:38

The default approach for a lot of B2B brands has been to create a white paper, gate it, etc, etc. So are you saying that that approach is no longer working?

Tom Basgil: 0:48

You know, I think that they're boring. If they had released something like here's how to use our platform to most effectively do X, Y, Z. That's a little bit. That's what everyone's doing.

Chris Norton: 0:58

So, on that note, you can download Tom's white paper at... Hi everybody, welcome to Socially Unacceptable, the show that celebrates marketing mistakes. We've also launched a new website, which is sociallyunacceptable. co. uk, so you can find every place to share and download our podcast on there. Before we get into the show, a couple of other things. If you would like to watch us on YouTube, you can find us on Prohibition PR, which is just youtube. com/ prohibition PR. Also, if you like the content of today's show, please check out our free events, which are on our website, which is prohibitionpr. co. uk/ upcoming- events, and you'll find all our events on there. We've also got on- demand events. There's tons on there. So, all free, all for you. Fill your boots, enjoy it.

Chris Norton: 1:46

And so today, we've got Tom Basgil on the show. He's a growth marketing specialist and he works in B2B, so he's got some interesting takes on B2B. Now, if you're sat out there and you work in B2C, do not worry, because this is quite interesting too. There's strategies, tips, hacks and advice in here, and we go through various things, including the future of B2B, and we also take a look at some of the trends that are developing. Because people still sell to people, it doesn't matter whether you're B2B or B2C, and Tom articulates that far better than Will or I do. So that's enough from me. I'll let Tom do the explaining. Let's see if we can make B2B sexy and you can let us know in the comments. Enjoy the show.

Vicki Murphy: 2:29

Welcome to socially unacceptable; from f*** ups to fame, the marketing podcast that celebrates the professional mishaps, mistakes and misjudgments, while delivering valuable marketing and life lessons in the time it takes you to eat your lunch.

Chris Norton: 2:47

Hi everybody and welcome back to socially unacceptable. This week we are lucky enough to be joined by Tom Basgil from all the way from the US A in New York City. So welcome to the show, Tom.

Tom Basgil: 2:59

Thanks for having me. Great to be here.

Chris Norton: 3:02

So also I've got my lovely sidekick, who I always reference as my friend but is my business partner, Will Ockenden. How are you feeling, Will?

Will Ockenden: 3:09

I'm not sure I like the term sidekick.

Chris Norton: 3:11

Yeah, I like sidekick. Maybe we could start with that, you're my Dec to my Ant.

Will Ockenden: 3:15

Right, we'll move on. Co-presenter. I think we'll go with. Let's not, let's have a tiff about it.

Chris Norton: 3:22

So, Tom, why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do out there in the US?

Tom Basgil: 3:28

Yeah sure, I'm Tom Basgil. I do marketing for B2B tech companies and in particular, I focus on social media, digital marketing, PPC, advertising, that kind of thing and I've been doing it for 15 years now. So I'm a very small shop it's me and just a handful of freelancers and we're really just a boutique that deals with B2B tech, cybersecurity, fintech, devops, kind of things like that and it's been great. It's a lot of fun. So I'm actually in Jersey City. I just tell people in New York because they know where that is. It's right across OK, cool.

Chris Norton: 4:11

So also, did you work in the UK, because most of our listeners are UK based. Did you work in the UK or did you work for a UK marketing firm? Am I right?

Tom Basgil: 4:20

So I worked for Hotwire and that is where we had a UK office, and then I worked for Daryl Sparry at Hard Numbers. So I do consult in the UK. I'm actually consulting with Hard Numbers right now and I've been there a couple of times to work.

Chris Norton: 4:37

So do you get to come over here then, do you?

Tom Basgil: 4:39

Not as often as I'd like, but yeah a couple of times.

Will Ockenden: 4:43

And what kind of brands do you work with then? So you talk about working in B2B. Is there specific sectors that you've got a particular interest or specialism in?

Tom Basgil: 4:52

Sure yeah, I tend to be in DevOps, cybersecurity, FinTech especially those really nitty gritty FinTechs that are, you know, between the consumer and the bank and all the little tech pieces that go on there. So I've worked for, I work for startups like Traceable is a startup that I'm working at right now. And I've worked for global enterprises like Raminie Street.

Will Ockenden: 5:14

OK, so we may as well dive straight into it. I think we were quite interested getting you on as a guest. I think a lot of our guests talk about marketing from a consumer perspective, but actually having a B2B specialist marketer was really appealing. So I guess from our perspective, you know what is happening, what are the must- do, must- see developments happening in B2B marketing at the moment that will keep brands competitive.

Tom Basgil: 5:40

Yeah, I think. I mean, I think TikTok is a perfect example of throwing a wrench in the works. So things have changed significantly in the past year, year and a half. TikTok continues to rise, Twitter or X continues to fall, at least for my clients. We're seeing, you know, lower engagements or social media is changing a lot, and I also think that at least in the tech side, you know, things have been a little bit. We've been struggling since Q1 of this year, so we're looking at alternatives to spending money to still get results, and so I'm really bullish on things like employee advocacy. I think what we're seeing in B2B right now is the reminder that we sell to people, not companies. So B2B has always had this idea that's buttoned up and stodgy, but really you're selling to whoever has the purse strings at that business and whoever is going to be using the platform or services, and then that's really really important to remember, and I think we're starting to see in B2B more focus on the person behind the company that you're selling to.

Chris Norton: 6:44

So you referenced our favorite subject, TikTok for businesses. So go on, then, give us some examples of killer TikTok techniques that you've seen for B2B.

Tom Basgil: 6:55

Yeah, I think you know, a lot of my clients are like what is/ what should we do for TikTok? And I'm always like, hold on a sec. We need to take a big step back. Because TikTok is, you know, if you're an elder millennial like I am, it's reminiscent of Reddit. You know, when you first started with Reddit, maybe 10 years ago, if that was something that you wanted to be on, you really needed someone who focused exclusively on that platform. It's got its own way of talking. You know brands that do poorly on the platform really can, you know, get razed. You know you can really really get made fun of. So when I'm looking at TikTok for B2Bs, I really want there to be someone dedicated. I want a dedicated person and their sole channel that they manage as TikTok.

Chris Norton: 7:41

That's tough for a startup, isn't it? Is that tough for a startup? Oh, absolutely yeah.

Will Ockenden: 7:46

So really resource heavy, you've really got to put the hours into the platform. I think there's a perception that TikTok's just for consumer brands, isn't it? So is it different the way B2B brands would use the platform?

Tom Basgil: 7:57

I would say you'd want to be a little bit more informational and more informative and educational than you want to be.

Tom Basgil: 8:04

You know you want to be entertaining, of course, but you've got places like HubSpot and HubSpot sells to marketers and they do a great job on TikTok. So it's really about you know, there's jargon in any industry and really speaking that jargon and kind of making fun of it a little bit, I think is how you do well on TikTok. And it's also important to remember that. I mean, there's two things. One is TikTok is an awareness channel. It's probably not where you're going to make sales right, so it's where you can differentiate your brand, especially if you're a startup and you're willing to be very disruptive. And then two, you know folks. Yeah, I feel like people see TikTok and they think Gen Z, but we have to remember that as marketers and PR folks and communicators, that our audience will age. So if TikTok is the place now where you want to reach younger folks, those folks are soon going to be in a position where they can, affect purse strings. So you really want to be reaching them now, before your competition does.

Chris Norton: 9:08

So have you had a strategy that you've used for B2B? Then with TikTok, have you got the CEOs been dancing through the office and then off down the street, or has it been much more sophisticated than that. Because, like you're right, the B2B tends to be a bit more informational.

Chris Norton: 9:23

Like even for this podcast, I do TikTok snippets, but they're informational, we're not. You know as much, as people are asking me and Will to dance, I'm not doing that. So have you done a strategy that has been different than on B2B? What have you done with your clients on B2B and on TikTok?

Tom Basgil: 9:40

Sure, I will say that 9 times out of 10, I tell a client to wait on TikTok. So I'm just telling them to pause. Because in order to do it well, we need money and we need time. And we really need a dedicated person and as you know, an agency. I'm probably not the face of your brand. You need somebody who's going to become the face of your brand right, on the platform. It's very face to camera and you can definitely put snippets of a podcast on there.

Tom Basgil: 10:11

It really depends on the audience that you're reaching. But I would say that what works well is really doing research and finding what your audience is into. Does your audience like silly dances? I mean in B2B, I tend to find that that's not the case, at least not in B2B tech where I'm operating. Maybe on the marketing ops side or PR ops side, you might find funny dances might be the thing, but what I really find is that you got to go all in and you got to wait three/ six months or you're not going to see anything. So I think that though TikTok does have this idea of virality and going viral overnight as a brand. You really need to invest for half a year at least before you should see anything and it's going to be a loss of time and money in the beginning and that's just how things are.

Chris Norton: 10:57

That's kind of what we tell our clients. Like you know, it needs to be six months, so here's a question for you? So if you're a marketing person, you're in- house now and you think, yeah I'm going to own that. I'm going to own TikTok on B2B. How often in your opinion, do you feel like you should be doing a TikTok video? One a week, three a week, five a week, seven a day? What do you think?

Tom Basgil: 11:21

I would start with one a week. If you're going to do it, I would focus on quality over quantity. Start with one a week. You know, ideally if you're an enterprise brand, you could do. If you're Salesforce you could probably do them daily and you'd have the audience for that. But for most brands I'd say one a week is where you want to be and you really need that regularity to leverage the TikTok algorithm. Now, if you're somewhere like the Washington Post, I love their TikToks. They're who I first started following on TikTok. They'll do multiple a day but they've got a head of TikTok now. They've got, I think, an assistant head. I think they've got a production team. They've got a whole team.

Tom Basgil: 12:02

You know, it looks like a funny dance or it looks like a silly little snippet, but there's a huge amount of work that goes into it.

Chris Norton: 12:08

Yeah, we saw. We used the example of the Washington Post when they did the weather balloons across China, because that was a brilliant one. We used that in a recent webinar we did. So it is good.

Will Ockenden: 12:21

So just as a final point on the TikTok, what I'm hearing is unless people can afford a full-time employee managing TikTok, they shouldn't bother and they need to give it at least six months. Is that fair summary?

Tom Basgil: 12:33

Yeah, I mean everything in marketing and comms. It depends, but I'd say that's fair. It doesn't need to. You doesn't need to be your highest paid employee. You know, some of the young folks coming in could definitely do this in an entry level. But I would say that person needs to have TikTok and their KPIs and they need the time to like this. Adding TikTok to their current duties is not going to work.

Will Ockenden: 12:57

So plan it properly. So plan it properly, do it properly and go all in on it.

Tom Basgil: 13:02

Even if it doesn't work for you, you can still use TikTok on other channels. You can use that on Instagram, you can use that on LinkedIn. There are other opportunities and you're just going to have to experiment. Yeah, it's like the early days of any platform.

Will Ockenden: 13:15

On that. Talk to us about that. So kind of repurposing content. So what I'm seeing a lot of now is TikTok style content being, you know, like you say, repurposed on different channels. Now is that a legitimate strategy? Does that still work as well? You know, taking TikTok content repurposing for Instagram, for LinkedIn, for example.

Tom Basgil: 13:34

I think it's a useful strategy and if I can use podcasting as an example, so I have a podcast and what I do is I record face to camera, like you're doing. I put snippets of those on different social channels. But when you're building for TikTok, that's going to be your primary channel and that's where your content for TikTok will do the best. Cutting it up for different platforms is great. It's great to pull people to your TikTok, but if say, you're mostly focused on revenue generation and you're posting your TikToks on LinkedIn, maybe that's not the best use of your time. So I think you can definitely repurpose the content. I think it depends on whether you're in an awareness play or a demand-gen play, and most brands are. You know, I find at least for me, most of my clients are in like a 70% rev-gen and then 30% branding. That's kind of how they allocate their budgets.

Chris Norton: 14:27

Sorry. The answer is, it depends. No well, isn't it always?

Will Ockenden: 14:30

Typical consultant there. And can you give us three content ideas for B2B brands to get started on TikTok?

Tom Basgil: 14:39

Yeah, I would say there's definitely a behind-the-scenes aspect, so things that you're doing behind the scenes and really, if you pick your audience well. Say, you run a data center and it's very boring, there are folks who are interested in that and you want to focus on them. So I would say, if you think your topic is boring, it's not, you just haven't found the right audience. Definitely any sort of employee branding and engagement and parties. So like employee parties, employee outings, doing a scavenger hunt, for instance, so starting a human face to your brand. So I feel like TikTok is really important for recruitment, for instance. And then the third one, gosh, I would say hopping on a relevant trend, and this could be so. For instance, I'm a huge Trekkie, I'm a Star Trek nerd.

Chris Norton: 15:28

Yeh, I've seen that on your Twitter.

Will Ockenden: 15:32

Aren't you a Trekkie as well?

Chris Norton: 15:33

I'm a bit of a Trekkie, but not massive.

Tom Basgil: 15:36

Friday is Star Trek Day. So all of my brands that they're doing stuff outside of TikTok, but they're all doing something for Star Trek Day, right, and so there's a lot of fun you can have on a relevant trend. Now we're not going to hop on the latest news trend where we're very specific. the clients that I have, we're talking to developers a lot of times and so Star Trek Day works for them. So definitely hopping on trends, but making sure that you really are picking quality over quantity. I think that's what we're seeing across media right now is - especially with AI. You can definitely do quantity, but people know; you need to focus on quality first.

Chris Norton: 16:16

So we've covered TikTok. So what are the emerging trends in B2B then in 2023/ 24, do you think?

Tom Basgil: 16:25

One that I'm really bullish on is employee advocacy. So there's really two, because I do focus a lot on social. So employee advocacy and social listening, competitive analysis. And I think that we're really seeing this, at least in my area of B2B, because the space isn't doing as well as it was. So folks are focusing on employee advocacy, people who already work for you, where there's not much additional budget that you need to do and then basically getting those folks to advocate for your brand. Sometimes that is as easy as sending an email out once a week being like please share this to your social media.

Tom Basgil: 17:03

I've got clients who do that, other clients we have a dedicated platform. We use advocacy from Sprout Social. We track metrics. We use UTMs. We really see where traffic is coming from and I find that it is an amazing brand awareness play. So one of my clients we implemented and in 30 days from implementation, we got a 30% increase in share of voice among competitors. Measure that through a social listening platform. So the results can be really really great. But you just need to remember that it's an awareness play, because these folks are talking to their network, who might not necessarily be the people that you need to buy, but it really is helpful for getting your brand out there and it's super helpful for startups who people haven't heard of yet.

Will Ockenden: 17:50

And how prescriptive would you recommend being with staff when it comes to kind of shouting about the achievements or values of their company? Should you be very strict with what they should say, or do you give them total freedom?

Tom Basgil: 18:08

Technically, everyone of my clients, their employees have total freedom. I mean, technically, I think that it depends on the brand. So I've got some more buttoned up brands where we very much are like here's the language that you should use, including the why. To use that language is very important for getting folks to do it. And then I have a more disruptive brand that it's really like okay, these are the points we want to hit. However, you want to hit them?

Tom Basgil: 18:33

Great. Some people will take the copy that we recommend and make a tweak and then post it, and some people will completely throw it out the door and talk about their experience. The best advocacy is really you know someone who's like I worked on this product. You know this is, this is my experience with it and this is why I love it so much. So the authenticity is always best. I just find that you know folks have a certain amount of time and so some people will be very authentic and some will just copy paste. The best that you know. I've got one client and it's in their KPIs for certain people on their developer experience team to share to social, and so having that be part of their job description means that they very much post, you know, and they post frequently and authentically and they share really interesting, unique insights. Because it's not an add on.

Will Ockenden: 19:27

Okay. So a problem we regularly come up against is, you know, a client will say look, I really want to raise the profile of I don't know, the CMO, the CEO, whoever it might be, but actually they've got zero interest in social media. You look at their LinkedIn profile they've not even got a photo. So should we try and kind of inverted commers, force these people to do it, or do we need to you know, admit defeat and then focus on those people that have got a genuine interest?

Tom Basgil: 19:56

I like convincing.

Will Ockenden: 19:58

How to do you do that then, come on.

Tom Basgil: 20:01

So it's very much putting up. It depends on the CMO but or C-suite executive. But sometimes I go to the CEO and I'll be like look, your competitor CEO is doing this, this and this, and my estimate of the results are this. That's why you should do it. Other folks it's very much like if I'm looking at a CMO, we might talk in the back and I'd be like look, CMOs stay for an average of two years in their business. So you want to raise your profile because if you're not going to be here in two years, you're going to want to do it.

Tom Basgil: 20:31

So it's really leveraging. You know what their interest is.

Tom Basgil: 20:36

Yeah yeah, so I'm good. But you know there are definitely some clients where I'm like great, I will go straight for your CEO, I will write on social, we will do the engagement for you. That's definitely an option. It requires a huge level of trust and so that's something you build up to. But you know, a very busy CEO probably doesn't have time to build it. And there are even there's an agency one of my clients works for it and all they do is c-suite social media. That's all they do is thought leadership.

Will Ockenden: 21:08

And what are the kind of the more you know forward thinking, innovative thought leaders on social media doing at the moment? Because you know we see an awful lot of people doing pieces to camera now, don't we? And people do lots of polls on LinkedIn and things like that and a lot of it's probably straying a bit too much into the personal for my liking. You know people talking about you know 90% of their posts are about their holidays.

Chris Norton: 21:35

Mental health is also a big thing on LinkedIn.

Will Ockenden: 21:37

So what are the most innovative B2B operators doing at the moment when it comes to content, personal content. I think, from an easy, an easy example is podcasting.

Tom Basgil: 21:49

I think that that, especially if you can get an hour of a CEO's time a week, which is I know is a lot right. You sit them, you set up everything. You sit them in front of the camera, they talk to somebody else ideally a guest, you break that up. All they have to commit is the hour right, show up, you've got the questions for them. So I think the video content is you know... F facebook might have messed with the numbers in round video content a few years ago, but video is now the thing of the future. Right, it's here. You can do any sort of video content that you can do.

Tom Basgil: 22:20

And then I really am, I think that the most innovative CEOs are doing face-to-camera stuff on maybe a cell phone or something. It's really not polished. They say things like um and like, and they're filler words and there's no script. And I think that if you have a C-suite executive who's well-spoken and can think on the fly, that's stuff that's really going to matter. Um, you know, I do see the trend of people being like well, I took my kid to school for the first day and this is 10 business reasons why that was important. You know that doesn't feel authentic but you know maybe following around your CFO as he visits you know different departments on the floor that might be interesting.

Chris Norton: 23:04

Okay, so I've got a question for you. What are the biggest mistakes that people in B2B are making at the moment?

Tom Basgil: 24:16

I think it's very much this canned content of and I think it's... It might not be AI generated, but it definitely feels like it. It's like I took my kid to school for the first day and here are 10 business reasons why you know your business is suffering from take your kid to school syndrome. Like there. I think it's really it. It's the quantity over quality.

Tom Basgil: 24:40

If I can go back to hammer that again, if I can beat that dead horse. Um, it's really just trying to put something out there for the sake of putting something out there, and I see that a lot.

Tom Basgil: 24:49

So I think that when you are trying to become an influencer from a C suite perspective, you need to be aware and that you are going to need to be disruptive and you are going to have to have your sense of humor and there's really going to have to be a personalization.

Tom Basgil: 25:05

So if you are a sarcastic person, you very much should be sarcastic on your social. And I think in B2B, we suffer a lot from trying to be buttoned up too much and selling to a brand rather than a person. Um, but you have to remember that people have their quirks and you also have to remember that you're not going to make everybody happy. Um, and I think that that's also a wonderful opportunity in influencer marketing is you can say something. If you are a C suite executive, you can say your personal experience of a brand that the brand itself couldn't say. We couldn't say you know we're the best without supporting that data, but as a CEO, maybe you really feel like you're the best and that authenticity and that credibility comes across.

Will Ockenden: 25:45

And that idea of being disruptive. I mean that sounds like a bit of a leap of faith. I mean you have to be quite brave, don't you to be truly disruptive. Um, you know like you say, if you are sarcastic or you have got a great sense of humor, really putting that across on social media is a bit counterintuitive, isn't it?

Tom Basgil: 26:04

Yes, I like to think of, at least when I'm doing my own social, is talking to the clients that I want and letting the clients I don't want know that they shouldn't go with me. So that does include some politics, that includes some of my personal values, that includes me being a nerd about Star Trek and the clients that like that, will work with me and the ones who don't. So I think it's important to remember that your audience isn't everyone and it's okay to attract and repel different companies and clients and people to better use the market, and that is a very social media thing. This isn't what you're going to put on a billboard.

Will Ockenden: 26:45

And you mentioned at the beginning of this section about employee advocacy. This is a kind of a brand awareness play, rather than about conversions or anything like that. How do we measure this? Let's say we convince the C-suite to embark on this journey of employee advocacy. Six months down the line, what does success look like?

Tom Basgil: 27:07

Yeah, I think there's two different measurements. Really is one you could measure the success of the platform profile itself. So, if it's a C-suite, how many new followers have they gained and what is the engagement? From a brand perspective and most of my clients, what we care about is measuring how they come to the website. So you can use UTM parameters and you can say, okay, this person landed on this page. Did they stay, did they leave or did they go, and measuring that kind of behavior is most important.

Tom Basgil: 27:36

So what a lot of my clients are looking at is we're like okay, how many hits did this bring to the website and did they do anything? Did they click and then leave? What was the bounce rate? Do we think they sat and read? And that's kind of what we use. So when we're using a more sophisticated platform, we can even say, okay this salesperson shared 10 posts and their following is this much, so we can estimate this. We can even estimate advertising costs, so we can say okay, if we get this many impressions, we can say that it would probably have cost us this much. We've running a PPC campaign. So there's a lot of interesting things we can measure, but it really does. It really is more of an awareness play. For your sales folks, maybe you could measure down way for downloads, but most people aren't following another person's social media to download white papers.

Chris Norton: 28:25

So I've got a question for you. You mentioned social listening at the beginning, so social listening has been a bit problematic. It came out how many years ago would you say 15 years ago? Something like that.

Tom Basgil: 28:37

I wouldn't even say that. Yeah, maybe less?

Chris Norton: 28:39

Is it less than that? And sentiment has always been a big issue and obviously, with the growth of machine learning and AI, we're hoping that sentiment gets eradicated from it. How are you using social listening for B2B marketing at the moment, then? What are you using it to measure? Is it sentiment or what are you using it? What are the killer areas that you're looking to monitor?

Tom Basgil: 29:02

Yeah, I think sentiment is generally part of my reports, but it always comes with a caveat of like. Unless I've personally looked at every piece of content that's pulled up in the sentiment and I do spot checks. You know, things are going to fall through the wayside. Language learning models are only so good. I think that the big part of this is so. When I was working at Hotwire, we had a platform that was $150,000 a year to do social listening. Now you can get one that's like $100, $200 a month, much significantly cheaper entry. Even I had to use Boolean. Now you can just use... you know it's pretty intuitive to do different social listening. So I think that it's much more accessible now, which is great.

Tom Basgil: 29:45

What I'm using it for is to measure online share of voice, so who's talking most? And you have to dig into that data too, because one of my clients competitors has all these fake Twitter accounts that tweet about the company. It looks like their share of voice is high, but it's fake. So you really have to dig into that kind of deal so that we're looking at what folks are talking about. So what are the common themes that are coming across?

Tom Basgil: 30:13

So Log4J was a big part of January last year I want to say, so with one of my clients we measured how other companies were talking about this vulnerability in cybersecurity and we could see are we getting picked up? More or less based on that. So we do a lot of that and then even just seeing volume of messages. So it's pretty intuitive I can say August and December are the worst months for social media for B2B brands. People are on vacation on both of those times, but it might be interesting to see that folks really start thinking about buying in June, and we thought it would be Q1 calendar year. That's an important insight for the sales team.

Will Ockenden: 30:58

So certainly market insight is a big use case. Obviously, we know about crisis management and things like that and issues tracking. It sounds like measuring the effectiveness of campaigns is also a use case. Is there anything else that we might not have thought of when it comes to social listening?

Tom Basgil: 31:16

One thing I really like to use, is to look at the authors of pieces of content, and I found that you might find a brand advocate that you didn't know about, and I particularly find being able to analyze YouTube is very important. I feel like a lot of brands forget about YouTube, at least in the B2B space. So finding that XYZ person talks about your brand three times a month and is doing how-to videos on YouTube, that's really useful to know. You might want to work with that person specifically. You might want to give them early access to features so that they could talk about on their channels. There's a lot of different ways to leverage that, so I feel like looking at the authors is one of my favorite pieces to look at, because there's a lot of more white glove service that you can do with things like that. It's not as scalable, but you can have some real fast impact.

Chris Norton: 32:05

YouTube, second biggest search engine, owned by the first biggest search engine. You're right. It's amazing how many B2B companies just ignore it when there's so much you can do with it and so many searches for different things that can be really relevant to your business. So we've talked about the present and what you find in it. What about the future, then? What's the future of B2B marketing? What do you see it as?

Tom Basgil: 32:28

I see it more of focusing on some of the things that we've talked about.

Tom Basgil: 32:31

So, at least from a tactical standpoint social listening, employee advocacy for a more, maybe, strategic standpoint, I think it's going to be a lot more focusing on authenticity and helpful content. I think we need to rethink white papers and case studies and things like that. Everyone does them. So I think that thinking from a more strategic standpoint of how do we build a content machine that includes PR, that includes advertising, that talks about our brand and the way we want to talk about it, and really be more strategic about how we see that on the funnel. So what pieces of content do we release that talk about strategy and what pieces are specifically for those decision-makers, or sorry not strategy, awareness and then what specific pieces are for making a decision, comparing other companies. So I think that's what I'm expecting to see, especially as AI content becomes more ubiquitous. I think folks are going to rely on AI and I think that you're going to start to see. You're going to be able to tell the brands that have real folks at least editing that AI content.

Tom Basgil: 33:44

We're going to see a glut of content.

Chris Norton: 33:47

Yeah, and we were talking about this and whether AI, if everybody uses AI, you become the average of everything rather than actually standing out, because you're using unique individuals, like you're talking about there.

Will Ockenden: 33:58

In fact that point on white papers. Let's dig into that a little bit more. So I think the default approach for a lot of B2B brands has been to create a white paper, gate it, etc. So are you saying that approach is no longer working?

Tom Basgil: 34:13

I don't think it's as strong as it used to be. No, I think it's useful to be able to measure those conversions and to say we got these people into our email database, how wonderful. But I think that we have too many email newsletters. We've got too many things in our inbox. I think, if you're going to do something like a white paper, maybe upload the document to LinkedIn. You can upload a document post. Let folks view it there. You're not going to capture their data, right. So I think that there are other ways you need to capture data. You need to have a webinar that is not just here's our case study. It actually teaches something very important that folks want to learn.

Tom Basgil: 34:52

I think that white papers in general are just not as effective. Yeah, and I think that they're boring. I mean, if you have a white paper like one of my clients this morning who was busy typing, released some research that they did that was original research. That's something people are going to want to download and then look at. But now if they had released something like here's how to use our platform to most effectively do xyz, that's a little bit. That's what everyone's doing.

Will Ockenden: 35:20

So white papers. So white papers have their place if the content is sufficiently authentic and interesting, but marketers should look beyond that. So webinars, podcasts, whatever it might be.

Tom Basgil: 35:32

Yeah, I think there's a huge tendency to just throw a white paper out when that might not be the best. You know one of my clients instead of doing case studies. A couple of years ago, they were a data visualization firm and they did a know- it- all series, where they interviewed somebody at each client that was going to be part of the case studies and showed how they knew everything because of using their platform and it was this fun video series. The videos were 30 seconds to a minute long. I do. He did really, really well because no one wanted to download the case study, but they'll watch this 30-second video.

Chris Norton: 36:04

Does anyone want to download case studies? So on that note, you can download Tom's white paper at... N o jokes, so well, we told you at the beginning of the show. The premise of the show is to talk about a professional fuckup that you've made in your career and what you've learned from it. So I imagine, Tom, you've had no mistakes you've ever made anywhere in any organization. Is that right? Is that fair?

Tom Basgil: 36:31

You know, it's really hard to think about anything that I've ever messed up, yeah. When I think about my biggest, most public one, though. So I used to be in the consumer sector and I used to work at Coney Island, which is an amusement park district in New York. Very iconic.

Tom Basgil: 36:50

A lot of the first amusement attractions were either shown there or you know, and we decided to do a New Year's Eve event, and in New York there is Macy's has monopoly on fireworks. There are no like, unless you get a special permit, they are going to do the biggest fireworks. It's on the river, it's this massive thing and we wanted to do fireworks. So we're like ok, we'll build this event. We think 500 people will show, maybe we'll get 500 people if we're really, really lucky. And I build out porta-potties and all these things for 500 people, right? 5,000 people showed up, which was a little bit different than we expected. We had a great time, but that is a very significant difference in amount of people on a freezing boardwalk on New Year's Eve, and it was freezing, and that was early on in my professional career. That might have been like three years in. So I think I learned a lot.

Will Ockenden: 37:53

Well, you've done your job haven't you in getting 5,000 people there.

Chris Norton: 37:57

If it was getting people to the event, you've done brilliantly. I did great yeah. So why was it such a struggle then? Because the queue to the toilet was enormous?

Tom Basgil: 38:07

Well, that was one thing, but we had some vendors and things like that, but it was not prepared for that many folks. We had a sound system but it wasn't built for that many people. We had a small PA system. It was not really ready for this stuff and you know they were all sorts of. You know the police were upset because we didn't tell them how many people we were going to bring. We didn't know. We only had a couple of cops, so it was a whole thing. But I guess it taught me to prepare, you know they say prepare for the worst and expect the best. I feel like you also need to prepare for the best, just in case it happens.

Chris Norton: 38:49

Phenomenal. I mean 5,000 people to an event, but I mean wow, you're working New Year's Eve as well that's some commitment. I mean you guys in the US don't get as much holiday as we do in the UK, right?

Tom Basgil: 38:59

We get like five days off, maybe.

Chris Norton: 39:01

Five? Really.

Tom Basgil: 39:02

Nah, I mean, I feel like the average American has like two weeks if they've got a white color job. That's what we get off, yeah.

Chris Norton: 39:11

Well, Will can open the US office of Prohibition then. I'll send him over there.

Tom Basgil: 39:14

He'll be working every day.

Will Ockenden: 39:19

And any more fuck ups in more recent. I mean you mentioned in the context of B2B. You know this idea of inauthenticity and just churning out generic content. Is there anything you've done more recently with a B2B hat on that you can think of?

Tom Basgil: 39:34

Nothing that was as exciting, but I think that some of what I'd say more recently is biting off more than I can chew with a client, because I think that I used to work in agencies and now I'm on my own, more or less on my own, and there are a lot of different steps that go into tactical execution. So I might say, great, we've got this PPC strategy and everything's going to be great and I'm going to launch it and I only need 24 hours to get this thing off the ground. Like I've got everything. It's really remembering that there is a human element, common theme right, a human element.

Tom Basgil: 40:15

And are my clients going to be on deadline? Are they going to release a credit card? Are they going to do this this and this? All of these onboarding checklists. So I don't know if that's actually particularly relevant to your audience, but it's really just. I've learned that there are checklists on top of checklists on top of checklists that do even the most simple thing, where I could post on Instagram in five seconds but to get a client to do that might take three months.

Will Ockenden: 40:42

And that's a really interesting point, isn't it? It's about that real collaboration. You need to be aware how long things take to sign off. If a client's stamping their foot saying they want something on Monday, realistically there's a million and one hurdles between Thursday and Monday that's going to stop that happening, isn't there? And both sides, I think, need to be really realistic about it.

Tom Basgil: 41:04

Yeah, one of the things that I've learned is that I thrive most when a client's like I need this done, I don't care how, just figure it out. And I do really, really well in those situations where a client's like I just need this done, figure out how to make it work. And I guess, some of my fuck ups is accepting clients that are like no, we want to manage every aspect of this, we want it in a little project management system and we want all the little eyes dotted and Ts crossed. I'm like, oh, I don't work that way. I work best when throwing the deep end. So at least from a consultant standpoint, learning who your ideal clients are is much different than just knowing their employee size and how much revenue they bring in and all of that stuff's important. But to me it's like okay, do we have the human connection that they're going to work with me in the way that I work best?

Will Ockenden: 41:54

And you turn clients down on the basis if you think they're not a good fit for you, they don't match your values. You're honest with them.

Tom Basgil: 42:01

I like to be, yeah. I mean there have been some clients who we've even worked together after that because I'm like this is how I work best. Is this going to work for you? And I mean, you know, working your own business, you want to bring in as many clients as possible, but I find that I get the best results from the clients where we work in similar ways and we collaborate very well together.

Will Ockenden: 42:23

And that works both ways, doesn't it? I mean from the client. You know, why would a client want to work with a consultant or an agency that doesn't match their values? So I think that's a really important conversation.

Tom Basgil: 42:32

It hasn't served any of us and being in the industry for over a decade, I can always say I know somebody who works like that. Here you go, so I don't have to leave them in the dust. But knowing how I operate, you know, really helps.

Will Ockenden: 42:49

So let's talk about return on investment, or ROI. So I think that's the panacea, isn't it with marketing? Particularly with B2B marketing. Is there a silver bullet? How do we demonstrate this? You know what's the current thinking when it comes to demonstrating ROI and measurement in B2B marketing.

Tom Basgil: 43:05

Yeah, I like to. I tell my client there's two different ways. So we've got the short term, we've got long term. If we want short term ROI, we're going to do advertising and it's going to. You're going to burn money and when we turn the advertising off. It's done. There's no more. And then long term is more of a content play. We're going to build an email newsletter and we're going to build a blog. Maybe we'll do a podcast and we're going to build this whole thing.

Tom Basgil: 43:31

So I like to think about ROI and what's short term and what's long term, and those are two different tactics. You know, short term, you could pay an influencer for a post. Long term, maybe you set up this partnership where they're more of a brand ambassador. So I don't think there's a silver bullet. I think that it's important especially when Markham budgets are what they are and there's only so much higher, so much bigger you can make the budget is to go to the client and be like look... I can either do one of two things. Do you want the short term or do you want the long term? And knowing that timeline means that they're able to go to the people in their organization and say this is when we're going to get results.

Will Ockenden: 44:14

And how granular do you get when it comes to demonstrating a return? So let's say you're doing a brand awareness campaign. You know you might be working with B2B influencers. Other than we know we've got awareness, you know. Can you go beyond that? Can you put a value on that awareness? Financial value, pounds and dollars?

Tom Basgil: 44:33

I think that you know what you can do is you can you know estimate how much ad value that would be if you were paying for you know cost per impressions, things like that. I think that that is something that some of my clients use. I think that that is very old school and like how PR used to measure how much space it would be in newspaper.

Tom Basgil: 44:55

Like I think that it is an approximation, but it is not necessarily the best for right now. So I think that when we're looking at awareness, I of course measure impressions, but I'd love to do a brand recall study, or I would love to see okay, how are we comparing to our competitors? Do they get picked up more by press than we do? Is that a PR issue or is that an issue with brand awareness in the marketing sector? Do they just not know about us? So they're more of these qualitative metrics around ROI. So I can say, great, here's our engagement rate, and that our benchmark should be this. Did we do better or worse? But then from there, what is the qualitative aspect around that?

Chris Norton: 45:38

I've got a random question for you for this podcast and you're working in PR for cyber security, right?

Tom Basgil: 45:47

I do marketing.

Chris Norton: 45:48

Yeah, ok sorry, you do marketing for cyber security. What's the impact of AI on cyber security and people using it to hack security systems and safe banking systems and things like that?

Tom Basgil: 46:05

Yeah, that's an interesting question and that could be a whole podcast in itself, and I'm not an expert on that, but what I can say is that it's a constant arms race of companies trying to be smarter using their own AI and then hackers trying to be smarter using their own AI. So I've got some clients who have this machine learning in the background that try tries to predict a spike, and if there's a spike in this kind of traffic, that means that you're probably being hacked to basically catch it in advance. But I think that what it's showing is that what I expect is a cyber security industry is going to grow. Hackers, sophistication is increasing. So you know when, before you get an email from your boss, I would say please buy five hundred dollars of Amazon gift cards and drop them off to this unmarked envelope. Things are that's spam, hang on a minute.

Will Ockenden: 46:54

I forgot that was spam, was it? Yeah, it was. I didn't want to meet you. I didn't realize.

Tom Basgil: 46:59

They're way more sophisticated now. So it may even come from an email that looks like your boss, it may come from a phone number that you know. So I think that with AI we've got a lot more sophistication. So there's more that cyber security companies need to do, and then as an individual, there are a lot more steps we can take, like because they work in cyber security. You know, I don't connect to hotel or airport Wi-Fi like I have very specific my passwords or like 30 something characters. You know there's all sorts of things that I do personally to protect myself.

Chris Norton: 47:30

AI hacking terrifies me because I mean, they look good already, but with AI prediction and text, I just think it's going to get so much more sophisticated.

Tom Basgil: 47:40

F aking voices too. Yeah, faking voices. You get a call from your boss and it sounds like him.

Chris Norton: 47:44

So, I've got a question that I always ask all our guests. In your opinion, as being a guest on this show, who should be? If you could pick one guest for this podcast, who would you if you were us, who would you invite on the show and what would you ask them?

Tom Basgil: 48:01

Oh. I follow a podcast called B2B Better by Jason Bradwell. I absolutely love him and he's UK based and I would bring him on and I would ask him how. I mean, I care about B2B. I would ask them how brands are using podcasts and how do you better utilize them for content creation, because I think a podcast is this whole wonderful idea of like you've got this video, you've got the audio, you've got snippets, you can do transcripts, you can do blog posts. There's a million ways you can take this one hour segment and utilize it. So I love Jason. I was on his podcast. I think he would be a great guest. Great, what was his show called, sorry?

Chris Norton: 48:41

B2B Better, B2B Better. Okay, cool.

Will Ockenden: 48:45

And that point on podcasts is really interesting. I mean, there can't be any other medium where you've got such a captive audience for such a length of time. You know, you've basically got your audience for an hour, haven't you? Or more, sometimes two hours, and no other medium can do that.

Tom Basgil: 49:01

Yeah, and I think that the wonderful thing about a podcast is that some people might want to watch on YouTube, some people might want to only listen while they're at the gym, some people might want to read the transcript, so there's all different ways to be accessible to how people like to learn, and it all comes from just one hour take.

Chris Norton: 49:20

Okay. So if people want to get hold of you, Tom, how do they find you in your operation?

Tom Basgil: 49:26

Yeah, easiest way is tom. basgil. com. I'm also Tom Basgil on Twitter or X. Same on LinkedIn. You know every social channel, but I'd say reach out to me on my website or go to my LinkedIn. That's the easiest way to find me.

Chris Norton: 49:45

Yeah, great. Thanks for coming on the show Tom, that was really interesting. Yeah, fascinating.

Will Ockenden: 49:48

Thanks for that, Tom. I think it's really nice to have somebody actually talking about B2B marketing for a change. Like I say, you know, a lot of people talk about the consumer side of things, but actually the B2B side is every bit as creative and interesting, isn't it?

Tom Basgil: 50:02

I find yeah, I find that there are. I feel like there's this huge divide between consumer and B2B, and it's a different skill set, but really you're both talking to people you know. So I think there's a lot of bleed and we make an artificial break there.

Chris Norton: 50:20

Tom had a few interesting things to say on the world of B2B and cybersecurity. What did you take from today's chat, Will?

Will Ockenden: 50:27

Well, first of all, it was great to get somebody who was a B2B marketer on the show. I think a lot of the time we talk to those people in consumer fields, so I'm sure our listeners will get a lot of value from that. One of the things that really jumped out at me was around measurement that we probably need to look beyond trying to put a kind of dollar value on absolutely everything we do in social media. He talked about slightly more sophisticated metrics, things like share of voice, impressions, share of voice, preference to buy, attitudes to brand. I guess it's behaving a bit more like an advertising agency would do when launching a TVC.

Chris Norton: 51:05

I thought he had some interesting points on staff advocacy and the hub and spoke approach as to why marketing brands push out content on the marketing channels and then the employees get them to share things. I'm not sure that I would send an email to my staff saying can everybody please share this, although sometimes I suppose if you've got a social media campaign going you might encourage people to share or like, but not from prohibition or from the podcast.

Will Ockenden: 51:32

Yeah. I think he talked about authenticity, and I think that's really important. You can't force people to do something. You've got to give them the tools and the knowledge, and if your values are right and if they're sufficiently engaged, naturally they will want to do that, and I think that's quite a fine balance, isn't it when it comes to staff advocacy?

Chris Norton: 51:49

Yeah, and he had some good points on the fact that et's let's face it, people. There's people out there that are saying B2B is boring to boring. It's not. It's still about people. If you're targeting B2B, you could still do cool, interesting stuff. He was doing some cool stuff over the pond in the US. He's doing some cool stuff.

Chris Norton: 52:07

I like the fact that he had a small outfit but he'd come from a big agency background, so he'd work with a big agency but he'd shrunk that down to a few freelancers himself and he was working for good quality brands but also some startups, which was quite. So, he had an interesting take on it. I loved his f**k up, though. That was entertaining the fact that he had an event that had 5,000 people that really should have only had 500. It actually reminded me of down your way, because I went to Big Beach Boutique, which is when Fatboy Slim did exactly the same thing. I think he planned for 5,000 and he had the beach thing. And he was DJing on the beach, free to everybody, and it was a day like today, the hottest day of the year. So everybody in London went oh yeah, let's go down to the Big Beach Boutique and see Fatboy Slim. I think it was.

Will Ockenden: 52:56

It was 250,000 people and it closed Brighton.

Chris Norton: 52:58

Yeah, it was a nightmare.

Will Ockenden: 52:59

Yeah, there was people climbing lamp posts and the music was like you couldn't hear anything.

Chris Norton: 53:05

It was like someone had turned a Walkman on because there was that many people talking. He's good though. Sorry, Norman. Just a big shout out, big fan.

Will Ockenden: 53:13

Norman's on next week's show, is he yeah?

Chris Norton: 53:15

Yeah, Norman's tuning in next week. Norman's on.

Will Ockenden: 53:17

The idea that B2B marketing somehow isn't creative is a nonsense. We should as marketers, absolutely be creative in B2B and I think that's the point Tom supported. Also worth mentioning driving the employee advocacy trend is very much the fact that the algorithms are reducing organic reach and engagement on business pages, isn't it? We didn't actually touch on that and I think you get something like seven to eight times the engagement and reach on a personal page. So the idea is if only a handful of staff start talking about your company in a positive way, the potential reach is absolutely vast compared with your company page.

Chris Norton: 53:55

Yeah, staff advocacy is big. He also had a lot to say on TikTok, which is quite interesting but mainly the point was, if you want B2B on TikTok. Say, hold there, we don't want Chris and Will dancing down the high street or your CEO. It's not really going to work doing a funky little dance in the office to music.

Will Ockenden: 54:12

The point is, there's a lot to be said for going all in on a platform. I think, there's often the tendency to half do something and expect it to work somehow. But the point is you need to commit in the short to medium to long term and you need to commit the resource to it and something like TikTok is resource heavy, isn't it?

Chris Norton: 54:32

Yeah, and Tom had great points on the fact that it takes six months to get some sort. If you're going to go all in, it's going to be six months, but if you're a startup, try and only do one a week. That's a good tip, that. I thought it was a good tip. If you're B2B out there, you're sat on your own thinking how the hell can I get my brand to grow? You don't have to do a video every day. You don't have to do a piece to camera. If you just think of one interesting piece that you can talk about in your sector, you use the example of data centers. But whatever sector you're in, as long as you can think of one thing or something interesting and insightful to say, then that can be good for your TikTok.

Will Ockenden: 55:05

And the final point, which was music to my ears; quality over quantity. We shouldn't just post for the sake of it. There's a lot to be said for a creative, well thought through, well produced piece of content, even if it means posting once a week.

Chris Norton: 55:18

#Blue. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, okay well, that was good. A few plugs for the show. We have now got a website that I mentioned earlier at the beginning, but please check out our website. It's sociallyunacceptable. co. uk. So it's nice and easy to find Everything's on there. You can share it and you can download it wherever you get your podcasts. So if you've listened to this one or you're watching us on YouTube, thanks very much. We appreciate every comment, every review. We read everything and I'd like to admit that I fucked up this week because I took questions off Twitter. So thanks, everybody on Twitter. So I had three questions that I got off Twitter. One was from Rewind Creative, so thanks for that. They asked us what challenges do you see B2B businesses and how do you think marketing has changed for them in the last 12 months? Didn't ask it, sorry. And then I had got John PCLTD. He said describe me the circumstances when you last told a lie and what the outcome was. I'll ask Will that? When did you last tell a lie and what was the outcome?

Chris Norton: 56:17

When I told you I liked you this morning. Okay, you don't ever tell me you like me, so that was a lie as well. And then Steven Davies, our good friend Steven, who is coming on the show in a few months asked. He said not a killer question, but how can B2B marketing be perceived as sexy for the B2C equivalent as the B2C equivalent?

Will Ockenden: 56:37

Well, that goes back to what Tom was talking about, about getting great results, being super creative, being super authentic. I don't think you need to have some massive brand activation in the street necessarily, do you? But you can still absolutely deliver creative campaigns that deliver great results.

Chris Norton: 56:55

Yeah, so thanks everybody. Thanks for tuning in. You'll see us again. The show's out every Tuesday, every other Tuesday, so we're out fortnightly. And please look out, and we'll see you in a couple of weeks.

Will Ockenden: 57:06

See you next Tuesday.

Vicki Murphy: 57:33

Thank you for listening to the Socially Unacceptable. Until next time, please keep pushing the boundaries and embracing the socially unacceptable.