Build a winning paid media strategy for B2B SMEs and startups

Social selling is a term that is being thrown around a lot these days, but for most companies, it means sending automated connection requests over LinkedIn followed by “me, me” messages.  My guest Claudiu Jojatu, CEO and co-founder of Milk & Cookies Studio has a different take on what social selling done right looks like. For Claudiu, social selling with zero BS means doing high-quality networking and getting involved in building long-term relationships. Is social selling effective? Well, Claudiu and his team managed to generate over 1 million EUR in pipeline for one of their tech clients in a little over 9 months.  If you’d like to learn more about how Milk & Cookies Studio approaches social selling, hit play. If you’d like to connect with Claudiu, find him on LinkedIn and on milkandcookies.studio Bonus:  Download for free this 30+ pages #NoBS social selling guide.

Companies often look at outbound sales as a quick fix for bringing in revenue. But sales is not about charm, and revenue is not about luck. If your company doesn't have a revenue strategy in place that starts with understanding your customer needs, your competitors, defining the right pricing strategy and channels, you're most likely to end up complaining that outbound sales are "dead". I sat down with Liana and Gabriela of SavoireFair and explored what running outbound sales the right way looks like today in B2B. Tune in to learn: What B2B outbound done right looks like today How to build a solid outbound strategy Mistakes to avoid, what you can automate in your outreach process, realistic expectations, and much more Gabriela Turcu and Liana Stoica are the founders of SavoireFaire, a Boutique consultancy helping B2B startups and scale-ups build global sales engines. You can find more about their process and philosophy on their website www.savoirefair.com or connect with Liana and Gabriela on LinkedIn.

Paid media can be a great acquisition channel, but many B2B startups or SMEs start on the wrong foot. In this episode, I chat with Andrea Todorova and Niko Dovidija, co-founders of Diligent Studios, a B2B marketing agency specialized on strategy - first performance marketing. Tune in to learn: What are the top mistakes B2B startups and SMEs make when it comes to paid media and how to address them What is Diligent Studios’ framework for strategic performance marketing and how it adds value to their clients How to think about selecting the right paid channels How to approach testing new channels What do best-performing B2B ad campaigns have in common If you want to know more about my guests, you can find and connect with Andrea and Niko on Linkedin or find out more about Diligent Studios on their website. #b2bmarketing #paidmedia #valuedrivenmarketing

Stacey Danheiser, Founder and CMO of Shake Marketing joins episode #15 to talk about why many B2B marketers today lack credibility in front of their leadership team, and how they can turn this situation around and deliver more business impact. Stacey shares insights from her career of over 20 years as a marketing leader and strategist, talking about what leadership expects from marketing and how you can become an effective and reputable marketing leader. Some of the ideas we touched on: Why marketers lack credibility in many companies What do CEOs and leadership expect from marketing? What are the 3 traits of an effective marketing leader today? The different ways marketers sabotage themselves in the workplace and how to change that You can find Stacey on Linkedin or on her website www.shakemktg.com. Bonus: check out Stacey’ Scorecard “The Confident Marketer Scorecard”.

Can you create a better experience for B2B buyers with website personalization? And if so, what are the different ways in which you can leverage web personalization to help your website visitors without being intrusive? How can you, as a B2B marketer get started, and what mistakes should you avoid on your website? In this episode, I talk about web personalization with Eric Melchor, Personalization Ambassador at OptiMonk and host of Innovators can Laugh podcast. Eric talks about how OptiMonk tapped into the B2B space, why B2B brands need to focus on building long-term relationships rather than increasing conversions short-term and how web personalization enables B2B marketers get there, how a SaaS brand increased web conversions by 20% with a simple reminder notification & more. If you want to follow Eric’s content, listen to his podcast on Spotify/Apple or follow him on Linkedin. Check out the resource Eric recommends: optimonk.com/customer-value-optimization-guide

B2B buying doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a sequence of events that impact a decision long before people reach out to your sales team. How well do you understand what triggers buyers to take action? What influences their decisions, what makes them trust you? Who ends up on their short list of vendors, and how do they make the final decision? If you don’t know how people make buying decisions, it will be very difficult to influence them through your marketing. In episode #13, I talk to Ryan Paul Gibson of contentlift.io about running customer research interviews that don’t suck. We talk about: What running investigative customer interviews entails How to prepare for a customer interview, so you make the most of it How to uncover behaviors instead of opinions How to use the learnings in your marketing Find Ryan on LinkedIn or on his website contentlift.io.

We need to change how we do marketing today because focusing purely on customer acquisition is becoming increasingly expensive, and it’s not sustainable long-term. Instead, we need to view marketing as a holistic way of growing a company throughout the entire customer journey: from acquisition to activation, retention, and expansion. But to get there, we need to challenge how most companies and leaders think about marketing, step away from trying to measure and attribute everything and have marketing and sales compete for resources and recognition. My guest Jennifer Montague shares her vision of what marketing’s role in a company should be and how she’s building that vision at IoT start-up Onomondo. Listen to the episode to discover: How Jennifer came to view marketing as holistic growth, and what has led her to this vision How you can get started in realigning marketing to have a holistic impact across the customer's journey How Jennifer thinks about roles and skills in the growth team How Onomondo will grow in the next 2-3 years, and what marketing levers they are pulling to get there

Confused prospects don’t buy. And when you are trying to say everything about your product or service all at once, you’re creating just that: confusion. This is where messaging strategy comes into play: it helps you identify the most essential things about your product or service and why that matters to your audience. So your company is remembered for the right things and cut through the noise. In this episode, I had the pleasure of chatting to Diane Wiredu of Lion Words about messaging strategy in B2B. Listen to the episode if you’re curious to learn: Why messaging strategy matters and how to know if you need to work on your messaging What good messaging sounds like The 4-steps process Diane uses for building effective messaging How to prevent yourself from sounding like every other company out there How to test your messaging Bonus: find out what jobs Diane wanted to have as she grew up You can follow Diane on LinkedIn or learn more about her messaging strategy & consulting work on her website lionwords.com.

Everyone seems to be talking about growth marketing, but what is growth marketing exactly, and what is not? If you’re interested in running growth experiments to learn faster what works in your marketing but fear you're not ready or that you're behind the curve, this episode is for you. I invited Katya Sivkova, Founder of Boom & Bloom, a growth advisory and growth consultant, to discuss how to run experiments the right way. Here are some of the topics we tackle in this episode: When it’s the right time in a company’s development to start running growth experiments What are the foundational steps you need to take before you start experimenting What are the best practices to formulate realistic hypotheses How to select your channels to experiment and scale Katya’s top learnings from mentoring startups & scaleups and pitfalls you want to avoid Katya is the Founder of Boom & Bloom, a growth advisory. Her mission is to help tech companies grow & scale. You can find and connect with Katya via her website KatyaSivkova.com or on her Linkedin profile. Some of the resources mentioned by Katya: Growth Tribe Reforge CXL Growth Mentor

If you're interested in learning about Go-To-Market strategies for B2B brands, this episode is for you. In episode #9 I sit down to discuss with Stefan Repin, fractional CMO and GTM Strategist, everything related to GTM and working with a fractional CMO. Play the episode to learn: When it’s the right time to hire a fractional CMO & the value one can bring What elements should you take into consideration when you’re building your GTM strategy What framework for experimentation can you use How to measure marketing’s impact on revenue How to think about hiring your first marketing people You can connect with Stefan on LinkedIn where he talks about brand, content, B2B marketing, and demand generation: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefan-repin-b2boperations/ The resources mentioned in this episode: The Mom Test: How to Talk to Customers & Learn If Your Business Is a Good Idea When Everyone Is Lying to You by Rob Fitzpatrick Move: The 4-question Go-to-Market Framework by Sangram Vajre Paul Graham’s article Default Dead or Default Alive Wynter.io & SenseCheck.com for message testing