Many B2B marketers are focused on addressing the pain points of their customers, and one way to better understand the challenges of B2B organizations is to delve into the issues that the customers of their customers are facing.
“I’m a big proponent of looking at ways to solve the problems of our customers’ customers,” said Kyle Lacy, Head of Marketing Strategy at OpenView Venture Partners, in the C-suite panel at the 2016 B2B Content2Conversion and Demand Gen Summit conference in Scottsdale.
Lacy said that OpenView Venture Partners does research to help understand the market and provide prospects with data. “Primary research matters, so we look at benchmarks for email, social and mobile and other things about our customers’ customers that will help our customers.”
Marketers have to view themselves as “experience makers,” Lacy said. “The experience that customers have with our brand is the only thing that makes us relevant.”
Panelist Bob Brennan, CEO of the application security company Veracode, agreed that a better customer experience — fueled by data — can improve engagement. “As a CEO, I’ve got two problems: revenue and everything else. Anyone who can help me solve those problems has my attention.”
He added that a metrics-driven approach makes engagement more relevant. Some metrics that are key at Veracode include:
- Number of inquiries;
- Number of high score leads;
- Percentage of accepted leads to high-scoring leads;
- Number of meeting/hand offs; and
- Percentage of opportunities to meetings/hand offs.
