My B2C experience has strongly shaped the way I approach B2B marketing today.
At Del Monte Foods, I was on the Consumer Insights and Strategy team where I focused on new product innovation based on understanding our target buyers.
At Blistex, I ran focus groups and worked on new lip care innovation based on deep consumer research as the foundation.
At Groupon, I worked closely with the Consumer Insights team to understand different buyer segments and why certain people were superfans (while others were not) to better tailor our marketing efforts.
In B2C I learned that great marketing, product innovation, and sales require deep customer understanding at the core.
I saw that better insights and understanding our customers literally translated into more sales.
And then I joined a couple of B2B startups to head up their marketing efforts…
It was super different.
There was no customer insights team.
There were no documented customer insights.
“Insights" were assumptions and opinions and not clearly understood across the org.
There was data, sure, like sales territories to hit, number of cold calls we needed to make, cold emails to send, etc. but deep data around our target buyer, who they were, goals, challenges, aspirations, why they bought, why us versus something else?
Nada.
I felt that gaping hole, like "something's really missing here guys” and knew that I had to be the consumer insights team + head of marketing all rolled into one.
Today, that's exactly how I approach all my client projects.
I’m like a detective.
I dig, dig, dig and specialize in talking to your customers with intention, find the common thread, translate business jargon into simple language and turn customer insights into a messaging and positioning strategy that your buyers understand and act on.
I created the Customer Insights Roadmap because it’s the most effective way to go beyond a superficial understanding of your customers, apply those deep learnings to all parts of your business, and attract customers by genuinely resonating with their needs, emotions and preferences.
The benefit of talking to your customers with intention is you no longer have to guess what to say.
You’ll be able to engage and create interest among your target buyers, increase word of mouth (WOM), and increase both inbound (marketing) and outbound (sales) performance.
There is no marketing and sales without customer insights.
