Episode 217 / Kristin Sinclair / TÜV SÜD / Performance Marketing Manager
Using AI in B2B Marketing
Kristin Sinclair is the Performance Marketing Manager at TÜV SÜD, where she focuses on finding the ideal buyers for their services as a digital platform, making sure that her brand is top of their mind. Her career spans many changes and learnings that have brought her to B2B marketing and led to her choice of shiny new object - AI in B2B marketing.
Kristin’s career path has been quite a journey. She started in graphic design, dabbled in user interface and user experience design, and then found her true calling in digital marketing. She then became interested in SEO, paid search, and social media, eventually landing in the B2B world. However, she had to learn some important lessons early on in her career.
Originally, Kristin thought she could “do it all.” Overworking herself led to getting shingles when she was in her 20s… definitely an unexpected twist that forced her to slow down and learn to create boundaries. As a result, Kristin learnt that she needs to focus on certain things and pour her energy into priorities only, “because that’s what’s actually going to move the needle.”
Kristin’s top marketing tip is simple yet profound: Understand your customer. Knowing who will connect with your brand or service and benefit from it is crucial. Not sure who that might be? Just talk to them. As she puts it: “People are usually more than willing to share their problems, and if you can solve them, you have an audience.”
As for her Shiny New Object, Kristin is fascinated by the intersection of AI and B2B marketing. She believes that AI, particularly intent data, holds immense potential for marketers. Platforms like Clearbit, ZoomInfo, and DiscoverOrg can help them find prospective customers who might be interested in their products or services. However, the challenge lies in effectively utilising this data and ensuring its proper follow-through.
While acknowledging the benefits of AI, Kristin warns about being overly aggressive in customer acquisition. The risk of disenchanting potential customers is real, as people may start ignoring outreach efforts if they feel overwhelmed or if the trust factor is missing.
Listen to how Kristin recommends that marketers find the balance between understanding the consumer and leveraging technology judiciously,, on the latest episode.
Transcript
The following gives you a good idea of what was said, but it’s not 100% accurate.
Kristin Sinclair 0:00
Understand your customer, someone who's going to connect with your brand, connect with your service and really benefit from it. People are more than happy to tell you about the problems that they're having. And if you can solve it for them, you have an audience.
Tom Ollerton 0:42
Hello, and welcome to the shiny new object podcast. My name is Tom Ollerton, I'm the founder of automated creative, we are a creative effectiveness ad tech platform. But today it's a podcast and I'm on a call with Kristin Sinclair, who is performance marketing manager at TUV SUD. Kristin, for anyone who doesn't know who you are and what you do, could you give us a bit of background?
Kristin Sinclair 1:03
So in a nutshell, I connect potential buyers of our services with our sales team. So finding those ideal customers presenting what it is that we do on a digital platform, and making sure that they come to us, not someone else.
Tom Ollerton 1:28
And what's your story before that? How did you end up in a performance role at a b2b business?
Kristin Sinclair 1:32
It's been a long, windy road. So I began my career as a graphic designer. And then I got my feet wet in, you know, user interface, user experience design, specifically on websites. And then once I started to develop websites, usually on WordPress, I became more interested in the digital marketing aspect. Seo, paid search, paid social, social media and fast forward 5-10 years. That's where I am now. And I love it.
Tom Ollerton 2:14
Yes. That's quite, that's quite the journey.
Kristin Sinclair 2:17
Yeah, it's constantly changing. And you're, you're never bored. I'll put it that way.
Tom Ollerton 2:23
That is true. That is one of the upsides of this industry. So across that crazily weird changing career, what new belief or behavior in the last five years or so has changed your work life for the better?
Kristin Sinclair 2:39
Once upon a time, I used to think that I could do it all... was gonna do it all. And then I quickly realized that you know, what, that's just not possible. So, you know, that belief that, you know, I'm a superwoman, I can do everything I've been brought back down, you know, to reality a little bit and realize that I need to focus on certain things and put my energy towards that, because that's what's actually going to move the needle. And so far it's worked out.
Tom Ollerton 2:56
Snd what was the string of events or moment that made you realize that, because that's quite a big shift in attitude?
Kristin Sinclair 3:22
It is. It happened when I was in my mid 20s. So very early into my career. Basically, my health failed, I developed shingles. And that's something that happens, not usually when you're 25, usually, in your 60s 70s and beyond, but I just was not taking care of myself, wasn't sleeping, eating properly, because I was trying to do it all. And basically, my body, my body failed, my spirit was alive and well, but my body was just like, No, we're not doing this anymore. And, you know, I took a pause and realized, okay, this can't happen again. So, yeah, that really changed. That changed my attitude dramatically.
Tom Ollerton 4:17
In that time, through that change, through that career, what is the marketing tip that you hang your hat on the most that you enjoy sharing with people and you rely on?
Kristin Sinclair 4:31
Understand your customer, someone who's going to connect with your brand, connect with your service and really benefit from it. And if you don't know who that is, then you need to find out. And if you're not quite sure, just talk to them. They'll tell you, people are more than happy to tell you about the problems that they're having. And if you can solve it for them. You have an audience.
Tom Ollerton 4:58
So from a B2B perspective how, how do you do that? Because presumably, most B2B companies could have quite a few ideal client profiles was that, um, that no one else knows. But how do you make sure that you get a niche, but it's not too niche that you can't make sell enough business against them?
Kristin Sinclair 5:17
It depends on the business: for a business that has a singular product. They're usually they have, you know, an audience that, you know, they validated the market, they know that this is who's probably going to buy their product, and then they start to look for others, that might have a similar problem. And they try to expand. Other businesses, they, you know, typically, if they're b2b services, they offer a multitude of solutions. And you as a marketer have to be knowledgeable enough about that service and the problem it solves to know Okay, who, who is going to be the ideal customer for that? And it comes down to doing your research and knowing where does your audience hang out. What, you know, your competitors that are selling something similar? How are they reaching those audiences, because B2B buying, it's not something that happens after they see one ad, or they receive one email, it can sometimes take three, six months, sometimes even a year, before they decide to finally you know, talk to you. So it's a long game.
Tom Ollerton 6:49
So now we're gonna move on to your shiny new object. I'm really interested to talk to you about this, because it crosses two of my passions and my job in a lot of ways, which is AI, artificial intelligence in b2b business to business marketing. So what is AI in b2b for you, give us a short overview, and then we'll get into it.
Kristin Sinclair 7:13
So I think where AI is really benefiting B2B marketing is the use of intent data to find customers who may be thinking about buying your product or services, there's a lot of platforms out there that do this Clearbit, zoom info, discover org. And I, what I have found is that a lot of marketers don't know how to utilize them, especially if they're working with a sales team, because sometimes they don't quite know what to do with that data, either. And, and it's a challenge.
Tom Ollerton 7:55
So without giving away any secrets for how you use one or any of those suppliers, help someone who doesn't work in b2b understand that, what kind of intent data do these platforms collect? How's it served? And how do people use it?
Kristin Sinclair 8:09
Sure. So I'll just use an example. Not particular to me, let's say you're a company that specializes in cybersecurity software, and you are on the lookout for companies who are maybe someone at a certain IP address that's associated with a company is looking for topics related to what your company does on the internet. And now you know, okay, this would be a good account for my sales team to try to make contact with so that's essentially what it's doing. But the difficulty is okay, well, who's the right person to talk to? Sometimes you can find out who that person is. Getting in touch with them is one thing and sometimes because I think because it's a newer technology, and sometimes it's not necessary... you're not going to connect with someone right away. Sometimes I think you know, you're left with the impression that like, Okay, this just isn't worth the effort for or, you know, there's just poor follow through. You don't follow up and you invested all this, you know, money and time in a platform that's supposed to promise amazing things and you're just not getting anything out of it.
Tom Ollerton 9:56
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Tom Ollerton 10:33
So what are the intent signals that have been captured and then processed with artificial intelligence?
Kristin Sinclair 10:40
So I know that there's a combination... I don't understand the technology that does it. But I know, just from, you know, what I've been told, is that an IP address that is associated with a company can be... you can use that to intimate that like, that is where the search is coming from. And you can also see, well, how many people? So it doesn't just tell you that it's happening, it gives you an idea of is it you know, one person, is it, you know, a handful of people. So that helps you prioritize who you should talk to, who's most likely to buy, are they currently having a problem right now? Is this something that's top of mind? So even if you do make contact with someone in the company, and they're not the right person to talk to? Maybe they know who is.
Tom Ollerton 11:38
So as the artificial intelligence piece, because technology that tracks IP addresses visiting your site and number of people is like, that's been in practice for a while, I think. So what's the what is the kind of the shiny new version of that? What's the AI bit that we didn't have before?
Kristin Sinclair 11:55
I would love it if AI could solve the problem that I was just describing. Or at least improve it? Because not knowing what to do with that information? I think AI, just all the capabilities that it's demonstrated, and how it's evolved so quickly, in the last five to 10 years, it's got a, there has to be a solution somewhere on the horizon. As far as how to leverage that data a little bit better.
Tom Ollerton 12:35
Yeah, because I wonder if there's a bit of a tension, there isn't it? Because b2b buyers because of the reason that they're identifiable at all, because there's teams of marketing and sales people trying to get in front of them, that their behavior as much as possible should be quite secretive, right? I'm sure obvious getting an IP address might be possible. I'm sure it's possible. But unlike if you go, Oh, ChatGPT, tell me Give me a curry recipe. I've got these five things in my fridge. Like there's a nine gazillion million curry recipes that have those things in them. Whereas there's not that much publicly available data about that me as a b2b buyer, when I want to buy like, I don't know, like a CRM system or something like that, that may, I might go to a few websites. But other than that, I might send 10s of people some private messages saying oh, hey, who do you use for your CRM, there isn't that much data? And if there's no data, then that training can't happen. So I'm curious to know, what would be those other signals that you would see from people you have an interest in that could be used in an AI context?
Kristin Sinclair 13:39
Well, unfortunately, Tom, I think probably the only thing that could solve this problem is something that I personally, as a marketer would be a little bit uncomfortable with. I think that being able to read these intent signals is amazing. But I also, you know, I would also want to be a little bit careful about being a little bit too aggressive with acquiring customers, because if it's possible for me to identify who that person is, and have even more data about them down to, you know, their email address and how to contact them. Great, I'm going to use that. But over time, what's going to happen is you're going to have people that start to become a little bit disenchanted with b2b outreach. I mean, if I get solicited by b2b sales development, probably, I mean, at least every day, and once you enable that and make it even easier, I think it's going to be actually harder for businesses to connect with prospective buyers because they're just going to become immune to it, they're just going to ignore it, you kind of see this a little bit already with, you know, other types of outreach and advertising. People just start to ignore it after a while, because it's just too much they don't have they either don't have time for it, or they know that the reason why, you know, to serve me with this content, or to contact me with this, you know, potential solution is because you have my private data. And I don't really like that it makes me feel uncomfortable as a customer, and the most important thing in b2b is developing that relationship. And when that, you know, foundational level of trust, isn't there, very hard to now convince this person that, you know, oh, you should trust me with solving your problem, too.
Tom Ollerton 15:56
So what other AI b2b technology have you been impressed with? Or, that's caught your eye that is, oh, this is good. This is good or bad? Or? Yeah, you don't have to try that yourself. I'm just curious.
Kristin Sinclair 16:11
Like, there's a lot out there that I'm like, Oh, wow, that's really cool. But then it comes down to having the expertise to know what to do with it, having that, you know, having the bandwidth to be able to do something with it to convert it into action.
Kristin Sinclair 16:36
I would say that one of the things not just in b2b, this is just in general, that I think is really cool. Is predictive AI, being able to make, you know, assumptions or develop a hypothesis based on, you know, other data points. So if I am, let's say, I am interested in cyber security software, well, what you might find out is this person also, they might be interested in reading about, you know, current events that are happening between, you know, the United States and Russia or the United States and China. So, just kind of seeing what the relationship between that that's something that AI can figure out so much faster than a human can, and being able to apply that in a multitude of ways. That's something that definitely I think is amazing and useful. In any sort of marketing capacity.
Tom Ollerton 17:57
What have you seen not work in this AI B2B world, like, for example, I have a plug in at the minute. It's a ChatGPT plugin for email that basically writes the email for you. But you have to give it the prompt. Like, I want to send a message to Kristin, I want to tell her how happy I am that it's her birthday. And that whatever, you know, that we should come have a coffee soon. And it will write that email for you in the tone of which you want it to write it in. But by the time you've written the prompts, you could have just done it really, you know.
Kristin Sinclair 18:30
Yeah, I like those tools. Because sometimes I don't know if this happens to you, but I'll just be so it's like, I'm just so frazzled. And I'm like, just do it for me. But sometimes when you use Chat GPT to write marketing copy. Sometimes I find it's just so generic and bland, that and like, I'd rather just do this myself, sometimes it's a good starting point. And it can give you some ideas about what to do. But more often than not. I don't find it very useful for writing marketing copy, it's definitely much better for a long form or something that's just routine. And you're communicating something, you're not necessarily trying to hook somebody.
Tom Ollerton 19:22
So unfortunately, we're at the end of the podcast now. So ifsomeone would like to reach out to you get in touch about AI b2b or how to get to a could do it all would do it all type mindset. Where's the best place to do that? And what makes a great outreach message to you?
Kristin Sinclair 19:38
Oh, anyone can find me on LinkedIn as Ms. Kristin Sinclair. And as far as getting my attention, if you have a great hook in your outreach, I'll probably respond to you.
Tom Ollerton 19:53
Right.
Kristin Sinclair 19:54
It's all about the hook.
Tom Ollerton 19:56
It's all about the hook. Yes, you're absolutely right. And it's a lesson to me as well, as always, Kristin, listen, thank you so much for your time.
Kristin Sinclair 20:11
Thank you for having me, Tom.
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