Paula Chiocchi: Welcome everyone to the B2B Influence podcast. I'm Paula Chiocchi CEO of Outward Media, your host. And today we welcome Todd Lebo He is CEO and co-founder of Ascend2, a firm that is well known for turning original research into real marketing performance. Todd works with leading B2B organizations to undercover what actually driving demand, where teams are misaligned on metrics, and how insight can shape smarter strategy. Welcome to the show, Todd.
Todd Lebo: Thank you for having me, Paula. I forward to this conversation.
Paula Chiocchi: Me too. I mean, I've known Todd for a while, so I know the expert work that they do. In fact, we work with you. So, very excited that you were able to make time for us. So, let's jump in. From your latest studies, what's the biggest disconnect you're seeing between what B2B marketers believe works and what the data actually shows?
Todd Lebo: Sure. know, Paula, I was kind of focusing when I thought about this conversation on one of our new research study and B2B thought leadership. Okay. Because that, you know, that report really kind of goes into depth on what's going on in the industry specifically for B2B marketers, you know, and we, we really saw that, know, almost every 97 % of market B2B marketers say that thought leadership's critical. So like their full, you know, to like full funnel success, like, you know, they need thought leadership to drive, you know, drive trust, to help with conversion, drive leads into their funnel and really lifetime value of their clients, which is the most important thing. Almost all of them agree that it's important, but only about 43 % are actually using it beyond like starter acquisition. They're not really expanding it beyond that. And so that's one of the biggest disconnects that we saw.
Paula Chiocchi: Why do you think that is? you think they just... Try to do it.
Todd Lebo: There's a couple of theories and Paul, you probably have seen this a lot. know, one is so many times we're so focused on acquisition that we, you know, that's like the shiny thing, acquisition acquisition. But really where you make your money is the renewal and the long term relationship. And so think it's
Paula Chiocchi: The lifetime value you just mentioned.
Todd Lebo: Right. The lifetime value, that's sometimes not always the sexy part of marketing, but it's most profitable. like really thinking about like, you know, how do I, you know, keep somebody and have that long-term relationship where, you know, where you really start seeing the investment pay off.
Paula Chiocchi: Because we all know that it's a lot easier to keep a client than it is to get a new one. the main thing is you don't want the churn. And I agree with you that the thought leadership is very important, but it's something that we really got more involved in, and I got more involved in the last few years. So I think CEOs, a of times, are stretched thin, and they don't want to be the ones to do it. But they're the face of the company, and they should.
Todd Lebo: And, know, we're also that, you know, it's that aspect of just because somebody buys from you once, doesn't mean that they trust your brand or have, you know, a strong affinity to it. You know, when I started my career a long time ago, too long ago to talk about on this, on this show, but I was in direct mail. ⁓ Yeah. And it was with a publishing company. And so we had three different ways that we.
Paula Chiocchi: Okay, me too, me
Todd Lebo: One was acquisition and what it costs to bring in a new subscriber. And then it was kind of interesting. We tracked the first year renewal and the second year renewal. Because we found like, you know, it's hard to get somebody to say yes the first time, but the second hardest is the second time. And once we, once you get somebody to say yes twice, then you typically have a long term customer. You know, we tracked those, those three different steps. You know, I found out early in my marketing career that if you pay attention to those renewals, especially that second yes, it really pays off.
Paula Chiocchi: absolutely agree. We certainly practiced that here. are there any long-standing demand and tactics that the research suggests are quietly losing effectiveness even though teams are still heavily investing in them?
Todd Lebo: Yeah. I we did see what I would call like an overreliance on companies relying on two, like only a few channels. And that was really kind of limiting their performance. know, it tells me like, you know, tactics, like, you know, webinars and LinkedIn, they haven't stopped working. When you over, you know, when you're not expanding into the different channels that the people want to be communicated in, you're kind of, you're really limiting yourself.
Paula Chiocchi: Yeah, I agree with that because what we started preaching is adding in the social media connection with the programmatic, with the email, with the direct mail. A lot of companies have pulled back on their direct mail, but we saw a little bit of resurgence in it last year, I believe. Yeah, it just can't be one channel.
Todd Lebo: Yeah, and you're right. Some of those channels like Direct Mail can be effective as people leave it, right?
Paula Chiocchi: You might be the only one in it in your space.
Todd Lebo: That's right. That's right. So, you know, sometimes you have to go back and look at some of those oldies, but goodies. as you know, like email is still extremely effective.
Paula Chiocchi: Very effective, and one of the things we counseled our clients to do is if there's an ⁓ open and a click in the email prospecting outreach campaign is to then maybe send them the piece of direct mail versus the whole data set. That's the cuts the cost down, right? And if somebody is already interacting with you.
Todd Lebo: That's a smart way to do it. That's right. That's right. And it provides one more touch point with your brand. I remember one time, one of my previous companies, we did events and we did an email event and they were talking about, for example, like an email, you know, you, you have your one purpose of email is also branding, you know, I mean, obviously you want to conversion, but companies see your brand, you know, they recognize the brand. And if you're, if you're not over emailing people, you know, there's a branding component to it. And obviously direct mail is the same way. There's a branding component to them seeing, you know, seeing something in print.
Paula Chiocchi: For sure. So, buyers are exposed to more messaging, more personalization, and more automation than ever. We all know that. So, what does your research say about buyer fatigue, and how real of a risk do you think it is right now?
Todd Lebo: I mean, it's definitely, so bottom line is yes, we're seeing buyer fatigue and a lot of that goes to, think when you develop a relationship with a prospect, they go into it with expectations. know, expectations of how frequently you're going to respond, how frequently you're going to reach out to them. they're kind of, there's this aspect of relevancy that they don't want you to abuse. know, if you're sending them over and over things that aren't relevant, that aren't personalized, then they're going to push back, right? They're going to say, you don't have your reputations.
Paula Chiocchi: Right? Opt out or?
Todd Lebo: Yeah, they're going to opt out. you know, they're going to say, you know, no more. And so I think what we're, what we see is that aspect of, that's why it's really important to be able to track your different channels and find out the preferences of your customers and stick to that. Right. It doesn't, it doesn't help to oversaturate them with messages that aren't tailored to them. The more you can segment your data and send out special, you know, very targeted sends, better.
Paula Chiocchi: With your research, you seeing, because everybody's talking about AI, that's the big thing right now. So are you seeing within the clients that you're doing research for that they're including AI in to help with that personalization and delivering the appropriate materials for relevance for the...
Todd Lebo: Yeah, I mean, definitely we see more companies starting to see like, you know, how, how can they use AI, like you said, to be more efficient? I think it is working. I mean, like anything new, it takes time or, you know, for companies to figure out how to tailor what they're doing. But yes, I mean, that's the great thing about AI. It can go through a lot of data. And it can help you with those, you know, personalization, segmentation, learning more. There's the factor of intent data, right? Better understanding what a person's intent is so that you can send them the right message at the right time. So yeah, we're definitely seeing it. We're seeing it also just, you know, for thought leadership. mean, a lot of, we did a research study, you know, recently and, we found that 32 % of professionals now discover thought leadership through Gen. AI tools. know, so professionals are using it to find out what the right solutions are, maybe for services they're looking for. And it's a really important, it's a really important channel to, ⁓ to investigate.
Paula Chiocchi: Okay. Yeah, we've certainly embraced it here. And I think just in terms of the research for working with different companies to really understand them better cuts that time way, way down in order to come up with how you should approach a prospect. yeah, think it's, I think, I think it's awesome. And I read a research study recently this week on AI and it said that companies were developing maybe up to 50 creatives now that they could mix and match and push based on ⁓ how the response is coming back. So I thought, wow, okay, that's...
Todd Lebo: Yeah. I would just caution marketers to the segmentation part of like what AI can do. I think can be amazing. think you have to be cautious about creating a lot of kind of generic content that you're using. know, obviously we're a big advocate for original research ⁓ because it provides, you data points that you can use. like, we have a lot of clients who, like, for example, we do a research study and it's in four different regions of the world. You know, they can go out and say, know, here's what we found out about the U S audience. Here's what we found out about the UK audience. So you can target, you know, some of your content to the UK audience and specifically UK data.
Paula Chiocchi: And it is different. For different kinds. Yeah. For sure.
Todd Lebo: Very different or a small companies versus mid-size companies versus enterprise companies. Like they have different challenges, different ways that they are using their technology and things like that. So what we're finding is when you're using AI to get all these different segmentations and like you said, break out your messaging and your content. You still want to make sure that you have content that's of high quality and valuable. And you have to be careful, I think, of using AI. And just generate a ton of content, but all very generic content.
Paula Chiocchi: that then also depending on the size of the company and their legal, how they approach legal. Legal always has to pass, say, grace, I guess, over what's going out as well. I do think it does, to your point, prevent a little bit more of the personalization.
Todd Lebo: And you see it, think, we don't feel like you see this a lot, Paula, where you get messages and you can tell that they were AI generated.
Paula Chiocchi: Right. I've done some that I couldn't And I was impressed because I recently had my car serviced and I was dealing with AI. I didn't know it. It seemed like a person going back, the appointment, following up, seeing if I was happy. And then when I talked to the service manager, he goes, ⁓ Anna's AI for us. went, ⁓ you're kidding. I didn't detect it.
Todd Lebo: Yes, yes. I mean, and I think that's probably a combination of the data they're bringing in. Do you support that AI?
Paula Chiocchi: And I'm looking for it, you know, I'm not the average person, you I'm in the business, so, and I did not detect it.
Todd Lebo: Yeah. So, I mean, that's pretty, that's pretty amazing. I mean, it's crazy. It is kind of fun as a research firm. Obviously we're doing a lot of topics around AI. And so I get to talk to people about like different applications for AI. This is just a little fun side story, but there was one of the companies I was talking to recently that they said, like one of their clients, it's a restaurant chain. And every time a plate comes back, the AI scans it. to see the leftovers and they can then calculate, for example, porcise control.
Paula Chiocchi: No way. Enter.
Todd Lebo: So they can look and see like, okay, like, you know, green beans, example, like X amount is returned. They can go from like nine ounces to seven ounces. Yes. Sort of a size based on, you know, the AI and that ability to.
Paula Chiocchi: Fascinating. That's fascinating. I would never have thought of that. about the cost savings that you extrapolate across the chain, you know, to all the different locations. That's amazing. And see, the other thing is, is some people don't eat as much as other people, you know, right? So like you mentioned, the portion control. What is that exact amount? Wow, that is fascinating.
Todd Lebo: I mean, yeah. So when you think about it, like regions of the world, different countries have different, you know, and so when you extrapolate that and think about like your industry, like what are the ways in your marketing that you can use in a smart way, use the AI to, know, efficiency and I think effectiveness. So efficiency could be like the ability to scale. know, you can now scale and like you said, you can have 50 different campaigns going out. Right. And so that provides scaling and efficiency. But then if you're able to do, you know, for example, like a lot of our clients use their research studies. And like I said, they break it out by region or industry company size and start breaking down the data to smaller pieces so that they can go to that mid-size company in the UK with very specific data points as compared to maybe something that's more general. And so when you start thinking about it like that or in your so much of search now is going from Google to answer engines. So if you have your content broken out, where it's getting picked up by those answer engines, not only is your content going to be captured and used by more people, it's going to identify your brand. So there's just a lot of interesting things I think happening and then you and I have experienced this with digital marketing over the years of how it's changed the industry, you know. marketers are going to still have a very valuable seat at the table. It may be even more valuable as they kind of embrace and think of how this is going to use, how they can use AI to make their programs more efficient and effective.
Paula Chiocchi: Yeah, and speaking about the marketing efforts within a company, they're starting to align more at the C-suite level where everybody's seeing, you know, it's not just marketing siloed over a year and CEO thinks this, they're all getting on the sides of the company. They're starting to converge a little bit where they're all becoming aligned.
Todd Lebo: That's right. And for you, I mean, I'm sure you're seeing too, it always comes back to data, right? And having the right data, hygiene, keeping your data clean, adding as much information as possible, bringing together data from various channels so you can make those informed decisions.
Paula Chiocchi: and the analytics, all right?
Todd Lebo: Right, I guess that's what I was referring to analytics that they come with all that. ⁓
Paula Chiocchi: Yeah. So we were talking about, you mentioned intent. It's really a big topic that, you know, that people talk about. Based on a SENTU's research, where do markers most often misinterpret intent signals, do you think?
Todd Lebo: Yeah, I mean, for example, know, clicks and downloads often get mistaken for buying intent, where it may not be buying intent yet. know, interest, you know, research behavior, readiness at various stages of the, the funnel. Those are all critical issues, but I mean, problem is, you know, our tools collapse them into a single score and that, you know, sometimes it can lead for teams to act too early. in thinking that these activities are buying intent as compared to maybe, you know, investigating, trying to build trust under educational components that are still needed. So I think intent data is still highly valuable. I think you just have to make sure you don't make bad assumptions on it.
Paula Chiocchi: Yeah, to your point, I read recently, I think it was this week, actually only two to three percent are really ready to buy coming off of an intent signal. So to me, the nurture track of the edu- you mentioned the education and developing a cadence where you stay in touch with them, where you're annoying people is important. And what we find a lot of times with clients or people that we're looking to work with is that They don't manage that part of it, the ongoing certain cadence of just staying in front of the prospect until they become part of that 2 3 % that is actually ready to buy.
Todd Lebo: Yeah. So I mean, I think it's hard as marketers to not become too anxious sometimes.
Paula Chiocchi: I mean, we have a client last year that said, you know, if you guys hadn't been sending your newsletter every month, we wouldn't have thought to reach out to you. They became client, you know, and that's just a simple thing, the newsletter. that, you know, that tells you that you do need to stay in front of people for when they are ready to raise their hand, right?
Todd Lebo: Yeah. I mean, and we've all experienced this ourselves, right? Where we start going to research on a topic and then have to put the brakes on for a while. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And I think it's that aspect of making sure that you don't harm your brand by being too aggressive. not, maybe not listening. Not listening to what's going on.
Paula Chiocchi: Especially since the B2B buyers are, think it's roughly, was it 72 % I read, said they really don't want to talk to anybody. Until the very end.
Todd Lebo: Yeah. I know, which is a little bit sad, but...
Paula Chiocchi: I'm wondering how that affects the salespeople's jobs because the other thing I read was that about five years ago, the e-commerce sale for B2B maximum was around $50,000 and now it's up to half a million without talking to anybody. That's a pretty big sale to not have to talk to somebody.
Todd Lebo: I know, I know. If anybody doesn't want to talk to me, but wants to do half a million dollars of work, I feel happy to... You're okay with that, right? I'm okay with that. Like, my feelings would not be hurt too much. That's right.
Paula Chiocchi: I feel the same way. So if a BDT team could only track one or two signals to better understand buyer readiness, what should they prioritize and why in your opinion? ⁓ Sure. So people talk about signals, right? So if you're tracking at least two signals to better understand buyer readiness, what do you think they should prioritize in terms of?
Todd Lebo: Can you repeat that?
Paula Chiocchi: determining the buyer readiness? Because you mentioned just the open and the click doesn't matter. Is there any other kind of signals that you're aware of that help that a customer, I mean, I'm sorry, a marketer could prioritize?
Todd Lebo: Yeah, it's really, it's a little bit hard I think to answer that by, because sometimes it can be by industry and kind of understanding your product, you know, because I mean, obviously, you know, a B2B company, I mean, you're always looking for a demo, right? Where people actually reach out and say, you know, hey, I want to look at your, you know, I want something to guide me through looking at your product, right? But obviously that's... an easy one to think about. But I would say what we see in our research a lot of times is the educational markers, like where people, you know, where people are spending time on specific pages, where you can kind of see that they're, they're now looking at a, you know, if you have like, let's say a playbook. For example, like they downloaded that playbook, that playbook might be a really good indicator now that they're gone beyond the surface. And now they're actually trying to look at the details of how it works. So I would say the intent a lot of times, especially on your site would be maybe specific content pieces and time on pages that can be more, you know, more indication of intent. I mean. Timeline pages can also be a little bit misleading because people leave, you know, they keep 20 different browsers open. So they might not actually be on that for two hours studying it. you, you know, those are the type I think of intent indications. It's a little bit harder, I think, when you have third party intent because those are still, you know, have not been nurtured by you. And so I think there's, you know, anytime you can get intent data, I think those third parties can be really helpful. When you're bringing them in and looking at, you know, helping to make a, like a bigger picture. Like I can see like, ⁓ you know, Paula's shown intent on other third party sites. But until I get the, until I get you over onto my site. and start ⁓ having that engagement, I think you can make sometimes bad assumptions based on the third party intent. They're very helpful, but I think having that intent data on your site is probably where you have the most informed decisions.
Paula Chiocchi: Well, to your point, Todd, you know, we provide intent data for campaigns and we see a pretty substantial lift, but I've never gotten the feedback totally down to that level as to did those actually perform better than the ones that were a general list compile without the intent data. So that's one thing is I don't know if that translated into conversions because they don't usually track it that well. It's unfortunate.
Todd Lebo: But I think also it's that aspect of like, what's your purpose for different, you know, different data points. like third party intent data is really helpful because it's spreading a wider net for you. But then once you bring those in, then it's that aspects of nurturing them and gathering even more information about them so that you, you know, so you're nurturing them. You're providing them different content pieces, different ways to engage with you. And then you're building additional data on them. know, so, because now, for example, in illustration, like I might not have had you on my list, but now I have this intent data and I have a connection with you and I can build upon that. And now I'm getting a better picture of the cadence of how I should engage with you and you know, maybe your true intent with our product.
Paula Chiocchi: Are you seeing in your conversations with clients, are they getting better at that post initial interest, so to speak, know, time on the website, filling out a form, etc. Do you think they're getting better at that back end in terms of the nurturing and staying with the buyer to the journey?
Todd Lebo: Yes. I think a short answer is, yeah, I do see that. And I think a lot of it is, it's kind of like a requirement now almost. Yeah. Of kind of a requirement of how you're setting up programs to nurture these prospects that you have. know, so I think, you know, it kind of all comes down to, like, I think you said, attribution and, know, requirements of, you you need to prove attribution of how these are performing.
Paula Chiocchi: I feel like since we're in so many more channels now, used to be, you remember the last touch attribution was it, then it was weighted across the different departments want to get the attribution. The people that handle the email or handle the pro-bank or handle the social, they want the attribution and especially in the larger companies. But to me, it's like across all the channels, you know, is that, as you mentioned earlier, driving the brand awareness and then hopefully the action. ⁓ I used to like that last touch attribution, but I think that's changed. I think it's a combination.
Todd Lebo: I think so. mean, how do you, I think you have to take all those factors in. Like, so for example, you know, we do a lot of research studies for companies and there's a lot of different research you can do. Ours is typically used for a marketing purpose. So it's, you know, thought leadership, it's demand generation, brand building. And so when somebody downloads, for example, like a research study, many times that can be the early, early stages of They're investigating, right? So they're, they're investigating, do I gonna, you know, do I need a marketing automation platform? So they're looking to see what other, what other marketers are doing, you know, how many people are using it, what they're trying to accomplish, what the biggest challenges are, what the biggest, what the... So they're, they're trying to collect information on, do I need to automate, you know, a marketing automation? But then the next step is like, what platform do I choose? Right? out of all the platforms, know, what platform buy choose. So, so somebody has finally said yes, and they're buying, you know, XYZ platform. Well, getting back to this question about like attribution, I mean, if your company was putting out research, for example, that was educating on marketing automation, that's part of the trust and brand building that ultimately maybe led them to select you. Right. But it wasn't, you know, the end. Right. That just helped them get the information they needed on what they should, you know, should they do it? What should they look for? And they've probably gone through other, you know, they probably went through like maybe a pricing calculator or, you know, other, other tools. But all those were part of that.
Paula Chiocchi: breath.
Todd Lebo: process, like you said, especially for B2B, it's a pretty complex process of why people finally choose. So getting back to that aspect of, you know, ⁓ thought leadership and ⁓ what it takes to finally get somebody to say yes. It's complicated and things like AI tools can help. They can help with that aspect of better understanding the attribution component. Like what, you know, what influenced somebody to select you.
Paula Chiocchi: Totally agree with you. So this has been great. We appreciate your time. What's the best way to get a hold of you? Is it through LinkedIn?
Todd Lebo: Yeah, mean, Todd Littlebo, you can find me on LinkedIn or my email, just Todd at AscendTo.com. ⁓ And so, like I said, we do lots of research studies for large companies and smaller companies. And we're finding more and more the value that companies get from
Paula Chiocchi: That's
Todd Lebo: the third party research because it really does provide a lot of credibility and thought leadership for companies. And it also can help them to try to figure out their messaging and what their audience is looking for. So you can kind of use it for two reasons. And it doesn't have to be either or, it can be both where you can find out what your clients truly want. And then also you can do these really cool research studies to get that thought leadership for your company.
Paula Chiocchi: And you all are very good at it, efficient. It doesn't take a long, long time. can remember original research back in the day would take months. and you all are very good at it. So I really appreciate your time, Todd.
Todd Lebo: Well, it's also helpful, like I appreciate companies like yours that do the, you know, we can create the research, but unless companies have a methodology and a strategy for how to use it in their programs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Distribution and all those different things that your companies like you do. That's, yeah, that's where the magic happens, right? When you, when you take the asset.
Paula Chiocchi: Distribution.
Todd Lebo: And then you figure out how to get it in the hands of the right people.
Paula Chiocchi: Thank you for saying that, I appreciate that. Thank you, Todd. Thank you so much.
Todd Lebo: ⁓ you're welcome. You're welcome. Have a great day. Okay.
Paula Chiocchi: That's it for today's episode of B2B Influence. If you picked up something new or found yourself rethinking your approach, take a second to subscribe, leave a quick comment, and share this episode with your network. And don't forget, once we hit 25,000 subscribers, one lucky listener will win a free customer analysis. Just subscribe and comment to enter. If you want to be a guest or know someone pushing the boundaries in B2B marketing, tap the link in the show notes to nominate or apply. And if you're ready to fuel smarter campaigns and more accurate targeting, Check out what we're doing at OMI.
Todd Lebo: Thank you for having me, Paula. I forward to this conversation.
Paula Chiocchi: Me too. I mean, I've known Todd for a while, so I know the expert work that they do. In fact, we work with you. So, very excited that you were able to make time for us. So, let's jump in. From your latest studies, what's the biggest disconnect you're seeing between what B2B marketers believe works and what the data actually shows?
Todd Lebo: Sure. know, Paula, I was kind of focusing when I thought about this conversation on one of our new research study and B2B thought leadership. Okay. Because that, you know, that report really kind of goes into depth on what's going on in the industry specifically for B2B marketers, you know, and we, we really saw that, know, almost every 97 % of market B2B marketers say that thought leadership's critical. So like their full, you know, to like full funnel success, like, you know, they need thought leadership to drive, you know, drive trust, to help with conversion, drive leads into their funnel and really lifetime value of their clients, which is the most important thing. Almost all of them agree that it's important, but only about 43 % are actually using it beyond like starter acquisition. They're not really expanding it beyond that. And so that's one of the biggest disconnects that we saw.
Paula Chiocchi: Why do you think that is? you think they just... Try to do it.
Todd Lebo: There's a couple of theories and Paul, you probably have seen this a lot. know, one is so many times we're so focused on acquisition that we, you know, that's like the shiny thing, acquisition acquisition. But really where you make your money is the renewal and the long term relationship. And so think it's
Paula Chiocchi: The lifetime value you just mentioned.
Todd Lebo: Right. The lifetime value, that's sometimes not always the sexy part of marketing, but it's most profitable. like really thinking about like, you know, how do I, you know, keep somebody and have that long-term relationship where, you know, where you really start seeing the investment pay off.
Paula Chiocchi: Because we all know that it's a lot easier to keep a client than it is to get a new one. the main thing is you don't want the churn. And I agree with you that the thought leadership is very important, but it's something that we really got more involved in, and I got more involved in the last few years. So I think CEOs, a of times, are stretched thin, and they don't want to be the ones to do it. But they're the face of the company, and they should.
Todd Lebo: And, know, we're also that, you know, it's that aspect of just because somebody buys from you once, doesn't mean that they trust your brand or have, you know, a strong affinity to it. You know, when I started my career a long time ago, too long ago to talk about on this, on this show, but I was in direct mail. ⁓ Yeah. And it was with a publishing company. And so we had three different ways that we.
Paula Chiocchi: Okay, me too, me
Todd Lebo: One was acquisition and what it costs to bring in a new subscriber. And then it was kind of interesting. We tracked the first year renewal and the second year renewal. Because we found like, you know, it's hard to get somebody to say yes the first time, but the second hardest is the second time. And once we, once you get somebody to say yes twice, then you typically have a long term customer. You know, we tracked those, those three different steps. You know, I found out early in my marketing career that if you pay attention to those renewals, especially that second yes, it really pays off.
Paula Chiocchi: absolutely agree. We certainly practiced that here. are there any long-standing demand and tactics that the research suggests are quietly losing effectiveness even though teams are still heavily investing in them?
Todd Lebo: Yeah. I we did see what I would call like an overreliance on companies relying on two, like only a few channels. And that was really kind of limiting their performance. know, it tells me like, you know, tactics, like, you know, webinars and LinkedIn, they haven't stopped working. When you over, you know, when you're not expanding into the different channels that the people want to be communicated in, you're kind of, you're really limiting yourself.
Paula Chiocchi: Yeah, I agree with that because what we started preaching is adding in the social media connection with the programmatic, with the email, with the direct mail. A lot of companies have pulled back on their direct mail, but we saw a little bit of resurgence in it last year, I believe. Yeah, it just can't be one channel.
Todd Lebo: Yeah, and you're right. Some of those channels like Direct Mail can be effective as people leave it, right?
Paula Chiocchi: You might be the only one in it in your space.
Todd Lebo: That's right. That's right. So, you know, sometimes you have to go back and look at some of those oldies, but goodies. as you know, like email is still extremely effective.
Paula Chiocchi: Very effective, and one of the things we counseled our clients to do is if there's an ⁓ open and a click in the email prospecting outreach campaign is to then maybe send them the piece of direct mail versus the whole data set. That's the cuts the cost down, right? And if somebody is already interacting with you.
Todd Lebo: That's a smart way to do it. That's right. That's right. And it provides one more touch point with your brand. I remember one time, one of my previous companies, we did events and we did an email event and they were talking about, for example, like an email, you know, you, you have your one purpose of email is also branding, you know, I mean, obviously you want to conversion, but companies see your brand, you know, they recognize the brand. And if you're, if you're not over emailing people, you know, there's a branding component to it. And obviously direct mail is the same way. There's a branding component to them seeing, you know, seeing something in print.
Paula Chiocchi: For sure. So, buyers are exposed to more messaging, more personalization, and more automation than ever. We all know that. So, what does your research say about buyer fatigue, and how real of a risk do you think it is right now?
Todd Lebo: I mean, it's definitely, so bottom line is yes, we're seeing buyer fatigue and a lot of that goes to, think when you develop a relationship with a prospect, they go into it with expectations. know, expectations of how frequently you're going to respond, how frequently you're going to reach out to them. they're kind of, there's this aspect of relevancy that they don't want you to abuse. know, if you're sending them over and over things that aren't relevant, that aren't personalized, then they're going to push back, right? They're going to say, you don't have your reputations.
Paula Chiocchi: Right? Opt out or?
Todd Lebo: Yeah, they're going to opt out. you know, they're going to say, you know, no more. And so I think what we're, what we see is that aspect of, that's why it's really important to be able to track your different channels and find out the preferences of your customers and stick to that. Right. It doesn't, it doesn't help to oversaturate them with messages that aren't tailored to them. The more you can segment your data and send out special, you know, very targeted sends, better.
Paula Chiocchi: With your research, you seeing, because everybody's talking about AI, that's the big thing right now. So are you seeing within the clients that you're doing research for that they're including AI in to help with that personalization and delivering the appropriate materials for relevance for the...
Todd Lebo: Yeah, I mean, definitely we see more companies starting to see like, you know, how, how can they use AI, like you said, to be more efficient? I think it is working. I mean, like anything new, it takes time or, you know, for companies to figure out how to tailor what they're doing. But yes, I mean, that's the great thing about AI. It can go through a lot of data. And it can help you with those, you know, personalization, segmentation, learning more. There's the factor of intent data, right? Better understanding what a person's intent is so that you can send them the right message at the right time. So yeah, we're definitely seeing it. We're seeing it also just, you know, for thought leadership. mean, a lot of, we did a research study, you know, recently and, we found that 32 % of professionals now discover thought leadership through Gen. AI tools. know, so professionals are using it to find out what the right solutions are, maybe for services they're looking for. And it's a really important, it's a really important channel to, ⁓ to investigate.
Paula Chiocchi: Okay. Yeah, we've certainly embraced it here. And I think just in terms of the research for working with different companies to really understand them better cuts that time way, way down in order to come up with how you should approach a prospect. yeah, think it's, I think, I think it's awesome. And I read a research study recently this week on AI and it said that companies were developing maybe up to 50 creatives now that they could mix and match and push based on ⁓ how the response is coming back. So I thought, wow, okay, that's...
Todd Lebo: Yeah. I would just caution marketers to the segmentation part of like what AI can do. I think can be amazing. think you have to be cautious about creating a lot of kind of generic content that you're using. know, obviously we're a big advocate for original research ⁓ because it provides, you data points that you can use. like, we have a lot of clients who, like, for example, we do a research study and it's in four different regions of the world. You know, they can go out and say, know, here's what we found out about the U S audience. Here's what we found out about the UK audience. So you can target, you know, some of your content to the UK audience and specifically UK data.
Paula Chiocchi: And it is different. For different kinds. Yeah. For sure.
Todd Lebo: Very different or a small companies versus mid-size companies versus enterprise companies. Like they have different challenges, different ways that they are using their technology and things like that. So what we're finding is when you're using AI to get all these different segmentations and like you said, break out your messaging and your content. You still want to make sure that you have content that's of high quality and valuable. And you have to be careful, I think, of using AI. And just generate a ton of content, but all very generic content.
Paula Chiocchi: that then also depending on the size of the company and their legal, how they approach legal. Legal always has to pass, say, grace, I guess, over what's going out as well. I do think it does, to your point, prevent a little bit more of the personalization.
Todd Lebo: And you see it, think, we don't feel like you see this a lot, Paula, where you get messages and you can tell that they were AI generated.
Paula Chiocchi: Right. I've done some that I couldn't And I was impressed because I recently had my car serviced and I was dealing with AI. I didn't know it. It seemed like a person going back, the appointment, following up, seeing if I was happy. And then when I talked to the service manager, he goes, ⁓ Anna's AI for us. went, ⁓ you're kidding. I didn't detect it.
Todd Lebo: Yes, yes. I mean, and I think that's probably a combination of the data they're bringing in. Do you support that AI?
Paula Chiocchi: And I'm looking for it, you know, I'm not the average person, you I'm in the business, so, and I did not detect it.
Todd Lebo: Yeah. So, I mean, that's pretty, that's pretty amazing. I mean, it's crazy. It is kind of fun as a research firm. Obviously we're doing a lot of topics around AI. And so I get to talk to people about like different applications for AI. This is just a little fun side story, but there was one of the companies I was talking to recently that they said, like one of their clients, it's a restaurant chain. And every time a plate comes back, the AI scans it. to see the leftovers and they can then calculate, for example, porcise control.
Paula Chiocchi: No way. Enter.
Todd Lebo: So they can look and see like, okay, like, you know, green beans, example, like X amount is returned. They can go from like nine ounces to seven ounces. Yes. Sort of a size based on, you know, the AI and that ability to.
Paula Chiocchi: Fascinating. That's fascinating. I would never have thought of that. about the cost savings that you extrapolate across the chain, you know, to all the different locations. That's amazing. And see, the other thing is, is some people don't eat as much as other people, you know, right? So like you mentioned, the portion control. What is that exact amount? Wow, that is fascinating.
Todd Lebo: I mean, yeah. So when you think about it, like regions of the world, different countries have different, you know, and so when you extrapolate that and think about like your industry, like what are the ways in your marketing that you can use in a smart way, use the AI to, know, efficiency and I think effectiveness. So efficiency could be like the ability to scale. know, you can now scale and like you said, you can have 50 different campaigns going out. Right. And so that provides scaling and efficiency. But then if you're able to do, you know, for example, like a lot of our clients use their research studies. And like I said, they break it out by region or industry company size and start breaking down the data to smaller pieces so that they can go to that mid-size company in the UK with very specific data points as compared to maybe something that's more general. And so when you start thinking about it like that or in your so much of search now is going from Google to answer engines. So if you have your content broken out, where it's getting picked up by those answer engines, not only is your content going to be captured and used by more people, it's going to identify your brand. So there's just a lot of interesting things I think happening and then you and I have experienced this with digital marketing over the years of how it's changed the industry, you know. marketers are going to still have a very valuable seat at the table. It may be even more valuable as they kind of embrace and think of how this is going to use, how they can use AI to make their programs more efficient and effective.
Paula Chiocchi: Yeah, and speaking about the marketing efforts within a company, they're starting to align more at the C-suite level where everybody's seeing, you know, it's not just marketing siloed over a year and CEO thinks this, they're all getting on the sides of the company. They're starting to converge a little bit where they're all becoming aligned.
Todd Lebo: That's right. And for you, I mean, I'm sure you're seeing too, it always comes back to data, right? And having the right data, hygiene, keeping your data clean, adding as much information as possible, bringing together data from various channels so you can make those informed decisions.
Paula Chiocchi: and the analytics, all right?
Todd Lebo: Right, I guess that's what I was referring to analytics that they come with all that. ⁓
Paula Chiocchi: Yeah. So we were talking about, you mentioned intent. It's really a big topic that, you know, that people talk about. Based on a SENTU's research, where do markers most often misinterpret intent signals, do you think?
Todd Lebo: Yeah, I mean, for example, know, clicks and downloads often get mistaken for buying intent, where it may not be buying intent yet. know, interest, you know, research behavior, readiness at various stages of the, the funnel. Those are all critical issues, but I mean, problem is, you know, our tools collapse them into a single score and that, you know, sometimes it can lead for teams to act too early. in thinking that these activities are buying intent as compared to maybe, you know, investigating, trying to build trust under educational components that are still needed. So I think intent data is still highly valuable. I think you just have to make sure you don't make bad assumptions on it.
Paula Chiocchi: Yeah, to your point, I read recently, I think it was this week, actually only two to three percent are really ready to buy coming off of an intent signal. So to me, the nurture track of the edu- you mentioned the education and developing a cadence where you stay in touch with them, where you're annoying people is important. And what we find a lot of times with clients or people that we're looking to work with is that They don't manage that part of it, the ongoing certain cadence of just staying in front of the prospect until they become part of that 2 3 % that is actually ready to buy.
Todd Lebo: Yeah. So I mean, I think it's hard as marketers to not become too anxious sometimes.
Paula Chiocchi: I mean, we have a client last year that said, you know, if you guys hadn't been sending your newsletter every month, we wouldn't have thought to reach out to you. They became client, you know, and that's just a simple thing, the newsletter. that, you know, that tells you that you do need to stay in front of people for when they are ready to raise their hand, right?
Todd Lebo: Yeah. I mean, and we've all experienced this ourselves, right? Where we start going to research on a topic and then have to put the brakes on for a while. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And I think it's that aspect of making sure that you don't harm your brand by being too aggressive. not, maybe not listening. Not listening to what's going on.
Paula Chiocchi: Especially since the B2B buyers are, think it's roughly, was it 72 % I read, said they really don't want to talk to anybody. Until the very end.
Todd Lebo: Yeah. I know, which is a little bit sad, but...
Paula Chiocchi: I'm wondering how that affects the salespeople's jobs because the other thing I read was that about five years ago, the e-commerce sale for B2B maximum was around $50,000 and now it's up to half a million without talking to anybody. That's a pretty big sale to not have to talk to somebody.
Todd Lebo: I know, I know. If anybody doesn't want to talk to me, but wants to do half a million dollars of work, I feel happy to... You're okay with that, right? I'm okay with that. Like, my feelings would not be hurt too much. That's right.
Paula Chiocchi: I feel the same way. So if a BDT team could only track one or two signals to better understand buyer readiness, what should they prioritize and why in your opinion? ⁓ Sure. So people talk about signals, right? So if you're tracking at least two signals to better understand buyer readiness, what do you think they should prioritize in terms of?
Todd Lebo: Can you repeat that?
Paula Chiocchi: determining the buyer readiness? Because you mentioned just the open and the click doesn't matter. Is there any other kind of signals that you're aware of that help that a customer, I mean, I'm sorry, a marketer could prioritize?
Todd Lebo: Yeah, it's really, it's a little bit hard I think to answer that by, because sometimes it can be by industry and kind of understanding your product, you know, because I mean, obviously, you know, a B2B company, I mean, you're always looking for a demo, right? Where people actually reach out and say, you know, hey, I want to look at your, you know, I want something to guide me through looking at your product, right? But obviously that's... an easy one to think about. But I would say what we see in our research a lot of times is the educational markers, like where people, you know, where people are spending time on specific pages, where you can kind of see that they're, they're now looking at a, you know, if you have like, let's say a playbook. For example, like they downloaded that playbook, that playbook might be a really good indicator now that they're gone beyond the surface. And now they're actually trying to look at the details of how it works. So I would say the intent a lot of times, especially on your site would be maybe specific content pieces and time on pages that can be more, you know, more indication of intent. I mean. Timeline pages can also be a little bit misleading because people leave, you know, they keep 20 different browsers open. So they might not actually be on that for two hours studying it. you, you know, those are the type I think of intent indications. It's a little bit harder, I think, when you have third party intent because those are still, you know, have not been nurtured by you. And so I think there's, you know, anytime you can get intent data, I think those third parties can be really helpful. When you're bringing them in and looking at, you know, helping to make a, like a bigger picture. Like I can see like, ⁓ you know, Paula's shown intent on other third party sites. But until I get the, until I get you over onto my site. and start ⁓ having that engagement, I think you can make sometimes bad assumptions based on the third party intent. They're very helpful, but I think having that intent data on your site is probably where you have the most informed decisions.
Paula Chiocchi: Well, to your point, Todd, you know, we provide intent data for campaigns and we see a pretty substantial lift, but I've never gotten the feedback totally down to that level as to did those actually perform better than the ones that were a general list compile without the intent data. So that's one thing is I don't know if that translated into conversions because they don't usually track it that well. It's unfortunate.
Todd Lebo: But I think also it's that aspect of like, what's your purpose for different, you know, different data points. like third party intent data is really helpful because it's spreading a wider net for you. But then once you bring those in, then it's that aspects of nurturing them and gathering even more information about them so that you, you know, so you're nurturing them. You're providing them different content pieces, different ways to engage with you. And then you're building additional data on them. know, so, because now, for example, in illustration, like I might not have had you on my list, but now I have this intent data and I have a connection with you and I can build upon that. And now I'm getting a better picture of the cadence of how I should engage with you and you know, maybe your true intent with our product.
Paula Chiocchi: Are you seeing in your conversations with clients, are they getting better at that post initial interest, so to speak, know, time on the website, filling out a form, etc. Do you think they're getting better at that back end in terms of the nurturing and staying with the buyer to the journey?
Todd Lebo: Yes. I think a short answer is, yeah, I do see that. And I think a lot of it is, it's kind of like a requirement now almost. Yeah. Of kind of a requirement of how you're setting up programs to nurture these prospects that you have. know, so I think, you know, it kind of all comes down to, like, I think you said, attribution and, know, requirements of, you you need to prove attribution of how these are performing.
Paula Chiocchi: I feel like since we're in so many more channels now, used to be, you remember the last touch attribution was it, then it was weighted across the different departments want to get the attribution. The people that handle the email or handle the pro-bank or handle the social, they want the attribution and especially in the larger companies. But to me, it's like across all the channels, you know, is that, as you mentioned earlier, driving the brand awareness and then hopefully the action. ⁓ I used to like that last touch attribution, but I think that's changed. I think it's a combination.
Todd Lebo: I think so. mean, how do you, I think you have to take all those factors in. Like, so for example, you know, we do a lot of research studies for companies and there's a lot of different research you can do. Ours is typically used for a marketing purpose. So it's, you know, thought leadership, it's demand generation, brand building. And so when somebody downloads, for example, like a research study, many times that can be the early, early stages of They're investigating, right? So they're, they're investigating, do I gonna, you know, do I need a marketing automation platform? So they're looking to see what other, what other marketers are doing, you know, how many people are using it, what they're trying to accomplish, what the biggest challenges are, what the biggest, what the... So they're, they're trying to collect information on, do I need to automate, you know, a marketing automation? But then the next step is like, what platform do I choose? Right? out of all the platforms, know, what platform buy choose. So, so somebody has finally said yes, and they're buying, you know, XYZ platform. Well, getting back to this question about like attribution, I mean, if your company was putting out research, for example, that was educating on marketing automation, that's part of the trust and brand building that ultimately maybe led them to select you. Right. But it wasn't, you know, the end. Right. That just helped them get the information they needed on what they should, you know, should they do it? What should they look for? And they've probably gone through other, you know, they probably went through like maybe a pricing calculator or, you know, other, other tools. But all those were part of that.
Paula Chiocchi: breath.
Todd Lebo: process, like you said, especially for B2B, it's a pretty complex process of why people finally choose. So getting back to that aspect of, you know, ⁓ thought leadership and ⁓ what it takes to finally get somebody to say yes. It's complicated and things like AI tools can help. They can help with that aspect of better understanding the attribution component. Like what, you know, what influenced somebody to select you.
Paula Chiocchi: Totally agree with you. So this has been great. We appreciate your time. What's the best way to get a hold of you? Is it through LinkedIn?
Todd Lebo: Yeah, mean, Todd Littlebo, you can find me on LinkedIn or my email, just Todd at AscendTo.com. ⁓ And so, like I said, we do lots of research studies for large companies and smaller companies. And we're finding more and more the value that companies get from
Paula Chiocchi: That's
Todd Lebo: the third party research because it really does provide a lot of credibility and thought leadership for companies. And it also can help them to try to figure out their messaging and what their audience is looking for. So you can kind of use it for two reasons. And it doesn't have to be either or, it can be both where you can find out what your clients truly want. And then also you can do these really cool research studies to get that thought leadership for your company.
Paula Chiocchi: And you all are very good at it, efficient. It doesn't take a long, long time. can remember original research back in the day would take months. and you all are very good at it. So I really appreciate your time, Todd.
Todd Lebo: Well, it's also helpful, like I appreciate companies like yours that do the, you know, we can create the research, but unless companies have a methodology and a strategy for how to use it in their programs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Distribution and all those different things that your companies like you do. That's, yeah, that's where the magic happens, right? When you, when you take the asset.
Paula Chiocchi: Distribution.
Todd Lebo: And then you figure out how to get it in the hands of the right people.
Paula Chiocchi: Thank you for saying that, I appreciate that. Thank you, Todd. Thank you so much.
Todd Lebo: ⁓ you're welcome. You're welcome. Have a great day. Okay.
Paula Chiocchi: That's it for today's episode of B2B Influence. If you picked up something new or found yourself rethinking your approach, take a second to subscribe, leave a quick comment, and share this episode with your network. And don't forget, once we hit 25,000 subscribers, one lucky listener will win a free customer analysis. Just subscribe and comment to enter. If you want to be a guest or know someone pushing the boundaries in B2B marketing, tap the link in the show notes to nominate or apply. And if you're ready to fuel smarter campaigns and more accurate targeting, Check out what we're doing at OMI.
