Kertu Kuusik is the Head of Marketing at Cleveron. Previously, Kertu led the marketing and brand department at Telia and, before joining Cleveron, was involved in green technology startup Kwota. Cleveron's business strategy focuses primarily on the European market and retail automation.
What do you think are the biggest differences between B2B and B2C? You have worked in both.
Marketing management at Telia was a great experience, because every single discipline was applied. You have private clients and business clients, occasional purchases and contractual relationships, local implementation and the international branding strategy. When you do everything at the same time, you understand the differences well.
The most important aspect that affects daily work is probably that in the case of a private client there is more space and need for automation, and the amount of data is larger. Marketing to a business client, especially a large business client, is always more of a tailor-made solution. It’s as simple as that.
There also seems to be this difference in the Estonian market that finding a partner who wants to do private client marketing with you is easy, but try finding, for example, an agency that wants to do marketing to a business client.
Everyone is ultimately human, and that Walmart salesperson, a potential buyer of the Cleveron robot, is also on Facebook.
Marketing that is truly designed based on the customer's purchasing decision process requires a certain level of competence from all parties. The same goes for private clients, but in the case of a tailor-made solution, this cannot be overcome or circumvented.
On the other hand, of course, I understand that we are still profit-oriented companies - us and agencies. There is more space to simplify with private clients, hence it is easier to sell. And in the end, you will still over time assemble a network for yourself: someone for a trade fair booth, someone for PR, someone for sales technology integration.

Now, if we dream a little, would there be a need for a B2B agency that had all these core competencies?
I believe so.
All competencies in one house.
A prerequisite is global marketing competence. There are many very good agencies in Estonia, but it seems that they mostly want to serve brands that operate locally for private clients.
Think about our advertising awards, for example, how many projects can you think of whose success story originated in a foreign market, and then think about how many projects are aimed at business clients, and even more so, business clients in a foreign market.
If you go to a logistics, postal or e-commerce conference with Cleveron, how do you get attention?
One thing is for sure, everything starts with strong preliminary work. What happens on site is the result of that work. In Cleveron's sales team, this thing works like clockwork, which in turn gives you the assurance that the maximum has been taken from the investment made.
There is no universal truth, but common sense says that if you sell a service, a fancy exhibition booth is not so necessary, but in the case of a product, you should still take it with you.
None of us would want to invest time and money in a conference where you have to listen to a 20-minute advertising clip. Simple thing, but there is always a company that cannot resist the temptation.
And in addition to attention, there must also be a measurable result. It is up to each company to figure out how to evaluate the result immediately after the fair, after six months, after a year.

What is the average length of your sales cycle? And how big is the average transaction?
It depends, but of course there are cycles whose length we measure in years. A successful sales cycle results in a permanent relationship, because the products go to the customer for years and that is how you have to think about it.
Customer lifetime value can be hundreds of millions for a customer like Zara, for example.
The sums are very big indeed.
When selling impulse products, the journey is simple and short, and it is easier to measure. But how do you know if that presentation at a conference or that PR article in a publication was effective?
Calculating profitability at Cleveron is no different than elsewhere. What makes the assessment easy and difficult at the same time is the fact that most often one sale is enough to earn back whatever investment, in this sense it is very binary.
However, profitability has a central place in the entire business logic at Cleveron. We sell efficiency – space, labor, time – it has to be profitable for the customer, otherwise there is no point in undertaking this journey.
How to achieve a culture where you are constantly there for your customer as a partner, whether in good or bad times?
No matter how Cleveron is doing, you would ask any Cleveron employee, and the answer would start with the fact that we are only as good as our customers are. That's how we think, and it's really part of the culture.
It all starts with a deep belief that you only make new sales when your current customer is happy and satisfied.
You can't create a culture overnight, but it all starts with a deep belief that you only make new sales when your current customer is happy and satisfied. We have so many examples of this in practice that it's impossible to ignore.
What do you do to maintain a long-term relationship? In business culture, it varies across generations and cultures: with some it's appropriate, figuratively speaking, to go to a strip club, with others you know that for God's sake, alcohol is not allowed.
Know your customer, that's all.
Cleveron's clients are global retailers, they are mature companies, a code of conduct is in place, and business is done ethically. The most demanding people want results, not a free barbecue from their business partner for Midsummer.

At one seminar, the British representative of EAS talked about how in the UK people look at team galleries of a typical Estonian company with mostly middle-aged white men and wonder about the lack of diversity. How much emphasis do you put on this?
You don't have to sell the idea that diversity is a value, it's obvious. The other side of the coin is that we are a technology company, focused on robotics, among other things, and we operate largely in small Viljandi. Becoming more diverse takes time.
How important is storytelling to you?
They say that if there is no story the CEO can present in an inspiring way, there is no strategy. Cleveron's luck is that the story - a small company from Viljandi successfully went global - is so inspiring in itself that it doesn't have to be sucked out of a pen. The more you know about the story, the more inspiring it becomes.
But how important are communication and PR? For example, getting coverage in international professional media. What do you do for that?
It has been a nice surprise to see how much interest the local media has in Cleveron.
It's great how easy it has become to create mediocre content, but this whole cloud of generic AI content also makes me feel uneasy.
As for the coverage of international professional media, who can say no to that? On the other hand, I have mixed feelings. It's great how easy it has become to create mediocre content, but this whole cloud of generic AI content also makes me feel uneasy.
How important are foreign industry portals? They are precisely targeted and there are no random readers.
The value of an industry portal lies in the quality mark, not so much in coverage. If you are sure that the portal is trustworthy in the eyes of your target group, it is worth trying.
Moreover, you shouldn't forget about the authority of your spokespersons. Who are the people in your company who really have something to say that hasn't been said yet!?
Who are these people?
At Cleveron, we believe in expertise, and it can't be any other way when you're a pioneer in your field, like Cleveron is. Keywords are robotics, engineering, retail automation.
From a media relations perspective, this is a difficult group, because engineers are not very media-friendly and don't care about giving interviews.
It would be a mistake to think that all engineers are the same. I also believe that there is a suitable format for everyone, you as a marketer just have to find it! Some people like to come and speak on the radio, some people like to share their findings in a club format, and some people like to write their thoughts into sentences.
In addition, as readers, we are also tired of everything we've already seen, and this should encourage us to find those in our own companies who can offer this novelty.
But they themselves don't want to.
Some still do.
B2B marketers often complain that they are just a PowerPoint factory for salespeople, making business cards and presentations for them, but not strategic marketing. They are sales support, but sales leads and marketing supports. What is your view?
We are talking about how sales and marketing can work together to increase the company's turnover. I would immediately take away the tension that there is a structural answer, that we move these boxes this way and that, and all worries disappear. Rather, everything starts with common goals. It seems so elementary, but often these common goals still do not exist.
In the interview with Piret Vahter, you talked about how cooperation starts to work incredibly well when you put people in the same room. If that was a metaphor and she meant using the same data and tools, then I completely agree. If she was serious about putting them in the same room, then I completely disagree. Who would want someone else to tell them who to be with and in which room?
In practice, we also come to the point that we don't sell the way we want to sell, but we sell the way the customer buys. If the basis of our work is the customer's purchasing decision process, it is clear that sales contributes somewhere, marketing somewhere. If clarity is created here and people with the right skills do the right things, results will come.
Do you do classic advertising too?
By definition, we do. However, I like the saying that the difference between successful and very successful people is that the very successful say no to almost everything. When you market in as many markets as Cleveron, that's the main challenge, to understand what not to do. In this sense, classic ads do not play a significant role in our marketing.
Is it possible to understand exactly who the right person is in the client's organisation? How to target, find and reach them? Or is it more of a salespeople's issue?
Probably the biggest trap is trying to find a standard answer here.
The simple answer would be, of course, we try to understand whose challenge on the goal map we are solving, which is of course an art in itself.
Second, probably the worst thing to do is to tell the client that you know exactly what's good for them and how easy it is to implement some of your tools in their organisation.
I have two pieces of advice. If you have the resources, maybe start at the bottom of the organisation and try to gather input to help refine your offering. Second, probably the worst thing to do is to tell the client that you know exactly what's good for them and how easy it is to implement some of your tools in their organisation. When you say that, it doesn't matter whether you're targeting the right person or the wrong person, both will hate it.
How easy is it to recruit B2B marketers in Estonia?
Easy or difficult doesn't really depend on B2B or B2C, but more on whether people want to work for you, whether they want to work in your company, whether they want to sell your product.
However, it tends to be the case that those who do private client marketing will continue on that path, and those who have already entered the exciting world of corporate clients want to improve their skills in this area.
Interviewed by Hando Sinisalu
Written by Elsbeth Hanna Aarsalu, translated by Ann-Kristin Kruuk