Piret Vahter is one of the most experienced B2B marketers in Estonia, having worked at Telia, Columbus IT, Rebel Roam and today orchestrates sales and marketing at Net Group. Net Group is an IT company with over 20 years of history, employing over 90 people and with a turnover of approximately 11 million euros.
Let's start with the most recent events: Net Group was a sponsor at Nordic Business Forum. What was the goal of this sponsorship?
The goal was to create awareness among decision-makers. The essence of our business is know-how and we sell this know-how. Generally speaking, what sells best is when we can demonstrate our knowledge somewhere. A conference is one of the best ways to do that.
We got two ticks at once: the Estonian and Finnish markets. So it was a perfect combination, because we have a subsidiary in Finland and it was good to be visible in two markets at once. Everyone who watched the broadcast was also treated to our advertising.
What did you do there?
We had a speaker slot on the side stage (sponsors do not have access to the main stage, only the side stage). We showed commercials as interstitials and used all the standard parts of the sponsor package: logos, exchange of contacts and the like.
How do you measure the success of such sponsorship? Yes, people are there, ads are shown, but how do you make sure the ad delivered and was perceived correctly?
We can talk about short-term and long-term goals. Short-term: I had eight people there, or a team, who networked and generated contacts. Everyone also had their own goals set. So the activity was not random, but well-thought-out: contacts had been established beforehand via Brella or LinkedIn to get more in depth on the spot and make the topic hotter.
Long-term goals: in addition to having a sponsorship package, we were out with well-targeted ads for the Finnish market in both the Meta environment and Google Display.
There was a specific CTO-as-a-Service offer. Currently, there is a follow-up period: retargeting needs to be set up for those who visited our page and direct mail needs to be sent to the contact base collected at the conference.
Our sales cycle is about eight months, so we've only just begun to meet the metrics for our second, longer-term strategy. I'm also getting a clip of our presentation at the conference, which we will be able to share across our socials.
In Estonia, when someone starts actively selling themselves on the conference stage, the feedback is always negative. So how do you strike that balance? How boldly and forcefully should you sell or offer something? How to find that balance with your presentation?
We are Estonians at heart, we don't make a crude sales pitches, and that was the agreement with the organisers of Nordic Business Forum. We offer substantive value, content that supports certain thought development.
Although the moment on stage is extremely short, we made sure to prepare for this short moment, I dare say a few months. We even hired an external partner who was a bystander and helped build up our story so it would create value for the audience. I wouldn't be happy going on stage just to hype ourselves up. We should offer more.
Did you meet your goals?
We have met the short-term metrics. We got what we were looking for. Maybe we could have been more ambitious.
Since we were sponsors, we had access to the profiles and names of the participants early on. Thanks to this, we were able to contact them before the event. We later got even more information from Brella, i.e. in the conference environment.
Is there an alternative? Let's say Nordic Business Forum didn't exist. What would the process look like then?
At Net Group, we use two major lead generation tools. First, you go to conferences with a larger group. Lately, we've even given up on stands, because they force people to stay in one place, while leads are walking around. It's better to be everywhere, not at a stand. And we don't have a product to show at a stand. If there's no physical product to show, then waiting for a customer at a stand is relatively pointless.
And the second is precisely targeted marketing. We have developed a concept for very specific client lists, we work hard to get these lists together. These are not sales lists bought from somewhere. I have a separate person in my team working on this.
How does it work? Let's take the Estonian market, for example, which is relatively small and where there is a personal aspect too.
If you are in the service business, where you have stricter metrics, then I haven't seen an automated solution to get a person into my sample at all. I do get data from Äripäev and Infopank. Even if you buy a list from them, it's still a draft that you will develop further so as not to forget any key players. The data can be easily obtained, but the bigger chunk of work like figuring out decision-makers in each company, that's manual labour.
If we consider the Estonian market, how big is the number of people who actually belong to your target group? In tens of thousands, thousands, what is the volume?
About 80% of Estonian companies are not our customers, but we are still talking about thousands here.
Not a mind-boggling amount.
No. In the Estonian context, we actually know who we would like to have as customers. That is why we can do quite targeted marketing. Looking from the outside, the water is much murkier. But even there, we tend to have clarity in which case we can say that a certain lead is not our lead, and is not worth the energy.
The situation becomes complicated for Estonian companies when they enter larger foreign markets. There is no personal aspect, no school or kindergarten friends. Especially if you take a larger company, it is very difficult to understand the structure, to determine who decides what. The decision-maker is often not one person, but a committee. How do you find the decision-maker?
We make sure to have at least one local contact with kindergarten friends and tennis club pals in that region. There has to be a local partner.
So, entering a foreign market can only be done via buying a local company or hiring someone local, well-connected.
Currently, yes. Might sound as complete nonsense for someone in a similar situation, but based on our experience, we need a local partner, someone who knows the local conditions and decision-making processes.
We are not France, we are an Eastern European country. If we are talking about Central and Western Europe, then we have yet to build our credibility there.
Doing business also requires memberships in local associations or trade unions. Even if we would like to think differently, we are not France, we are an Eastern European country. If we are talking about Central and Western Europe, then we have yet to build our credibility there.
You have a virtual product, you don't need to take a physical box anywhere. How much of this product can be sold through digital channels and how much physical contact, handshakes, etc. are needed?
Our product is the digitalisation of a company's business processes and the implementation of new business models. Everything is done according to how the foreign market is used to doing business.
If elsewhere, business is done in the evening over a glass of beer in a pub, then you go to the pub in the evening and have that glass of beer. Estonians can be as digital as they want, but decisions are made differently.
However, we can create awareness with digital tools, build our credibility with the help of digital channels: Google can lead to your company's website, but from there, everything is determined by trust in us as people.
How do you go about building trust? What do you think are the critical moments where trust is created or lost?
You already know that I believe in branding and think that trust can be driven by a strong brand. A brand must seem attractive in its entire essence, concept, and all that goes with it. Just because we are in the B2B market doesn't mean that I have a logo from God knows what year.
By brand, do you mean the visual side?
A brand is not just the visual side.
But let's say I've never had any contact with the brand. The first thing I do is go to their website. What impression should I get from that touchpoint?
One is the visual side and the other is how you talk about things. We certainly don't always succeed, but we try to talk in terms of the customer's benefit. We don't praise ourselves, we try to show what the customer gets. References are also very important in the service business. They might ask, "Great, you've built an e-state in Estonia, but I have a retail e-channel here, have you done that too?"
Let's say that the customer has heard about you somewhere, for example from Nordic Business Forum, goes back to work, Googles Net Group, and ends up on your page. What will they find there?
They will find very substantive case studies and active social media accounts, because we all like to Google and research what's really going on. The website is probably a more curated space these days.
About warning signs, what would you try to avoid on social media?
I think LinkedIn should give off a smart and professional feel. But I would personally prefer to work with people who also seem like a nice bunch to spend time with. The humanity aspect has to come out. I really believe that in the end, people do business with each other.
What about the frequency of posts? There are many companies online today, in October, whose last post was: Merry Christmas!
I'd say don't open a social media account if you don’t have the resources to create content for that account. That has always been my very first recommendation. At Net Group, I have a separate person on my team, plus an external partner who help maintain regularity.
There has been a major paradigm shift among marketers when it comes to content creation. A few years ago, the main goal was to collect sales leads, now to increase awareness, boost branding.
I'm team branding. If you look at the entire customer life cycle, people visit the website several times. On the first visit, they are far from converting into a real customer. They are still in their discovery phase, they visit our website, they visit other places, they try to familiarise themselves with the topic. After a while, they come back, read more.
The sequence of steps to becoming a customer is so long in our business. If I close the gate early on by immediately demanding their email address, the customer would never come back. They are still educating themselves, so that when they come to you, they can be a smart buyer.
Interesting, you rarely hear that kind of feedback. A whole generation of marketers and managers believe in analytics.
Depends on planning. I have goals for every quarter that I have to achieve. Some activities bring short-term goals, others long-term goals. I manage these processes in parallel.
There are activities that will not bring quick wins, but still need to be done for constant visibility and being a serious market participant.
How do you make sales and marketing work together?
Get them to sit in the same room. We do. This way the two won't end up in different swimming lanes. Marketing can't go crazy with promises that can't be fulfilled. And vice versa.
You have a complicated product, which means you need to get to the meeting phase at least in order to have a discussion. How do you get there?
Consultative sales. You have to talk about the service in different groups. One person recommends you to another - an old classic. They might approach you with a completely different question and end up as clients.
That's why we go to events a lot. You have to be around people.
To be visible, to be present. But whose job is it?
I have a core group of people who are out there selling. And the result must be measured! This is your goal and next quarter's turnover depends on it - if that hasn't been said, there are enough other tasks to fill your days.
On the other hand (and in my deeply personal opinion as a marketer): marketers like to work in a support function. We are not front-line people, we are not that good at selling, we like to help others succeed.
You are the marketing manager of a large company in Estonian terms. How many offers do you, as a potential buyer and client, receive from different agencies?
To my surprise, there are few, very few. Of course, I have my own strong partners with whom I already work.
Every time I talk to agencies, I hear two concerns: first, there is an enormous amount of work, and second, there is an awfully small amount of money.
I think every service company has those problems.
As far as I know, there is no agency in Estonia that specialises in B2B?
No, there isn't.
That is a problem.
A very big problem.
At the same time, there are an insane number of B2B companies.
This is a very big problem. So big, in fact, that I've even flirted with the idea of doing it myself.
There's a new generation of people, daring aspiring advertising wizards who don't understand that in B2B there are multiple decision makers, big budgets, a purchasing decision takes a long time, they are not selling chocolate.
I'm selling a comprehensive service and it takes a long time to get my new partners to understand what needs to be done. If I have more time, then okay, let's talk. But when my desk is on fire with tasks with flames from all sides, I sometimes wonder why am I paying their school fees. I would like to have professionals in front of me.
When we were at the Parrot conference you organised in the spring, I asked the UK people when will they come to Estonia because we really, really need B2B professionals like them.
However, the B2B landscape has changed a lot over the years. In 2010, when I started working at Columbus IT, there were very few B2B marketers, and the position of marketing manager did not even exist in many B2B companies. Now most B2B companies have a marketer.
If you ask why there is no B2B agency, then maybe we are too small a market. But all agencies should be able to be B2B agencies in this case. I don't dare to say that all of them are in Estonia.
Finally, I'll ask about PR. How important is it for Net Group?
Extremely important. I said at the beginning: we operate in the knowledge business. Knowledge is key, so how do you show that to a hundred people with one ad? Very difficult. PR is a tool to talk about meaningful things. The question is how to make PR meaningful for your business.
Since we are in consultative sales, we can't push a very large volume. I don't want to do that to my sales people. I can't suddenly give them three thousand new contacts to manage. Our capacity is to serve about a hundred new sales leads with quality and according to expectations. In other words, volume is not a goal in itself.
And where do most leads come from?
Mainly from conferences and inbound leads.
Interviewed by Hando Sinisalu
Penned by Elsbeth Hanna Aarsalu