Honing Your B2B2C Marketing Efforts with Sandra Pearce

In this episode, we’re diving into the world of B2B2C, discussing how to attract both businesses and consumers to your solutions while maintaining your core message and identity as an organization.  

We ask questions like: how do you define B2B2C exactly? What are some of the top challenges to expect when implementing a B2B2C marketing strategy? And what are some effective approaches for building strong partnerships with other businesses in a B2B2C marketing environment?  

Joining Dani to tackle those questions and more is the great Sandy Pearce, Senior Director of Marketing at Turf Distributors. 

Sandy makes so many amazing points, like: 

• How one of the biggest challenges in B2B2C marketing is not spreading your teams too thin 
• Why it pays to have the tightest and most well integrated of tech stacks 
• And how the minute you start to make assumptions about who you are selling to, is the minute that you start falling down a rabbit hole 

Links:

Sandra Pearce:
linkedin.com/in/sandra-l-pearce/

Dani Buckley:
linkedin.com/in/daniobuckley/

LeadG2:
leadg2.thecenterforsalesstrategy.com/

TIMESTAMPS:
(02:16)  What is your definition of B2B2C?
(03:58) I think the challenge is spreading yourself too thin
(05:59) Tracking of ROI
(07:19) You have to have the right tech stack
(08:59) Sales and Marketing are not separate
(11:32) Don't assume that all of your pieces are gonna run smoothly
(13:42) All you have to do is get a handle on your voice
(15:33) Build a tech stack that is completely integrated
(18:28) The biggest mistake comes from Sales and Marketing not knowing each other's challenges
(20:21) One piece of advice

Transcript

Dani Buckley: (00:15)
Welcome to Sell Smarter Sell Faster, a podcast dedicated to helping sales organizations grow. Each week, we discuss proven sales enablement strategies and real life examples with experts and thought leaders from across industries. I'm your host, Dani Buckley, vice President and general Manager at LeadG2, a sales performance agency.

Dani Buckley: (00:40)
In this episode, we're diving into the world of B2B2C, discussing how to market, sell to, and create messaging for a variety of types of buyers, consumers, and partners. In complex selling environments, we ask questions like, how do you define B2B2C exactly? What are some of the top challenges to expect when implementing a B2B2C marketing strategy? And what are some effective approaches for building strong partnerships with other businesses? Joining me to tackle those questions and more is Sandy Pearce, Senior Director of Marketing at Turf Distributors. Sandy shares many valuable insights from her years of experience, including why and how to avoid spreading your teams and strategy too thin when marketing to so many different audiences. Why it pays to have a well-integrated tech stack in this kind of environment, and how the minute you start to make assumptions about who you are selling to, it's the minute that you start falling down a rabbit hole. I am so excited to be chatting with you today, Sandy. I feel like you are one of the best people to talk to about this, um, and I can't wait for everyone to hear your insights and experience around B2B2C and how to do it well, and all the things you've been learning along the way in your career. So welcome, thanks for being here. How are you today?

Sandra Pearce: (01:55)
I'm awesome. Super happy to be here. And, uh, just everybody knows I apparently love acronyms and the more letters there aren't something that have to be explained, the better off. I like it.

Dani Buckley: (02:04)
Great. We're a big fans of acronyms too, so we're, we're a good company together. Um, great. So let's jump in. So for those that just to kinda, I like to always do a, a good level set for everybody listening, um, to make sure we're all on the same page about what is B2B2C when we're talking about that, what is your definition? Can you give some examples that you have?

Sandra Pearce: (02:22)
So, I I, there's always the example that you can get by just Googling what is B2B2C marketing. And the bottom line is this, if, if you sell products and you have someone else who sells 'em onto an end user, you're actually in B2B2C, right? Yeah. You have the opportunity to influence the sale from start to finish. You just don't have access to that end user yourself.

Dani Buckley: (02:44)
Got it. Perfect. Well said. Very clear . Um, so what do you think, um, you know, in your words, like what makes the marketing for an organization that is B2B2C unique? What makes it different from straight B2B or B2C?

Sandra Pearce: (02:59)
You have to influence everyone, and sometimes you have to do it from a distance, and you have to actually not just convince your resellers to buy a product from you and sell them through, you also have to train them on your product, educate them, provide them resources, teach them what to say and what not to say, how to differentiate you. It's like all those things that you went through to get that distribution customer to begin with, you have to do again to get that distribution customer to represent your brand properly and the way you want it to be represented online or in-person in a retail environment. So it creates a lot of challenges and it creates potential for a whole lot of work after the sale.

Dani Buckley: (03:40)
Yeah, there's a lot of like relationship management and a lot of different types of relationships, right. ,

Sandra Pearce: (03:46)
That's a, yeah, there are .

Dani Buckley: (03:49)
Great. So you, you said challenges. Let's talk about challenges. So what are the challenges that you are, I mean, even that you specifically face it at Turf Distributors,

Sandra Pearce: (03:57)
You know, I think the challenge is always gonna be spreading yourself too thin. Mm-hmm. , um, if you're selling to resellers, you have a finite budget. That finite budget depends on what you have to do to get those sales. Marketing is a percentage of sales here. We, we treat marketing as a revenue source. We're, we're not like a lot of companies where marketing does a branding and it makes things look nice, and you do the sales material. We actually connect the revenue generated by marketing efforts to the true ROI of the company. We're just as entwined in that as sales. So our budget is very specifically set to achieve certain goals. Once you get to that point and you've sold that through to the reseller, your budget to help them take that over the finish line to the consumer is even smaller. So the big challenge is to manage your resources, not spread your teams too thin.

Sandra Pearce: (04:51)
And we happen to do that by repurposing the materials that we've already created, repurposing the branded, um, pieces, and offering those to our entire distribution channel to reuse themselves. Right? We've already done the work, we've already laid the groundwork. Yeah. We've got the brand voice, the look, the feel, all of the typical standard stuff. And if you tweak that slightly and turn that into a B2C piece and then just hand it on to your channel, they can just continue the same conversation that got them to buy from you to begin with, and now they get to sell it through to the end consumer. And if we can influence that in any way without jeopardizing our workflow for the, the heavy lifting, which is getting those resellers to begin with, and we can improve the lead to sale close ratio for our distributors, we now have even deeper engagement with our entire distribution channel because we're offering them tools that they don't have to create themselves. Yeah. We become their go-to partner. So it has a lot of rewards, it has a lot of risk, and it's a lot of work.

Dani Buckley: (05:56)
Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. So I, uh, the tracking of roi, right, the, the mm-hmm.  being able to tie back revenue to your efforts is important. It's something you guys do. Mm-hmm. , um, and also it's, it's more challenging in B2B2C, right? , is that a fair assumption to make?

Sandra Pearce: (06:12)
Well, of course it is. Danny, why do you think, when I started with church distributors, I hired LeadG2 and brought on HubSpot for all of our companies, right? Cause we're not just one company, right? We have five different business units that we have to support and serve and move products for, um, in very complex channels. There's no way that any company has the budget to hire experts in every single field that we need expertise in. And that's where agencies like yours come into play. Yeah. Cause you offer something in a very cost effective way that gives us enterprise class knowledge and experience that we could never afford to hire for completely ourselves.

Dani Buckley: (06:53)
Got

Sandra Pearce: (06:53)
It. Yeah. So thank you for that. You make my

Dani Buckley: (06:55)
Listeners, I did not set Sandy up to say that, uh, , but, but

Sandra Pearce: (07:00)
I

Dani Buckley: (07:00)
Oh, please. But it, but it's true whether it's us or someone else or internally, it's true that there, those challenges have to be addressed with the right expertise. Someone who has the, the capabilities, the experience, the bandwidth, the technology, all of that.

Sandra Pearce: (07:12)
Yeah. And as fast as technology moves, as fast as the tech stack evolves, and, and let's be honest about this, right? So one of the biggest challenges, of course is resources and time. And how do you actually have enough of any of that? Yeah. You have to have the right tech stack with the right partners doing the right things to move your sales funnel forward. So, and, and again, let's be perfectly clear, I've worked with Danny for a long time. I was with her at my last role. I've done this the hard way, which is without an agency and without HubSpot. And I've done this the easy way, which was with an agency in HubSpot. I'm not going back to the old way because it's just not sustainable, right? Yeah. So the trick is always to have as tight of a tech stack as you possibly can. So you have less technology to manage, have the best people working with you, and then empower your team to do their job with a double focus B2B and b2c, and do the tracking with the right key performance indicators to absolutely make sure that every effort that you are putting energy and time into is resulting in a positive roi.

Dani Buckley: (08:22)
Great. Love it. This takes us right into our next question. So what, what, what does work? And so we're, we're touching on some of the big stuff, right? Like having the right technology, having the right people in place to do this. Um, you know, the, even you mentioned before, even some of the, the ability to like repurposing tool or resources and things like that. Can you share with us a couple of like really specific strategy or tactics that you've seen work? Um,

Sandra Pearce: (08:46)
You know, I, I think that when we're talking about specifics and strategies and tactics, it becomes a very complicated answer because there is no simple strategy or tactic anymore. No. Right? Yep. So the, the one thing that everybody in a b2, b2c, um, business needs to focus on is that sales and marketing are not separate. You don't have a sales team, you don't have a marketing team. You have one team working together with different people fulfilling different roles. Because if sales does not own their lane, if we don't own what we do and the outcomes of it and deliver those leads to sales, we're not doing our job. But let's say we deliver those leads to sales, but now sales has a super low lead to close ratio. Why is that? Are we providing poor lead quality or have we just not set them up for success by teeing them up for the kind of leads we're handing to them?

Sandra Pearce: (09:39)
Right? Yeah. So if we don't know what happens from right here to right there, when the money actually comes in, we don't know anything. Um, all we're doing is doing our best to generate numbers. That's like saying, you know, how many views did you get on your website? I I really don't care how many people came to my website and became a lead that I could nurture. I care. Yeah. I think that that's the, that's the biggest thing for me. Um, we have, we have constant set up regular meetings with our sales leadership at each one of the business units. We had an annual marketing summit company by company, by company sales and marketing in the same room, hashing out what are our goals? What are we gonna do? What do we have to accomplish? What tools do you need? Where do we wanna push us?

Sandra Pearce: (10:26)
Where do you want us to push you? And you do that. And then you meet constantly, consistently. You review the analytics and every single month you're responsible for owning your lane and what you deliver to them. And now they're responsible to you to answer back, what did you do with what I handed you? Yeah. When you do that, it's, it's a very symbiotic relationship. And teams become one, and now there's an open channel of communication, and it's no longer marketing this and sales that it's us. We, our, and the bottom line improves. Um, and the key performance indicators are really simple for me. How many leads did I get you? How many leads got closed? And how much money did we generate from all of those efforts? Was it profitable? And if it was, let's just keep doing it again and do it again and do it again.

Sandra Pearce: (11:15)
Yeah. And test and analyze and make sure that what you are doing is profitable early on in small steps. And then amplify your efforts. Do not just go in saying, I know what I gotta do and I know what sales is gonna do. And don't assume that all your parts and pieces are gonna run smoothly. Assume that something is gonna break down. Start your campaigns, start your processes, test them, analyze them. Soon as those are smooth, then throw some more money at 'em, then throw some more money at 'em. Yeah. And then you have calculations, right? So if I spend this much, I get that much and tying it, it all together in one platform with one tech stack that's all interconnected, where everybody can look at the same dashboards and look at the same data and information is cause and effect and collaboration. And that's, that's what really results in profitable market effort marketing efforts. Yeah. And look at me. I just scrambled on it. On

Dani Buckley: (12:12)
And on. I think it's great. It's good stuff. And you know, one thing I think you do really particularly well, and I've seen you do this at, at multiple companies is, um, really because in b2, B2C in particular, you, you have a lot of different audiences, right? There's a lot of different resellers, there's a lot of different consumers, there's a lot of, you know, and so it's easy to spread yourself and your messaging kind of thin  and I, what I've seen you do well is, is be very targeted. And I think that's a good tactic and and approach that people should remember is, you know, yes, you can repurpose content and you should, and you should repurpose things when you can. But also it needs to be personalized and the, and the messaging, the, the approach, the mm-hmm. , the, the, the tactics as you're using do need to be unique to this specific audience, right?

Sandra Pearce: (12:54)
Right. Exactly. It's like, and, and you, you lined it up right there. If, if I think about every single type of customer that we have to influence's a long list , right? So let's start at master distributors. I mean, I've got four different kinds of, of distribution partners or partner types, if you will. I've got direct to consumer, I have big box e-commerce, I have small mom and pop, and I have affiliate. So if you can imagine the type of customer that exists out there in something like artificial turf and how that has to pass through the channels, including contractors and installers and construction companies, the the list is just beyond huge. And, but it's not insurmountable. And you're not having to tell the same story in 50 different ways. All you have to do is get a handle on your voice. What is your story?

Sandra Pearce: (13:47)
Yeah. What is your value proposition? What's your differentiation? What makes you unique and sets you apart? And let that voice resonate through everything and change your content based on the audience slightly without losing the soul of who you are. Right? Love it. And a lot of companies wind up trying to create something completely new and different, unique for each persona. And that basically sometimes has the effect of diluting the brand value as opposed to amplifying the brand value. Um, and I think that's, that's a fine line to walk. Um, but if you know how you're gonna connect the dots before you start telling the story, the story can tell itself for everybody. Um, and of course you have to use something like a marketing automation platform that can help you personalize and customize and ab test and track to make sure that you're not being assumptive. Yeah. The minute you start making assumptions in marketing is the minute you're gonna go down a rabbit hole and wondering why your ROI is in the toilet.

Dani Buckley: (14:50)
Yep. Data is King .

Sandra Pearce: (14:53)
Well, Ashley, money is king. Data

Dani Buckley: (14:56)
. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. There's probably a few kings out there, but, um,  well, you keep touching on technology, so let's talk about that. You know, um, I think one thing I wanna like share with folks who are listening is, is, you know, the ideal scenario, of course is like, is is like one tool for everything. And, and it's more and more are we moving in that direction that, that we can have less tools. But for a more sophisticated organization like you guys and, and many of the people listening, um, I think it's an unrealistic goal that you're only gonna have one tool for everything. So what's important is that you're building a tech stack that is very integrated. Would you agree?

Sandra Pearce: (15:33)
I think that building a tech stack that is completely integrated is the only way to go, right? Yeah. So when it's easy, when you're a smaller company and you're getting bigger to stick with the CRM platform that you had before and add to it Yeah. And add to it and do this and do that, and add a piece and not plan it out. And what winds up happening is now that you're, you're a pretty good sized company and you're generating a lot of money, but the minute you look under the hood, you see all of this duct tape holding everything together and one piece of duct tape tears and the whole thing falls apart, and you spend all your time on tech people trying to sort out your mess. So from my perspective, um, I was given the opportunity here to look at what existed and look at what the perfect scenario would be, right?

Sandra Pearce: (16:17)
All of these companies, multiple ones using different CRM and sales enablement platforms, and we're moving to one primary group of tech stack, right? We're gonna use Salesforce, we're gonna use NetSuite, we're gonna use HubSpot, and we're going to plug in from there. The primaries are there, sales enablement, crm and marketing automation. Now what do we do now? What isn't existing there? Yeah. Um, we do a lot with the phone. Yeah. Right? We do a lot of inbound calls. Google my business, you name it. Our, our marketing methodologies require people to call us and we push for them to call us. So we need to manage that. So we've brought on a new system that basically digs into the, the public database or the phone records and lets us identify who's calling us. And we tie that into HubSpot. We tie that into our other platforms.

Sandra Pearce: (17:09)
Um, we do the same thing with lead, um, uh, assignment, uh, to our salespeople. You get over five, six salespeople in an organization and managing lead distribution becomes overwhelmingly weighty Yeah. On sales leadership that has to plug into be seamless. So I, I would say if you're gonna do this, figure out what the primary pieces of technology you need are. Make sure they all work together. Once, you know, they all work together and they're handling the lions, share what has to happen now, plug in other pieces that already have APIs, don't go out and build it. Don't go out and just, you know, do a little web book. Yeah. Get software that works. There's enough su there's enough selection out there that you can basically do anything you want to do. Yeah. With direct APIs that already exist so you aren't spending all of your time and your budget supporting tech staff to keep your systems together and working. Yep. That's what I would say.

Dani Buckley: (18:08)
Mic drop . Um, love it. So let's, let's talk about, you know, what, what might come up for folks, um, when they are developing a B2B to C marketing strategy. Are there certain like misconceptions or kind of pitfalls or obstacles that, that folks should avoid? Or common mistakes even that you see?

Sandra Pearce: (18:27)
I think the biggest mistake is not knowing your sales team's challenges. Hmm. Right. So if you're in marketing and you're building this and you don't know the challenges of your sales team, you are going to hit some brick walls that you won't be able to get around easily. If you're on the sales side and you're building a B2 b2c and you don't know what the marketing challenges are gonna be, it's the same thing. And no matter what, if you go back to the foundational issues of organizations in sales and marketing structure, you're gonna find it was a lack of communication and understanding of each other's pain points and superpowers. Right? So you don't know what sales thinks you can do until you ask them, and then you realize they think that you can, um, do anything and nothing all at the same time. And the same is reversed for marketing of sales. It's like, why aren't you doing this? And why aren't you doing that? Well, because that doesn't work for us. Um, if, again, I'm gonna go back to that point from before, if you know the dots you wanna connect, it's easy to connect the dots. If you think you know, and you haven't bothered to ask and map it out, you are going to find yourself going off in directions you never anticipated or plan for. And that's when things fall apart and don't. Yeah. And that's when it costs you money instead of making you money.

Dani Buckley: (19:54)
Great.

Sandra Pearce: (19:55)
Realize this is all

Dani Buckley: (19:56)
About me. That's not what we wanna do. We wanna make money.

Sandra Pearce: (19:58)
That's right. , center for Sales Excellence and Sales Smarter. I love it. Yes.

Dani Buckley: (20:04)
Um, so to kind of close this out, because of course Sandy, you and I just in touch chat all day, which I love to do, um, but we won't, for the sake of everybody listening. So close house, do you have any like closing advice or anything that you haven't touched on that you just wanna be sure you pass along to those, um, yeah. That are thinking about this stuff?

Sandra Pearce: (20:21)
So I think the one thing that I wanna pass on is if you are a B2B and you think you cannot influence your end customer because there's a reseller between you and them, you're wrong. If you think that you shouldn't be influencing that in customer, because as a reseller between you and them, you're wrong. Um, if you, if you align your tools, your assets, your people, your processes with one goal in mind, and that's helping your resellers get that sale done, at the end of the day, if that's your only focus, you're gonna succeed. But don't ever stop at being just a b2b.

Dani Buckley: (20:59)
I love it. That's great advice. Great. Well thank you, Sandy, as always, it's a pleasure to connect. Thank you for being here.

Sandra Pearce: (21:06)
Thank you Danny for having me

Dani Buckley: (21:08)
And for sharing your wisdom with us. And, um, for those listening, uh, Sandy's conduct information is in the, the show notes. So feel free to connect with her on LinkedIn, things like that. I'm sure Sandy would love that. Um, and you look forward to seeing everybody on the next episode of Sell Smarter, sell Faster. Until then, happy selling. Thanks for joining us on Sell Smarter, sell Faster. If you like what you hear, click that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. Be sure to visit our website, sell Smarter sell faster.com where you can find even more helpful sales enablement and inbound marketing content.