The Virtual CMO
The Virtual CMO podcast discusses growth marketing strategies for SMBs and how new technologies are improving marketing effectiveness. Hosted by Eric Dickmann, founder of The Five Echelon Group and a fractional CMO, the podcast focuses on building strategic marketing plans and executing successful growth marketing programs. It includes interviews with industry thought leaders who share their experiences and insights. The show highlights new marketing automation platforms, AI-enabled tools, and other cutting-edge technologies that can enhance marketing campaigns.
The Virtual CMO
Understanding Buying Group Marketing with Nirosha Methananda
In episode 117, host Eric Dickmann talks with Nirosha Methananda - VP of Marketing of Influ2, a person-based advertising solution for B2B marketers. We discuss BGM, buying group marketing, and the importance of understanding how buying decisions are influenced within B2B organizations.
Influ2 delivers ads directly to decision-makers at target accounts giving B2B marketing and sales teams tangible ad engagement metrics to drive activity. Their advertising solutions empower B2B companies to target and track individual ad engagement.
For more information and access to the resources mentioned in this episode, visit: https://fiveechelon.com/understanding-buying-group-marketing-s8ep2/
A fractional CMO can help build out a comprehensive marketing strategy and execute targeted campaigns designed to increase awareness and generate demand for your business...without the expense of a full-time hire.
The Five Echelon Group - Fractional CMO and strategic marketing advisory services designed for SMBs looking to grow. Learn more at:
Welcome to The Virtual CMO podcast. I'm your host, Eric Dickmann. In this podcast, we have conversations with marketing professionals who share the strategies, tactics, and mindset you can use to improve the effectiveness of your marketing activities and grow your business. Today, I'm excited to have guests Nirosha Methananda on the program. Nirosha is the Vice President of Marketing at influ2, a person based marketing platform ushering in the next wave of innovation through buying group marketing for B2B companies. Nirosha, welcome to the program. Glad to have you here today.
Nirosha Methananda:Thanks, Eric. I appreciate you having me on board. I'm looking forward to our chat.
Eric Dickmann:Yeah, me too. One of the things that I really love to talk about on this program are tools that marketers can use to really improve the trajectory of their marketing activities. So I'm anxious to get into that discussion with you and to understand more about buying group marketing, but to kick things off today, tell me a little bit more about your background.
Nirosha Methananda:Yeah, so my background I've been inmarketing for the past 15 years or so. I've come up through various different roles. But most recently, Influ2 as you mentioned, it's a person based advertising platform and I can get into that a little bit, but prior to this, I was the VP of marketing at a company called Bombora.
Eric Dickmann:Sure.
Nirosha Methananda:Leading intent data providers, and I was there for about five and a half years. So building up their brand, building up the category around that. And then prior to that, I was with PWC Australia. So you know, I went there, they had spun out their digital consulting business and I went there to basically build a publication for them and then ended up heading up their marketing across their digital and then tech consulting business.
Eric Dickmann:So what was really the attraction to the role at Influ2?
Nirosha Methananda:A couple of things. Well, the primary thing was around making advertising tangibles. So you spend a lot of money on advertising across your display and social cause it's something you know, you have to do as a part of what your marketing mix was. And I am a notorious tight wad. Yeah. So I don't like, you know, I kind of like spending money on things that are actually that I can see a tangible return. And that was one of the things that drew me to Influ2, because it makes you display in social media, your advertising tangible in the sense, it allows you to target who you want to target from a person based perspective. So cool, you've got your accounts, but not everyone in that account you want to engage. You know, and it gives you insights back to be able to you know, really helps sales to actually make it like go and take some action. And I think that's one of the things that I found in my experience that B2B marketers have\ really struggled with, and I've certainly struggled with. So that was part of why I joined also, you know, we are see you, I just loved the way he thinks. He has a mathematical background and that's not necessarily my strength, so I love that. But I also just loved the way he was like, I want to build something that's hard to replicate and easy to sell. So I liked the way you think. Cool.
Eric Dickmann:That's great. No, that sounds like a good journey to get to where you are today. And advertising can be so complex, right? It seems like there's ads popping up literally everywhere, it's hard to know exactly where the best places are to spend your money to get the best return. But I'm really interested to drill down into this a little bit further. If you had to just sum it up, what is the problem that you're trying to solve for your customers?
Nirosha Methananda:For me, it's making you a display and a social media advertising tangible, and actually like measurable in terms of ROI. That is the problem that we're solving from that perspective.
Eric Dickmann:So let's flip it around a little bit. And where do you see businesses making mistakes with their marketing. You know, one of the things we try to focus on on this program is really helping marketing strategists figure out what is the best strategy to put in place for their companies, whether they're fractional, CMOs, like myself or their business leaders within firms. What mistakes do you see over and over again, that many people are doing within those strategies?
Nirosha Methananda:I don't think it's mistakes, but I think there's opportunity to evolve with in line with what the customer expectations are. So you know, if you come from say a bit, like the example I use is, you know, as a B2C consumer, if I want to buy something, so the example, I just did this recently, I need an iPad. So my iPad cracked in and saw my journey as a B2C consumer was I went and looked at the comparison sites, I went and built the iPad about 10 times I looked at all these articles about like what was coming out. You know, it took me about four months to buy a new iPad. So I do my research on it just by like that. And the example varies like then when I come to influ2, say, for example, we were, you know, made a purchase decision around a marketing automation platform around HubSpot. My behavior does not change. I am still, I am still that B2C consumer and that those habits are still there. It's just in a B2B context, which means. I'm not the one, you know, it's not just me. I'm buying HubSpot for, I'm buying it for the team, it's for the business. There are other people involved in that buying group and being able to actually look at who those people are and understand what their patterns of behavior are, not specifically, you know, being, not specifically in the way I am, but certainly from a needs perspective of what my pain points are and what the team needs and so on and so forth. I think that's really important. And that's going to start to become a big differentiator, especially in this digital world and from what you expect from it from a B2C consumer perspective, you know, I think my expectations as a B2C consumer, I think for me, retail, excuse me, retail sets a very high bar in terms of being able to give you recommendations or reviews, you know, give you all of that information that you need and those expectations are the same in B2B as well. It's just at a greater scale because there's more buyers in that process. So hopefully that answers question. I don't think anyone is doing anything wrong. I think we're all trying to move towards achieving you know, greater granularity and targeting and I think this is one of the keys to be a being able to do that.
Eric Dickmann:Well, if I replay a little bit of that, sort of in my own language, what I hear you saying is that oftentimes businesses focus on that decision-maker right? They focus on that person within the organization that is going to say yes or no, but in fact, It's rarely a one point of contact, one person that's making that decision. There's all of these influencers that also play a role. And that is what you're defining then as a buying group.
Nirosha Methananda:Exactly. Yeah I mean, I'm the prime example with, so when we purchased HubSpot, I asked our HubSpot rep to basically put together a business case for me to use so that I could take that to our CEO and I could give that to finance and basically say- cool, we're going to make this investment, here are all the things that we're going to get, and this is how we're going to use it. So it's you know, it's not just me, like once I make that decision, great. And once the team's on board, whatever, but I still have legal finance, you know, sales, et cetera, to who need to implement it to consider. So exactly like there are way more people involved in that buying group. And that we're just, you know, we're a startup business, you know, imagine that times 10 with an enterprise organization. So that's when it starts to become quite interesting in terms of mapping out- Okay, what are those different departments? How are they working together and how are you working to be able to one target them and get them on board, but to also use, you know, expand within that, expand your footprint within those organizations?
Eric Dickmann:So when we look at what's in the marketplace today, you have retargeting kinds of ads that use know cookie or tracking pixels or other technologies to follow you around and retarget ads. And then we've also got this concept of, you know, account-based marketing where you're focusing on marketing to an account, but it's not necessarily specific people within that account, it's just people within that organization, right? So how does this solution fit in between these other technologies or these other ideas within the marketplace?
Nirosha Methananda:Yeah. So it takes you know, with account-based marketing or with traditional advertising. Like you can look at certain demographic and firmographic factors to be able to segment your audience. So what this does is it takes it to that next level of being able to say- All right, you know, at Microsoft, I'm just going to use this example, you know, I want to target the same or the VP of Marketing, the head of demand, and the head of ABM and so on and so forth. So it actually is looking at those specific people within that organization to be able to target, and then you know serving them appropriate ad content and then follow on content through you know, the landing page or whatever it is. And then being able to one, be able to understand if they engage with your content or view your content or you know engage with in some tangible way, and aggregate that action and that engagement activity back into the system essentially, is what it does. And then look at that in aggregate and say- Okay, cool. They've engaged with a campaign that I don't know, say- You know, you're doing, it's like a sale or something or promotion, and it's a direct permission. Then you can have your sales team perhaps follow up with it. Some of our customers, you know, it depends on the context of the content as well. So say for example, we have one of our customers, doctors, so they're a legal software, they essentially make red lining and so on and so forth.
Eric Dickmann:Okay.
Nirosha Methananda:So one of the things that they did and they used it for was to be able to pull together, they pulled together this article around automated, like using AI to red line. And then that piece of content they targeted, you know, whoever they wanted to target through their existing customers and prospects as well. And that kicked off a conversation with the sales team that wasn't- hey, do you want to hear more? I'll have a demo, whatever it was, it was more around- Hey, what did you think of this pace? You know, this is what our view is, you know, do you agree with it or whatever it was? So it starts to turn it into a bit more of a conversation, but you know, there's a difference between, you know, being able to put, put together the context of a, of a sale or a promotion versus creating a conversation through a piece of thought leadership or whatever it is.
Eric Dickmann:Hmm. Now I can see this being especially useful at larger enterprise accounts where you're trying to influence a bigger bureaucracy, the more people in the decision chain. How do you think that this applies also towards smaller business where maybe there's a single owner, but maybe some influencers that are giving recommendations. How do you look at it? Sort of up and down the size spectrum of businesses?
Nirosha Methananda:Yeah. So, I mean, you do, I will say you do need to have scale for this solution. You know, there's a match rates, right? So it's essentially how it works is you either give us a list of accounts and you can use your ideal customer profile to be able to build back and get contacts back, or there's a connection for your list of who you're targeting at those accounts. But you know, there's like a 40 to 50% match rates if you don't have scale. So if you're going after businesses that are not necessarily have that large, it's not necessarily going to scale. You do need to look at, you know those more I guess it depends on what your classification of what a small business is, but, you know, I'd say at least a hundred up to be able to have that scale. So, you know, from that perspective, it is that type of solution.
Eric Dickmann:And that makes a lot of sense. I think there are so many things out there that smaller businesses don't have the luxury of because they just don't have the scale, they don't have the volumes, It's very hard to prove certain things out because you're just not getting enough repetitions of it.
Nirosha Methananda:Yeah. For what we look at is, you know, like an ideal customer for us is someone, it doesn't necessarily matter about the size of the business, but it's who your audience is, and if you'll look, you know, if your audience is you know, a hundred and up, and where we've also where the solution also good, is where you have like a niche audience that you're trying to reach. So you know, if I use the same example with Dr. Morris, you know, they wanted to reach a specific title on LinkedIn. But what happened was they put the keyword in like to target that title and they got back like chaplin. So I don't know what. But they were targeting like, you know, leaders, like heads of general councils and so on and so forth. And then in that general targeting, they got back like chaplains of churches, which wasn't, who they were targeting. And so. That's kind of where it makes a difference. You know, when you know who you're going after, it's a very niche audience, then that, that is where it's quite powerful. It's the same for, we have another customer, one door they're retail planning, digital planning for retail is, and so like they go, they want to work with some of the largest retailers, but obviously like those retail organizations are huge. So you want to get to the demand and planning, planners at those organizations and that's why they need to be quite specific about who they're reaching. So that's where it's quite powerful from that perspective.
Eric Dickmann:Hey, it's Eric here and we'll be right back to the podcast. But first, are you ready to grow, scale, and take your marketing to the next level? If so, The Five Echelon Group's Virtual CMO consulting service may be a great fit for you. We can help build a strategic marketing plan for your business and manage its execution, step-by-step. We'll focus on areas like how to attract more leads. How to create compelling messaging that resonates with your ideal customers. How to strategically package and position your products and services. How to increase lead conversion, improve your margins, and scale your business. To find out more about our consulting offerings and schedule a consultation, go to fiveechelon.com and click on Services. Now back to the podcast. I'm curious, even if you can't share an exact name, but can you sort of contrast what some of these companies were doing before they started working with your platform and after? What was their approach and how did that change once they started using the solution?
Nirosha Methananda:Yeah. They were using like the traditional channels that you would think that they would be using from that perspective. So with Influ2, you know, we go through six different channels. So Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Yahoo Display, Google Display, and Amazon. And basically, you know, for quite a few of our customers, what they do is they end up you know, depending on what their need is like, say for example, the customers I've referred to during our conversation. What they ended up doing is that starts to become. What they use from a demand driver perspective. You know and sometimes they use it in concert with their lead scoring. Sometimes, depending on like what the level of engagement is and what the context of the content is that they're promoting, they use it directly with their sales team to be able to you know- to reach out and do the prioritization and outreach from that perspective, others use it, as I mentioned, like through the lead scoring, as, you know, to be able to help with understanding the waiting and the engagement and or for their marketing nurture, and then that is essentially like will translate through to the sales team. But those are, that's generally how it's being used. when we drink our own champagne, and actually before I came on board, that's all Influ2 is doing, we are only using its own platform to you know, to drive its marketing. Some things that we've been experimenting with, what we're thinking about is using, we do use it for events as well, it can be really powerful. For example, we went to the Forrester Conference recently, you know, we had one of our ads going as well as you know to our specific target. And then I followed up with an email and we engage with that target at the event, they, you know, came to dinner and she was like, it was kind of lovely to hear her raving about the approach, because obviously when you'll see you're sitting there, you're kinda like, yep, great.
Eric Dickmann:So much you want to hear.
Nirosha Methananda:Right. Yeah, so that was, you know, that's one way it can be used, you know, to be able to engage through like, prior to events and make sure that you're, you know, meeting the people that you need to meet with and, and, and taking that approach. Um, another way that we're looking at potentially using it is through, um, PR and AR and, and, and looking at it from that perspective. So I think that, you know, the. It's a net it's still nascent from a product perspective and a brand perspective and market. And I think these are some of the use cases that need to get tested out.
Eric Dickmann:I'm curious too, because we've certainly seen in the news, the big hit that Facebook took due to some of Apple's privacy changes, Snap, same thing. Where do you see the future being in terms of how solutions can work, and still fall into these new privacy rules that are sort of restricting really what's been free reign for a lot of marketers for a long time in terms of tracking and using these kinds of tools to be able to follow people through buying cycles.
Nirosha Methananda:Yeah. So I think, I mean, that's the one thing with Inful2, because we go through those platforms, they do have, you know, they have permission. That is their data and it's their information. And we just allow like an access to it. I think broadly with like with privacy, I don't know. I think there needs to be a lot of education that is done around it from both a marketing perspective, because I think it has been a abused, as you said, it's being free reign, and it is about being more mindful and more conscious. So I go back to that- Okay, cool. What is it that your customer actually needs? What are they interested in and don't annoy them? That's a big thing for me. I think from a consumer perspective, there's a lot of education that needs to go with that as well, because you know I think personally, Sure, you have my data, right? But what I get in return for that data, is it relevant? Is it well I was just chatting to a couple of pieces about this, but one of the things is like from a B2B perspective, one of the things I do or B2C perspective rather I will go and fill up my cup with you know, whatever I want to buy. And I kind of know that a retailer is going to, then I know that they're tracking my car, so they'll send me a reminder. If stuff stays in my cart, they'll either send me a discount or you know, they'll have a sale and eventually everything will be on sale. I think knowing that they know me, knowing that they have that information. That's my, I'm like cool, you can give me as many discounts as you like and I think from a consumer perspective, we don't necessarily know how that works and there's not enough transparency around that. And I think that's what needs to change, and I think that will become the future because it's, you know, I'm of a different generation, but I'm sure, you know, the generations that come after me will quickly very quickly learn what that behavior is and what you need to do from that perspective, and then that'll just become part and parcel of how you interact online from that perspective.
Eric Dickmann:I think that's a great way to frame it. Yeah, because privacy is really a bunch of data, right? If you really get it down to it, it's a bunch of data, and are you getting anything for the data that you're giving up? And I think the more consumers wise up to how they can leverage their own data, I think it's a fair trade-off to give some of your data away in return for something else.
Nirosha Methananda:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, a friend of mine and he's very much into cars. And he was saying, you know, he was looking for some specific wheel or whatever it was. And he was like, yeah, all I need to do is, you know, have a talk about it or you know, have a chat about it or whatever, and then I start getting ads for what I need and that's like, it's cool. So you start using that technology for your own purposes, and I think that's the part a lot of people miss in terms of when they look at that data. So, yeah,
Eric Dickmann:Ah, that's a great example. I've done the same myself. I find this especially works on Instagram is if you search for something and you've allowed that cross site tracking, immediately you will start seeing other vendors that offer those same services showing up on your Instagram feed.
Nirosha Methananda:Yeah, absolutely. And so that's the thing, because what will happen is cool so you're starting to get all of this information, and then from a,vendor perspective or whoever the seller is, they have to differentiate, right? So they need to start like, it's almost like going back to the basics and from a marketing perspective of like, okay, how are you differentiating? It's price, product? What do you know, like going back to those things, to be able to actually stand out in the crowd. And that's why, you know, being able to really focus in and target who you really want to speak to is super important, you know, from perspective, especially B2B, because, you know, it's time and effort and resource, which, you know, especially going into the market that we're going into, we can't ignore it. I think that's going to become increasingly important to businesses from an efficiency perspective.
Eric Dickmann:So what advice would you give a business, whether or not they're going to use a platform like yours, but if they wanted to do more around buying group marketing, What would you say is a good first step? How could they start going down that path?
Nirosha Methananda:Yeah. So, I mean I think it's really important. Like I think strategy is such an important foundation. I think sometimes it gets like, you have to do a strategy. You know, I don't want to put in the work around it. They just want to get going, but like, you know, my previous CMO, does he say measure twice, cut once,
Eric Dickmann:Right.
Nirosha Methananda:Yeah, that really stuck with me. And I think that's what strategy does. So being really firm around- Okay, who are we going after? What's our ideal customer profile. Which accounts are we going after? Especially if you are taking a account-based marketing approach. I think, you know, that's just you know the peanut butter. Oh you know, that you need to just have, and then understanding who your personas are within like understanding who the buying group is, who your key stakeholders are, who those personas are, what motivates and drives them. And one of the things that I highlight in that, it's not just like, what drives them as you know, a marketing professional or sales professional. It's like, what personally drives them? What drives them in terms of their aspirations or inspirations or one thing that I sort of do and have the luxury of being able to do this is, you know, when I meet people, I listen to what you know, to who they are and whether they have pets, whether they, you know, what their birthdays are, their preferences are, what they don't like. And having, there's a great opportunity, I think to accumulate that information and really, really have that like one-to-one kind of experience, but to have that you need to have one, your strategy and two, you need to have the data. You know, that's super important. I think that is where you would start and that's where I would start with it from a core perspective. and then systems,
Eric Dickmann:Yeah. Well, I certainly love that. You know, I'm an advocate of strategy each and every time we do one of these episodes, because marketing, you know, it's a cost, it's an expense. And if you're doing a bunch of disconnected marketing activities that really don't have a strategy behind them, you can quickly waste a lot of money. No place more easily than advertising, right? Advertising can drain your bank balance pretty quickly, and if you're not doing the right things or being able to track the conversions, you could be wasting a lot of money. So I think that's great advice. As we kind of bring things to a close here, if a company wanted to engage with influ2, learn more about the solution, What is the best next step? Is it a demo? What do you like to guide people down to learn more about the solution?
Nirosha Methananda:Yeah. Please feel free to reach out and contact us. You know, we have a demo, please go to our website, we've recently migrated it so I would love to, and I've updated it, that's been one of my projects. So I would love to have any feedback on it and you can definitely reach out. I mean, I'm on LinkedIn as well, so you can feel free to reach out to me. I'm always happy to have the conversations. You know I'm pretty transparent around what will work and what won't work cause I'm a marketer, I come from that perspective. So I'm a little bit, I have probably set my, my sales team don't like that approach. But yeah, it's always been good to hear what people's situations are and then be able to advise them what the best thing is.
Eric Dickmann:That's perfect. So tell us how they can find you online as well as the company online.
Nirosha Methananda:Okay, so it's Influ2, I N F L U 2.com. That's how you can find it. And then I'm Nirosha Methananda, you can find me on LinkedIn. I'm pretty sure no one else has my name in the world. So it's a pretty unique one. Please feel free to reach out to us.
Eric Dickmann:Perfect, that's great. The name flows off your tongue so much better than it flowed off of mine.
Nirosha Methananda:Yeah. I've had you know, 40 odd years of having to say that one.
Eric Dickmann:No, that's great. I really appreciate your time today, I've really enjoyed our conversation, it's a fascinating solution. I love the idea behind buying group marketing. I think it's great and very interested to learn more about your solution as well. So thank you so much for taking the time and I'll make sure that we have all those links that you mentioned in the show notes so that people can find it.
Nirosha Methananda:Awesome. Thank you so much, Eric. I appreciate having the conversation with you.
Eric Dickmann:Thank you for joining us on this episode of The Virtual CMO podcast. For more episodes, go to fiveechelon.com/podcast to subscribe through your podcast player of choice. And if you'd like to develop consistent lead flow and a highly effective marketing strategy, visit fiveechelon.com to learn more about our Virtual CMO consulting services.
