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We did on the b2b buyers journey. So it came out it shared online. By the way, so these slides will be shared with you. And also the e book that's tied to this presentation will also be available for you. So I'm heading up the LinkedIn offices, which is quite close here on the Emstel River near Phillips, with a team of 50 people. So worldwide we have over 30 offices, and I'm kind of proud because the Dutch office was the third one in 2010, so quite young. And the reason for that is that we, as Dutchies, we love LinkedIn. So we're average-ly two and a half times more connected to others in our network, and there's a huge penetration of our platform in the Dutch area. So almost everyone in the Netherlands has a LinkedIn profile. And so what I always like to do, just to get to know the crowd a little bit, by raise of hands, who's been on LinkedIn maybe this week? See? Great. And maybe even looked at a profile of someone visiting, or maybe my profile, or looking up profiles of people. So it's one of the main use cases is search on our platform, looking, let's say, to companies, subjects, or people. So of course there's, I'm going to see if this, oh, hold on, maybe I have to do like this. So when introducing our platform and speaking about our platform, there's many different angles I can take, and I won't, I promise not to bore you too much with it, but what I like to start with is this word, success. Because that's basically a very powerful word that describes what we try to do on a daily basis. And the nice thing about success is that it's something that is in all of us, and it comes in many shapes and forms. And the second thing is to be successful you need relationships, because you can never be successful by yourself. And so whether you want to hire great talent, whether you want to get your message across to your target audience, whether you want to advance your sales, it's all about relationships. And so that's actually a key thing to remember as we are now in a very much in the social age. A lot of these things evolve around having success through relationships. And that's basically my one slide about LinkedIn, so to speak. So maybe that's a great way of thinking of LinkedIn, and next time let's say you use the platform to be more successful and more productive. So we are now in a very different time from before. So by raise of hands, who knows this game? A lot of people raising hands. But now a more tough question. So who remembers playing this game back in the day? And times have changed, right? Because this game is called Pong. So if you raised your hands and you know this game and you played it back in the day, I want to welcome you to the digital era as a digital immigrant, because you're the Pong generation. I myself am from the Pong generation. So this game came out in 1972, and it was the first arcade game by Atari. And in 1975, you could buy it and hook it up to your TV set and play that game. And I've played it for hours. And if you wonder who's going to win, I think no one's going to win because it's going to loop. But the interesting thing is that it's really, really, let's say, if you think back of this, I mean, back in the day, this was really an amazing advancement in technology. And now if you flash forward to 2016, which, I mean, this only looks like yesterday, so a lot of things have changed. And so I think in one way, one of the biggest challenges is that if you are from the Pong generation, you've been constantly, like myself, have been trying to keep up because there are so many ways in technology and so many ways in innovation that it's almost impossible to check out. Because if you would have stayed stuck in this era, I mean, you were in for some real trouble if you are in marketing or business. So another way of looking at it, so maybe by racial fence, so who's worked, who recognized this desk? This desk. So if you see what's happened to our desk in, let's say, the last 20 years or 30 years or so, so a lot of these devices, you know, they've changed. And actually, if you think of it, and on the right-hand side, you see the Rolodex, which I think will show up a LinkedIn logo later on that goes into your computer. So almost everything on our desk has moved into the computer. And so there's all of these apps now, so we're in an app world. And it really changed our buying behavior. And it's really become a complex world. So this is also a very good way, I mean, to think about actually what has changed and how we've become, maybe even without very much noticing in a very complex society. And now it almost feels like natural. And obviously, because you're here, you've kept up. And so it feels very natural. So going back to the research, so there's three findings that we see today which have a very big impact on the way you do your marketing currently. So the first one is about the buying team. So it's very much a team game. And from B2C marketing, we tend to focus maybe on just one persona, which is actually the buyer or the decision maker. But what we found in our research is that almost every B2B buying decision is made by a team, so to speak, a decision-making unit. So there's more people, and it depends a little bit by industry, which I will show, to go through a certain buying decision. So as an illustration, you recognize this, of course, for the coffee. I don't know where you are, but he's getting a coffee. So we've experienced this also, and I've experienced this myself firsthand when utilizing our platform. So we visited a rather large vendor of coffee machines for the B2B space, obviously for offices, because in all of your offices, coffee is served, right, hopefully. And when we asked, so who do they want to reach on the LinkedIn platform, they said, well, we want to reach the chief financial officer. And so as a good practice, we started elaborating it and asked some questions. I said, why do you want to target the chief financial officer, financial person? And they said, because in these days, you don't buy these machines, you sort of lease them, and it's like a contract, and there's a calculation which shows you what it will cost you per cup of coffee. And this decision is made by the CFO. You can relate, I think, a little bit, the way of thinking. But it's a very interesting thought, because then we said, we posed this question, we said, so who else do you think has an influence on the coffee that's being served in that particular company? So they passed for a little bit, and then they said, well, you know, so we said, so who's going to drink the coffee? They said, well, so the colleagues. I said, so maybe, you know, people from HR or personnel, so they care, right, as a voice from the customers. But maybe also the salespeople, because they invite guests, right? Maybe the facilities manager, because this machine won't fit just anywhere. I mean, you have to fit it somewhere in the office. And so I think you start to get it. So there's many, let's say, functions from a company perspective that have influence on this buying decision. And you will not get away just targeting one. You need to reach, let's say, all of those in the decision-making unit. And maybe it sounds obvious, but what we see a lot of times on our platform is that on LinkedIn, because you can do lots of targeting, maybe, or in many cases, people just pick one because they think that that's the ultimate decision-maker. But that's wrong. You actually need to consider who's in that decision-making process, who's in that team, and how you need to touch them. And here you see by industry on average, which is our finding, and again, we'll show this slides later, that on average, over three to four people need to be touched to read a certain buying decision. So that's a very important element when you think about B2B marketing. And if you look at the IT buying, so obviously, IT, the technology department, is a very important one. Again, finance, of course, because there's an investment to be made. But also business development, so how is this decision or this particular person going to take us to the next step? The accounting department, operations, so people need to work with a certain solution. So there's many different factors here. And I think you start to get it, how it's important to evaluate these on their own merits. And so when you think about, let's say, the message you want to get across to all of those people in the decision-making unit, it's not a one-size-fits-all game. Because different elements, so whether they are very instrumental, whether they are very technical, whether they are from a user perspective. So you need to apply that lens towards that particular person in the decision-making unit to have an effective message, to get your effective message across. So as any one of you used our sponsored updates product on LinkedIn, updates, see a couple of hands. So maybe you recognize this. So in many instances, it can take quite some time to have a good update, a good sponsored update in the timeline. And then when you have one, you're so happy to have one, you just go with that one and hope that that works. But in many cases, actually, thinking of what I just presented here, so you need to have maybe four or five different versions of it targeted towards four or five people in the decision-making unit. So I think that's where maybe a little bit of the challenge comes in, because we are used to, and I come from the day where people mainly did banner ads, when we're so happy that we have this one particular set of banners, that we go with that, because a lot of time went into that. So one size does not fit all. So that's good to understand from the content perspective. And on that content, so the number two finding is that you need to rethink content marketing and social media, because that's an interesting fact. So by raise of hands, who here utilizes case studies to show to others what worked or what didn't work? So a case study seems to be a very proven way, of course, to get your message across, but what we find, and I'll explain the schematic a little bit, but what we find is that actually, so what B2B buyers get from what they expect, the needs versus what they get is very different. So case studies, actually, and where you see the green, it's actually over-indexed by the sales and marketing people versus the B2B people. But if you look at product information, features, functions, demos, and also product ratings and reviews, those seem to be much more important these days than case studies. So that's an interesting thought if, let's say, you put a lot of investment in case studies, from time to time, it's good to check up with your audience whether or not that still resonates. So for this research on the LinkedIn platform, in eight or nine countries, we evaluated 6,000 buyers and marketing and salespeople. So we found that it becomes much more important to work, let's say, with demonstrations, products, et cetera. And if you think of it, that's obviously a very natural progression of the fact that everything is at your fingertips. So inbound has become way more important than outbound. And what people look for, what people search for, mainly the search these days starts with Google, is they want to find out a lot of information about your products when it comes to details, inspection, et cetera. And we recognize this also, of course, from our, let's say, our own consumer experience, because who of you has walked in a store buying maybe an electronic device, went up to the person responsible for, let's say, selling that item, and knew more about that product than the person in the store? I mean, I've had that experience, right? And it has to do with the fact that I found a wealth of information online. So it's a very interesting fact in rethinking how, let's say, what kind of content you purpose for, let's say, the goals you have. And the interesting thing is, this is, so I can also share this with you, this is a very 2016 benchmark study of the Constant Marketing Institute. And it asks, so what are actually marketeers struggling with? And funny enough, creating more engaging content is the number one. So there seems to be a discrepancy with what, let's say, these buyers want, and the challenge we have is creating more engaging content. Well, now you have a little piece of the puzzle, let's say, so to speak, of where you can tie that. And of course, there's other factors, but that's an interesting point of view. So this is also a very good way of putting it. It's value adds and not value adds, right? So you really need to think from the buyer's perspective and how this, let's say, adds particular value in the buying stage, and we'll get to that later, instead of just going out and doing these value adds. It sounds funny when I say it, but because that's why I put the quote up here, so you notice the difference. It's an interesting way of thinking. And secondly, it's in the feed. And that's also very, very important, because in 2012, the LinkedIn platform only had 5% mobile engagement. And flash forward four years later, right now, we have over 60% of our engagement is mobile. And mobile means either your phone or your tablet, so not a desktop device. And often, when you work on your marketing campaigns, you're doing it from a desktop device, either a laptop or a desktop. And so landing pages and all of the information that's behind, let's say, the updates you're posting in a feed, you need to look at it from a mobile perspective. And the second reason I put it up here is that, let's say, a lot of this content marketing goes into the stream, because it's non-intrusive and it blends in, let's say, in a timeline on a professional mindset that is a very natural way to consume content. And if you think of, let's say, these days how you use your smartphone, basically, indeed, in this era, we follow streams. So we have a couple of streams. So you either follow LinkedIn and Facebook, or you do Twitter and Instagram, but these are all streams. It's all feeds. And believe it or not, B2B buyers or CEOs or CFOs or whatever, I mean, they're no different. I mean, everyone follows these feeds. So feed-based is very important. And the third finding was about nurturing and sales alignment. So what it actually means to nurture valuable content is very much in the eye of the beholder. And they don't have to be contradictory, but it's very important to understand this concept. So who here has marketing automation or other tools to actually nurture, let's say, incoming leads or outbound leads? Shake a couple of hands. So when I'm asked what this is actually all about, I always say it's actually the ability to sit on your hands a little bit, as they say, and not reach out immediately after someone, let's say, wants something from you. So does anyone have a form? No. Does anyone have, let's say, going back to these case studies or white papers or elements like that, but does anyone have them up? But in order to get them, immediately you need to fill out a lot of information fields, let's say, so to speak. So you don't give it away just yet. You need to fill out a form to get it. Recognize that? People are shocked. They don't want to tell. Yeah, I see you have some recognition. So the interesting thing about that is that's actually, let's say, from a buyer's perspective, it has to do with a lot of you have to have a lot of confidence in the fact that after that you're being nurtured a little bit because 70 or 80% of the information that's put in those fields is bogus information, right? Because people just want to get to the content. Because they feel that if they fill out a form, then immediately the next day someone's going to call them. And this is actually what lead nurturing is all about. So if you look at the alignment and what the study found, a lot of companies, they go through the buying phase, let's say, as we just saw, for 90%, and it takes a lot of content before, on average 10 pieces of content, before you're actually in that right stage. And so when you look at the funnel from a reach nurture and acquire position, this is how sales and marketing, let's say, look at that process and are, let's say, not fully aligned on that. Because the top bar shows actually that from a sales perspective, it's all about building the relationship over time. And I read in an article somewhere that it's the famous three martini lunch, so to speak. So you take your clients out and you develop this relationship, even maybe much more on a personal level. Whereas from a marketeers perspective, it's a lot about tools. It's a lot about sequential messaging. It's a lot about targeting, personas, etc., etc. And actually, so these two combined is actually what makes it powerful. Because what we also find is that a relationship with vendors, the use of social media has a tremendous impact on the relationship vendors can have with their sellers, so buyers and the marketeers or the company. Because, you know, on the foregoing, this is actually how these relationships are built and both can be successful. So they don't have to need to be contradictory. It's just a matter of perspective of how you see, let's say, that through digital means, you can develop this relationship over time with tools. And then you've all heard of the funnel, of course, and we all know the old AIDA model. So from a marketeers point of view, I mean, this is for you guys on the left-hand side, is how you usually traditionally look at the funnel. But the funny thing is, from a customer perspective, this is actually not a funnel. It's a customer lifecycle. So you constantly go through these phases and you can jump in and out of a certain phase. And you need to make sure that from a marketing perspective, you're ready for all of those phases, let's say, on a constant basis. It's a very different thing. I mean, people don't feel themselves that they are in this middle bucket, so to speak. I mean, they can be there, but they can jump out again and maybe go into ask phase or an explore phase. They buy something. They want to discover something more, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So it's a very interesting thought from, let's say, a nurturing perspective. So in conclusion, so these are the three findings that we found through this research. So the buying decisions is a team game. It's a very important factor. Content marketing needs to be adapted to those different people in the buying team. And then the nurturing aspect is very important from a customer perspective. And developing the relationships. And so I would like to leave you with this quote. If by using social tools and using online and using LinkedIn, maybe this is something you can put up and print or put on a blackboard. If everything you do makes sure that you leave people better than when you found them, you've actually created value and you're actually one step further in developing the business. And you're actually one step further in developing this relationship. I thank you very much. If there's time for questions, I'm not sure. Again, I will show you these slides and it's great to be here. Thank you. Thank you.
