In this episode of Room 301, we're joined by Caroline Smith, brand and growth consultant at Smudged, to explore the importance of aligning your business with purpose-led values.
Caroline discusses how understanding who you are and what you stand for is key to making meaningful connections with your clients.
We dive into the challenges of B2B marketing, stressing that marketing isn’t just about promotions – it’s about building a solid brand strategy and knowing where your audience is.
Tune in for insights on growing your business through authentic branding and strategic marketing, not just flashy tactics.
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Some of the resources mentioned in the podcast.
Disclaimer: These resources shared are based solely on the experiences of the podcast guest. This is not a sponsored segment or an endorsement.
Room 301 is a monthly marketing podcast brought to you by The Digital Maze, a specialist full service digital marketing agency. We discuss ongoing themes, topics and news in the digital marketing industry to help marketing manager (and business leaders) stay ahead of the curve.
Rob Twells (00:01)
Caroline, welcome back. Why is it so important to bring your people to the forefront when it comes to B2B marketing?
Caroline Smith (00:10)
Good question and and there's nothing like being fun in the deep end people in B2B are people buy from people and And and the relationships with people yes, they are buying into the business and the brand that's behind it But there was B2B cycles are not one-offs They are long-term relationships where the relationship is with a person not the business not the product So it's crucial that people think
people buy from people or person to person.
Rob Twells (00:42)
No, I totally agree. Does that apply to just B2B or do you think that extends to B2C as well?
Caroline Smith (00:48)
Yeah, it absolutely does. think it's the I was doing a workshop the other week and I said actually where B2B can learn from B2C is B2C gets the personal element very, very well. And the example I gave us to go back a while was the Bisto advert with the family with the roast dinner and the gravy. Because at the time that was the very traditional Sunday view. And it just got it just got into it. And B2C really does get that personal element of who is the buyer.
and manages to target their marketing so well to that experience. And that's why even as B2B marketeers, we struggle to find good B2B examples, but we can always pull a B2C one.
Rob Twells (01:30)
No, I agree. Very good to start with a nice loaded question as well. This is for anyone that listens to this podcast. We took a little break over December. So yeah, excited to get back. So without further…
Caroline Smith (01:35)
Yeah.
Rob Twells (01:43)
I don't get stuck into the same three questions we always ask, which is what's in your toolbox? What's a failure bonus points for being funny? And what's I guess going to put in room 301? So what really grinds their gears about marketing? So first things first, what's in your toolbox Caroline? So what helps you get through your to-do list? How do you apply different frameworks to your work? What helps you stay so effective and so efficient?
Caroline Smith (02:07)
I'd like to say I had it down and I was bossing it, so to speak, but it has been the controversial Marmite world, ChatGPT, learning to use it as another team member, learning to use it to do all those things that when I had a team and we had that structure, so getting it to huddle with me, getting it to bounce ideas and teaching it to question back at me.
getting it to be the rational to, you I'm sure like most of us marketeers, we have so many ideas, whether it's even from the way we run our own businesses or the businesses we're working with, whether that's in-house or not. We are spinning a lot of plates from the next idea to the campaign we're running to the, you know, in my world, the next market entry strategy we're doing. And it just creates a environment that allows me to
structure all those thoughts, pull them all back together and create an almost another team member. So that's probably one of my biggest ones.
Rob Twells (03:18)
Are there any specific use cases?
Caroline Smith (03:21)
So I'm neuro divergent and I quite actually talk about that if you follow me on LinkedIn, if it's not talking about B 2 B I'll be talking about my journey. Yes, absolutely. It's the ability to talk about this yesterday actually. One of the things with ADHD people we get is rejection sensitivity a dysphoria which is where we take no's a little bit heavier than most people. So rejection is part and parcel whether you are pitching a new idea to your leadership.
whether you are pitching a new idea to a client, whether a campaign just didn't hit the way you wanted it to. I can take that quite personally and it can send me into an imposter syndrome loop. Being able to spar with Chat GPT for want of a better word and re-rationalize that conversation in my head and it allows me to level up, restructure and not only just kind of rationalize it, go, how are we gonna, let's get you back in the game.
So that's one of the best things for me to allow for the bounce back. Things that I would quite often go down a rabbit hole with. So at the moment, I'm building out Notion as my kind of, very, because I'm quite visual, but I love the idea of Notion that right in front of me, I can create myself a custom dashboard that.
Rob Twells (04:31)
That's a beast. It's a beast.
It's like, it's
sorry for the interruption Caroline, what are you using Notion for? Is it process storage or is it like, are you building your second brain in Notion or?
Caroline Smith (04:50)
I dare to say I'm building my second brain in Notion So I'm very visual and I'm very much out of sight out of mind. And that was where I was, as my business is leveling up and things are getting exciting, I was, you write it on a whiteboard and it becomes too static and I needed something that could roll with me. I've tried ClickUp, I've got nothing against ClickUp.
Rob Twells (04:54)
I'm not doing the same thing myself actually, we'll have to catch up on that.
Caroline Smith (05:18)
When I'm working with clients with projects, I still use ClickUp. But for me, because it's a little bit too rigid for me, I found it took me longer to work out. Whereas suddenly someone taught me that I could build into Notion this customed, it's called Smudged HQ. And learn how to pull all those links and have it live on my to-do list. We're just in the process of automating it that my to-do list is my live rolling pulled from all these different places.
what I'm working with chat GPT to go, okay, I need a page to do this and telling me what all the shortcuts are. Cause I could disappear down that rabbit hole for months. So being able to go to chat GPT, I am looking to build out Notion to do this. First thing, asking it, you know, me and my business well enough. What, how do you think I should build it? And asking it to think instead of me takes away so much of my thinking time. Then being able to go, okay, I like that. How do we build that page?
And step by step and I've taught it that I need things chunked down into the tiniest little step as possible. And I've taught it to go, don't move on to step two until I've told you I've completed step one, because I might have more questions. And so we, it is literally a dummy's guide to whatever I want it to do. It's like, so step by step, step one, come back to me when you've completed that step two done that, what do I need to do next? Come back to me. And it is like, you know,
stop start on a YouTube video doing it, but at my pace. And yeah, I've got it at the moment taking me through my own process that it takes me with clients step by step. That's interesting. Seeing your.
Rob Twells (06:53)
Yeah.
It feels like you're pretty
deep on AI then. So is there anything you think, so for context, the vast majority of the people that listen to this are marketing managers, marketing directors, leading marketing teams, or heavily involved in marketing campaigns, et cetera. Are there any use cases you've got specifically to support with that, that ordinarily maybe five years ago you might have needed to employ for?
Caroline Smith (07:11)
Mmm.
Yeah, so it's kind of my user case that's taken from someone else who taught me how to use it. It was Vodafone. I went to an event about Vodafone that they were talking about leveling up their business strategy and their business growth. And one of the questions was, how can you maximize output and efficiency when we're having to minimize people? And so our time is precious. And it was their marketing and strategy director that said that she
how they have done it is they've trained, they've got closed AI at Vodafone, but they've trained AI to replicate people. So rather than being reliant on waiting for someone for an answer, you can prompt their chat GPT with answer this question like our strategy director, answer this question like her. And that's what I've taken on board. So when I work with, especially some of my smaller clients who budget restrictions and they're looking for ways to,
Rob Twells (08:13)
I am.
Caroline Smith (08:23)
where they want access to me, but I can't always be on, you know, you know, and I know it quite time poor and sometimes that quick question. So I teach them to ask, ask chat GPT the questions that are going to ask me and the sort of things. I work with, especially when we're doing a lot of modeling for new market entry and looking at propositions position in a messaging, they'll get a list of ask it this, then go back and go, is that what my customer would and teach it to think like your customer. So.
That's probably one of the best things I learned how to do is teach it to think like you and then teach other people to use within reason because obviously there's still things as humans that the, as we go back to the people and people we said earlier on, that the human experience will, that AI will never be able to take away. those simplistically, when it's a process or a, you know, a proven model that has worked time and time again.
That's all you're teaching them is follow this model and then how to rationalize it. So that for me and also not in my own business and how I work with clients of it allows to spread myself a little bit further without spreading my energy too thinly.
Rob Twells (09:26)
Hmm.
Yeah, that's a really interesting use case. I'm not gonna claim any level of sophistication that comes close to your examples but I feel like I've done something quite similar. So on ChatGPT, I've set up a project which I've basically described our internal team. And obviously being the leader of this business, there's 32 of us in total now, I often have to post a public message or deliver something, whether it's good news, bad news, whatever it might be, or an instruction.
Caroline Smith (09:46)
.
Rob Twells (10:08)
I now feed that message through and say, will my team react to this? And it will give me feedback. And if it's a written message, it will rewrite it for me. will be maybe a little bit more empathetic, et cetera, et cetera. That's where I fall down. I fall down. Well, I don't think I do anymore, but I certainly used to fall down with my comms was very direct and it used to probably be quite unsettling for the wider team. But now I just run it through, ask it, okay, how.
Caroline Smith (10:13)
You
Rob Twells (10:32)
is the most sensitive person in our team going to receive this and it will give me some tips and advice on how to do it. That's been a game changer for me, genuinely a game changer. And yeah, really helped me with my sort day-to-day comms and my ability to lead the business and the people within it. So yeah, that's really interesting. So before we move on to the next question, anything else in your toolbox you want to chat about?
Caroline Smith (10:53)
No, I wouldn't mind picking up on that one though, because that was quite a good point. And that's one of the things you only have to go onto LinkedIn to see people talking about how they're using Chat GPT to communicate. And I think that's what us as marketeers are not getting across very clearly when we're saying to people, stop using chat GPT or don't do this, don't do that. Is exactly that what it's very good at is helping you pick the tone of, because sometimes in my LinkedIn messages, actually I want it to be quite direct, but sometimes I'm like, Oh, hang on.
I know this person well enough. My direct tone isn't probably going to come across quite well or exactly what you said. How do I put more emotion in that? How do I take the emotion out of this? And that I think as marketeers, we're trying to say to people, chat GPT is great, but can we try and use it better? And we're not articulating it very well of, and I think that's, sorry, that's why I want to come back to that point because I think there's a really good point there saying.
We're not saying stop using it. We're saying learn how to use it in a more human way.
Rob Twells (11:58)
Yeah, now you've started to talk about asking it how a strategy director might think about this and how X might think about this. I've just thought to myself, why have I done it for my internal team? But why have I not done it for everybody else I interact with? not prospect? I still do a lot of the front-facing sales, for example. Why have I not given it the profile of a prospect and asked it how it will receive my proposal or how it will receive my follow-up email, et cetera, et cetera?
Yeah, that's me. That's my evening gone, I think, in Rabbit Hole.
Caroline Smith (12:29)
So
it's just about productivity and efficiencies and speeding up processes, know, something that would take back and forward, something where something would have butted heads. You can use it to because you know, and I know, and I'm sure other people listen to this will know you're never going to know until your room and you read that human rapport. What it can do is help you at least make some judgment and that you go into that room with a little bit more understanding because
you're always going to be in front of a person with human emotions and human situations.
Rob Twells (13:03)
Yeah, no, absolutely. I knew it wouldn't take long to discuss AI this year. So question number two, Caroline. And interestingly, we were talking about this off air, weren't we, a moment ago about failures and separating those that are on a sort of higher level are the ones that can take a challenge and then navigate around it. So you've clearly gotten to a high level in your own consultancy, et cetera. So you must have failed loads of times.
Caroline Smith (13:07)
Sorry.
Yeah.
Rob Twells (13:32)
Give me an example where you have failed and like I said at the start, there is bonus points here if it's funny.
Caroline Smith (13:38)
now you see, I can think of them. And now you put the pressure on me to think of the funny one. I'm feeling the I'm feeling the pressure now,
Rob Twells (13:44)
I'm just like…
Caroline Smith (13:54)
Do know what the biggest failure is this is going back to what we're saying? The previous one is, presuming I knew the audience, presume when I knew the audience, and going all in and just getting it so wrong. you've spent so much time and effort on it and you were so confident it was going to hit the way you wanted it to. And it just didn't. but
Rob Twells (14:02)
Hmm.
Caroline Smith (14:24)
they happen. I still trying to think of a funny one. This is going to bug me and I'll probably think about afterwards. But yeah, it's
They're part and parcel of the journey, I think. And I think going back to what you're saying about talking about off air think the reason why I'm struggling to find one is without making it sound really bad, there's been quite a few, but that's what we were saying is about the ability to what makes certain people good, really good at their job. It is the times we've got it wrong and our ability to pivot and bounce back from it.
But I mean, there's times I've taken on the wrong job. There's times I've taken on the wrong client. But it's the ability to take your own personal accountability and go, that's on me. was, I learned from it. you know, whether it's a job or whether it's a client, did I do my due diligence properly? Did I feel like I've taken this really dry now? And I feel really sorry that I haven't been able to make it funny.
Rob Twells (15:33)
I can relate to the client point for sure. mean, I know what I've learned from potentially taking on the wrong client. What are the things you took away from that?
Caroline Smith (15:33)
Ha ha.
Values. So the biggest thing is that it's one of the things I've done over the last year to shape Smudged as a business is who are we? What do we stand for? And it's one of the things without putting a plug in for what you do is that whole thing of making sure that someone truly knows who they are and unapologetically leads with it because it's that whole thing about then a certain element of your qualification is done because it's aligned to
who you are and what you stand for. that's that whole element of purpose led and purpose based businesses gets talked about a lot in B2B at the moment. But we think about it from a social impact point of view. But actually purpose led is who are you and what do you stand for and what won't you stand for. And that they're two really key things. I think and I said yes to things and those to say another overused word, those red flags and those alarms are buzzing in my head a little bit.
but I decided I'd go and swim with sharks because it was an experience. And I think one of the biggest lessons I've learned, and I suppose to go back to the failures, is red flags are there for a reason. And know that it doesn't make, you know, but that's a personal thing. it's, they're just not aligned to you and what you stand for. So you're not going to enjoy working with them for them, and they're not going to get the best out of you because you're not aligned to them. So I would say that's probably…
my biggest failure and lesson and growth opportunity I've taken over the last few years.
Rob Twells (17:17)
Excellent, And last but not least, this is always my favorite bit, Room 301. So for anyone that doesn't know, the reason we called this podcast Room 301 is because in SEO, which is one of the core things that we offer as a business, there's something called a 301 redirect, which is the art of telling Google or the search engines that this page no longer exists. Don't look at it, ignore it, never to be seen again, or maybe it's located elsewhere.
So we've created Room 301, which is a room where we put things about marketing that we're not keen on. Things about marketing that we don't like, that grinds our gears, that annoys us, that if I could swear would mm, as off. So what mm's you off about marketing?
Caroline Smith (17:53)
Okay.
And that people don't understand that it's more than just promotions. I'm sure we could go down a whole rabbit hole for this one. They are businesses and they are B2B. I'm going to put it out there. It is B2B businesses. The promotions is just the sprinkles and you need the whole recipe in your cake. And the reason why you're slowing your business down and why marketing isn't working in your business.
Rob Twells (18:14)
Who are those people typically?
Caroline Smith (18:35)
is because you are just going out there and throwing promotions at it. You are throwing a landing page out there or using my favorite analogy, the field of dreams, build it and they will come. You've still got to direct people to it. And that's the whole multifaceted approach, which goes right the way back to who are you talking to? Why should they care? Why you going back to that last point about purpose? Where are they hanging out? Where do they make? Where do they go to make their decisions? And then aligning
your brand, your strategy, your communications, and then your promotional elements and making sure you're on the right channels. And I've got to, can I have two? Because it's linked Can I have two? Stop shiny objects with new channels and new tactics. Just because a new channels come out, doesn't mean you are slowing your business down because we were going back to rabbit holes because you're spending too long learning this new channel that I've got news for you in B2B. I can guarantee your client is not on.
Rob Twells (19:16)
You can have three of them.
Caroline Smith (19:35)
because they're not gonna be early adopters. So they're linked, we'll call it one and a half.
Rob Twells (19:42)
What would you, to challenge that slightly, what would you say if, maybe our client is not an early adopter, but is there any benefit to us as the business being the early adopter?
Caroline Smith (19:45)
Mm-hmm.
Yes, if you think it's right for your client and your audience and the industry they're going into. So there are, you know, if you are in a quite, to use an example I used yesterday, and it's not this black and white, but TikTok is a really good example. If you're in a regulated and compliance based industry right now, I wouldn't be spending your time and effort on TikTok. No, we don't know what's going on behind the scenes, but personally,
when the whole conversation is about is it being used to take our data? If you are compliance regulated, very kind of IP based B2B business, I wouldn't even be considering a strategy on TikTok at the moment. That's a personal view, you know.
Rob Twells (20:37)
Especially
yeah, b2b, but I think TikTok is a very tricky placed Crack if you're a b2b, but b2c. Yeah, absolutely fine I've seen a couple of b2b businesses doing some good stuff on TikTok
Caroline Smith (20:41)
Yeah.
I'm not anti it at all. And there's some really good beats exactly what you said and some of the and the changes it's brought and the the fences it's brought down in certain industries has allowed easier accessibility to certain information and it's helping there. So if you are a going back to purpose, that if you're doing something that is looking to change something environmental, like, you know, or whether it's whether it's environmental sustainability, people and culture, and you need to do end user influence.
I would be, as long as there's not, as long as you're not putting product and IP on there in some way, it's a fantastic way to very quickly join the conversation and have, you know, gain that share of voice that is so urgently needed of to show that you are someone who is an ally in that space. So absolutely in B2B, if you are looking to change and do something related to sustainability, EDI, any of those kind of true social impact based challenges.
you do need to do end user influencing and TikTok, Instagram are the places to be for those. But that's a very clear, well planned out strategy. And I woke up on Monday morning and let's just do it.
Rob Twells (22:04)
Yeah, no, I agree. I agree. And then moving back to your first point about marketing not being just promotion. So I can't count how many times I've spoken to businesses or business owners or whoever in quite big businesses in some cases where they just say, our industry doesn't need marketing. We just rely on referrals. What's your response to that? Have you had that much? I seem to get that quite a lot.
Caroline Smith (22:11)
Mm-hmm.
less now, but my answer to your first one, if we just rely on referrals, what got you that referral? It's marketing. it may not be marketing as you believe it. And I think that's where we go back to people need to understand that the referral came from you doing a good job because you had a really good product, which is marketing, which is, basically means someone is becoming a marketeer for you. it is the, so
Marketing is not a department or a function. It is a strategic element of the growth of your business. I'd love to roll the Seth Godin quote off my tongue about the fact that marketing is how you and everybody else sees your business and interprets it and interacts with it. And it just happens that promotion is one of those elements that helps people have an interaction with your business and your brand. So there are…
businesses that do not need marketing in the sense of the tactical elements of it that we that it's becoming known for. And I agree, you know, I've worked in some manufacturing companies that the way we approached marketing wasn't all over social media, we but it wasn't heavily on SEO, because we weren't something that someone would search for. It was an event space strategy. But then obviously, market had to make sure those events were
maximise the exposure of them and drove the people to them. So it is understanding how marketing as a function works in your business because there are certain elements of marketing that aren't relevant to every business.
Rob Twells (24:12)
Yeah, it's just that I have conversations
where it's like, oh, we've never had to work hard for our customers. We just kind of get them. My response is always, well, imagine how big you could be if you did.
Caroline Smith (24:24)
I choose not to because I go, amazing. I will ask them what you're doing and how are you making sure that that is continuing. Because the other thing is…
Rob Twells (24:29)
Great place to be, yeah, for sure.
Caroline Smith (24:45)
I use the analogy brand doesn't matter until it matters. And the whole point is of in a lot of product based businesses who don't need marketing traditionally. and then they have a. The best way to say is what happens if something goes wrong? Cause it does unfortunately, and you have a reputational issue. How good is your brand to recover from that? And so the client that you said about the referrals.
I've got no doubt that they've probably got a rock solid customer experience that they would recover really well, but they will then need marketing to communicate, I'm sorry, this is the recovery, but that's what he says. How good is your brand if something was to go wrong?
Rob Twells (25:30)
Yeah, yeah. Well, look Caroline, really appreciate you coming on again. For anyone listening, Caroline, this is the second time Caroline's been on. I will have to dig out what episode number it was when you first came on. But in that first episode, we didn't ask the three questions. We actually went back through Caroline's career and we asked some heartbreaking questions about the people side of B2B marketing. So yeah, really interesting episode if anyone is in B2B marketing or leading a marketing function within a B2B business.
So before we drop off, can you tell everybody more about you, your business and who you want to help and how you help?
Caroline Smith (26:03)
Yeah.
Thank you. Yeah. So obviously I'm Caroline. I am the founder and I am a brand and growth consultant for Smudged. And Smudged is a brand and growth consultancy that predominantly worked in the B2B space, predominantly with purpose led or techie businesses to help you become, as I call it, the apple in a room full of oranges and find your really unique space and communicate it and make sure we align your brain. Excuse, I can't even speak. Sorry. Your brand, sales and marketing.
with the customer to be sure that you go from being the best kept secret to being the one to go to.
Rob Twells (26:41)
Excellent. Another great little mini pitch as well. like that. Thank you very much and thank you everybody who's listening and we'll see you again soon.
Caroline Smith (26:46)
Thank you.
Rob is the Founder of an award winning digital agency (since forming a digital agency group The Digital Maze with Boom Online) specialising in eCommerce, SEO, PPC, CRO, digital strategy and web design. With over 10+ years in the marketing space, Rob has been involved with hundreds of marketing projects and campaigns with some of the best known brands.
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