The Radical Global Marketing Podcast – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Bianca Blake and Prashant Mahajan are the co-founders of Klickrr.

Klickrr is a cloud-based communications platform that provides an easy-to-use, ‘done for you’ service, helping businesses send compliant text messages that cut through the clutter and connect with their customers. It is designed to help startups and mid-sized businesses enhance their revenue, make it predictable, and scale efficiently.

Bianca, who now holds the role of CEO, is a hugely experienced marketer with a rich professional background, including 15 years of global marketing experience in various sectors including pharmaceutical, consumer healthcare, and FMCG.

Prashant, who now acts as Klickrr’s CTO, designed and built the Klickrr platform from the ground up, serving over 100 businesses, government agencies, non-profits, and SMEs, sending millions of SMS messages since its inception.

In this episode:

• Bianca and Prashant share their professional and entrepreneurial journey as co-founders of Klickrr.
• They discuss the key role that SMS can still play in the successful marketing and communications strategy of businesses of all sizes.
• They offer tips on how a business can set themselves up for success in advance of launching their own SMS marketing channel.
• Both talk about the own challenges behind the brand development and marketing of the Kilckrr business itself and their plans for future growth as business leaders.

Elad Hefetz is the CEO at Airfleet. Elad loves everything tech and marketing. With more than 10 years researching technologies and innovation and 7 years in marketing, he leverages tech to support marketing, and uses marketing to explain the tech.

Airfleet focuses on creating and optimizing websites for tech B2B with a buyer journey that makes sense and generates revenue.

In this episode:

Elad discusses modern B2B marketing strategies, focusing on identifying customer personas, personalizing customer journeys, and utilizing technology to optimize marketing efforts.

He outlines various methods for identifying customer personas based on website interactions. Expensive techniques involve analyzing enriched data to determine who is visiting a site, while more cost-effective strategies use simpler methods such as tracking user interactions with specific pages related to their department. This allows marketers to target users based on their behavior and presumed departmental affiliation. The discussion further delves into the non-linear nature of the buyer's journey, challenging the traditional funnel model. Elad emphasizes the importance of understanding the customer's stage in the buying process, using analytics to track and target based on multiple visits and interactions, rather than a straightforward path.

The conversation also touches on the evolving nature of content delivery, with a strong stance against gating content behind forms. The speaker advocates for making information freely available on websites to educate and engage potential customers without barriers. This approach is aligned with the changing preferences of B2B buyers who increasingly seek to educate themselves before making purchasing decisions. The emphasis is on providing value through accessible, high-quality content rather than traditional lead capture methods.

Key business tips highlighted in the discussion include:

• Utilizing customer behavior data to personalize the marketing approach and optimize customer journeys.
• Emphasizing the importance of understanding and adapting to the non-linear buyer's journey.
• Advocating for open access to informational content to facilitate customer education and engagement.
• Leveraging technology to identify and target specific customer personas effectively.
• Moving away from outdated content delivery methods like PDFs and gated content to enhance customer experience and accessibility.

Sylvia Zanetti is the Managing Director and Lead Strategist for Stratitude, a strategic integrated marketing agency headquartered in South Africa that is part of the PLP Group. Sylvia leads her award-winning team in campaigns that focus on enabling their clients to build rewarding relationships with their target audiences.

Sylvia leads her award-winning team with an infectious passion and enthusiasm, which is also clearly evident in her other role as a member of the EMEA board for AMIN, and an international network of independent agencies that supports partnerships and collaboration.

Previously, Sylvia has had the role of Head of Commercial for PLP Group, and as Client Services Director for Magna Carter, a South African reputation management consultancy. 

In this episode:

We discuss the value of agency professionals spending time client side and how this can help develop a greater understanding of the corporate side of the relationship.

Sylvia chats about the challenges and opportunities of working in Africa. We talk about some of the unique characteristics of successful marketing in the region. Sylvia cites the example of the importance of informal networks and community groups in South African marketing strategy.

We talk through the constant balancing act of channel identification, messaging, and localization that all international marketers manage on a daily basis and the importance of quality research in maintaining a successful balance.

We also discuss how marketing is becoming increasingly borderless. Sylvia uses her own example of her agency in South Africa working for a Danish client on a campaign in Nigeria.

Finally, we discuss the advantages of fully integrated agencies for clients, including how not having multiple specialist agencies competing for budget and client resources can maximize value and return on investment.

Susie Lee-Kilgariff is the Group Head of Marketing for Stellarmann and William Alexander, both part of the Wellcombe Group. Stellarmann is a consulting business that helps companies develop highly skilled teams and deliver successful technology and change programmes. William Alexander is a recruitment agency.

Susie herself is a hugely passionate, driven, and successful marketing leader with a unique career journey. She has a wealth of experience working both agency and client side, as well as running her own consultancy.

She is an advocate for the power and importance of data analytics and measurement and has led teams in award-winning rebrands, tone of voice development, and campaign effectiveness.

In this episode:

Susie talks us through her marketing career journey, her unique vocational career path, and what sparked her passion for marketing.

We discuss some of the innovative and creative rebrand projects she has executed and talk about the importance of tone of voice. Susie references Nick Parker, a tone of voice specialist who has developed the hugely effective Voicebox methodology and toolkit.

As part of a discussion on marketing personalization and the challenges around data acquisition and management coupled with target audience attention, Susie advocates for a focus on inbound leads and providing smaller, better quality data pools for sales teams. Steven and Susie reference a previous campaign Susie led developed by UPP B2B.

Susie discusses some of her career inspirations, including the work of Adrian Rowe of Rec C.

Kay Geithner is Managing Director of APM Terminals Crane & Engineering Services.

Kay is a hugely experienced, dynamic, and innovative international business leader, working in a fascinating sector, and is currently spearheading an exciting period of marketing strategy development and positioning. 

For this special episode of the Radical Global Marketing Podcast, we get a very unique client-side viewpoint.

In this episode:

Kay takes us through his background in engineering working in international teams in Europe and Asia.

He discusses some of the big trends and challenges facing his industry, including managing capacity, manufacturing in China, and developing suppliers, and pays particular attention to the electrification of his industry and what that means for suppliers.

We talk about some of the latest technology being utilized in crane design and maintenance, including virtual and augmented reality.

Kay discusses how his business’ current marketing and brand positioning drive has been inspired by recent progress and successful projects delivered. There are fantastic stories that aren’t currently being told.

We look at the comparison between Western and Chinese B2B marketing within the terminals industry and how there is an opportunity for disruption.

Kay is also an active member of the European Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai. Regularly participating in panel sessions and workshops. You can find out more about their work here.

Bessie Lee & Peter Bomer are the authors of the recently published China Inside Out, a fantastic new book inspired by Bessie’s hugely popular podcast, Beiwanglu, as well as both Bessie and Peter’s decades of experience leading successful businesses in China.

Bessie is the founder of Withinlink a China-based start-up incubator and early-stage venture fund focused on Chinese digital and marketing technology. She has held several prominent leadership roles including CEO of Mindshare, and Greater China CEO at WPP. She is also the co-founder of the Mobile Marketing Association in China.

Peter is a serial entrepreneur, business advisor, investor, writer, and China hand which began with his leadership role as part of the Diago and their China re-launch. 

He launched his first China start-up in 2007, a hugely successful Chinese-language radio broadcaster covering 14 provinces, and has gone on to launch a string of China-based businesses in addition to helping global brands into market.

In this episode:

We talk about the inspiration for writing China Inside Out: China’s Innovators in Their Own Words, originating from Bessie’s Chinese-language podcast, Beiwanglu. Originally focused on marketing, it evolved to discuss themes around innovation, and requests for translated transcripts grew. 

Peter and Bessie discuss some of the challenges and mistakes international brands typically get wrong and why they can struggle in China.

We talk about the Chinese approach to problem-solving and how successful teams operate in China. This includes the speed at which they identify problems and test solutions.

Ciaran Connolly is the founder of Profile Tree, an award-winning digital agency based in Northern Ireland that helps its clients identify and implement effective online strategies.

The Profile Tree team covers all aspects of digital marketing including sleek website design, SEO, impactful content marketing, and e-commerce advice. They now work with over 200 businesses of all sizes, helping them to compete online.

Ciaran himself is a digital pioneer, starting out in his marketing career helping retail businesses get to grips with the digital revolution and onset of online shopping. He and his team have produced a vast amount of insightful content across their website and YouTube channel which you can access here. Profile Tree also hosts monthly LinkedIn learning sessions.

In this episode:

Ciaran takes us through his career journey from retail operations to agency founder and leader.

He discusses the challenges small businesses face in grasping the digital opportunity.

 Ciaran talks about the benefits of having Profile Tree’s own web channels established and active as a way of showing clients real-time metrics and results.

Matt Field is the Chief Marketing Officer for Aventum Group.

Matt has had a fascinating journey from sales to marketing professional and business leadership with an obvious talent, and passion for his brand and the work he and his team do to help drive the business forward. The strategy he has developed and led is really helping Aventum stand out from the competition in its space.

Aventum Group is a global reinsurance business group that operates in both the underwriting and broking sectors of the industry. The company currently operates in 15 locations around the world, constantly seeking to nurture and grow relationships, design, develop, and launch unparalleled specialist schemes and facilities, and constantly seeking to make insurance better.

In this episode: 

Matt talks about how he started his career in sales and how successful business growth provided the opportunity to take a risk and pivot to marketing.

He offers insight into how Aventum Group has grown a hugely talented internal marketing including in-house specialists and creative, and the positive impact this has had on the business.

Matt discusses the importance of business growth without sacrificing company culture, something that has become a USP for the Aventum Brand. He also talks about how robust and engaging internal comms is imperative to achieving this.

He takes us through the rebranding process his company underwent, and how adopting an ‘explorer’ archetype has provided a marketing step change and the opportunity to be a disruptive force in the sector.

Finally, Matt gives a shout-out to Oliver Bearman, an emerging young motorsport talent on the Formula 2 circuit that is supported by Aventum Group.

James Killoran is the Head of Strategy at The Mission Control, an international, award-winning creative agency that is producing brilliant work for the global life science and healthcare sectors.

Headquartered in Northern Ireland, The Mission Control specializes in brand development and communication that engages with people, moving away from the “hard sales pitch” and demonstrating an understanding of the problems people have and being able to answer the hard questions. In simple terms, prioritizing the conversation over the sale, and building relationships.

In this episode:

James talks about his career journey as a creative marketer and we spent some time discussing how growing up in Northern Ireland, before moving to London and then the US has shaped both himself as a creative and his career in marketing.

He talks about the challenges and opportunities that come from focusing on the healthcare and life science sector, often breaking new ground for products that are new and unique developments. 

James shares his passion for creativity and how the vision and values that have shaped The Mission Control are all part of the strategy to drive his agency forward.

We talk about some of the latest innovations in marketing technology, but James stresses the need for the human element to continue to be a central pillar of marketing creative.

Dr. Tanweer Alam is Global Marketing Director for Kemin Nutrisurance.

With a background in animal health, as well as time served in the Indian military, Tanweer has had a fascinating journey to become the talented and passionate marketing professional and leader that he is today, and he takes us through that journey in today’s episode. He also discusses how marketing strategy fits within his company’s broader business objectives.

Kemin is a human and animal nutrition product and service provider, and Tanweer’s business, Kemin Nutrisurance, is a global leader in pet food and rendering technologies.

In this episode:

Tanweer talks us through his journey as a marketing professional and how is background in veterinary science and the Indian military, as well as in sales, have positively shaped him as a business and marketing leader and influenced his career to date.

Focusing on his own sector, Tanweer talks about the increasing challenges around market segmentation, and indeed sub-segmentation, and the importance of well-defined messaging.

He talks about emerging growth markets for pet ownership as well as the impact that the COVID pandemic had on the serious problem of pet abandonment.

Tanweer talks about the importance of ‘thinking big’ when it comes to international marketing as well as maintaining stability within the marketing team, while at the same time being agile and responsive.

He talks about how some of the marketing world’s most prominent academic literature continues to influence him, including Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind by Al Ries and Jack Trout, as well as The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid by C.K. Prahalad and Stuart L. Hart.

Tanweer discusses some of the latest innovations in content marketing and how AI can improve our understanding of personas.