In an ever-evolving B2B landscape, marketing strategies, and communications are continually adapting to meet customers’ changing demands, especially in tech-driven sectors. Joining us today is Polly Traylor, Senior Director of Marketing Communications and Content at Komprise, who brings deep insights into these transformations.
About Polly Traylor
I am a corporate/marketing communications leader with deep experience in tech. As an employee and consultant, I’ve worked with Fortune 500 publishing and software companies, and startups. I love and excel at writing, ideation, managing programs and teams. My experience includes PR, AR, corporate editorial management, product marketing, SEO, messaging and demand-gen content development, content marketing, surveys/research, social media strategy/execution and podcasts.
Currently, I am the Senior Director of Marketing Communications and Content at Komprise. I lead our global communications strategy across North America, EMEA and India, spanning PR, social media, website, product & customer marketing, messaging/brand and sales enablement.
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Transcript
Greg Kihlstrom:
In an ever-evolving B2B landscape, marketing strategies and communications are continually adapting to meet customers’ changing demands, especially in tech-driven sectors. Joining us today is Polly Traylor, Senior Director of Marketing Communications and Content at Komprise, who brings deep insights into these transformations. Polly, welcome to the show.
Polly Traylor: Yeah, thank you so much for having me today.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, looking forward to talking about this with you. Why don’t we get started with you giving us a little background on yourself as well as your role at Komprise?
Polly Traylor: Yeah, sure. Very good. Thank you. So my background, I feel like I’m a hybrid comms person because I began in journalism and moved into PR and marketing sort of in an accidental manner. But I started in broadcasting in school, got my master’s in broadcast journalism from the American University. right in your neighborhood there, Greg. And then I was going to go into TV, but then I ended up wanting to go into print instead because I just loved the written word more than I liked to be behind or even in front of the camera. So I went into print journalism and I worked for some magazines in tech and then ended up working at Microsoft for a number of years in their marketing team. And from there, I went into sort of freelance PR for a long time because I had little kids, so I needed the flexibility. And then about five, six years ago, I went back into the full-time corporate world and have been working for SaaS companies. smaller companies, you know, 150 employees or less, Silicon Valley. And in that role, I have sort of a broad range of responsibilities across marketing and PR. But I’ve always done work in content. It’s just been a lot of across a lot of different landscapes, whether that is you know, journalism, big fortune 500 company, having my own consulting business, and now back into corporate, but in a smaller company setting. So it’s been a lot of fun. And I guess the one constant for me is that I’ve always been in tech, even though that wasn’t what I thought I was going to do in the very beginning, but it’s been fun.
Greg Kihlstrom: Nice, nice. Yeah. So we’re going to touch on a few things here. And definitely with your background, looking forward to hearing your perspective on it. We’re going to start by talking about some recent trends in B2B marketing. B2B marketing and sales have shown a shift towards more self-service options, increased personalization, decreased reliance on direct sales interactions, as well as a few other things. So From your perspective, first of all, are you seeing the same things? What are some of the most significant recent developments in B2B marketing that you’re seeing?
Polly Traylor: Yeah, I do feel like things have changed. quite a bit over the past couple of years, and in a number of different ways. Certainly, you know, most will agree that the pandemic, it sort of pushed us into digital more than ever. I kind of rarely hear about people picking up the phone. Everything starts with email or social media and it sometimes will go quite a long ways until you actually have a phone call. And myself being on the receiving end of pitches for marketing software, almost never do I receive a phone call. And when I do, I often take it because I’m curious to see what they’re going to say. So it’s interesting because I think all of our email inboxes are full of pitches and that can be difficult. But it also means that companies have had to really think hard about how they contact customers because things are getting so noisy on social, which is primarily LinkedIn for B2B, and then via email. And those are just huge channels that we all need to use. But I would say that beyond, as you say, direct sales interaction, you’re right, it has become less of a thing. Events are coming back, but probably never going to be what they were pre-pandemic. But we have to talk about AI, right? Because I believe that is going to have such a big impact on marketing and sales teams. And, you know, our company is fairly small, we don’t use a ton of AI tools, we use some, like seamless AI for, you know, helping with, you know, lead gen and whatnot. But AI is going to start becoming more in the background of a lot of things that we do. And I think it’s important that we sort of learn how to use it. And it goes beyond chat GTP. I know that this is affecting writers and it’s affecting marketing teams to a certain extent. But I think for marketers, the AI can be really great if you figure out how to balance it. You know, me being a writer for my entire life, I’m not just going to let ChatGDP or Claude do all my work, but I use it for research. And that does save time. And so I feel that we have to adapt to these trends. But at the end of the day, you know, we have to really put ourselves in the customer’s shoes that they’re getting bombarded. all the time with digital messages and new digital content. And so how do we manage that so that we have a good relationship and not just another kind of buzz in the ear?
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah. And I think that You know, there’s there’s a there’s a couple sides to that, obviously, is, you know, customers like myself, I really don’t like calling people on the phone when I don’t have to, particularly salespeople. But, you know, it happens when when it’s needed or whatever. But like the people that prefer self-service, they are only getting kind of what they ask for, right? You know, they’re searching for something, they’re served a response to their search, let’s say, or, you know, they’re getting what the brand thinks they want. But you, Do you feel like we’re losing something in that in that brand interaction, as far as you know, by not having as much personal interaction? And you know, how do brands kind of make up for that gap of like a salesperson that may just be really intuitive and good at what they do would be like, Oh, well, you don’t really need this, you need this other thing. We could lose that in all of this. So like, how does a brand try to make up for that in you know, without without as much context sometimes?
Polly Traylor: Yeah. And how does a brand or how to, how to salespeople? Right. I guess both. Yeah. If you have questions. Yeah. So, I mean, it’s very good. I do feel that for, for, okay. So it all always depends a little bit on your product. B2B is usually a longer sales cycle, more complicated, more expensive product. And so you really at the, at some point you’re going to have to have a phone call. You’re going to have to have a demo. It may never require an in-person visit, but you’re definitely going to have to have a few phone calls. with all the stakeholders. And I think one of the things that we have to remember is that nobody really likes to be sold to all the time. And if you can get the customer’s attention enough, you know, let’s say they downloaded some of your content or let’s say they found you via SEO on a tour and they got to your website and looked up something and then they were contacted by the business development team and eventually sales. So you start to have that conversation with them and then hopefully get them to agree to have a meeting sooner rather than later. And one of our salespeople was talking about this the other day and reminded us that really on a first call with a customer, don’t talk about your solution. Ask them, like, what is it that you are trying to achieve? What are your problems? What are the things that you really need to figure out? And they may find out after 15 minutes, you know what, we’re not going to be the right fit for you. Or we might find out, hey, you know, there might be something here. and maybe we can, you know, show you a little bit more about what we do. But I feel that there is so much urgency and so much competition that people just want to, sort of, two things that I see, either slam the customer on the head with something before they’re even ready for it, or B, you know, try kind of tricky things to get their attention, which doesn’t work. Yeah, you know, so I’m always about be straightforward, no matter how you contact somebody, whether it’s on a call, whether it’s on email, I don’t want to have to decipher your email, just Be quick and clear. I don’t really care that you know that I went to UC Santa Barbara. I mean, at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter. Everybody just wants to get their problem solved and make things easier and good in front of their boss. So I believe that we have to get back to more of a conversational, let’s just get on the same page. How can we help you? Kind of framework before a customer really wants to hear about what you do.
Polly Traylor: Yeah, so Yeah, and branding’s branding’s hard, right? I mean, we’re all just online with our websites and a certain point, you know How much can you differentiate especially as a smaller company without looking like you’re trying too hard?
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, and I mean you you definitely have deep experience in the technology sector I wonder Are there different considerations that you might take because you’re talking to a pretty technology and technical audience, I guess, versus what someone in a different kind of B2B setting might be doing? Or do you think what you’re sharing really applies to any B2B sale at this point?
Polly Traylor: Well, you know, I’m not sure since I’ve always worked in tech versus other aspects versus other sectors of B2B. I will say, though, IT people are just increasingly stressed. They, you know, have been urged to do more with less for forever. But even more so, I think in the past few years, companies are They have a lot of initiatives now, everything is digital, everything’s tech, their staff can’t do it all. And they don’t have all the skills they need. There’s still a dearth of cloud and AI skills that is ever growing. And so you have people who are having to take on a lot of different responsibilities. you know, some of our sales people talk about how they are, you know, our solution tends to be used by, like a system administrator, or a data analyst, or a systems architect, people who are maybe a little more in the weeds, like they’re not a CIO, we’re not gonna have a CIO be one of our users. And so these people sometimes can come straight out of college. And they’re not just managing one area, like we used to have these networking specialists or storage specialists or application specialists. And now we’re kind of going back to this age, at least at a junior level of IT generalists, and they’re managing a lot of different stuff. So you know, they don’t really have time for a lot of fluff. They need they love tips and tactics. How can they do their job easier? How can they save some time? How can they, you know, understanding what what they are, how they were evaluated? For instance, like if an IT person is they’re evaluated on how how they maintain the performance of the applications and the data for users, how they keep things up and running, and how they keep things on budget. Once you understand those three things, two or three things that the buyer really has to do every day, then you can figure out, well, okay, how can I apply to their world? And so you can say fancy things, oh, we’re doing this, that, but if the customer’s not there yet, it’s gonna be hard. You know, that kind of a message the aspirational message is going to have to go to somebody at a higher level who’s managing the strategy. So it’s all about, again, understanding who is your buyer, because in IT, there’s a lot of different kinds of buyers these days.
Greg Kihlstrom: And to the point of, you know, while certainly needing to do more with less is nothing new to your point about the trend of there is a trend that this people need to try to do even more with with even less over time, right? How is how has that changed? Have you changed the way that you think about reaching those audiences because of that? Or like, how is how is a company like comprise adapted your tactics to to kind of match that? That trend to do more with less?
Polly Traylor: Yeah. The cost consciousness? Yeah, I feel like every tech vendor has to do that now.
Polly Traylor: But I will say that I’m super lucky because my company, the reason that customers buy us is because we honestly have a solution that can save them money very quickly. name of the product is comprised intelligent data management. And so I don’t, I’m not going to do a long product pitch here, but really briefly, you know, our solution will go in and it’ll index all of a company’s data across all of its storage. And it’ll kind of show them where their data is, how fast it is growing and where they can save. And so we have a dashboard that allows them to model new storage plans. And, you know, the big value prop is if you move your very old data out of that expensive data center and into a low cost, like archival storage situation, then you’re going to save a ton of money. And companies don’t really have a good handle on their data because there’s so much of it now. So they don’t even know what’s being used, how, and they put it all in one box because then they don’t have to worry about it. But it’s just becoming too expensive now. But going back to what you’re saying is, you know, we are able to talk about that more with less. a lot every day. Now, if your product, if it’s top value proposition is not tied into like a cost ROI, then you know, you need to figure out what your angle is. And maybe it’s about, hey, our solution can help drive your revenues faster. And that is going to give you guys, you know, more money to work with. It’s going to help alleviate some of those budget pressures. Or maybe it’s a CRM product. Again, same thing, customer loyalty. saying is it’s way more expensive to acquire a new customer than keep the ones you have. So I think if you can figure it out, you know, most companies, no matter what the solution is, can figure out how it relates to the bottom line of companies today, then that is going to be really valuable. And you obviously have to be able to demonstrate that. But it’s not all about that, right? But it is a factor in sales.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, yeah. And so, you know, I wonder, given your experience working across the technology sector, you’ve shared a lot of the strategic approaches and, and insights into audiences, I wonder, you know, to get practical for a minute here, do you have any, like, are there any, like, go to approaches? Or, you know, how do you engage these, these tech savvy and technical audiences? Like, are there any approaches that you usually let maybe a go to when you’re when you’re starting a new initiative or something like that? Like, how do you? Where do you start from?
Polly Traylor: So I will say, broadly speaking, what we see in our company in terms of our highest lead generator is through our website. And our organic search has really been an area that we’ve invested in. So SEO, really understanding that we have a consultant that we work with, who provides a lot of counsel to us. Because customers, you know, we know that our customers, again, IT people are strapped for time. What are the first things they’re going to do? They’re probably not going to call up a friend. They may not download a report, but they’re going to go to their web browser, and they’re going to enter in a term, and they’re going to see what pops up. We hear this from our customers. They’re like, oh, I was searching for this, and then I found you. Or I was searching for this, and I didn’t find you. It’s like, oh, whoops, we better figure that one out. I think it’s nothing fancy. We also do pretty well with white papers, which seems like this kind of old school thing. But a white paper doesn’t have to be 20 pages, right? I mean, people call them e-books now. To me, it’s kind of one of the same. But, you know, a good piece of content that’s between two and six pages. that has charts, that has data, that has something other than a fluffy story, which, you know, marketers love to tell those, but meaty enough to where the person who’s reading it can quickly scan and see, okay, wait, this is actually exactly the use case that I need. Now I understand how it works. Okay, I’m gonna go talk to my boss about this. So those papers, that kind of content helps us We also, you know, have a great BDR team, and they’re on email and on the phone and on LinkedIn all day long, trying to engage customers as our frontline team to help, you know, and then hooking into their AEs. So our BDR team has been great. So we figured out like kind of what works for us. Now I will say like, when you think about let’s say a campaign, our main campaigns are really focused around our product launches. We usually have three significant ones every year. And so for each one of those, we usually plan like 30 days ahead of time. And the actual launch will consist of a press release, a blog, a demo, screenshots, analyst calls, maybe a data sheet on our website. And so we put together all this content and we kind of trickle it out over the course of a few weeks. And we also work that content into customer webinars. So we haven’t really talked about webinars, which are kind of were overdone during the pandemic. But we do find that when we have webinars that are especially for customers and prospects, that really teach them about the topic and about, you know, new tactics, we get a lot of response. Webinars that are just promoting your solution, no. But if you really have something that’s educational, that’s a learning moment that we find that those have been really helpful. Nothing super fancy. We do social media like everybody else. And for a small company or even a bigger company, social media is a lot about branding and getting your name out there so that a customer hopefully hasn’t heard about you for the very first time when they get that email or that phone call. It’s also good for just relationships with partners and things like that. I don’t know, I sometimes I feel like we’re throwing things against the wall. And, and you have to kind of step back and take a breath and say, Hey, why don’t we just focus on these three things that we know are working for right now? Don’t try to boil the ocean, measure it, and then go back and refine.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, yeah. I mean, to the first, you know, to the SEO and white paper components, I mean, it definitely that definitely sounds to me like, you know, you had mentioned you have a fairly educated audience, they just need to find and they’re strapped for time, right? So like, to me, that’s a that’s a great example of, they know what they want, they just aren’t finding it in the market. And maybe because maybe they don’t know about you yet, or whatever. But like, they know the questions to ask, they just need someone that’s going to respond to that. And then, and not, you give them just a sales pitch, right? And actually give them so that maybe the webinar or whatever is, or a white paper of just like, Oh, yeah, wow, that is that’s, I mean, I’ve been I’ve been in those shoes as well looking for, you know, part of what I do is I help enterprises evaluate and identify potential platforms to invest in. So it’s like, being in those shoes, it’s like, I’ve seen a million sales pitches we all have, as you know, per what you were saying as well. It’s just, you know, how do we make it as real as possible? And in some cases, I would imagine it’s to your team’s benefit to identify those customers that are not a great fit either, because that just takes up a lot of time. And maybe they’ll be a good customer in five years or something like that. But getting them now is just going to cause a lot of you know, frustration and time spent and everything like that as well, right?
Polly Traylor: Oh, so very true. I think sometimes there’s the tendency in sales and marketing to be you want to be the solution for everybody. But but that’s just not smart. So we use words on our website and our copy that will hopefully help people identify if that’s them or not.
Polly Traylor: Because, you know, otherwise, We might acquire them and they’re probably just going to drop. The solution has to fit the problem, right?
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well, yeah. So Polly, thanks so much for for joining here. One last question before we wrap up. Yeah. Looking ahead, looking, you know, a few months, few years out, you know, what do you believe are upcoming challenges or trends that B2B marketers should be prepared for? Is it, you know, is it kind of more of just more of of what we’ve talked about? Are there are there new things that, you know, B2B marketers should be prepared for?
Polly Traylor: Well, I think in general, at a high level, I think marketers, my feeling is that marketing departments are going to get smaller, and they’re going to be tight. Because now, for better or worse, there’s a lot of tools that are replacing the need for an FTE. So marketers are going to have to continue to demonstrate their value. And I think honestly, the best way to do that, which is easier at a smaller company, but the best way to do that is to really figure out how you can help other teams how you can work with your customer success team or your support team or your product management team, your R&D, support your executive team. I mean, marketers don’t have to stay in the marketing lane all the time. I feel that we have a lot of skills and insights that can help other teams. That makes us more valuable across the organization. And that’s not something that a tool can replace. Our ability to help others communicate with their constituents and to figure out how to approach a market or a customer problem, I think is really valuable. So that’s what I think about every day in my job. We have a small marketing team and we do a lot of different things that maybe you wouldn’t see at a bigger company, but bigger companies might be headed this way too. to where marketing departments are going to get smaller. And I think then the other thing is, you know, obviously use AI as it makes sense, but look at things from the data perspective. Whatever you can measure, and there’s so many ways to measure things now, you don’t do that. We get caught up in creating because we like to create, but you have to measure. a little bit every week. Like, you know, I look at our Google metrics, a couple different pages I’ve bookmarked. I kind of look at them every week just to see what’s going on. And so I feel that, you know, it just helps keep you grounded and make sure that you’re focusing on things that are going to help move the business. Those would be the highlights, really.
