FINITE: B2B Marketing Podcast for Tech, Software & SaaS

#138 - B2C marketing for B2B Enterprise Audiences with Nathan Rawlins, CMO at Lucid Software

• Alex Price / Nathan Rawlins • Season 1 • Episode 138

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The lines between B2C and B2B are blurring, it's a fact. But the stereotypes of stiff, business-like, suited-up enterprise customers prevail. On this FINITE Podcast episode, our guest, Nathan Rawlins, rejects these stereotypes and believes enterprise audiences respond well to B2C tactics all-the-same.

As CMO at Lucid Software, a leading visual collaboration suite, Nathan has his mind on the entire customer lifecycle and a full range of customer segments. This experience lends itself to the topic, as his strategic approach is full of experimentation and creativity.

Listen to learn his successes and challenges that arise when adopting this mindset.

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Speaker 1:

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Speaker 2:

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Finite podcast, where today I have the pleasure of being joined by Nathan Rollins, who is the Chief Marketing Officer at Lucid Software. Nathan and I are gonna be talking all about so-called consumerization, humanization of B two B marketing, taking more consumer-like approaches to the B two B marketing world. And Nathan's gonna be giving us a bit of a look at what that means for him and an idea of certain campaigns that he may have run at Lucid that fit that box. If you're not yet a finite member, head over to finite.community. We'd love to have you join. If you're a client side , B two B marketer, you can sign up using the form there, get access to our newsletter, slack community, and lots of other benefits. It's entirely free head over to finite community. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this episode. The finite community is supported by Clarity, the fast growing global marketing communications agency, working with leading technology brands. We are living through an unprecedented era of change, driven by advancements in technology, technology that has the power to be an impetus for good, and that will drive us towards a healthier, more prosperous, sustainable and equitable future. Clarity exists to tell the stories of these companies blending the science of data, with the art of storytelling to enact measurable marketing and communications campaigns, and deliver results to the bottom line. Visit Clarity Global to find out more. Hello Nathan, and welcome to the Finite Podcast. Thank you for joining me. Thanks

Speaker 3:

For having me.

Speaker 2:

Very much looking forward to talking. We are gonna be talking about all things consumer inspired B two B . I know this is a big trend in the B two B marketing world, even in the enterprise space, but I'm looking forward to hearing your views and discussing in more detail with you. Before we do that, I will, as we always do, let you introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your background and experience so far.

Speaker 3:

Sounds good. So Nathan Rollins, I head up marketing at Lucid Software now. Um , lucid is a visual collaboration application used by 60 million plus users across the globe, and so I head up the marketing team there and I think as we go along, it'll be relevant that our motion is a business to consumer to business motion. So I get to play in, in lots of different areas within marketing, but my background over the course of the last couple decades has been pretty much entirely in business to business marketing. And so I've had the chance to see everything from the dot dotcom boom through all the changes that we're going through right now. And it's never been a more exciting time to be in marketing.

Speaker 2:

Very cool. Tell us a bit about how the marketing org looks at Lucid . How is marketing structured? Do you have kind of different specialisms within the team? How big is the , the marketing function overall?

Speaker 3:

So we have , uh, we have many different specializations as, as you might imagine, in a business that is business to consumer to business. We have everything from people that are focused on search engine optimization and , uh, P P C , you know , we do a lot of , uh, of driving demand directly to our website for consumers to use our products all the way through teams that are engaged directly with our, with our sales teams. So we have , uh, individuals that help drive very large deals with , uh, you know , multinational corporations. So we have a pretty broad , um, a pretty broad set of , um, activities within marketing that span everything from that, you know , top of funnel through very, very , uh, detailed sales led motions. And so, you know, our, our team , um, mostly a , uh, a team that is , uh, based in the United States, but we have some people outside of the United States , um, that work in, you know, a very, very cohesive motion across all of these different activities.

Speaker 2:

Nice. And you've mentioned just then a couple of times the kind of business to consumer to business, I guess, sales process. Maybe, maybe it's worth just touching on that 'cause I think it's good context for all the other questions we've got for you in relation to more kind of consumer inspired B two B marketing, what does that mean in practice? Is that effectively selling to the end user within a company and then that company, that person within the company mentions the product to their, I know their colleagues, and then it turns into a , a kind of growing a , a growing account. I know Slack and tools like Figma and other, other software is often referenced as having a similar sales motion. Have I have I got that right?

Speaker 3:

Yeah . Yes. And it's, it , it's interesting. I, I've been at Lucid now for about six and a half years, and it continues to evolve. So in a nutshell, our motion began where users could come to our websites and register for one of our products, get into the product, start using it, and sometimes they continue using it for free. Other times they , uh, they sign up for an individual or a team plan that that's how it all started. And we, you know, we add millions of new users every year that , um, come in through that motion. Many of those users exist at companies. And so over time we've built out another motion that, you know, is tied very closely to the first where we, we go into companies that have many users and help them, they at a corporate level adopt Lucid. And so then, you know, it becomes, we have a relationship with the entire company and, you know, in , in many companies they're using it across thousands and thousands of users. What is more recent is we also have some motions where we go into companies where they didn't have any lucid users to begin with, and they, you know, they're looking for a strategic rollout of a new application. And so we, we work with them , um, in what would be a , a , a much more traditional B two B style purchasing cycle and rollout. So we really do have, you know, a pretty broad set of motions that , um, that all come together to help companies really effectively adopt and roll out our software. Maybe

Speaker 2:

You can tell us a bit more about how you've seen the B two B marketing world shift recently where you think things are headed and this, this kind of growing need for a more consumerized approach. I know it's something that, you know, I I see a lot on, on LinkedIn. I think we've touched on the , you know, similar subject on a few episodes of the, the Finite podcast before this kind of idea that you're selling to a human being and a consumer ultimately, even if they're working for a company. But it sounds like you've seen a lot of different B two B sales motions across your career, and, and it'd be good to get your view on where you think things are heading.

Speaker 3:

Yeah , let's take that the , the question there about selling into B two B or marketing into B B two B , um, into businesses. Um , first I , I think one of the things that is particularly interesting there is the notion that an enterprise needs to be handled very differently. There is absolutely some truth to that. Enterprises have very different ways of, of conceiving what they need in a product at the same time, and I , I , this is something that I think has been always been true, but it's particularly important right now. Enterprises are just collections of humans. Any business, it's just a collection of humans. And those humans have the same hopes and fears and aspirations and curiosity as any, you know, anyone else. And I believe, and I , I think most effective marketing is built on the idea that humans want to be treated as humans. And so B two B marketing doesn't need to be stiff . It doesn't need to be sterile, it doesn't need to, yes, you need to talk to the needs of the business, but people like to be talked to as people. If we sit in a room with someone that is at a business, we're going to talk to them as a human. And so our, our marketing should as well. And so I , I think that's particularly important that we make it so that our tactics and our brands are relatable to how the people on the other end are going to think and feel and what they're worried about. And you know, as , as I look at what we do at Lucid It , it's a key part of our , uh, of the way that we go about our marketing. We try to help people feel understood. We try to help them. Uh , we, we bring humor to our marketing at times because we want them to smile. We want them, we want to them to feel inspired. 'cause that's what our products will help them do as they, as they deploy them. So, you know , all of this is to say that we just think, I think it's vital that we treat the people on the, the other end of our tactics as humans rather than as a business, because businesses don't talk in one cohesive way.

Speaker 2:

Do you think there's ever cases where, and I I completely agree with you for the record, but I guess playing , uh, playing devil's advocate, are there situations, you know, you talked about the different needs of , of enterprise customers. Are there situations where, you know , you're trying to sell hundreds of licenses to A C T O and there's a procurement person in the room and a legal person in the room, and actually the kind of more fund friendly personal B two C like marketing is, is it ever restrictive or is it ever, do they need a greater sense of, of trust almost that comes from actually a more traditional stiffer professional approach to, to marketing?

Speaker 3:

Really good question. And I , I think there's, in all of this, there is a balance and, and a lot of it is about particular conversations. Of course you have, there are conversations that are going to be much more focused on security and compliance, where the commercials and , you know , these sorts of things are, are those conversations are, are going to follow a particular path that is not likely to be as, as creative or as engaging as other avenues. I think that the key is that in particular, you know, if we were to rewind a decade or two ago, much of marketing to big companies took a a very sterile tack throughout. And I , I think where we've evolved , um, as, as an industry is that we tend to have different conversations at different points in the funnel. And , uh, you know, I I look at , uh, what we did at Lucid in particular, we have, we actually had different websites that are focused on different conversations that we're going have at a particular time. We have, we have some websites that are very focused on those initial conversations with end users. And they're very personal, they're very direct, they're, they're engaging, you know, we move people through the content very quickly. And then we have entirely other, we have another website that's really more focused on the buyer conversation and at a more strategic level, why would you consider using Lucid? But even there, we, we try to inject, you know, humanity in the conversations that we're having. But we, I think the key is that we don't have one conversation or one tack that we use in every conversation . Because what unfortunately I think very , very often happens when you do have one tack is that it becomes that lowest common denominator conversation that is, that isn't engaging, it isn't creative, it isn't human. And, and so it's best to , you know , to have different ways of talking at different moments in time.

Speaker 4:

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Speaker 2:

Why do you think it's becoming more effective? Or, or , or do you think customers are responding better to that more personal, traditionally B two C style of marketing? Is it, is it the fact that people are, are younger? I, I've always had a belief for a long time that I think B two B Tech companies over-optimize all marketing to the C-suite, and every FinTech thinks the C F O is the only persona in every, I dunno , tech company thinks the CTO is the only percent , and then actually I think it's much, often much more junior and younger people that are tasked with research and finding solutions and shortlisting much earlier in the, in the bio journey. So is, is age a factor? Is it just that generationally in the times we live the line between work and home is more informal? What , what do you think the main reasons are?

Speaker 3:

I suspect all of those factors play into it. Um , one that jumps out at me in particular is just that over the course of the last decade or so, I think the, the sorts of interactions that all of us have with technology have changed very dramatically. You mentioned about the blurring between work and home, and I think that is key in that business software business conversations, I think have , have become more and more like consumer software and consumer conversations because we all are exposed to so much technology and so many of these conversations that our expectation has shifted. And so, you know, I I I do think some of it, yeah , it , some of it is probably generational, but a lot of it is that we, we just have an expectation that we will have engaging high quality , meaningful conversations. And you know what , it's interesting because in, in some of our, our marketing tactics that are the most consumer, we find that they resonate with people that perhaps you would be surprised that they do that . It's, you know, we, we have marketing tactics that span everything from gaining traction with , uh, students in , uh, in elementary schools all the way to the C-suite. And it goes back to this like , because we're engaging with them as humans, and I, I think that overall we are, we are deluged with so much information that people just react to conversations and marketing tactics that feel like they aren't as overwrought as the old style of marketing, especially in B2B marketing.

Speaker 2:

That leads us nicely onto maybe talking about some of the campaigns you've led recently or some of the marketing that you've been doing that that , that captures some of these themes. And maybe you can tell us a bit about how those ideas have, have come about and then , and come to life.

Speaker 3:

Well, there's, there's one that comes to mind that it started a few years ago and then actually here, just in the last couple weeks has really taken off yet again. So let me frame the goal of this particular campaign and then tell you a little bit about how it came to be. As I mentioned, we, we create visual collaboration software, and we do a great job of capturing , um, high intent interest out there. So if someone is searching for one of our solutions, we, you know, we have a very sophisticated motion of getting in front of them and, and capturing that demand. But we also believe that there are hundreds of millions of people out there that need our software that don't even, they don't realize that they need it because they're used to working in particular ways. And so we need to get in front of them and open their eyes to what is possible. So we , um, uh, our , our marketing team, and actually this was, you know , more people within the company were , we're talking about this need and we ended up with a marketing campaign that never would've come together in a traditional way. Um , so I'll give you the, the D L D R and then we'll, we'll pop back to how it happened. This ended up being a, an online campaign that we spent virtually no money pushing and ended up with over a half billion views of these videos online. And the , the way that it came to be is that our creative director and one of our senior engineers were talking about this challenge of how to help people understand , um, what they can do with our software. And the engineer mentioned that at the time there was a whole lot of conversation online about different ways of referring to , um, animals, doggos in particular, in internet memes, and that there was a possibility that we could use our software to help people understand these memes. And so our , our creative director in over the course of a , um, a couple days cranked out a , a , a video that explained these doggo memes in our software. And it , they're fun, they're engaging, and it , and , uh, so, you know, he put it together just as largely this proof of concept and stopped me in the hallway one day and said, Hey, I put this together, can we post it and see what happens? Said , sure , let's, let's do this. Within a few days it had over 30 million views, and it was one of those where we just realized we hit a vein that we didn't expect. And so we continued creating more and more of these. And as I mentioned, that initial campaign garnered over a half billion organic views of these videos. We let it go on hiatus for a while because, you know, for , for lots of reasons. But here recently, for many of the reasons that we've just been talking about, that, you know, people, they want something that's authentic and personal and said, well , maybe we should, we should come back to that and do a few more. And in particular, we were interested in trying things on TikTok and some other places. And , um, so started doing some more of, more of these. And here, just in the last couple weeks, we've had over 8 million views on TikTok of these, these videos explaining different internet memes. And they , what I find interesting with them is that they, they appeal to people. This , this I think , uh, hopefully can drive home the point that I was making earlier. They are fun, they are silly, they are, they don't talk about the details of our products, but they help people get, you know, they, they get a sense of what our products can do. And as I mentioned, sure , you know, they're 12 year olds that absolutely love these, but we also talk with people in the C-suite that say, you know what? I saw these videos and I just love them. We had a , our c e o had a conversation with another c e O who said, you know what? My, my daughter was putting together her application for university, and she did it in the style of the Lucid ads because she thought they were so fantastic. And so it has allowed us to have conversations really across the board because people feel a human connection with our brand, and they, they get an inkling of what we can, what our products can do for them. But more than anything, we've, we've created a human connection that leads to conversations.

Speaker 2:

Very cool. I like that. How about the measurement side of things? I know that with, with campaigns that travel far and wide, and you mentioned 30 million views, I think you said, obviously there's , there's some nice kind of top of funnel metrics to, to measure there . With something like that, do you , do you try and track things all the way down to the bottom of the funnel too ? I know that's easier said than done. Are you just looking at brand sentiment and visibility? Like what , what kind of things are you, are you looking at , um, beyond just impressions?

Speaker 3:

I may have a controversial take on this. So this one was relatively easy in that , you know , by the time we got to real momentum and we were getting millions and millions of views, and you know, as I said, you end up with over, you know , a half billion views of these videos. They're that top level measurement. They were, they , they were big numbers. But I think one of the challenges that we face as marketers is that we tend to think of measurement somewhat myopically. There are elements of our marketing motion that we can measure to the nth degree. We understand the efficacy of that activity very rapidly. We can tie it directly to r o I , but there are others like this campaign in the early stages that we have no idea when it was first starting, we, it was a wild idea that we had no idea if it would even get views, let alone drive interest, but it was also pretty low cost . And so we were able to, because we have a , a culture of experimentation, we said , let's do this , let's try it out . And see , I think had we , we started view of, well, we've gotta know if this is going to be an EFF effective and how we're going to measure it right out of the gate. We probably wouldn't have ever tried it. It would've died on the vine and we would've missed a gigantic opportunity. So I think it's important that as marketers, we have a portfolio of activities , some that are very measurable and others that are more experimental and that we may have to go a bit more on gut. The , the , the key is understanding when to employ those tactics in which way.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. I like that approach. I think it's , uh, not, not , not everybody is honest enough to say it, but I think that's the reality of the, the complex and ever more busy B two B marketing world we all find ourselves in. You mentioned the culture of experimentation. How do you foster that within a team? I , I know that you just said that, you know, some of the things that you do are just, you know , not there to be measured. And do, do you formally have a, I dunno , x percent of budget is for experimentation each year, or I don't know , running kind of innovation days within teams. I've heard of all kinds of things over the years, but maybe you can tell us a bit about how you think that that culture develops.

Speaker 3:

So we do have, you know, if you look at our, our budgets, there is some money set aside for, for experimentation and such. But I, there is another element that I think is far more important than the structural parts. It's really, really hard to define though. I'll , but I'll , I'll give you an example. First. You know, what, what is it, it is an acceptance that experiments , um, sometimes don't go the way that you want them to go. And, you know, just the notion I, I worked , uh, for someone for a long time that had been a , a scientist and, and he would say, okay, so that was a successful experiment, failed result. And that mentality I thought was really helpful because it gave permission to learn through, you know, experimentation and, you know, learning that okay, that didn't, the results didn't go the way that we wanted it, but we learned something. And at Lucid , um, very early on that our founders fostered this culture of let , let's experiment and let's learn. So the other part of the story that I, I didn't mention , um, uh, around the, you know, the campaign, the campaign that ended up being so successful was at the same time our marketing team had put together a, a different campaign. We put a lot of effort into it. It was, you know, highly structured, lots of brainstorming time and you know, many people working on it. And we rolled it out and it utterly failed. It , it just, it did not go anywhere. And there were things we should have caught that we didn't. And I remember sitting down with our C e O and mentioning that and he said , okay, great. What did you learn? And even just that mentality made it so that it was easy to turn to our creative director and say, well, let's, let's put this out on the internet and see what happens. Because there was an expectation already just in, in the values of, of Lucid that it's fine to experiment and learn. And I, I think something is , you know, I realize it's nebulous, but I think something as simple as that is really, really important to foster on a team and to , as you do that, then people , uh, can find opportunities to learn in ways that are unplanned because it really is these, you know, these strokes of genius that come just from experimentation that you're , you're never going to be able to plan your way into.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. And I , I think your point is key there, which is that often cultural things like this starts at the top and, and trickle down and , uh, you know , your c e o asking or giving that response is , uh, is I think a good, a good indication of that. Something that I see often. We are, unfortunately, as much as I'd like to keep talking out of time, so I'm gonna have to wrap up there, but I really appreciate you coming on the, the Finite podcast, showing your thoughts with us , giving us a , an inside view of how everything works at , at Lucid and , and some of the things you've been working on. So I appreciate it. Thanks for joining.

Speaker 3:

Certainly. It's been my pleasure. Thank you for taking the time to Jack

Speaker 5:

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