Molly Kempel: Establishing New Approaches To B2B Marketing

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Business-to-Business marketing, commonly called B2B marketing, involves marketing products and services to corporate organizations and businesses rather than individuals. There are enough well-established strategies in pitching a company to another business. 

However, our guest on this episode of our Rediscover Marketing series has quite an unpopular opinion on recording tremendous B2B marketing success. 

First, let's meet Molly Kempel...

Who is Molly Kempel?

Molly Kempel is a seasoned marketer with eight years of experience in Business-to-Business marketing. Having worked with different organizations and startups, she has gathered a wealth of knowledge in various marketing aspects. Molly was able to share with us practical marketing approaches beyond what is often taught in books.

Molly recently took up the post of Director of B2B Marketing at Penn Foster, a company involved in providing online programs for professionals willing to upskill and step up into higher-paying roles. Unlike the B2C aspect of marketing at Penn Foster, Molly relates with companies willing to train their workforce members and develop them to perform better in a particular role or make them fit for better positions.

Challenges at Penn Foster

Having joined the company after the major hit of the pandemic, towards the start of the fourth quarter of 2020, Molly faced some challenges with onboarding and settling in at a point when a lot of marketing decisions had to be made. 

She also noted how difficult transitioning was at a time when everyone was working from home. It was a challenge to try to schedule meetings and work with people she had never met in person. However, she commended her team members' efforts, who made the job easier and embraced the challenges gotten from changes that were implemented.

Handling B2B Marketing With a New Approach

Considering the structure of business to business marketing, one may think it has to be the most formal kind of marketing. You are often relating with corporate organizations rather than private individuals. However, Molly established that irrespective of the fact that you are marketing to corporate bodies, these entities are represented by individuals and should be treated as such. 

If you have marketing content, they are not consumed by robots in offices without emotions or personal struggles. Understanding this will make you design your content marketing strategies to be a lot more personal and provide value first to the individual receiving them before the organization. Making your content empathetic and relatable will help you achieve success better with B2B marketing than doing what you have always been doing.

Importance of Data Review in Growth and Marketing

Molly shared with us her methods of data review with her team. She explained that data review processes should be customized to fit each individual's preferences in a group, beyond strict and rigid procedures.

She shared that she would usually clear all kinds of meetings, reports, and reviews on the last day of every week so that no work is carried over into the new week. She believes that this method will help other marketing leaders if they adopt it.

Molly rounded up her session, emphasizing the need for content marketing strategies to be more personal than they used to be. She noted the need for leaders to be aware of others' challenges and struggles and design strategies first for humanity as this is the best way to transfer value even as you market your product and services.

Molly did mention the need for leaders to plan for change even as they start putting together their plans against the next year. 2020 has taught us nothing is guaranteed, and we must go ahead with that lesson at the back of our minds.

A lot of vital information has been shared in this Rediscover Marketing post. What do you think about Molly's marketing ideas? Let us know in the comment section.