SPEAKERS

Christian Klepp, Jay Desai

Christian Klepp  00:08

Hi, and welcome to the B2B Marketers on a Mission podcast. I’m your host, Christian Klepp, and one of the founders of EINBLICK Consulting. Our goal is to share inspirational stories, tips and insights from b2b marketers, digital entrepreneurs, and industry experts that will help you think differently, succeed and scale your business.

Alright, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers on a Mission podcast. I’m your host, Christian Klepp. And today, I’d like to welcome a guest into the show whom I’ve connected with courtesy of the RevGenius community. He’s an expert in the B2B SaaS space, an extremely driven individual and a strong believer in continuous improvement. So coming to us from Austin, Texas, Mr. Jay Desai, welcome to the show.

Jay Desai  00:54

Thanks, Christian. Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be on here.

Christian Klepp  00:58

All right, Jay, it’s really great to connect again, let’s get this show on the road. So do a little bit of an introduction and tell us a bit about yourself.

Jay Desai  01:07

Yeah, definitely. So I am currently the head of growth at Trend. And we are essentially a creator marketplace for brands and influencers. Myself, personally, this is my second run into early stage b2b marketing. So I used to work in another company before that called CareerPlug that did HR software, hiring software. In both situations, I’ve kind of been the only full time marketer. So I’ve had to get really creative and start building out processes from the ground up for marketing. And I usually don’t have very much budget as well, which is something which is a challenge, but I actually prefer it as well, because it really makes you have to get creative on how you approach solutions to problems. But that’s a little bit about me and my background.

Christian Klepp  01:59

Great story, man. And thanks so much for sharing that. And, you know, you brought up an interesting point about like, you know, having to deliver and improve the performance of your organization’s marketing, despite having a limited budget, and you know, there’s that old saying, like, “Necessity is the mother of invention.” And we’re definitely going to talk about that later on. But in the meantime, talk to us about a recent project that you’ve been working on what’s gotten you excited?

Jay Desai  02:27

Yeah, I’ll kind of give two of them actually, for you. So one of them is our content strategy that we’ve just continued to iterate and optimize. So right now we’re working with a freelance writer. And so we’re spending about maybe, I think, less than two grand a month on content production. And we’re able to basically push out about two to three podcasts a week, plus one blog posts a week and with like, well designed images and all that stuff. And it’s kind of been really fun to do, because normally, you’d hire someone full time for like a content marketing role to maybe do the majority of that. And so that’s been a really fun project to work on and kind of figure out how we can still produce at the same level as our competitors. But obviously, we don’t have that budget piece. So that’s been a fun little challenge to solve for.

And then the other project, which I think has been really fun as well, is kind of optimizing and building out our e-commerce b2b model, which I know we’re going to talk about a little bit more as well. And that’s just been really fun. Because we used to be just like every other software where, you know, you have the typical MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue) model, you’re looking at churn and all that stuff. And we still look at churn and things like that. But now we’re more direct and transactional. So we’ve switched to more of a pay per use model, and have started allowing brands to enter and try out the platform and work like see the creator applications that come in. And so it’s been really fun kind of optimizing, and turning it from just your typical SaaS MRR model into like more of a pay per use e-commerce b2b model, which is kind of… it exists, but I feel like that space is really just starting to grow very fast right now. And it’s just been a lot of fun. And I’ve had to learn a lot personally. So I’ve enjoyed that experience as well.

Christian Klepp  04:26

Wow, that’s a handful man. But um, you know, that’s definitely awesome. Did you say three podcasts per week?

Jay Desai  04:35

Yeah, so we’re doing about two to three episodes a week right now with a ton of awesome guests like we’ve really started cranking away at pulling in guests, some of the biggest names and like direct to consumer because that’s what we focus on and brand founders. But yeah, it’s been a lot of fun. It’s been really crazy to manage. But we’re doing it.

Christian Klepp  04:57

That’s amazing. That’s amazing. Good stuff, and you know, on the topic of b2b e commerce, I mean, you know, that’s definitely a discussion that we’re going to have today because that’s clearly our area of expertise. So, Jay, you know, walk us through that, if you will, what you believe, are the fundamental differences when we look at the b2b and the b2c e-commerce ecosystem.

Jay Desai  05:23

Yeah, I think there’s a few specific differences. And I’m going to call out, I think about like two to three over here. So the first one is definitely the speed to the deal. I think there’s a lot of difference like, you know, in e commerce, what you’re… like in b2c e-commerce, what you’re used to is like, okay, someone maybe sees an ad or gets on your website, hits the add to cart and checks out. Like that might all happen in the same day, might even happen in the same hour. When and even sourcing like a new customer might happen in the same hour.

But that’s not going to be the case. Usually, for b2b e-commerce, the sales cycle is still going to be not as long as traditional, like b2b sales that you would think of, but definitely still longer. No one’s going to make an impulsive purchase to buy a product. They’re going to do their own research as well. But the speed of deal is definitely a lot faster than traditional b2b in the sense of like, maybe you have to hop on a demo, or do a discovery call and stuff like that. So there’s definitely kind of like it falls in that middle area, which I think is a key difference over there.

And then even the process, and the steps for b2c is a lot different than b2b e-commerce in the sense that there’s a lot fewer steps in b2b e-commerce than there would be on b2c. So for instance, like, you know, b2c, you’ve got that stack with maybe add to cart, you know, you’ve got that product page, you’ve got maybe like that checkout page as well. At least for our b2b e commerce model, like, you know, you hit like you, you hit the page to add, for us, it’s credits. So you hit the page to add credits, and you just hit add credits. And that’s kind of it. So it’s definitely a lot different of a process there. And also, you’re really doing a lot of talking about the process of b2c e-commerce, most of it is on the website. Actually, I think all of it is pretty much on the website in terms of, you know, you get the product description, you get the images, the features, the reviews, especially like reviews aren’t typically going to be on a checkout page for b2b e-commerce for the most part, you’re probably going to do some outside research in terms of where people are reviewing. So maybe you go on G2 or Capterra, or something like that. So those are some key differences over there.

And then just also the buyers involved in the process, like b2c is going to be always… For the most part, I think it would be one to one maybe, you know. If you’re a kid, and you have your parents involved in the buying decision as well, then maybe it’s two to one. But for the most part, it’s one to one. And then for b2b, you might have multiple people involved, like you might be a marketing person on a marketing team or someone on the team. And so you need to get additional clearance from your manager or something before you end up purchasing.

Christian Klepp  08:30

Right. Right.

Jay Desai  08:31

And one other thing I want to add as well is there’s a lot less products. That’s one other thing I’m going to call on as well b2b e commerce usually has a lot less products than b2c website.

Christian Klepp  08:46

Right. No, those are, you know, those are some really great observations. And, you know, you brought up a lot of really important differences. You know, on the point of the buyer, Jay, would you also say it’s clearly also, there’s clearly also a difference in terms of the buyers journey in terms of the different touch points between the two?

Jay Desai  09:07

Yeah, I think so. I think there is a little bit of a difference there, in terms of how the buyers journey is. It’s probably going to be like I said a lot longer than b2c. But you know, nowadays there are so many touch points for even b2c, like you’ve got so many emails, text messages, retargeting ads. So definitely see some similarities from there, but B2B is definitely a lot longer.

Christian Klepp  09:32

Right, exactly. So, I mean, you know, Jay, you brought it up a couple of minutes ago… in your current position at the trend.io, you’re the head of growth, and it’s a b2b SaaS company. You’re responsible for turning your platform into conversion machine and you’ve achieved this with great success. So talk to us about some of the challenges that you faced in the process and how you managed to overcome them.

Jay Desai  10:01

I think probably the biggest challenge is just getting brands into the platform. When I started, we really didn’t have very many brands on the platform, and you know, B2B is, is really is really tough in that sense. Like, it’s hard to get your first few buyers in the door. And that’s why, you know, I wanted to help push for a switching to more of a b2b e-commerce model. A pay per use model, it was the right model for our industry, or like our market that we’re in, influencer marketing, in the sense of when you think of doing things with influencers, or I guess more so on social platforms in general, like Facebook, Instagram, you would do that when you run like a Facebook ad, you would expect pay per use. So it’s weird that you would try and have some sort of recurring revenue model for something like Facebook ads, when influencer marketing and creator marketing kind of works in the same exact way where you’re not always going to have maybe a campaign all the time. And sure people do run Facebook ads, you know, ongoing and stuff like that. But you’re also going to want to plug in new campaigns, and maybe even boost up things during that time. So that was really the tough challenge was just trying to grow the number of brands and differentiate ourselves from our competition. And this is kind of like, that sweet spot that we found.

And even just changing the way that we think about things in terms of, you know, instead of having brands having to pay up front, before really getting to test the platform, being able to offer that trial, I think was huge. And then just really in terms of the marketing stuff, budget is a big thing. Like, we don’t have a huge budget, we’re bootstrapped for the most part. And so figuring out how we can reach a big audience without having like, you know, a million dollars available just spend on advertising is definitely a challenge that we’ve had to overcome.

Christian Klepp  12:09

Yeah, no, absolutely. And I mean, you know, those are some really great steps that you took, and I would imagine that, um, you know, as you were trying to figure this out and getting the brands onto the platform, and you spoke about it a little bit, you must have done, like, at least a certain degree of market research and, and test these concepts out in the market. It gets like some kind of validation, right?

Jay Desai  12:31

Yeah. And I think I mean, the market validation there is – we are very focused on testing things, all the time. And I think I’m like, I don’t know if that’s a term for marketers, but I consider myself maybe a super tester and our team for that talent, a super tester, just because we’re just so willing to try out new ideas. And that’s not always the case. It can be really easy to say, like, Hey, this is working, we’re just gonna kind of leave it as it is. And we’ve really done a great job and our CEO has also pushed us to do a great job of thinking like, hey, even though we are performing, like really well. Like, even though we made like, you know, even though we signed on 10 brands this week, let’s try and sign on 20 brands, let’s not be okay, with just doing 10 brands a week, like, let’s figure out how we can get even more and more. And that’s been really big for us, as well for helping to push forward that needle. And I think it’s just… that’s kind of the market validation that we do is we’ll go out and we’ll even spend money and just like, test ideas, and we’ve changed our platform and just been like, Alright, we’re just gonna try this out and see what happens. And if it sticks, we’ll just compare the research, the data to what we had previously. If it’s better, we’ll keep it. And if not, we kind of take it from there.

Christian Klepp  13:50

Yeah, yeah. Well, that’s a that’s incredible, Jay, it sounds it seems to me like it’s also a pretty motivating exercise, for lack of a better description, because it seems like you find yourself in an environment where you’re trying, you guys are trying to, like, push yourself on continuously to the next level. Right? So I guess where the continuous improvement part comes into the equation. Right?

Jay Desai  14:15

Exactly, exactly. And I think that’s what you have to… you really have to do, especially, even if you’re not bootstrapping, like even if you have raised around, even if you are a well-established company, like you just can’t be satisfied with the results that you’re getting. Even if they’re really good results. Like I think you really want to grow fast and really want to take it to the next level and, and just become like, you know, one of those companies that ends up being just miles and leaps ahead of the rest of the competition. You just have to have that kind of continuous growth mindset.

Christian Klepp  14:52

Yeah, yeah. No, that’s absolutely right. That’s absolutely right. Let me highlight some statistics here before I ask you my next set of questions. And that’s all around b2b e-commerce. So, according to an article by Forbes:

#1 – b2b e commerce is anticipated to be the area of largest e-commerce growth from 2022-2025.

Then there’s #2 – 73% of b2b buyers today are millennials. Not really a big surprise, and they prefer to buy online and that was according to a report by Merit.

And point #3 – the global e-commerce market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 11.1% from 2018 to 2025. I believe CAGR means compounded annual growth rate. And that’s according to a publication by Meticulous Research.

So here are the questions: What do you believe are the key factors that can be attributed to these trends? And what are some of your key predictions when it comes to the future of b2b e-commerce?

Jay Desai  16:12

Yeah, so I’ll start with the trends piece. What do I think is attributing to what’s happening over here in the market? And I really think it comes down to a few different things. The first one being lifestyle changes. Yeah, b2c e-commerce, like the introduction of just that idea that you’re able to buy something like, instantly, and not only instantly, but do it yourself, right? You don’t have to go into a store, you don’t have to go and ask someone, hey, what aisle is this and heard something like that? It’s really very much of a self-serve process. And we’ve been trained into a lot of self-serve processes. And so I think that’s part of what’s contributing to that trend. Just you know, we’re used to wanting things fast and having the information or needs to be able to do it fast and be able to figure out and make an informed decision, right. I can go on a review site and look up and say like, hey, like 90 other people say that this is a great product. So I feel pretty comfortable with, you know, after seeing that social proof that I can go out and purchase this product. So I think that’s part of it.

And then it’s also really just scalable in terms of your time spent, right. So instead of having to hop on a bunch of calls, or go and drive to the store, or Well, I guess this for more for b2c, but even for b2b, I guess, instead of having to jump on a demo, or having to jump on a bunch of different calls, or having to do something else, like I can go to a website, like if I find a b2b product that I’d like, yeah, that is on kind of an e-commerce model. And I can say, Hey, here’s the price, I can email my manager and say, Hey, I really want to use this tool, here’s the price for it, do we have budget for it, and then I can just go out and check out the product. And even there’s just so many free trials available to for a lot of these things. So it’s just very, like, self-serve oriented. And I think it’s also simplified, like, in terms of what I was talking about, the price itself, is just like usually very transparent and readily available. So it’s a lot easier to just make decisions. And I personally as a younger person, love being able to, to check out things on my own and be able to get started as quick as possible. Because any time that I spend, and especially at an early stage startup, like trend is, anytime that I spend on calls and stuff like that really takes away from my productivity to actually get the real work done.

And then so answering your second question on, what are some of my key predictions that I think are going to happen? I think more businesses are going to start using this model to scale. B2B e-commerce is just so easy. There’s so many tools out there now for being able to run like a checkout process on your website. And it not just being for just like b2c like product checkout. So there’s a lot of solutions out there. And I think it just makes it really easy. And also, if you’re a b2b company, and you’re growing through an e-commerce model, I’m a little biased, but I think it’s the smarter way to do it. Because of the fact you don’t really need to and salespeople are going to hate me for this. But if you don’t really need to build out a huge sales team to be able to, to sell deals. But honestly, if you’re thinking with more of that kind of like founder level approach, this is really important because that can be saving a lot of money on the bottom line. So that’s more, that’s more money that you get to put back into the business or even spend on salary rise, maybe distributing some of that to your employees as well. So I think that’s really cool.

And then I think just seeing more stealing from b2c? So like I said, there’s a lot less products on B2B. Um, I think we are going to maybe start seeing some things like having that more structured b2c checkout process where you’ve got your cart, you know, you enter in your information, maybe there’s an abandoned cart process, asking for reviews after the products purchased. Like, I think I’ve gotten a few emails where you know, I have products that are like, b2b, b2b products that are like from an e commerce model. And they do ask for reviews. But I think there’s going to be a lot more of that happening, like so asking for the review, like, immediately after, like the user, gain some sort of value.

And then maybe one that I’m going to throw out here, that’s kind of crazy. We’ll see if that happens. But I think text message marketing could possibly weave its way into b2b marketing as well. Yeah, I see one guy that does this really well. And it’s not really not selling products. And we actually had him on our podcast as well. Nik Sharma, on who is a known as like the DTC guy, and he has a number that you can actually text and receive, like a bunch of like, advice, and it’s for basically like founders and marketer. So I definitely see some of that stuff playing in there, check out like community.com, I think that’s the, that’s the one that a lot of people are using. So that could be really big.

And then just like a more data driven approach, personalization, anytime that you have, that you use, just like, I guess, instead of having your typical sales cycle, where you’re doing calls, one thing, calls are great, but they’re also really inefficient in the sense, it’s hard to keep track of that information. And whereas with like, when you’re making transactions just on the internet, there’s a lot of data that can be stored and kept and really mined. So I definitely see a lot more personalization there.

And then the last thing I’ll say is, I think there’s going to be a little bit less customer service to an extent and not in the sense of like, hey, something’s broken, we’re not going to fix it for you, but more in the sense of, hey, like, we’re not going to cater to a customer that says, like, Oh, I think you need to build this feature, or you need to do this for your product roadmap to help win me over as a customer. Since this is more like, selling at a scale on you’re going to be able to push back a lot more of those requests.

Christian Klepp  22:32

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, those are really some incredible observations, man, I really hope that the listeners are taking notes, as you were talking. But, Jay, you know, you came up with so many interesting answers and also like predictions, would you say that, you know, a lot of this, in terms of the trend, or this is all going towards in terms of like the further evolution of b2b e-commerce. I mean, certainly the pandemic had something to do with that, or at the very least the pandemic accelerated the further development of that. But do you think that this type of evolution in the e-commerce space with the advancement of technology, digitalization and the usage of AI, do you think that that would have happened regardless of whether there was a pandemic or not?

Jay Desai  23:28

Absolutely, I think it was just a matter of time. And even on the b2c e-commerce as well, it’s, it’s only a matter of time, it’s just a lot easier. I mean, even I try to relate it back. So my mom’s gonna kill me if she listens to this episode. But she used to be deathly afraid to use a debit card for a while, you know, back in, like the 90s when I was a kid, just because like she had never, she was born and raised in India, and never been really exposed to that. And it can be kind of scary. But now she uses it all the time. She uses cards all the time and so on. It’s kind of just like, you know, once you get exposed to it, um, it’s, it’s just so hard to let go because it is just so easy. I think the only difference is like with this pandemic, what’s brought to light is more people have been forced to be exposed to this, but once you kind of get into it, it’s very hard to come back.

Christian Klepp  24:23

Yes, yes. Yes. That’s absolutely right.

Hey, it’s Christian Klepp here. We’ll get back to the episode in a second. But first, is your brand struggling to cut through the noise? Are you trying to find more effective ways to reach your target audience and boost sales? Are you trying to pivot your business? If so, book a call with EINBLICK Consulting Our experienced consultants will work with you to help your b2b business to succeed and scale. Go to www.einblick.co for more information.

Jay, you spoke about this earlier you know when we were talking about, like, you know, your role at Trent, and, you know, all these contributions that you’ve made to the to the organization. And certainly, um, your scrappiness coupled with a touch of creativity certainly played a role in that. So let’s talk about that a little bit further in, like, how do you believe creativity plays a role in your field of expertise and give an example.

Jay Desai  25:25

It’s, it’s huge Christian here, it really is, especially for someone that’s in early stage, like, had you been talking to me and I was doing marketing at like, a company that’s maybe has really good ground in their industry or their market. Or there may be like, at that kind of like, bigger level where you’ve got like, 1000 employees, it’s definitely a lot different. But I think when you’re at that early stage, and I think this is the mentality that you should carry through, regardless of whatever stage your company is, just being creative. And for us, it’s just really figuring out how to manage our limited dollars. Like I said, we, we don’t have that much outside funding, and so it’s just important for us to, to be really smart about how we spend our money, because it’s not, you know, as nice as it would be to have that kind of unlimited runway, that’s definitely not the case. So, you know, moving and focusing towards profitability is something that’s really important for us. And it should be for any company, obviously. But I think it’s especially important for us because you know, we haven’t received that much outside funding right now and it’s just such a better way to grow. Um, but yeah, I think so creativity really leans in over there and just figuring out also for us, I mean, influencer marketing platforms, it isn’t just trend that’s out in this space. And we kind of create… kind of brand ourselves a little bit more as a creator marketplace, more so than like, your typical influencer marketing platform. But it’s still we get grouped into that bucket. And, you know, there’s a lot of platforms out there that have also raised a lot of money. And so you have to figure out how to get creative about stealing market share, you can’t just keep following your competition doing the same things because that that just will never get you above them. It’ll always keep you at them or below them.

Christian Klepp  27:17

Well, yeah, absolutely. And I mean, you know, you end up sliding into that me too positioning, which is clearly a territory you want to avoid. Right?

Jay Desai  27:26

Absolutely.

Christian Klepp  27:26

Yeah. Great. You spoke about this, you know, to a certain degree earlier, but like what, what type of advice would you give b2b marketers when it comes to e-commerce? And specifically, like, what are some of the steps that you think they can take to ensure success in their e-commerce strategy.

Jay Desai  27:46

So I think there’s a few key steps over here that I want to share.

And the first one, the number one thing and this is true for whether we’re talking about b2b e-commerce or whether we’re just talking about marketing in general, is just make it simple, make it easy for the buyer, to be able to get into your product, to be able to purchase your product, to be able to test it out.  That, that’s got to be the easiest thing if you’re really product driven. And, you know, I think a lot of companies should have that product lead growth approach, which we kind of have made sure and focused on over here. Just make it really easy to use. So that way, anyone can get in, anyone can test it out. And it just makes it easier for people to purchase. And don’t put them through a bunch of hoops to be able to buy like let them be able to buy really easily.

The other thing is just being very buyer centric. So pay attention, be listening to what people are saying and, and really taking the feedback that you’re seeing whether you know, you’re using like some sort of tool like a heat map or something like that, or even just talking to customers directly. Use that feedback and help it to drive your product and, and especially on b2b e-commerce. One thing that I would say that’s been incredibly helpful for us has been just following our own workflows. So if you have your own product and you’re doing a b2b e commerce workflow, test it out yourself or give it to a friend and let them be like a user for a moment to figure out like, hey, this doesn’t make sense, or this doesn’t work the way that it should or I get frustrated here and there. Those are just really important things to look out for.

And then I’d also say don’t be afraid to get dirty at the beginning. Um, you know, whether you’re switching or you’re starting a new like, your businesses, b2b e-commerce and you’re starting from the ground up. Just because you know, you are doing a very transactional thing, like, you know, hey, you’re expecting people to come to your website, get into your product, purchase your product, that doesn’t mean that you should have no interaction with them like, be okay with helping them get set up. be okay with doing work for them, be okay with reaching out and talking to them like it’s done. It shouldn’t be just purely transactional on as typical like b2c e-commerce might be. Even that I think shouldn’t be purely transactional, you should always ask for customer feedback.

And the last thing I’ll say about that is just having good data. The nice thing about b2b e-commerce is that it’s a lot easier to track. So I highly recommend, and we’ve done that over here a trend as well is setting up enhanced e-commerce in Google Analytics. Make sure you have that set up. So that way you’re sending your purchases through analytics, and you can kind of track the conversion path, the time that it takes to convert… all that good stuff, what channels are coming, what channels revenues coming in from, it’s just so easy to set up. So definitely check that out. There’s some awesome stuff on Simo Ahava website that I would recommend, check it out if you need help on figuring out how to set up a b2b e-commerce enhanced, the enhanced e-commerce functionality analytics and then even like pixels, like we haven’t, we haven’t really dived as much into that. Yeah, but there’s definitely a lot of work you can do in terms of retargeting pixels. So like sending certain pixels to fire based off, like purchase value and stuff like that. So you can really get into, like hyper targeting, we haven’t done so much of that yet. Kind of just like a limitation of time and resources there. But that’s something I would also recommend as well.

Christian Klepp  31:31

Wow, that was some really great advice, man. And I mean, I think you really hit the nail on the head, you know, in terms of like, you know, keeping it simple. Keeping a pulse on the market, leading with data, measuring what matters, I mean, all of these great tips. Um, so you know, thanks. Thanks, again, for sharing that.

Jay, we come to one of my favorite parts of the conversation.

It’s about conventional wisdom, commonly held beliefs and every field, every area of expertise has one, yours included. So talk to us about one such belief that people have when it comes to e-commerce for b2b and tell us why you strongly disagree with it.

Jay Desai  32:17

Yeah, I think it’s one that I kind of hit on earlier as well that I want to just bring up again, it’s that you don’t need to just let your website or product do the work, you also need to just get dirty as well. And, and be willing to talk to people and just work with people and, and do all that stuff. It’s not just kind of like b2b e-commerce isn’t like you just like, kind of set it and forget it and just hope for the best, you have to constantly just stay close to the ground there. So that’s something that I think can be easy, like, oh, especially like, if you maybe don’t have as much of a marketing background and you’re launching a product or something like that, it can be very easy to say like, Oh, yeah, I built this great product. And I’m just going to have people sign up for like, I’ll send it out to my network and a few friends and maybe get listed on like product, or something like that. Um, but you really do need to stay close to the ground and figure out what’s working and what’s, what’s really not working for your product.

One example that I saw was really interesting that I actually read a few days ago, I don’t know if it was on LinkedIn, or whether I read it in an article somewhere. Um, but Facebook, when they had started actually, one of the things that they realized very early is that people who sent a friend request in the first seven days would be much more engaged than people who didn’t. Um, so it’s just really staying close to the product and, and really analyzing the data, and just understanding what your customers really want and what they’re using the product for.

Christian Klepp  33:56

That was a really great insight. And yeah, I totally agree with that.

Name one thing that you think people should start. And then one thing that people should stop doing, when it comes to e-commerce for b2b and you might have brought some of these points up already, but just, you know, name one in each category.

Jay Desai  34:15

Yeah. So I think for starting, my biggest one that I would say is start using enhanced e-commerce on analytics if you aren’t already. Like I mentioned, it’s just so much easier to keep data on b2b when you’re using e-commerce. So there’s so much good data available and e-commerce or b2c e-commerce does an excellent job of doing this. And we can all take from what they do over there in terms of how great they are on targeting and segmenting customers and things like that. So use the data to your advantage there.

And then the thing that I would say first stop doing is stop building just for desktop for the most part. So like, I feel like a lot of b2b solutions are very desktop oriented, like the product lives on just the desktop. And we also are working on this trend as well, trying to figure out how we can do a better job. But so many people, I mean, everyone has a phone nowadays, and most of your buyers will probably have some sort of smartphone, especially in the b2b space, since usually, the entry level price point is a little bit higher on so just make sure that you’re also optimizing for mobile as well. And e-commerce is a great b2c e commerce does a great job of doing this. And I think we can all learn from there.

Christian Klepp  35:39

Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, those are, again, really great points. And yeah, I mean, definitely on the platform should be responsive. It almost sounds like it’s a given, but it’s interesting to see that, um, you know, that there’s still some companies out there that don’t do that. Right. So.

Jay Desai  35:57

Yeah, and I think it’s just even having like that whole, like, mobile experience for like signing up, like, what is your mobile experience for signing up look like? Can someone even sign up from your, from your mobile site? you don’t have to go out and like, build, like, a mobile app, or, or something like that, but just make it easy. So like, you know, maybe your product is something that people want to use on the go, um, and it still might be for business, like, LinkedIn is still used on the go, but it’s, it’s kind of for business. So just listening and learning about those different things are incredibly important.

Christian Klepp  36:30

That’s absolutely right. And, you know, speaking of incredibly Jay, this has been an incredibly insightful and engaging session. So, um, thanks so much, man, for you know, coming on and sharing. What’s the best way for people out there to go, you know, get a hold of you?

Jay Desai  36:45

Yeah, so the best way is, if you want to find me on LinkedIn, just search for Jay Desai. And if you can’t find me on here, you can probably find me through Christian.

Christian Klepp  36:58

Hunt him down. (Laugh)

Jay Desai  37:00

On LinkedIn as well. And if you want to reach out to me, feel free to shoot me an email, it’s just jaydesai@trend.io, I have no problem sharing that. Um, and for anyone that’s listening, that might be a brand or a marketing agency. Feel free to give trend a try. I promise, you won’t regret it. And I’m sure you’ll enjoy the product and find some value in it. So if you’re an e-commerce and e-commerce b2c brand, or a marketing agency that works with influencers or does like digital marketing, in that sense, feel free to check us out and give us a try.

Christian Klepp  37:39

And to quote the Godfather, “Jay will make an offer you can’t refuse.” (Laugh)

Jay Desai  37:46

Absolutely, I think our offer is already one that you know, you can’t refuse since most of the other competitors in the space are about a few, like a few hundred dollars a month just for the software fees, and we only do $100 per creator. So.

Christian Klepp  38:03

All right. I love it. I love it. Jay, this has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for your time. So take care. Be safe, and I’ll talk to you soon.

Jay Desai  38:12

Yeah, sounds great, Christian. Thanks for having me.

Christian Klepp  38:15

Thanks. Bye for now.

Jay Desai  38:16

Thanks.

Christian Klepp  38:18

Thank you for joining us on this episode of the B2B Marketers on a Mission podcast. To learn more about what we do here at EINBLICK, please visit our website at www.einblick.co and be sure to subscribe to the show on iTunes or your favorite podcast player.