If you’re a B2B or aspiring marketer who’s ever felt isolated in your work or lacked resources and peers to share successful strategies with, this article is for you.
What is the B2B Marketers Club?
At the beginning of November 2023, we had our first meetup in Bucharest, where we officially got rolling. Further in the article, you can discover glimpses of what it means to be a member, and you can possibly find solutions to your current challenges at work.
But if you’re the type that gets excited easily (we got you!) and you immediately knew this community is for you, you can sign up here.
The first meet-up was defined by a wholesome community vibe
At the heart of the B2B Marketers Club is a vibrant community, as shared by participants:
“I really liked that there was a community vibe. There was a lot of space for dialogue, and the speakers did not have that “I know better” attitude.”
“I appreciated the idea that those in the room would come up with ideas/solutions for some specific business needs of the two guests.”
“I found it very useful to see that we all have the same challenges, regardless of the size of the company we work for.”
“I met new, interesting people who are either from the area of B2B marketing service providers or need such services. I took part in the “birth” of a new community with a lot of potential for growth and education in the B2B marketing market.”
“I received two recommendations that will help me solve a problem at work.”
The insight driving the inception of the B2B Marketers Club stems from the rich pool of expertise which highlights the necessity for a community where marketers can share ideas, struggles, lessons, failures, and experiences, fostering a collective environment for growth and support. So when we realized that altogether we have a combined experience of 371 years, the atmosphere in the room was filled with curiosity, motivation and joy. This was because opportunities to access a pool of marketing professionals at your fingertips don’t come by often.
Bogdan Popescu, the trainer and facilitator of the event, defined ‘community’ as a safe space for people encountering similar struggles, harboring shared hopes and needs. Within this environment, people unite to learn from each other, despite each participant having different intentions.
Some aim to connect with like-minded professionals, share ideas, learn, find compatible business partners, or create new friendships. Regardless of individual objectives, we can all benefit from the collective 371 years of experience (and potentially more in future events). As Bogdan said, “One of the ways we can grow the community is by fostering trust, encouraging openness in sharing experiences.”
We grow through shared experiences
So here we are. The evening was opened by the founders of this community: our colleague Andrei Stoica, founder of STOICA.CO, Raluca Apostol, founder of eMarketing Stars, and Claudiu Jojatu, founder of Milk & Cookies Studio. They will be by your side if you decide to join (or rather when ;).
Following them were our guests, Ileana Cipca, Lead Campaign Manager at FintechOS, and Sorin Enescu, Global Demand Strategist at IBM API Connect. They connected with us through their stories, ranging from epic fails to creative solutions for no-budget campaigns to the feeling of being estranged and far from your final client.
When asked what she would apply from the world of start-ups within a larger company, Ileana Cipca shared with us: “It is essential to have the courage to risk more sometimes and then to optimize on the fly. Experiment and calibrate quickly.”
She also believes it’s vital to “Listen, even on social media. See what the area of interest of your prospect is, what roles they hire, and what they post. From there, you can get insights about the direction in which a company wants to develop, what problems it faces, and where it would need help.”
Sorin Enescu thinks that thorough research is a precious but overlooked method when it comes to creativity. “We had a moment when we received not very pleasant news from the management – our budget was cut, and it was necessary to be agile and develop a plan with feasible actions to promote a product. And since then, I have learned that taking ownership of research is useful. Do it yourself; don’t just rely on what you hear from others. Look at the data, ask yourself and keep asking others explanatory questions, and look for answers that you can turn into business strategies.”
We also had the opportunity not to feel alone when we listened to Ileana and Sorin’s epic fails.
In Romanian, there’s a saying that sounds a bit negative (a te bucura de răul altuia / to take pleasure in someone else’s misfortune), suggesting satisfaction when somebody shares a problematic experience. Fortunately, that’s not the case here, as we all have gone through what they shared. That’s the essence of a community: you not only share positive emotions together but also navigate tough times together because you understand each other.
Ileana shared with us one epic fail: “We were communicating a slightly more general message, and we didn’t think that a unique value proposition (in our situation, we were developing an innovative product) could be attractive to a certain target audience and leave another ideal customer profile completely cold (the one we thought was our ideal target). After talking to all our customers, we realized that we need to personalize the messages, and this improved our results considerably.”
For Sorin, an epic fail happend last week:“because I entered a new role, I had to manage many things by myself at the same time, which you can imagine can become pretty overwhelming to jump from one thing to another. The lesson was that it is not good to do many things simultaneously, and when the situation calls for it, you have to plan better.”
After sharing such insightful ideas, community members felt the need to ‘comfort’ them with questions or, at the very least, challenging comments. However, what followed was truly valuable. Encouraged by Bogdan, Ileana and Sorin talked about a couple of current struggles they are facing in their work, intending to find solutions from the community. This is why another feedback from a community member was that ‘the guests didn’t have the attitude of “I know better.”
One challenge Sorin was facing is about collecting customer insights: How do you, as a marketer, get customer insights information from sales teams?
The answers gathered from the community could be solutions that apply anytime:
A: Making this job very easy for them – preparing tools with which they can collect feedback and drafting messages to send to customers.
A: Participating with them in a discussion with the client.
A: Working for a few days directly from the sales department.
A: Making friends with them over lunch, coffee, out of office and have friendly discussion.
A: You can also go to the customer service teams for insights because they are the ones that are closest to the customers and learn first-hand about the needs, challenges, objections, wishes of the customers.
What’s next
We just launched the online community and the online courses.
On the 29th of January we will meet up again in Bucharest!
Since we’re still in the launch phase, access for a limited time is free for all, and you can sign up here: https://b2bmarketers.club/. After the launch, we will share details on memberships that give you access to the community.
