#49: Adapting your B2B marketing playbook at the speed of AI, with Victoria Blackwell, G2

Summary

B2B Agility Podcast Summary: Episode #49 – Adapting Your B2B Marketing Playbook at the Speed of AI with Victoria Blackwell, G2

Release Date: June 24, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode #49 of B2B Agility™, hosted by Greg Kihlström of The Agile Brand, the discussion centers on the rapid integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into B2B marketing strategies. Greg is joined by Victoria Blackwell, Senior Program Manager of Research Insights at G2, to explore how B2B marketers can effectively adapt their playbooks to leverage AI's potential while maintaining authenticity and personalization.

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AI-Driven Content in B2B Marketing

The conversation kicks off with the prominence of AI in content creation. Greg references Jasper's data indicating that 57% of marketers utilize generative AI for content creation, a figure Victoria finds surprisingly low.

Greg Kilstrom [03:14]: “You cite Jasper's data showing 57% of marketers use generative AI for content creation. I feel like that's low, but...”

Victoria emphasizes the importance of using AI to amplify human creativity rather than replace it. She highlights that while AI can handle repetitive tasks and draft generation, the tone, context, and emotional nuance must remain human-driven to maintain authenticity.

Victoria Blackwell [03:24]: “You've got to use AI to amplify human creativity, not replace it.”

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Personalization and Enhanced Engagement

Greg introduces a report from G2 predicting a 50% increase in B2B buyer engagement among adopters of AI-driven personalization. Victoria offers practical strategies to move beyond superficial personalization:

1. Leverage Behavioral and Intent Signals: Tailor messaging based on actual buyer interests rather than generic content.

   Victoria Blackwell [06:11]: “Use behavioral and intent to tailor messaging based on what buyers are actually interested in...”

2. Personalize the Customer Journey: Customize channels, timing, and offers based on individual customer roles, stages, and pain points to create a more human and relevant experience.

   Victoria Blackwell [06:11]: “Personalize the journey, not just the message.”

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Using Analytics to Prevent Churn

Transitioning to analytics, Greg discusses the critical role of early warning metrics in preventing customer churn. He cites G2's report on net retention rates, underscoring the financial impact of maintaining high retention.

Victoria identifies key indicators to monitor:

• Engagement Metrics: Declining open rates, reduced content interactions, and fewer site visits.
• Usage Patterns and Sentiment Shifts: Changes in product usage and feedback sentiments serve as strong predictors of churn.

Victoria Blackwell [08:55]: “Engagement across the board... patterns are probably your best indicator of what is to come.”

She also highlights the advantage of AI in analyzing vast datasets to identify these patterns more efficiently than manual methods.

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AI and Automation in Marketing Operations

Discussing marketing operations, Greg points out that AI-powered automation can significantly reduce marketing operating costs by up to 30%. Victoria suggests high-impact areas for automation, especially for resource-strapped teams:

• Lead Nurture and Follow-Up Workflows: Automate responses to triggers like content downloads and demo requests to keep leads engaged without manual intervention.

  Victoria Blackwell [16:11]: “Automating responses to key triggers... saves time but also keeps leads warm.”

She emphasizes that automation enables teams to do more with less, offering quick ROI and operational efficiencies.

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Ensuring Safe and Effective AI Use

Acknowledging the challenges, Greg references Salesforce's findings that a significant percentage of marketers are uncertain about using generative AI safely and extracting its value. Victoria outlines essential guardrails to mitigate risks:

1. Clear Usage Policies: Define where and how AI can be applied ethically within the organization.

   Victoria Blackwell [19:23]: “Define where and how AI can be applied in what context.”

2. Human-in-the-Loop Review Processes: Maintain oversight, especially for customer-facing content, to ensure authenticity and alignment with brand voice.

   Victoria Blackwell [19:23]: “Human and watchful eye on it.”

3. Regular Team Training: Focus on best practices for prompts, data ethics, and maintaining brand voice consistency.

   Victoria Blackwell [19:23]: “Regular team training... focused on prompt best practices or data ethics.”

These measures help organizations leverage AI's benefits while safeguarding against potential pitfalls.

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The Evolving Landscape of SEO with AI

The final major topic delves into Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in the age of AI. Victoria explains how traditional SEO strategies are being reshaped by AI-driven search engines like Large Language Models (LLMs).

Key insights include:

• Shift to High-Quality, Structured Content: Emphasize creating content that is structured, trustworthy, and semantically relevant to be easily interpreted by AI.

  Victoria Blackwell [21:49]: “Focus on creating really high quality, structured and trustworthy content that LLMs can easily interpret.”

• Consistent Brand Presence: Maintain a uniform brand voice and messaging across all online platforms to enhance discoverability through AI queries.

  Victoria Blackwell [24:34]: “Consistent brand presence across every piece of the Internet is what's going to set you apart when it comes to LLM search.”

Victoria shares a personal anecdote about a colleague using both G2's compare pages and Chat to make informed purchasing decisions, illustrating the shift from traditional SEO to AI-enhanced discoverability.

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Conclusion and Key Takeaways

As the episode wraps up, Greg asks Victoria about maintaining agility in her role. Victoria attributes her success to a constant student mindset and continuous learning, emphasizing the importance of staying curious and adaptable in the ever-evolving marketing landscape.

Victoria Blackwell [27:04]: “Always being like a constant student... humility to know that you're always going to be a student.”

Key Takeaways:

1. AI as an Amplifier, Not a Replacement: Utilize AI to enhance human creativity and efficiency without compromising authenticity.
2. Deep Personalization: Move beyond superficial personalization by leveraging behavioral data and customizing the entire customer journey.
3. Proactive Churn Prevention: Use AI-driven analytics to identify and address churn risks early through engagement patterns and sentiment analysis.
4. Strategic Automation: Implement AI-powered automation in high-impact areas like lead nurturing to maximize ROI and operational efficiency.
5. Robust AI Governance: Establish clear policies, maintain human oversight, and provide regular training to ensure safe and effective AI usage.
6. Adapted SEO Strategies: Focus on high-quality, structured content and maintain a consistent brand presence to thrive in an AI-dominated search environment.

Victoria Blackwell's insights provide a comprehensive guide for B2B marketers striving to stay ahead in a rapidly changing landscape influenced by AI advancements.

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Learn More:

For additional insights and to access Victoria's full report, visit the show notes at www.b2bagility.com.

Transcript

[Greg Kilstrom]

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[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Victoria Blackwell]

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[Victoria Blackwell]

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[Greg Kilstrom]

Welcome to the B2B Agility Podcast where we look at the factors that drive success in B2B marketing with a focus on the people, processes, data and platforms that make B2B brands stand out and thrive in a competitive marketplace. I'm your host, Greg Kilstrom, advising Fortune 1000 brands on martech, marketing operations and CX best selling Author and speaker. Now let's get on to the show. Agility today means adapting your marketing playbook at the speed of AI experimenting, fast learning faster, and never assuming yesterday's tech advantage still applies. Today we're going to talk about how B2B marketers should be thinking about AI in the months ahead and how to know if you're already behind. Tell me to discuss this, I'd like to welcome Victoria Blackwell, Senior Program Manager of research insights at G2. Victoria, welcome to the show.

[Victoria Blackwell]

Hi Greg, thrilled to be here. So happy to be on.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, looking forward to talking about this with you. Before we dive in though, why don't we start with a little background on yourself and your role at G2?

[Victoria Blackwell]

Sure. Yes, of course. So I am our senior program manager for our Research Insights team here at G2 and I specialize in marketing and digital advertising as like an industry. So I'm a former practitioner in brand marketing for B2C brands. Then I transitioned to G2 and and was immersed in all things B2B. So my goal, kind of having those two parts of my brain and being a practitioner myself is to kind of bring this strategic mindset, analytical depth and kind of maintain like a strong track record of not only Cross functional leadership, but publication to not only kind of entice but to also enjoy for fellow marketers to make sure that getting the information out there is as easy as possible without it, you know, being like a thousand pages, a bunch of graphs, just really adding kind of context and color to the industry.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Great, great. So, yeah, let's, let's start by talking about AI driven content. Certainly, you know, lots, lots of people talking about it, writing about it, making videos about it, they're making content about content. And so, you know, let's talk about that and as well as personalization and you know, I kind of say like AI is kind of the loudest or content is the loudest AI use case.

[Victoria Blackwell]

Totally.

[Greg Kilstrom]

You cite Jasper's data showing 57% of marketers use generative AI for content creation. I feel like that's low, but.

[Victoria Blackwell]

I know, right? I thought so too. When I was first researching, I was like, there's no way, maybe someone who's bold enough to admit it.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, I think there's a lot of people that, yeah, may not be 100% and they use 55% or 55% of them use AI for idea generation, but you know, warn that authenticity can suffer. So how can B2B teams keep scale from sounding synthetic?

[Victoria Blackwell]

Sure. And I think this is a really common problem when it comes to especially like novice users of AI content creation. But I think to simplify it, it's very much in a single phrase that you've got to use AI to amplify human creativity, not replace it. And I think that is contextual in many ways. I think when it first came out it was very like, this is going to take my job, like this is going to replace me, like copywriters galore, where this is it, this is how I go. But it's, it's really not. And I think that when you think about what AI content creation really is like you have to let AI handle like repetitive and generate like drafts like so first tasks like getting just like, like that idea generation, getting it out there. And while people kind of shape tone, context and emotional nuance, that's something that AI, fingers crossed will hopefully never be able to do as well as a human. And for right now, ideally when we talk about human creativity, that is what brings life to a brand, that's what brings life to text, and that's what brings life to content. So kind of when we talk about like tone and authenticity and all of these different aspects of content creation, that is something that AI will never be able to kind of match at a human level because it's just, you can tell nine times out of 10, like we're even seeing kind of even the content creation like video to this day, like on reels on TikTok. Immediately you see in the comments you're like AI, like you didn't get me this time. It's like that can also translate into B2B as well. And like when something doesn't feel authentic, your customer, your potential customer, they know and kind of with that like focus on personalization, it really feels to not only just not being generic, but it's tailored and it creates real and very, I think, genuine interaction.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, yeah, well. And, and to that end, a recent report from G2 predicts that adopters of AI driven personalization will see a 50% jump in B2B buyer engagement. So real, tangible, you know, engagement, you know, what are, what are some practical moves that marketers can make to move beyond? You know, I, there's personalization that's like, I call it substitution. It's like hi Greg, you know, your offer or whatever, but like to move beyond that kind of substitution to real personalization.

[Victoria Blackwell]

Totally. And I think that this is something. When I initially made that prediction like in my report, it was a bit of a shock and stun, I think. Well, honestly, all three predictions that I made in my report, my team was kind of like, what, what is this? Are, are you sure? I was like, well that's a beauty of a prediction. Like, you know, we're reading the data, we're looking to see like where it makes sense. And I feel like especially with AI driven personalization, all of these kind of like, I call them like sparkles basically of like, oh, we could, like that looks good. Or like, oh, like this looks nice. And to be kind of like practical when it comes to making this personalization go beyond the high first name, I would say probably my first one would be to kind of tap into your signals, you know, like using behavioral and intent to like tailor messaging based on what buyers are actually like interested in instead of like just making content to make content is probably one of the worst wastes of time and your customer won't have any value in it. So when they like the content, they engage with it and when they visit pages and when like all of these like little sparkles of data and sparkles of like, like you know, real time view of your customer, like that needs to be not only like timely but relevant. And then the second I would say is probably to personalize the journey, not just the message. And I think that that's sometimes where it can get lost, where it's like, okay, well how do I, like, look at the full journey and how can I make it personalized to every single, like, customer who walks in the door? And you can kind of do that by adjusting your channels, timing offers, like, based on each, like, kind of like counts like role stage, pain point. That's a lot of information that you can really use to help craft something really incredible. And this creates like a smarter and more human experience that goes kind of far deeper than just knowing someone's name.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, yeah. And to that point, you can send the personalized message to someone at the wrong time.

[Victoria Blackwell]

Absolutely.

[Greg Kilstrom]

You know, who, who cares that it was personalized? Right. If it's, if it's not hitting them on the right channel at the right time. And so.

[Victoria Blackwell]

Absolutely.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So let, and you mentioned, you know, alleviating some of those, those pain points. And let's talk about analytics as pain point prevention here.

[Victoria Blackwell]

Absolutely.

[Greg Kilstrom]

And that's another thing from, from the report, you know, framing analytics as the difference between reacting to preventing churn. And so the report states, SAS firms with net 100% net retention grow 43.6% annually versus 13.1% when reti retention slips below 60%. What are some of the early warning metrics that marketers should be tracking to spot CHURN risk before it bites?

[Victoria Blackwell]

Plain and simple. Engagement engagement across the board. Like, this is, I would say, the often the earliest and strongest indicator. And just kind of like looking out for like, drop offs, like declining, like open rates or content interaction, site visits, any changes in kind of like product like patterns or like engagement patterns, because patterns are probably your best indicator of what is to come as well as how to adapt. So kind of like understanding those like, usage patterns, sentiment shifts in feedback, that's a really big one as well. And we see that a lot kind of like in my days in like G2. Truly, when you kind of really look into a product profile and you see kind of either the avalanche of review sentiment change or really like the buildup of review sentiment change. Like, it really does create a very strong indicator of how people are percepting or perceived. That perception is something that you can't really get from a lot of like, analytics, like, right as they come in. It's really like live feedback, you know. So I would say those are definitely some of the early warning signs of churn. Like, and just kind of like watching your engagement on every channel like that paints a picture and that picture really is a pattern.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Well, and I think that's also an area where AI, as opposed to just, you know, a human looking at charts all day. Like, I can really play a strong role here, right?

[Victoria Blackwell]

Totally.

[Greg Kilstrom]

There are so many things that you could look at as far as trends go or, you know, there's. There's just too much for a human to do themselves to look at. Yeah, yeah.

[Victoria Blackwell]

And it's just crazy because you have to be so reliant, I think, on so many channels. It can be overwhelming. And that really is where that AI can come in and be like, if you put in raw data to like an AI tool and you're like, hey, listen, need, like, what are some patterns that you're seeing from this? Like, that's using AI for pain point prevention, you know, like, it can be as simple as that.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, definitely. And so this works best when everything's seamless and connected and, you know, there's no silos and all of those things. But as we all know, and probably most of us have at least have experienced, there are a lot of. Not only we talk often about team silos that, you know, one person doesn't talk to the other or whatever, but data silos are real. And. And also, just as you know, can. Can prevent some of this stuff from being done as. As well as it could, as well as just some teams, you know, from a digital or data maturity standpoint, you know, some teams being a little bit ahead of other areas.

[Victoria Blackwell]

Mm.

[Greg Kilstrom]

How do you do something like piloting predictive analytics without waiting for that ideal perfect scenario where everybody's on the same page and singing Kumbaya and all that stuff.

[Victoria Blackwell]

Yeah. So I will say this. I feel like there is no kind of perfect data area unless it has been from immediate adoption when the company was founded. So, like, don't feel bad, everyone. This is like a very common problem. Very. It's. Which is why tools are being created to help solve it. So you don't really kind of need this like perfect data lake, if you will, like, you know, like a single silo right from the get. But if you want to start kind of like piloting predictive analytics, you just have to start with the data you trust. So that is kind of like one of my first and best, like, use cases for it. It's like, what data do you rely on? What data has proven true? What data do you feel has a high impact of use cases? Like if you're identifying at risk accounts or like surfacing likely buyers and you apply like a simple predictive model or a scoring system to it. Based on your existing engagement signals, you'll be able to find kind of like what makes the most sense to make and continue pilot programs off of it. And a lot of this data can be different for everyone. So there isn't one single source of truth. I think that you really have to look at where it makes the most sense for your team, your objective, what you're trying to accomplish. From a product perspective, it could be a variety of different things, but whatever data that you find, not only most, like, really, truly that you trust the most, but the most accurate in what you're trying to achieve. That is probably where I would say that you can use and have a really solid, like, predictive analytics, like, use case without kind of just like waiting for the silos to merge.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because that's, you know, hopefully everybody's working on that, but it's. It's a. It's.

[Victoria Blackwell]

Yeah. Fingers crossed.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah. It's always a work in progress, even when it's being done well.

[Victoria Blackwell]

Right? Yeah, absolutely. It really is. And that's why, like, I said that in the beginning, because just, like, take, like, take a breather and like, take that load off, because you are not alone. This is a very common problem, and it's something that I know. I'm sure engineers are up at night thinking about it, so don't worry. Hi, Zoe Saldana. Welcome to T Mobile. Here's your new iPhone 16 Pro on us. Thanks. And here's my old phone to trade in. You don't need to trade in.

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[Victoria Blackwell]

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[Victoria Blackwell]

I feel like I have to give you something in return for karma. That's okay. I don't really have much in my purse. Oh, let's see. Hand sanitizer. It's lavender.

[Greg Kilstrom]

I'm good.

[Victoria Blackwell]

Seriously. Let me check this pocket. Oh, mints. Really, I'm fine. Oh, I have raisins. I'm a mom. Wait, wait one sec. I've got cupcakes in the car.

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[Victoria Blackwell]

Absolutely.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Through AI powered automation. I, I completely, I agree there. For a resource strap team, where are some of the highest impact areas where automation can prove some quick roi?

[Victoria Blackwell]

Okay, well having been on many resource strap teams over the course of my career. I know, right? Yeah. Over the course of my career I came up in my marketing career, came up in startups and I live and breathe by that. I feel like if you want to be the scrappiest marketer out there, like you got to start with some startups and I think that it proves very quickly what works, what doesn't. So when you have like and you're wearing like 17 different hats. So for like resource strap teams I would say kind of like highest impact automation like lead nurture and follow up workflows like truly like automating responses to key triggers like content downloads, demo requests, page visits like that saves times but also keeps like leads warm and insurance like nobody is kind of like left in the dust. Which is something I think when I think just starting a new business, engaging with new business or just trying to like meet that retention growth, all of these things, it doesn't matter what level you're at or what your business goals are, it's not only relevant but it's key to kind of like really just also from a data perspective. Like you gotta see what works, you gotta see what's resonating.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, yeah. And I mean it's kind of just leaving money on the table if you don't.

[Victoria Blackwell]

Exactly. Yeah.

[Greg Kilstrom]

And maybe you know, to that example, I mean, you know, I've, I've worked everywhere from Fortune 50s to startups as well. You know, you may hire us an enterprise sales team to follow up and do the white glove service or whatever at a, at the enterprise level. But a startup can set automation and do a lot of this stuff in a really meaningful way for sure.

[Victoria Blackwell]

And it kind of like whenever you are thinking about automation with AI, I think it is a little scary because like you have to like really take the time to set up these workflows. But it really is like no risk, no reward like in the, in these cases because AI is truly meant to be a help and not a hindrance. Especially when it comes to like automating tasks and like really kind of like setting the scene of what you want it to do and how you can help it learn to become something. So like truly like sometimes life changing for some cases, like it creates just the opportunity to do more with less. And that I think is why we're going to see this like for aggressive users at least like in aggressive adopters, this huge just like operating cost save. Because it really is, I think something I would probably say in the next six months I would encourage everyone to really take a deep dive at where they could implement it because it really is like such a lifesaver.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, yeah. Salesforce found that 39% of marketers don't know how to use Gen AI safely and 43% don't know how to extract value. It seems like with all the content being created to our earlier point, how can you not like at least have a vague notion of how to extract value? But it is what it is. Yeah, but from, you know, from the safety standpoint, what guardrails, you know, it could be process, policy, training, all the above. Like what, what have you seen that works to boost some of the confidence in using these tools and meaningful ways without or while mitigating risk?

[Victoria Blackwell]

Yeah, for sure. So I think with AI being this brave new world, right. I think you kind of have to think of these as not only like continuous education, but I think like cautious approach as well. So I would say for larger companies, especially clear usage policies like define where and how AI can be applied in what context. What you know, is maybe Crossing a line, what is unethical. Like all of those things are play a really big part into these usage policies, number one. Number two, I would say human in the loop review processes. Like I can't just be like left alone. Like it's, you got to think about it like a toddler at the beach. You can't be like, let them walk into the ocean, you know, like you got to be like making like sure you have like a very like human and watchful eye on it. Like it has to very much be like oversight in a way that isn't, you know, too daunting. But especially for anything that's customer facing, content messaging, all of that fun stuff. And then I would say the third is probably regular team training, regular team updates, kind of focused on prompt best practices or data ethics. And especially when it comes to like content or messaging, brand voice alignment. This is something that can get a little tricky. And I talk about this in kind of the first part of my report in our first focus area around content creation, that no matter what tool you use, no matter what kind of makes like the most impact in terms of efficiency. If your brand, your voice, your messaging is skewed and you use it and you're using AI, like that's one of the first indicators that you are untrustworthy, like as a company, as a business, as a brand, whatever it may be. So kind of having these kind of like three little pieces in place to make sure that AI can not only like boost that confidence but also mitigate that risk is going to be crucial.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, yeah. So last topic I want to talk about with you, something I'm watching pretty closely myself and is search engine optimization is.

[Victoria Blackwell]

Yes.

[Greg Kilstrom]

It's been a thing for decades and now we've got AI and it's changing things. Right. So you've noted that, you know, traditional SEO rules don't map clearly to AI answer engines. How should B2B brands be thinking about discoverability and things like that when you know it's not just the Google search spiders and stuff like that that are crawling the web anymore.

[Victoria Blackwell]

Yeah. So I think this is something that is not only going to be changing the game for 2025, but just years beyond. Like the evolution in it has been so quick in a sense that I don't think that there was preparation on like the business's end to be like, oh my God, like, well, how do I become like searchable? Because I think it was such like an idea for so long and the use cases that were more like public and national were kids using it to like, write papers or in some of the more heinous cases, like doctors using it to like, take notes. And you're like, oh my God, like, this will never touch my area of business. Like, we're here. Like, this is it. So I think that one of the big pieces, like when it comes for like, especially B2B brands, like when, like we think discoverability and when we rethink that shift from traditional SEO to AI optimization, I think the focus on creating like really high quality, structured and trustworthy content like that LLMs can easily interpret, you know, insight that is huge. Like, when I'm looking for a specific something, I don't go to Google anymore. I go to chat. And that is something that I think is so relevant and it could be truly anything. Like, I live in New York City. So like, I very much don't, like, if I need something or if I'm looking for a restaurant or a place, like, I had to get a pair of shoes fixed. I use Chat for that. Like, the application is above and beyond, just like, like single, like simplified searches. It's for everything. And when I was looking for a couple, actually, I had a girlfriend who Abigu user. She uses the compare and contrast of G2's compare pages with Chat's findings to see kind of like where and how. Like that. She literally, I think just bought a for her company. She's like, she's in social media. She just bought a social media tool, like a software tool to kind of like help like amplify like brand presence and brand intel. And she used chat and G2 to figure that out. And she didn't even, she didn't even tell me until after. She was like, oh my God, by the way, I used you guys the other day. But like, that is truly like a buyer taking a journey through using an LLM where they would have otherwise used traditional SEO, which is crazy. And I think, like, if you're a business trying to figure out like, how you can do this, like, I think if you double down on just like clear, authoritative, like semantic relevance, that's the other thing too. Like, and having that consistent brand presence, like across every piece of the Internet is what's going to kind of set you apart when it comes to like, LLM search.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's. It's one of those things where it was hard to imagine something supplanting search, right?

[Victoria Blackwell]

Like, I know, right?

[Greg Kilstrom]

Let's say, I mean, it was like, what? I mean, Google is a verb And a, A name. Right.

[Victoria Blackwell]

So.

[Greg Kilstrom]

But now it's changed. I mean, still, at the end of the day, I mean, good content is good content, right? I mean, what, I guess what's, what's. What should be the same that, you know, in, in this scenario, I mean, you know, you talked about some of the differences, but you know, what, what should brands still keep doing?

[Victoria Blackwell]

I guess I think you have to have like a true knowledge of your brand value and how you come across in messaging. When I first started at G2, I was doing a lot of like, product like additions. Basically every single product that comes through on G2 that's submitted is checked by a human, like, because we want to make sure that there's like integrity behind like the products that are going on our site. And you would not believe like some of the product like links and websites that I would see that would have no clear brand messaging, like, whatsoever where I would have to dig deep and like Google and research. These companies that had no clear brand messaging, but their site looked like something that they had like created with like a developer. So it's like, can only, only really kind of keep up the facade for so long other than like, oh, well, it looks good, so I must trust them. No, it's beyond that. Brands who have longevity, brands who have like, really solid brand integrity from literally like toe to tip, like, can really like, understand why it's so important to have these like, really incredible and solid, like messaging pieces that tell you what you do, how you can help, what's like, the best way to use me? How can I. How much am I like? All of these different things that I think a lot of people don't really think about when they're creating a business from like, behind like a screen. And that I think is like some of the best and most genuine ways to keep like, longevity in success for a brand for a business. And you can see that with like Salesforce, you know exactly what they do.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Right? Right.

[Victoria Blackwell]

Like, you know, that's like a legacy software brand. Microsoft, you know what they do. Like, there's very much brand trust behind being as clear as possible.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah. Yeah. Love it. Well, Victoria, thanks so much for joining today. One last question for you before we wrap up here. I like to ask everybody, what do you do? What do you do to stay agile in your role and how do you find a way to do it consistently?

[Victoria Blackwell]

Oof. Agility. One of my favorite words. I literally, on my, one of my first tech resumes, I described myself as that in my opening paragraph of who and what I'm about. And I had one recruiter, she was like, oh my gosh, agility. I never thought that would be a tool that like I could like rely on for someone. I was like, hell yeah, it is. So I would say probably, I think just always being like a constant student, that is something like you will never know everything. You will not always be right. You will never like, I think sometimes not know the answer. Like all of those things. I think like having that forever student mindset and the humility to know that you're always going to be a student, I think is what keeps like people agile. And especially for me, I want to kind of just very much. I know this sounds so lame, but very much like, like a student of like life is probably one of the best ways because in order to really get to know like people and brands and messaging and like what resonates, what doesn't, like, you just got to be out there. You got to be learning, reading, listening, like all of these different things. And I think one of the ways that I do it consistently is that I really do carve out the time to make sure that I do do that. And I'm not just focused on like a single sector or a single area of interest. That I think is probably what has made me most agile and definitely helped me be consistent doing it.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, I love that. Well, again, I'd like to thank Victoria Blackwell, Senior Program Manager of research insights at G2, for joining the show. You can learn more about Victoria and G2 and get a copy of the report by following the links in the show notes.

[Victoria Blackwell]

Thank you Greg.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Thanks so much. Thanks again for listening to the B2B Agility podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please take a minute to subscribe and leave us a rating so that others can find the show more easily. You can access more episodes of the show at www.b2bagility.com. That's B2B agility.com. while you're there, check out my series of best selling agile brand guides covering a wide variety of marketing technology topics. Or you can search for Greg Kilstrom on Amazon. Until next time, stay focused and stay agile.

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