IN CLEAR FOCUS: Kate Mackie, EY partner and the author of July’s Bigeye Book Club selection “B2B Marketing Fundamentals,” explores four pillars of success: brand, reputation, relationships, and revenue. Kate discusses why brand matters in B2B Marketing, managing complex buyer journeys, leveraging AI for connected data, and translating marketing impact into business language. Kate shares her proven strategies for building stronger B2B brands and driving measurable revenue outcomes. 

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Episode Transcript

Adrian Tennant: Coming up in this episode of IN CLEAR FOCUS …

Kate Mackie: Fear is one of the biggest key drivers in decision-making in B2B, which means that a well-known brand is going to be much more accepted than an unknown one. And I think as a brand, you have to be both easy to mind and easy to find. Selling to a business doesn’t mean selling to a building. It means selling to a group of humans.

Adrian Tennant: You’re listening to IN CLEAR FOCUS, fresh perspectives on marketing and advertising, produced weekly by Bigeye, a strategy-led, full-service creative agency growing brands for clients globally. Hello, I’m your host, Adrian Tennant, Chief Strategy Officer. Thank you for joining us. B2B marketing is perceived by some to be the less glamorous cousin of consumer marketing, viewed as purely tactical, focused on lead generation rather than brand building. Yet B2B represents at least 50% of the value in major business indices, such as the FTSE or Forbes lists, encompassing everything from Microsoft and Google to the professional services that power the global economy. The reality is that B2B marketing requires a sophisticated understanding of complex buyer journeys, multiple stakeholders, and the delicate balance between rational business needs and the very human emotions that drive decision-making. Our guest today is uniquely positioned to guide us through the evolving landscape of B2B marketing. Kate Mackie is a partner at EY and the Global Marketing Lead, where she oversees marketing strategy and technology initiatives for one of the world’s largest professional services firms. With over 20 years of experience spanning both B2B and B2C sectors, including senior roles at GE Capital, Kate brings a wealth of practical expertise to the field. She’s also a Fellow of The Chartered Institute of Marketing and a member of The Marketing Society. Well, she was recognized as one of 2023’s most influential marketers, and she’s a mentor for entry-level marketers. Kate’s new book, published by Kogan Page, is “B2B Marketing Fundamentals: Drive Impact Across Brand, Reputation, Relationships, and Revenue.” To discuss how B2B marketers can build stronger brands, drive measurable revenue impact, and navigate the opportunities presented by AI and digital transformation, I’m delighted that Kate is joining us today from Wiltshire in the UK. Kate, welcome to IN CLEAR FOCUS. 

Kate Mackie: Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. 

Adrian Tennant: What inspired you to write “B2B Marketing Fundamentals“?

Kate Mackie: Well, there’s a couple of things. So from a work perspective, I mentor an awful lot of early to mid-level marketers. And having worked across both B2C and B2B marketing, I noticed that the questions that were coming up were always really quite similar. And particularly in the B2B space, it felt like there was a common gap in the fundamentals of knowledge and training. And at the same time, I was approached by Kogan Page because I’d been kind of a voice out in the market on LinkedIn around various topics to see if I wanted to write a marketing-specific book with them. And we brainstormed a few ideas, and actually the gap in the market that I’d been kind of plugging through mentoring felt like the right place for a book around the fundamentals of B2B marketing. So that’s kind of the professional side. And then personally, it took me quite a while to sign the delivery contract once we got there. I was slightly frozen with fear around how do I execute this and kind of enable the time and the space to deliver on it. And I distinctly remember sitting in my car about to drive my daughter to her football match, and she plays soccer for those in the US, and I was talking about it with her. And she said, “You find time to watch enough TV, Mummy, I think you’ll be fine.” And because of that, I couldn’t really say no. So then I signed the contract the next day.

Adrian Tennant: Well, I love that your daughter was part of the inspiration.

Kate Mackie: Yes, she was. And she did point out, you know, it’s that slight sort of joy of having your name on the spine of a book as well. So, you know, it is something that I had always wanted to do, but never really had the impetus to do it. So it was great to get there.

Adrian Tennant: In your book’s introduction, you argue that there’s never been a better time to be a B2B marketer. Kate, what makes you so optimistic about the current state of B2B marketing?

Kate Mackie: I’m really optimistic about B2B marketing. If you look at everything that’s been coming out over the past few months, you know, can there’s the first B2B marketing focus there or a specific one. And you can see that actually the focus is absolutely turning to B2B. And it’s partly because it is the powerhouse of most economies with greater than 50% of those business indices you referenced, absolutely focusing on the B2B space. And yet we’re really underrepresented within most marketing contexts. So if you think about general awards or any of the kind of training programs and things, it’s very much a focus on B2C. I also think with the advent of tech and tools, we can absolutely simplify hugely difficult buyer groups and journeys and really start to lean in much further from a marketing perspective and have much more impact. And I think what’s really important is where we’re really starting to see the value of brand in the B2B space. the intangible value of the brand has always been something that’s been understood by the B2C teams and B2C focused marketing teams, primarily because they are talking much more closely to a consumer that they’re very much familiar with. And as we start to think about the B2B side, the kind of question on brand has always been there, but I actually think this is now the perfect time to kind of pivot into that brand space.

Adrian Tennant: You organize your book around four key pillars: brand, reputation, relationships, and revenue. Why did you choose these four areas as the foundation for B2B marketing success?

Kate Mackie: For me, it’s all about starting with the objectives and strategy for your business and then aligning your marketing objectives with those. And that generally means that your marketing outcomes will exist within these four areas of impact. So all four are recognized as outcomes for both the business as a whole and marketing as a focus. And I really think that if we can tie those together, so we’re thinking about brand reputation, revenue, and relationships from both a business perspective and also a marketing perspective, it means we can translate what we do from a marketing side into the language of your business. And that means that your KPIs and objectives should really align togethe,r and your organization should understand what it is that marketing can deliver and therefore value the team and the focus in that space in a slightly different way. I think B2B has always undervalued marketing. It’s very much focused on kind of the experience, the relationships, how do you drive the reputation the right way, but if we start to look at it in the same terminology and the same kind of focus as our business, we can then really align our reporting against the business reporting and mean that nothing’s lost in translation.

Adrian Tennant: Well, of those four key pillars, let’s start with brand. Many B2B companies still view branding as less important than lead generation. Kate, why does brand matter more than many B2B marketers think?

Kate Mackie: I personally think that if you sell anything, you’re generally selling to a person or a human and brand matters to that person. And to be honest, as tools and tech move forward and potentially we start to sell to machines or agents in the future, it will probably matter more because it’s more around the reference credibility. So I think there’s a huge part to play in the brand space. And I always try and explain it when we compare it against the consumer side of the world, that no one ever got fired for buying toothpaste. Making the wrong decision in B2B has a much greater potential downside to you as an individual when you have to pay your mortgage and feed your family through your salary. So fear is one of the biggest key drivers in decision-making in B2B, which means that a well-known brand is going to be much more accepted than an unknown one, which kind of goes back to the old adage of no one gets fired for buying IBM. And I think as a brand, you have to be both easy to mind and easy to find, which I think is a Byron Sharp quote. And for B2B it’s even more important when you need to be a trusted organization across a huge buying group and with those elongated buying processes that often exist in B2B. It means that the majority of buyers aren’t in the market at any one time, so having real creative consistency and staying top of mind to your potential buyers is key. You have to resonate with those buyers with creative consistency, differentiated standouts and execution to really help you do that so that when a buyer is ready, you come to mind first and are not rejected by the broader buying group as an unknown and therefore a more risky purchase.

Adrian Tennant: Yeah, I think like 5% of buyers are in-market at any given moment.

Kate Mackie: Exactly. And so they need to remember you as they get ever closer to a potential purchase.

Adrian Tennant: Moving to reputation. Now you described this as one of a B2B company’s most valuable assets. How can B2B brands build and manage their reputation effectively?

Kate Mackie: So I think reputation has a huge crossover with B2C and this is where there’s a lot of commonalities. The reputation of your organization, the way it behaves, the way the product or service is delivered is absolutely key to the buyer. Purpose and values that you have and the culture that you drive are also hugely important both to the B2C buyer and the B2B buyer. But in B2B, trust is so much more important because it’s absolutely a back to that premise of fear as a buying driver. And the entwinement of brand and reputation is key. We always talk about it as being a brand is what a brand does. And we know that 70% of the brand is driven by the experience that the user has. So reputation absolutely starts internally, and that internal experience then needs to reflect through everything that your organization delivers, backed up through more traditional reputation management, PR, social, and external communications.

Adrian Tennant: It all starts with the experience.

Kate Mackie: I would think so. Yeah, the human experience, absolutely.

Adrian Tennant: Your third pillar is relationships. In B2B marketing, relationships often span, as you noted, multiple stakeholders and long sale cycles. How should marketers think about managing these complex relationship dynamics?

Kate Mackie: For me, and it’s, you know, people often talk about the cool stuff, the new tech. Actually for me, data is key. When we talk about the tools and the tech, it’s the plumbing. Whereas as data is what powers it and data is hugely key to ensuring that we’re really thinking about relationships in the right way, particularly when they’re hugely complex. And understanding those buying signals, the pivot points and knowing when someone needs to be communicated with. So when they’re at that point of purchase or about to be. All of that information can be found by connecting the right data, particularly if you are an enterprise of a huge size where you might be dealing with multiplicity of buyers in different geographies. The only way you can find the right insight to be able to further those relationships in the right way is through bringing all of that data together. And that’s by working really closely with your sales and account teams. helping you build the right experience that then enables that relationship to move to the next level, enhancing and building trust so that, again, you become an obvious point, an obvious choice when the time is right to purchase.

Adrian Tennant: Last, but most definitely not least, revenue is your fourth pillar. And you emphasize connecting marketing to measurable business outcomes. Kate, how can B2B marketers better demonstrate their impact on revenue?

Kate Mackie: I think it comes back to absolutely translating what we say in marketing into the business language and the business vernacular. So however your business reports success measures, however it measures that revenue, however it measures growth, you should absolutely align your marketing outcomes to those objectives of the business and ensure that your reporting mirrors what the business is used to seeing and also connecting marketing to revenue directly through any of your tools or technology, through your CRM, using campaign IDs and enabling yourself to absolutely think about both direct and indirect revenue through campaign tracking and connected data is hugely key. You have to think about how you are telling the story. We’re storytellers as marketers. How do you tell that story for your internal audience? We do a fantastic job externally and often forget that we speak a different language internally. And then you have to ensure that you start with the impact that you’re trying to drive from any of the programs you might be executing and manage the expectations around those. So if it is a brand campaign, what are you trying to drive? Is it awareness? Is it a move towards consideration? And if it’s a sales motion, are you measuring exact sales and direct sales? And really making sure that when you set up your campaigns, those who are your stakeholders understand what you’re trying to achieve, how you’re going to achieve it, and then report on it in a regular basis in a language that they understand. so they can truly understand the impact of marketing.

Adrian Tennant: Perfect. Now, you discuss the role of AI and connected data throughout the book. How is artificial intelligence changing the B2B marketing landscape?

Kate Mackie: I have to say, I’m very excited that this was the first time we’ve mentioned AI in our conversation. It’s normally the second or third word that we come to, so I think we’ve done very well. But I’m also very excited that the potential of what AI can really bring to B2B, because we are finally getting to the point where omnichannel campaigns, headless CMS, and fully connected data can be built at an efficient level. I think for a B2C firm or B2C organization, there’s a lot more that can be done in a direct line, in a direct kind of connection between marketing and revenue. Where we have to deal with the multiplicity of individuals within that buying group and that lengthy buying cycle, it’s much more difficult and there’s much more data. And I think AI gives us the potential opportunity to really do that at scale, which we’ve never been able to do before. And I also think that the power of the creative tools that we have at our fingertips is hugely important. I don’t think we’ve quite got there yet in terms of understanding what that creativity can unlock. And I just think the broad efficiency that AI enables us with will help B2B marketers come out of the weeds. A lot of the admin, a lot of the detail and the data can be done by the tools, tech and agents that we pull in as we move forward. And having that augmented marketing team through AI and through the insights that AI can bring, all delivered in real time, we’ll absolutely start to see a much more strategic focus on the impacts that we can drive, both for in-year revenue, but also for long-term brand build as well.

Adrian Tennant: Have you seen any impact on the work you’re doing already at EY?

Kate Mackie: Absolutely. So we have our own large language model, which we have pulled down and off and are using within our own kind of systems called EYQ. And we use it as a starter for pretty much everything. So for any drafting, when I’m thinking about communications following a webcast or any of the kind of follow-up comms that I’m doing to any of my team, I can put my webcast in there. I can put the content for that in and then really get summarized outcomes, which help me drive a much more efficient way. of really communicating with the team and making sure that I’m using it as a first port of call for any kind of research that I’m doing as well. And it’s something that is trained on our tools, our tech, our systems. So it gives us access to an incredible amount of data. And we have EY.AI, which is our platform, which brings together technology, people, and processes to really enable us to jump forward and think about how we not only transform EY but transform the business for our clients and also the world at large as we focus on building a better working world as part of our purpose.

Adrian Tennant: Let’s take a short break. We’ll be right back after this message.

Kate Mackie: Hello, I’m Kate Mackie, author of “B2B Marketing Fundamentals: Drive Impact Across Brand, Reputation, Relationships, and Revenue,” published by Kogan Page.  My book translates well-proven marketing theories and frameworks into actionable strategies specifically designed for B2B marketing.  Drawing on over 20 years of experience, I address the unique complexities that B2B marketers face on a daily basis.  This book will help you build stronger brands and drive measurable revenue results. You’ll discover how to leverage AI and connected data for actionable insights, with real-world examples to illustrate effective B2B marketing in practice.  As an IN CLEAR FOCUS listener, you can save 25 percent on “B2B Marketing Fundamentals,” when you order directly from KoganPage.com. Just enter the exclusive promo code BIGEYE25 at checkout.  Shipping is always complimentary for customers in the US and UK.  I hope my book helps you develop the foundational knowledge and skills necessary to deliver effective marketing strategies that drive tangible business impact. Thank you!

Adrian Tennant: Welcome back. I’m talking with Kate Mackie, partner at EY and author of “B2B Marketing Fundamentals.” Kate, your book includes real-world examples from companies like Barclays, EY, and the Marketing Society. Now, as regular listeners know, we love case studies on IN CLEAR FOCUS. So, could you share one or two that exemplify effective B2B marketing in action?

Kate Mackie: I think there’s some fantastic examples at the moment. And if you start to kind of dig under the hood of a whole load of creativity that’s being exhibited in the B2B space, we can go from things like the SaaS products that are really driving fantastic revenue and looking at performance marketing in an incredibly focused way. But then also thinking about how we drive humanized branding. And if you look at some of the stuff that the teams at ServiceNow are doing, I was over at Knowledge25 and some of the stuff that they’re building out is hugely important and impactful and really changing the shape of their business to be much more client centric and human focused, which really aligns with what we do at EY by putting humans at the center of our enterprise transformations and enabling our clients to shape the future with confidence as they kind of look to unlock their future at a great time of disruption. all the way through to fantastic campaigns that are around particularly tricky topics. So one of the things that I like at the moment is in the UK we have a waste management company called Biffa and they have done a brilliant campaign that is all around the human-centric approach to waste management and what could you do, “What if?” is the campaign, what if you thought about waste in a different way and thought about it in terms of recycling opportunities and circular economy and I think, you know, looking at both of those, both the ServiceNow, I think there’s an Idris Elba series of ads, but also the stuff that Bitha’s doing, it’s all about bringing the human insight into the brand truth and bringing those two together. And I think that for me is where we exemplify absolute examples of creativity that we can all really learn from.

Adrian Tennant: You emphasize the importance of audience targeting in B2B, including primary, secondary and tertiary buyers. How should marketers approach this complexity?

Kate Mackie: For me, this goes back to the true fundamentals. Who are you targeting and what do they need? And selling to a business doesn’t mean selling to a building, it means selling to a group of humans. And those people are all aligned to their buying needs and their buying behaviors. And primary buyers are probably the people signing the contract, the people who’ve looked at the purchase and are the main initiator of the conversation. Secondary buyers might be those approving the purchase, so who’s signing it off? Does the board have to take a view on the purchase itself? And then tertiary might be the next layer, the internal specialists who are asked for an opinion on a purchase. And all of those make up the audience that you’re trying to target for any of your large-scale enterprise sales. So I think as you start to look at how you plan out your programs, your initiatives, your executions, really thinking about who is involved in the buy, both from an actual buyer, a user and an influencer, and then making sure that you’re executing your strategy to include all of the audiences that you need to influence, will really help at that point of purchase so that you are a known brand that is able to demonstrate the value that that buyer needs, whether it’s the primary, secondary or the tertiary buyer, as they look to move forward.

Adrian Tennant: Your book discusses both internal and external communications. Why is internal advocacy so crucial for B2B marketing success?

Kate Mackie: I think that internal communications is hugely important because your internal teams are often the first audience that you have to sell to. They’re often also the most cynical. So getting those internal teams behind your messaging as true advocates for your brand, for your business, for your marketing ensures that at whatever point they might have a prospect or client touchpoint, They ensure that the messaging and experience really aligns with the brand, the values and the story that you’re trying to tell. For instance, if you have retail outlets or call centers, every single person in those seats is hugely important as a frontline brand advocate and will impact the trust and confidence that your buyers have in the products and services that you’re selling.

Adrian Tennant: Got it. You mentioned the importance of “finding the white space” in B2B marketing. Could you just explain what this means and how marketers can identify it?

Kate Mackie: So “white space” for me is where you, as an individual business, can find what will help you have a springboard or an area to differentiate against your competition. So if you’re all, for instance, targeting the CFO, and you’re all talking about exactly the same thing, there is no differentiation. You have to be able to differentiate. The vanilla kind of “me too” approach to any of our products and service messaging just doesn’t stand out. So finding the white space is absolutely about really carving out what might differentiate you, your business, your service, and enabling that to be targeted at the buyer or potential buyer in the right way. And you can find that by working through your SWOT analysis. What is it that differentiates you? What are the strengths, the weaknesses, the opportunities, and threats? And then really thinking about what does that mean when you align your PESTLE, so any of the kind of the broader market context around you, to really understand exactly what it might be that makes you stand out. And then understanding why your current buyers buy. What is it that those current buyers get? What’s the value that you give to them? What is it that they feel that you’re delivering as well as the product itself? So really digging into what it is that you as a business can differentiate on, but also what it is that your current customers experience enables you to then think about that why space as you move forward.

Adrian Tennant: You used an acronym there, Kate, “PESTLE.” Could you just explain what that is?

Kate Mackie: So for anyone who is not familiar with PESTLE, it’s about looking at your kind of macro trends and the context around your business. So what is happening politically, economically, socially, technologically, legally, and environmentally. There are slightly different meanings for some of those letters, but that’s the way that I interpret it.

Adrian Tennant: Perfect, thank you. In your wide experience leading global marketing teams, what’s the biggest mistake you see B2B marketers making today?

Kate Mackie: I think it comes down to language again. So misunderstanding what it is that your business is asking you for and not aligning your vernacular with that of the business. So really thinking about how your business measures success, aligning your metrics to that, And then really starting to think about what impact it is that marketing teams can deliver and what’s in your gift as well. So sometimes people overstretch themselves and think that they can drive huge difference through some, you know, some of the BMC or brand marketing communications campaigns. And I think absolutely managing expectations and understanding where you can play is going to set you up for success.

Adrian Tennant: You’re a mentor for entry-level marketers. Kate, what advice do you give to someone just starting their career in B2B marketing?

Kate Mackie: I would say “Find a mentor,” if I’m honest, because I do think finding somebody who’s in a spot that you might want to get to and can give you advice and can talk through any of the areas you might be interested in. And I do think places like the ANA, The Marketing Society are all absolutely brilliant in connecting you to folks who might be higher up the tree, longer in tenure and have experience that they can share with you. So I do think really leaning into some of those networks will help you. But then also concentrate on learning and staying up to date with things so that you’re absolutely positioning yourself in the right place as you start to move forward. And then the third would be to look at your CV as if you were hiring yourself. So what is it that when you look at your CV that you think is missing? And then sometimes those side steps are as good as a step up. to make sure that you’re filling any of the gaps. So don’t necessarily see a sidestep as a negative because actually what it does is help you fill in some of the areas that you might not have full depth in and as you get higher up that ladder you do need to have a broad spread of experiences.

Adrian Tennant: I’m curious, how has your experience of both GE Capital and EY shaped your perspectives on B2B marketing across different industries and markets?

Kate Mackie: So I started touching on B2B as a consultant, as an agency person. So I worked in WPP for quite a while, then moved into digital and data agencies, and then GE, and then ultimately EY. And across all of the landscape, I think What it has shown me is that B2B is really interesting. It’s tricky. It stretches you and it challenges you. And you have to think slightly differently because you’re not necessarily the buyer of the product that you’re selling. Whereas I used to sell retail mortgages and that sort of stuff through various methods. And I could, you know, it’s a straight line. You can see exactly what the benefit is to the individual. But I think putting yourself in the customer’s shoes is absolutely key when you start to think about B2B products and services that you might not necessarily be an obvious buyer for. And then being curious about what it is that those buyers might need or how your brand can absolutely deliver to those needs and what differentiates you from the competition is something that really needs you to lean in and become curious and really think about how you might deliver a better product or service to your customers versus the competition.

Adrian Tennant: Love that. What’s the most important takeaway you want readers to implement after reading “B2B Marketing Fundamentals“?

Kate Mackie: I think it’s all about enjoying the journey, if I’m honest, because there’s no straight line career. There’s no obvious portfolio that you need to step into or across in order to get to wherever you want to get to. And everybody’s different. But I think the thing that will make your B2B marketing experience really successful is the people around you, the kindness that you and your team show each other, and the fact that marketing is an absolute team sport. So you really have to enjoy leaning in, working hard and understanding exactly what it is that your potential customers and prospects need.

Adrian Tennant: Lovely conversation. Kate, if listeners would like to learn more about your work, your book, “B2B Marketing Fundamentals,” or connect with you, what’s the best way to do so?

Kate Mackie: So the best way to do that is on LinkedIn, and I am Kate Mackie on LinkedIn. It’s not too hard to find me, and I will always accept any requests, pretty much, and any questions, please do ask me on LinkedIn.

Adrian Tennant: Perfect. And a reminder that IN CLEAR FOCUS listeners can save 25% on “B2B Marketing Fundamentals” when you order directly from KoganPage.com using the promo code BIGEYE25 at checkout. Kate, thank you very much for being our guest this week on IN CLEAR FOCUS! 

Kate Mackie: And thank you for having me. 

Adrian Tennant: Thanks again to my guest this week, Kate Mackie, partner at EY and author of “B2B Marketing Fundamentals.” As always, you’ll find a complete transcript of our conversation with timestamps and links to the resources we discussed on the IN CLEAR FOCUS page at Bigeyeagency.com. Just select ‘Insights’ from the menu. Thank you for listening to IN CLEAR FOCUS, produced by Bigeye. I’ve been your host, Adrian Tennant. Until next week, goodbye.

TIMESTAMPS

00:00: Introduction to B2B Marketing

02:20: Meet Kate Mackie: Insights and Inspiration

04:29: The Optimism in B2B Marketing Today

05:58: Four Pillars of B2B Marketing Success

07:20: The Importance of Brand in B2B

09:09: Building and Managing Reputation

10:21: Navigating Complex Relationships in B2B

11:55: Connecting Marketing to Revenue

13:31: The Role of AI in B2B Marketing

15:03: Real-World Examples of Effective B2B Marketing

17:25: Audience Targeting in B2B

20:54: The Importance of Internal Advocacy

21:46: Finding White Space in B2B Marketing

23:09: Understanding the PESTLE Framework

23:39: Common Mistakes in B2B Marketing

24:29: Advice for Entry-Level Marketers

25:44: Lessons from GE Capital and EY

27:01: Key Takeaways from “B2B Marketing Fundamentals“

27:46: Connecting with Kate Mackie