LinkedIn ads are expensive! And too many times, I have seen over and over again B2B companies making the same mistakes with their campaigns that turn out to be a complete waste of their ad budget. Let's unfold that and see what could you have done better to make LinkedIn ads work for you! 

Back when COVID-19 first happened, APAC was one of the first regions that got hit. And it was a tough time for marketers. All the roadshows, conferences or field events had to be paused or somehow transformed into virtual in a very short timeframe. You weren’t exactly sure how long it would last. And that made planning 10x more difficult than it already was. 

This time, we have got Sandeep John who is the Head of Field Marketing, South East Asia at Freshworks. He shared with me what that experience was like for him and the processes that he had to go through with his team to assess the whole situation and decide what to do next. 

Here are some of the key learnings that I was able to capture from our conversation. 

With information being decentralized, platforms like communities, slack groups and Facebook groups became the go to destinations where people would do research on your product and services. And that’s why you see more and more brands starting to build their own communities or acquire one instead. 

Seedly, being the number one online personal finance community in Singapore, I was able to invite their Head of Marketing, Yeap Ming Feng to share a bit with me about his journey in building Seedly’s community and how he acquired app users through organic marketing. 

Let’s dive in and see what key learnings I got from our conversation. 

Marketing in APAC is difficult! Because it is a region that is made up of so many different countries with different languages and cultures. Often times, people make the mistake of seeing this region as a whole and don't realise the amount of localisation that needs to be done. 

To truly go from global to local, a partner marketing program is a popular tactic companies would take to attack the different countries in the region. But identifying the right partners is always a challenge. This time, we have got Ankesh Sagar, Head of Marketing, APJ at Workato sharing with us his filtering and selection process when it comes to partner marketing. And talked about how he started the partner marketing initiative and scaled it across the region. 

Check it out! 

When content marketing is done right, not only will it drive revenue to your existing products or solutions, but it can also help you unlock new product ideas or revenue streams. With the likes of Lego creating movies and cartoons to Salesforce charging money for their big conferences, these are already examples that you can see. 

But how do you do that? I was able to invite Daniel Hochuli, Head of Content Solutions for APAC and China at LinkedIn to share more with us his unique definition of content marketing. And how content marketing and brand actually contribute to the growth of companies.

Let’s see what I have learnt! 

Generating demand has always been the main goal of marketing but the ways companies achieve that have gone through dramatic changes over the years. 

David Fallarme, Asia Head of Marketing at HubSpot shared his views and opinions on the history and evolution of demand generation. He talks about how brands should identify the changes that are happening and adjust their marketing or demand generation strategy instead of sticking to the old ways of doing things. 

Let’s see what major learnings and takeaways I got out of our conversation. 

Doing marketing at a startup is difficult. You have limited resources, you are still trying to find product market fit and there are just so many areas that can go wrong. 

And lucky enough, we have got Thibaut Briere, Founder and Managing Director at Growth Marketing Studio to share with us the steps and roadmap that startups should follow to have a higher chance of success. 

Time to see what I have learnt! 

Content marketing is nothing new. It has been here since companies produced their first flyers for their audience to promote about their products. 

But obviously over the years, content marketing has changed tremendously and became really competitive because nowadays, anyone can basically build their own website and publish content on different channels.

So how do you stand out and win? This time we got Alfred Lua, who spent close to 6 years at Buffer and now he is the Marketing Lead at ReferralCandy. He will be sharing with us his content marketing approach to win in such a content crowded market with a small team and compete against other giants like HubSpot and more. 

Let’s see what I have learnt from our conversation.

In B2B, sales and marketing might not always have a good relationship within the company. And that can be caused by various reasons from goal misalignments, poor communication to the culture of the company. 

In order for a company to truly scale and grow, sales and marketing need to work hand in hand. And this time we got Neha Garg, Demand Generation Manager, APAC at Contentsquare sharing with us how she developed a close relationship with sales and how that helped make her job easier as a marketer.

Contentsquare has raised over USD 812 million in funding and they are a digital experience analytics platform that enables businesses to track online customer behavior and transforms this knowledge into intelligent recommendations for users to increase revenue, engagement and growth. 

Let’s dive in to see how a closed sales and marketing relationship is built. 

Lead scoring has always been a tricky topic in B2B marketing and often being seen as a process that is being done in a black box. 

In this episode, it was great to have Vinnie Romano, Found and Director of Dough joining me to go through his process of developing the lead scoring model for one of his previous clients and how the marketing campaign was able to drive over USD 60 million in new business sales. 

Time to dive into some of my key takeaways that I learnt from our conversation.