All Marketing Is B2P (Business to People)

INTRO:

You're listening to CX Confessions, brought to you by Khoros. In each episode, we’ll share the customer experience stories and insights you need — straight from the sharpest minds in CX — to better connect with your customers and create customers for life. Let's start the show.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

Hello and welcome back to CX Confessions. I'm your host, Katherine Calvert, Chief Marketing Officer for Khoros, joined as always by the most amazing co-host in the industry, Mr. Spike Jones. How're you doing, Spike?

SPIKE JONES:

I'm doing fantastic. Excited about this talk today. Very much looking forward to it.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

It's gonna be a good one. Spike, as you all know, our devoted listeners, is the GM of our Strat Services business. Our amazing guest today is Jessica Jensen, CMO of Indeed. Of course, everybody knows Indeed. It is the world's largest job site matching seekers and employers, companies of all stripes across verticals. So this is a business focused on creating opportunity.

They have an amazing leader in Jessica, who joined the company just under a year ago. So this is — they're lucky to have her, I'll tell you that, because Jess brings a wealth of experience. She's a brand innovator. She was most recently at the Booking Holdings family where she was SVP of marketing for Kayak, a travel company, and also CMO at OpenTable. Before that she spent time at Facebook. She worked on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp prior to Facebook — or Meta, maybe I should say prior to Meta — she held senior positions at Apple and Yahoo, and this rock star started her career at the Boston Consulting Group, so.

SPIKE JONES:

I’ve never heard of any of these brands by the way. I don't, I mean, I don't know where we get these guests.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

Yeah, I mean, she definitely, she's always liked to stay at low-profile companies. No. She is bringing a ton of energy and brilliance to Indeed. We are excited to have you on the show. Welcome.

JESSICA JENSEN:

Thank you so much. Oh my gosh, Katherine, any time I get to spend with you is a joy. You're such a phenomenal marketing leader and human and Spike, great to get some time with you and your audience. So I really appreciate you having me join you.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

We are so excited to have you here and one of the many reasons, in addition to being one of my idols and a good pal —

JESSICA JENSEN:

I don't think I’ve earned that, Katherine. That’s a high bar.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

It's true. But in addition to all of that good stuff, one of the things that Spike and I talk a lot about with our guests on the show is the difference between B2B marketing and B2C marketing and is there really a difference at all? And I know that you have spent a career working across both of those distinctions, whether they're real or not. I'm so curious to hear your take on what it means to be a B2B marketer or a B2C marketer, or as a brand should you even be thinking about these distinctions?

JESSICA JENSEN:

That is a rich vein indeed, and I still am trying to not use “indeed” in that way. I'm still trying to use it as only a brand and not as a part of my vernacular. And obviously, you can see I'm still struggling with that. I think of marketing as B2P. Business to people. And I think that the distinction — there are of course, important distinctions, right? If you're selling nuclear submarines to the Navy, that's a pretty distinctive B2B audience. But most things are selling to people and people are emotional and logical and irrational, and they're all looking for simple, clear offerings that also pull at their heartstrings. And I think that those of us who have spent a long time in B2B might say that we sometimes lose the heart string or lose the focus on simplicity. And that really, the discipline of good consumer marketing is the same as good B2B marketing, which is based on insights, clarity of offering, and storytelling and emotion. So I think it's kind of one delicious soup pot.

SPIKE JONES:

I was told a long time ago, and I don't know if this holds water. I don’t know if it held water then, I don't know if it holds water now, but I always was told like B2B and B2B marketing, those people want information they want to get better and smarter at their jobs. And business to consumer marketing, it's like they just want stuff. Give me some free stuff. I mean, what do you think about that?

JESSICA JENSEN:

Well, I mean, I think information is key in both areas, and certainly in a B2B context, I would say the bar for clear, useful information is probably, in some cases, higher, but we tend to bludgeon customers with information, right. Like I would say that in my travels through the marketing landscape, I've seen an incredible amount of information bludgeoning and that's something I really work with. My team's —

KATHERINE CALVERT:

Violent, but it is a powerful image. Yeah, I like that.

JESSICA JENSEN:

Maybe it's, maybe it's just drowning, not bludgeoning. I could make it slightly less violent.

SPIKE JONES:

I don't know if that's better.

JESSICA JENSEN:

I mean, you know, consumers are a rich and complex group of humans, and sometimes they want cheap stuff, and sometimes they want the best and so, you know, I mean, so I think, you know, we're always trying to get to audience insights that allow us to land the plane in the best way possible.

I think one nuance for my career that may be interesting to some people — or incredibly tedious, depending on their point of view — I've spent a great period of time in marketplace businesses, right. So you have B2C and B2B consumers and businesses in the flywheel together. So everybody that we were selling to at Facebook, Instagram Messenger was also a human being using those platforms as people, right. So they bring all of their biases, all of their misunderstandings, their likes, their dislikes, to their B2B experience with us, right? OpenTable: we sell to restaurants as a business and then all of them also use OpenTable as a consumer. Indeed, we sell to, we sell it to employers who run, you know, or single proprietors or giant enterprises, and most of them have engaged with Indeed as a job-seeker at some point. So you're constantly, you know, thinking about the messaging and the positioning across the marketplace, which I find wonderfully complex and exciting, but harder to get right.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

I was just gonna say, I think that when you — I love the idea of B2P, right, that whatever we are selling, whichever side of the B2B, B2C you sit on to do it well, you just have to know who you're talking to. And whether it is a huge group of consumers that have a certain profile, what do they care about? What do they need? These are the questions you ask about developing a simple and clear message that adds value. Those questions are the same, the answers are going to be very different.

JESSICA JENSEN:

Well said. Couldn't agree more.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

I was curious: I think this leads into a notion you touched on of the consumerization of business, right. Everybody — we saw this. We’re of an age, Jess, where we remember when enterprise software was horrible and ugly and not intuitive and it didn’t matter because it was software and then that has become a real way to table stakes, really, the people expect their business software to be as intuitive as the stuff they use on their phone.

And that I think is related to what you were talking about, about that bleeding of the business versus the person who's actually buying it versus the person who's experiencing it. And that gets into one of our favorite topics, which is CX and the customer experience overall. So very curious about somebody who has spent their life, roughly, on the marketing side with a strong business angle there. Where did that notion of CX first come into your vernacular and how does it — what does it really mean to you?

JESSICA JENSEN:

Yeah, you know, it's funny, I was reflecting on this topic, and I think you and I and maybe Spike are, I was soaking in CX before it was CX, right. So I was in management consulting for six years with BCG (Boston Consulting Group). I did CX all day, every day, that was literally my life's mission. And then I think, you know, then Yahoo, Apple, a variety of places, it means different things and it has evolved very much. And I think we now think of it as kind of like the way we think of brand: it is the entirety of the experience, right? It's all of the touch points. It's everything from you know, at Indeed, it's everything from you as a small business person posting a job on our site, advertising it, receiving candidates, using screener assessment tests, like all of that all the way to making offers and tracking hires, like all of that has to be so intuitive, so simple, so clear.

And I really thank mobile devices for pushing us in this arena. Like the real estate that we have to blather at people is so limited now. And I think that that forces great marketing discipline, and product discipline, right, which all goes hand in hand.

But yeah, I mean, we you know, I think CX is maybe still a relatively new term on, you know, on my 25 years in the internet, but I think the way it has gotten so much richer in terms of personalization, and what we can deliver to people at very different places is so exciting. And so you know, we work with job seekers around the world. And that's everyone from accountants, to truck drivers, to warehouse workers, to nurses, to tech, you know, engineering, so we are dealing with literally humanity and all of the jobs and all of the interests of humans.

So the level of content specificity and messaging specificity and the platforms we use and the media we use is so nuanced by country and industry and size of industry. It's a lot to ingest and manage and think about, but the tools that we have to do that personalization is just mind bogglingly amazing compared to what, you know, six, seven years ago, even when you know, we were still very much in the mobile digital era, but at a very different level of capabilities, as you know better than anyone.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

Well, I think we'll talk about data in a minute or two, but I would love — now that you're at Indeed and I think that point about this just massive reservoir of information and how to use it carefully and thoughtfully and respectfully. You have this really powerful mission, right? You're there to help people get jobs. So how do you think about CX engagement — customer engagement — when you have, you know, a pretty complex, let alone incredibly diverse set of customers?

JESSICA JENSEN:

Right and customers for us is of course job seekers and employers. And so it's, we have 250 million people coming to us every month looking for jobs. So, gives you an idea of the complexity of who those humans are, their needs, their skills, what they're looking for in jobs. And then also for employers, it's everyone from the largest hires in the world to Bob's Pizza in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Possibly a real business. I don't know. I just made that up, and if Bob's out there, your pizza is amazing. But yeah, I mean, we are constantly, you know, we have a massive operation around doing customer research, both employers and job seekers, and always mining for insights.

I'll just share an anecdote: I was on a really interesting job seeker UX review recently where they had done a ton of video interviews with Hispanic Spanish-language job seekers in the US. And they — I thought this was so fascinating. They typically want information about jobs in Spanish language, but if a job listing — a job posting — is in Spanish, they think it is a lower quality or lower paid job.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

Wow. Wow.

JESSICA JENSEN:

So they want to look at job listings in English because the perception with them is that those are higher quality jobs, but then they want the information to be available in Spanish. So I know it’s just a tiny example of like, things that you would never understand, but that when you really dig into the experiment — oh, we also did videos recently of mothers looking for jobs. And basically if you're a working mother, you know that you are a human jungle gym and a worker, and women were literally physically trying to dislodge themselves from their children during live video interviews. So I'm sure people on this call have had that experience, and when you see the video captures of these things you're like, that is a very specific experience that we as marketers need to reflect and acknowledge and incorporate.

SPIKE JONES:

There's a couple of standard questions that we ask all of our guests, and they're my favorite questions of the whole program. One is: what is a commonly held belief or an industry practice that you just don't think is right? You just don't agree with it?

JESSICA JENSEN:

I don't agree with it. Well, in addition to B2C and B2B being B2P, I would say that I, in my travels, I have often seen performance marketing and brand as these kinds of maybe silos or different undertakings, and you got a brand team putting all this great stuff out and you got a performance team doing all this stuff. And if those things are aligned and coordinated, that would be wonderful. They often aren't, and I also just don't believe that they are radically different disciplines. I believe in brand-formance. I believe that brand marketing can and should drive business outcomes, and that it is often not used to its full potential to achieve those business outcomes. And I believe that performance marketing has to integrate brand and storytelling and humanity in a way that it often doesn't. So I'm constantly trying to drive those disciplines closer to each other.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

So that makes me wonder — let's use a real world example. I was watching the news and I saw some beautiful new ads from Indeed that made me very proud to know you. And I would love to hear how you brought those to market through the lens of what you were just talking about — brand-formance.

JESSICA JENSEN:

Well thank you so much. I appreciate you calling them out and liking them. Yeah. So we have an SMB (small and mid-sized businesses) targeted campaign called “I need Indeed.” And it focuses on different people in different industries trying to hire people for their small businesses. So it can be an auto mechanic, there's a woman who runs a kayaking company, there's restaurant owners — so it's really like trying to address the very different but real needs of business owners in different sectors. And then also they do double duty, right, because job seekers also see them and realize that we service all of these different industries and that there are employers actively looking for them and their skills. So the brand message is, “Indeed is an amazing hiring platform,” and, “Really, you probably need it if you are a job seeker or an employer,” and then we are also driving direct small business acquisition.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

That there's a place for you. It doesn't have to be that you're hiring a thousand new people in the contact center, you're looking for — I saw the kayak one, I think, last night.

JESSICA JENSEN:

Yeah, it's a woman kayak company owner. Yeah, it’s a fun one.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

Yes, she does — she's running a very cool business, but I also wanted to help her. She felt, her need, yes, she's compelling.

JESSICA JENSEN:

We are also running the ads in Spanish language as well. And for the Hispanic audience.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

Okay, super cool. Well, this might get, I think this leads us to our next question, but you might have a different answer. I'm always curious about how you think about ad performance and to make an investment at that scale, what's the data that you watch? But big picture, as Spike said, we always ask that question: What is the — we’re all drowning in data, to bring back another metaphor of death — there's so much data though, and sometimes it does feel like we're drowning. So we love to hear from our guests: what's the info, the data, that matters most to you to be successful in your day-to-day, week-to-week job?

JESSICA JENSEN:

I'd say probably this will ring true for you and people tuning in. Most businesses are trying to track too many things. You know, when I came in, the OKRs, across marketing, were probably, there's probably 50 of them? Some for SMB, some for Enterprise, some for Job Seeker, do, do, do,do. And you know, most of them are meaningful in some way. But for me as a CMO, and for my senior leadership team, we have gotten it down to six, right, like the overall health of the business and our marketing efforts, going to six metrics. I'm not going to bore you and tell you what they all are. But I mean, I think you know we are trying to, we are focused on excellent matching. Matching of jobseekers and their skills with employers and what employers need. So we care about brand awareness and equity at the highest level.

And we look at that by SMB and Enterprise and Job Seeker. But then the actual metrics that we are tracking are the business metrics for getting job seekers to join our network, upload a resume, and be engaged with the matching and interviewing process. And then for employers, are we bringing you the right candidates with the skills that you need? And that's not so many metrics, right? You know, I mean, it's, you know, there's things below that, qualified leads, and you know, good stuff underneath that. But at the highest level, we're trying to focus on fewer things that critically drive the business.

SPIKE JONES:

I dig it. And so there's, there's a lot to unpack there. But making, you know, like you said, kind of cutting through the clutter. And literally looking at and focusing on those two big things, I mean, that's your business. That's your entire business, right. So it's not the, it's not just the quantity, but it's absolutely the quality from both sides, which is cool to see.

Now you've had an illustrious career. And that career journey is still going, which is amazing.

JESSICA JENSEN:

Still rowing the boat, rowing the boat.

SPIKE JONES:

Still rowing the boat, rowing the boat. I like it. But, I would love to hear about a hard lesson maybe you have learned along the way that you learned from and then made better the next time.

JESSICA JENSEN:

Nothing, Spike. I've got it iced.

SPIKE JONES:

All right, thanks everyone, for tuning in. We appreciate your time —

KATHERINE CALVERT:

On today's episode of CX Confessions: no confession.

SPIKE JONES:

We found the bulletproof CMO.

JESSICA JENSEN:

No, I think you don't have enough hours in your year to hear about my stumbles and confessions. I ran a startup into the ground. So we can go back to that one.

No, I mean, I think on the CX front, right, like if I, if I look back over the last handful of companies, we overestimate, particularly B2B customers’ ability to ingest and understand information. And I would say that the vast majority of product marketers I have worked with get very focused on a specific feature set or product, and the way that they explain things reflects their own knowledge of that small part of the puzzle. And if you sat down with a customer and said, of our 17 products— I'm just making that number up — you know, do you really understand the difference between this and this and how this feature ladders to this group? I just think, I have had so many cases, Facebook, Apple, everywhere where you're like, this makes perfect sense to us. Surely you get it too.

And some of my favorite stories are rolling out Messenger and WhatsApp at two businesses at the same time and trying to explain to them how they're different, how they're the same, why should you care, what would you use one for, and why does your company own two messaging platforms? Which is still a fun question. I love all my friends at Meta and wish them the best. But I just think like, pulling up out of our own marination in products is really critical and hard to do.

SPIKE JONES:

Yeah, that internalization, I mean, I used to, years ago I worked at a branding company. And any time we presented a new logo and colors, they're always, there'd be someone in the room and they’d be like, well, my son goes to this high school and the rival high school’s colors are that so I don't think those are good colors. Like, I don't care. But that internalization is always just something that we have to divorce ourselves from for sure. But that knowledge of the product especially.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

Right, that's I think something I tried to reinforce with our product team and product marketers is just because we built it doesn't mean we have to talk about it. Right? What is the, why should anybody care? How did we make someone's life easier, better, more successful with this capability?

JESSICA JENSEN:

Which is exactly B2P. Yes. I’m going to steal that line.

SPIKE JONES:

Full circle.

JESSICA JENSEN:

Just because we built it doesn't mean we need to talk about it.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

Yes.

JESSICA JENSEN:

Yes.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

All right. I mean, so much goodness, I can't believe we're nearing the end of our conversation. Spike, check me if I'm wrong here, but I'm pretty sure this is the first one where we've ever heard us use these three words: blather, bludgeon, and brand-formance.

SPIKE JONES:

That is a hat trick podcast right there.

JESSICA JENSEN:

Triple B crown.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

Triple B crown. It’s like she was playing a game somewhere. She’s like I'm going to get all three words into this conversation. Amazing. Now, that's just emblematic of the amazing and hilarious person that Jess Jensen is. And we always do like to wrap up our podcast with a little bit more of the “you,” the “P,” the person behind this, so are you ready to play five questions?

JESSICA JENSEN:

I certainly am.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

Awesome. Okay, our very first question is, what was your first concert?

JESSICA JENSEN:

Well, Katherine, this will date me more than almost anything. I saw Ratt and Billy Squire in Kansas City in the early 80s.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

Wow. Two “Ts” for those of you following along at home.

JESSICA JENSEN:

Appreciate that.

SPIKE JONES:

“Round and Round.” Classic.

JESSICA JENSEN:

“Round and Round.” That's right. That's right. It was a quality, quality item there.

SPIKE JONES:

And they’re back — is that the Geico commercials they're back in? “We have rats.”

KATHERINE CALVERT:

Oh, are they?

SPIKE JONES:

Yeah, “We have a rat.” Yes. It's so funny. So funny. Okay, how about your first job?

JESSICA JENSEN:

First job: cafe busser/waitress/cashier, doing all of the things at a coffee shop in San Diego called the Pannikin, which still stands.

SPIKE JONES:

Did you excel at one of those three — did you have a favorite?

JESSICA JENSEN:

I think I, well, I ended up becoming the manager my senior year of high school. And I would say managing stoner dishwashers was quite a long suit for me.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

Were they also Ratt fans?

JESSICA JENSEN:

I would say they were more in the Rasta category than the Ratt.

SPIKE JONES:

Some Grateful Dead and some —

JESSICA JENSEN:

Yep, yep, lot of Reggae playing back there.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

Maybe informed by that, maybe not, but if you couldn't do what you're doing today, what profession would you attempt?

JESSICA JENSEN:

Fiction writer.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

Ooh. No blathering in that book.

JESSICA JENSEN:

Not a bit of blathering. I dabbled in fiction and poetry in college and grad school. And hope to go back to it in my less employed years.

SPIKE JONES:

That's fantastic. How about your favorite app on your phone right now?

JESSICA JENSEN:

I play a lot of charades with my daughter. A lot of phone charades. I'm trying to remember, what's the name? Something charades. Oh, I have used Heads Up! Heads Up! fun. Heads Up! is really fun. And then I'm just a total Facebook, Instagram junkie as well.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

I have to check that out. I'm having trouble picturing how that works. So I'm going to find out about that.

JESSICA JENSEN:

It's really fun.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

Yeah, we've been doing that at a family dinner sometimes when the conversation lulls or to get my children off their phones: table charades. You have to stay in your chair but you have to act out the clue.

JESSICA JENSEN:

Can I share a really fun thing to do at dinner with your family that my friend shared that we've copied, it's called “Bubble up, bubble down.” Everybody goes around and you bubble up the highlight from your day and you bubble down the thing that was kind of a bummer. But it's just a good framework to get people talking about the good, bad, and the ugly. We really like it. Bubble up bubble down.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

My sister-in-law introduced us to that but we do rose and the thorn. What was your rose? What was your thorn? Speaking of poetic. Okay, last question, now I’m getting hungry for dinner. What is your biggest indulgence?

JESSICA JENSEN:

Napping. I am a giant napper.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

That is such a good one.

SPIKE JONES:

Before COVID, that was our jam but now with the commute times gone I'm getting like eight hours of sleep a night, like napping has kind of gone by the wayside. I need to pick that back up.

JESSICA JENSEN:

I would recommend reintegrating it. Yep. I take a Saturday nap, I take a Sunday nap, and then I try to work, because typically like after my Europe and California calls end I maybe have a little window before Japan wakes up, so it's the pre-Tokyo cat nap.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

That might be a good name for a band actually.

JESSICA JENSEN:

Pre-Tokyo Cat Nap is an awesome band name.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

This was everything I hoped and dreamed. You are so wonderful to be here with us. Thank you, Jess, so great. Thank you. Thank you for sharing with us your perspective, letting us all get to know you.

JESSICA JENSEN:

Thank you. I got good nuggets from you guys too. It was really lovely. Thank you so much.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

So fun. Spike, I told you she was gonna be amazing.

SPIKE JONES:

I mean, we gotta have her back, and again I’m going to refer to the Marvel character — the JJ — I mean, come on.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

Yes, Jessica Jensen. Such a superhero name.

JESSICA JENSEN:

Someone once said to me, Oh you're like Connie Chung, a news anchor.

SPIKE JONES:

No.

JESSICA JENSEN:

And I was like, I'm gonna go with superhero.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

Marvel Superhero. All right. Or DC. Okay, thank you everybody, thank you, Jess, thank you for tuning in. Thanks to our loyal listeners and we hope you spread the word. We have great stories to tell and we welcome all of your feedback. So stay tuned for our next episode and thanks so much for listening in.

KHOROS:

Your customers expect to be understood — their likes and dislikes, their history with your brand, and their communication preferences. But so many companies struggle to connect the dots of the interaction across their own teams and channels and its creating customer experience challenges and disasters. That's where Khoros can help. Khoros is the award-winning customer engagement platform built to turn those siloed interactions with your customer into enterprise value. Khoros works with more than 2,000 of the world's leading brands and powers more than 500 million digital interactions every day. Khoros is the award-winning platform for digital-first customer engagement. Ready to create human connection across the digital customer experience to create customers for life? Learn more at Khoros.com.

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