
It’s Round 4 of Marketer vs. Machine, where marketing myth meets cold hard logic — and sometimes a whiskey chaser.
This time, Dealfront’s VP of Marketing Sam O’Brien faces a classic scenario every marketer knows too well: the CEO’s had one too many pints down the pub and returns with Steve’s big idea. TikTok ads. High-volume hacks. Guaranteed conversions. Because if it works for a local dog groomer, why not your $50K SaaS deal?
Sam pushes back with a strategic reality check — explaining why B2B isn’t B2C with a different logo, and why attention alone doesn’t equal intent. From testing consumer channels to resisting shortcut strategies, this episode unpacks the real cost of confusing tactics with transformation.
Can TikTok scale your pipeline or just your noise? Does the modern marketer need to defend every decision from pub-bench pivots?
Grab a drink and get ready for the most British episode yet. Round 4 starts now.
Let the fight begin.
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Sam O'Brien
VP of Marketing at Dealfront
00:05 You're the CEO, you, your gut knows best. This is how we used to do it. All that good stuff. It really does one pine of Stella and suddenly everyone's a growth hacker. By the fourth, they're pivoting your whole GTM strategy from a pub bench. Only if you promise to come back with a revolutionary idea that involves leaflets, fax machines, or sponsoring the local darts. Team-wise, move.
00:31 Before you start telling me we need a deal front branded van to tour industrial parks. What makes you think that works? I'm not sure it ever worked. Maybe it worked when you were growing a business to a certain size or maybe I'm not sure how long ago we're talking. Maybe it was the tactics you used back then and they did work. But no look in today's era of marketing. We need to focus on a market. We need to focus on building our brand.
01:00 We need people to trust us. There's a lot more solutions out there than ever before. There's a lot more people trying to win the same business. So closing like spray and pray isn't a tactic that will ever build trust in your brand. We need to build up the awareness of our solution, work with people, help educating them, and then ultimately closing them further down the funnel.
01:30 Sam, you're over complicating it. You're acting like buyers have changed. People still want results. They still want value. If you hit them enough times with the right CTA, they'll convert. That's how we hit our first 10 million. In this whole educate the market thing just slows everything down. We need leads now, not warm fuzzy feelings. Okay. I'm not saying we're aiming for warm fuzzy feelings. I'm saying that
01:59 Come on, Sam, don't tell me you're buying into this modern buyer narrative. Every marketer says the game has changed, but revenue is revenue. I care about what fills the pipe this quarter, not what might pay off in 12 months. You've got budget, so where are the leads? Okay, I get it. I also want revenue. I also want to be successful. But we've got to think, we can't just think shorter. If we focus entirely on tomorrow,
02:28 and forget about the future, then like when the future comes, when we're six months down the road or 12 months down the road and we haven't managed to build more demand for our product, fewer people know us because we haven't invested in that kind of marketing, things are gonna get harder and they're gonna get more expensive. And the channels that, or the tactics that used to work, the investing all in PPC and in demand capture, it's no longer gonna work.
02:57 reason being is you can't expect the market to keep growing at the same rate as you need to grow. So, or not the market, but the 5 % of the market that are buying isn't going to grow at the same rate you need it to grow. So for us to ensure our future and ensure that we are building enough awareness to continue to grow, we have to invest in some long-term marketing as well. All right. I'll admit that makes sense. You're saying if we don't expand the market,
03:27 will eventually exhaust the people already in it and that chasing only in market buyers won't fuel future growth. So you're actually playing the long game and the short one, huh? Maybe, maybe. I've been looking at this too narrowly. Maybe you have been. think a lot of people, although they think that they're thinking of the future, you know, they, they, they want to look out and they want to think about what's going to happen in three years time.
03:54 They rarely think of marketing in that context, which is a huge mistake because ultimately we need to keep bringing people in. We need to keep warming up the market, making sure we're top of mind. Again, just some random numbers here, but we know only 5 % of our market is buying at any one time. And we know that when people enter into that buying cycle, 90 % of them are going to buy from somebody they already know.
04:20 So when you do the maths, we really have to make sure we're engaging with that 95%, building awareness, making sure these companies are thinking of us. So when they do enter the buying cycle, we're top of mind. Sam, you've made your point and... Annoyingly. Well, I'll give it to you. I've been stuck chasing the 5 % thinking they're the whole game. But if we're not visible to the 95 % before they need us, we're invisible. When it counts,
04:49 I might not like it, but I see it now. Thank you. I'm glad that you see it my way. You're right. Yeah. Yeah. Don't let it go to your head, Sam, but fine. I'll back your plan as long as I still get my Q4 pipeline deal. Deal.
05:11 Yeah, I think we nailed that one. Good energy, sharp back and forth, and a solid pivot at the end. Felt like exactly the kind of CEO convo you'd want to practice. Want to do another round with a different angle or personality? I want to do just one more for now, which is, just, like something that's happened to me has been the, we kind of did this earlier with the AI thing, but I don't want to do it with AI. The one thing that's happened is like the CEO has been down the pub.
05:40 I'm English, we go to the pub. They've been down the pub, they've spoken to somebody. It's like Bob who runs a news agent system, let's not pick news agents, but runs a tiny little business is saying, why aren't you doing this? This is what I do and it works. And it's that very annoying thing of like, oh, Jane from the post office said we should be doing this on our website. Always bringing in this context and kind of devaluing the skills that we have.
06:09 Oh yeah, I know exactly the vibe. Let's go get ready. Sam. Sam Quick One was down the pub last night with Steve. He runs this ad agency, Small Team, but he's killing it right now. He said we should be running TikTok ads, says they're converting like mad. Why aren't we doing that? Honestly, feels like we're overthinking things. Steve just puts up a few cheeky videos and the leads roll in. Remind me what Steve's business and how many pints that he had by the time he...
06:38 He gave you this advice. One, he shouldn't be giving advice for three for free. think that's a mistake on his part, but that's a conversation for a day. Look, I think it depends on who Steve's targeting. You know, if it's an e-commerce brand, then that makes perfect sense. I'm not by any means saying that TikTok can't work. I think it's just the expression, a few cheeky ads and you know, the leads roll in. doesn't really work like that. Steve's got a team of five.
07:08 They do digital marketing for local brands, cafes, hairdressers, that sort of thing. But he said it's all about volume, right? Attention is attention. And if he's getting conversions for 10 quid a lead, surely we could too. Don't we want more attention on us? Or are we just too B2B for that now?
07:28 Oh, you're touching on a good one here. right, first of all, I think B2B and B2C, we should use the same tactics. So I'm going to be very careful how I put this because in B2B, we are targeting people and B2C tactics do work. However, what you do for hairdressers, a local business, when you're trying to, you you're helping a mum and pop shop, it's very different to what we've to do in B2B SaaS.
07:57 where we're targeting multiple people. We're really trying to engage with them over time and build up our awareness. Rarely are people making, for a hairdresser you could make a split decision. Like, I need to go and get my beard cut. Okay, this has just come up on my Instagram, I'm gonna go and check it out. Whereas for a tech purchase, it takes a bit of time, we're thinking about it, it's an educated process. All right, fair.
08:26 I suppose Steve's not trying to sell a 50 grand software deal to a six person buying committee. He's trying to book Sandra in for a trim. Still, you're telling me attention isn't enough. I thought we were trying to stand out. What if TikTok could work? Are we just being snobby about it? No, not at all. We should definitely test TikTok. I think it's a very good channel to test and to understand if we can reach the right people and we can bring them onto the website.
08:54 It's going to be hard because it doesn't have the targeting criteria that we need, but definitely we should test these channels. think that's why said I want to be careful with how I talk about this because we definitely do want to use the channels where people are. I think this strategy that you should only use business channels is actually incorrect. So TikTok is a consumer channel and our audience for all we know are hanging out on TikTok.
09:22 So if we can prove that and we figure out that that's where they are and we can reach them and they're engaging with our content and they're making it through to the website and they're engaging with our website, great, I'm all for it. I just think the tactics are gonna be different. We're not trying to get someone to turn up to a hair appointment. We're trying to educate them, bring them onto our website to start learning more about us so over time we can then close them. All right, I get it, now.
09:52 You're not against TikTok. You're just saying it's not a plug and play fix like Steve thinks. The audience, the intent, the sales cycle, it's all different. Makes sense. I'll tell Steve, he can keep his beard trims and we'll handle the real pipeline work. Carry on. How many beers had Steve had when he gave you this advice? Three pints of Stella and one whiskey chaser. And somehow he became a CMO in his own head by closing a Google ads lead for a dog groomer.
10:22 That's Stella for you. It gives you lots of powers. really does one pint of Stella and suddenly everyone's a growth hacker. By the fourth, they're pivoting your whole GTM strategy from a pub bench. I think I need to drink some more.
10:45 Only if you promise to come back with a revolutionary idea that involves leaflets, fax machines, or sponsoring the local dark. Team wise, before you start telling me we need a deal front branded van to tour industrial parks.