Christian Klepp  00:00

We can all agree that to secure more business in this competitive landscape, B2B companies need to start by building trust. With so much digital noise and similar marketing tactics out there, standing out has become both a challenge and an opportunity. So how can B2B brands build trust in this era of skepticism? Welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers on a Mission podcast, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp. Today I’ll be talking to Tye DeGrange, who will be answering this question. He’s the CEO of Round Barn Labs, and is a growth expert focused on paid marketing and conversion rate optimization. Find out more about what this B2B marketers mission is. And here we go. Mr. Tye DeGrange, welcome to the show, Sir.

Tye DeGrange  00:45

Thank you, Christian. It’s great to be here and looking forward to it. 

Christian Klepp  00:49

Great to have you on the show. Tye, and I’m really looking forward to this discussion, because I think every B2B marketer and every B2B business out there can benefit from building based on trust, building relationships based on trust, building their business based on trust, building communities based on trust, you get the picture, right? So… 

Tye DeGrange  01:12

Yeah. 

Christian Klepp  01:13

Well, let’s dive right in, right? So fantastic. So Tye, you’re on a mission to help connect B2B and consumer tech companies with trusted voices to drive growth and engagement. And as I’ve already alluded to, the topic of today’s conversation is going to be around how B2B marketers can build trust in the age of skepticism. And I know that’s a very strong word, but you know what? Let’s not sugar coat it. It’s hard to build trust these days. But let’s kick off the conversation with two questions, and I’m happy to repeat them. One is, why is it so difficult for brands to build trust in the market? And number two, where do these so called trust gaps? Where do they come from?

Tye DeGrange  01:54

Yeah, it’s a good question. You know this, this evolution has kind of been happening for a long time. We’ve seen people not trust as much as they used to for years now. If you think about rewind the clock to middle of last century, ancient history for some people, but there was a lot more inherent trust in authority, government, business, marketing, messaging, I think the world has gotten a lot more noisy, a lot more open, a lot more transparent. A lot of the typical gatekeepers of television, media, authority, you name it. The list goes on and on right have kind of been unmasked, and we’ve seen this across a lot of different things. A lot more things have been crowdsourced and democratized, and everyone has a supercomputer in their pocket. So, you know, all of those things have really led to a overall decline in trust. Obviously, you know, bad actors, unfortunate challenges in terms of fraud, and people are not as reliant on things, you know, generally speaking, as they used to. I think there’s obviously a lot of great things happening in terms of opportunity and what, what, what technology is giving to us all, but there’s also some challenges. And so nowhere are we seeing that more really readily than in marketing, in particular, where brands can no no longer just kind of wave the banner themselves and spend the dollars and get in touch with the Mad Men Don Draper type to run a creative and a story and and and plot that out over the course of a, you know, TV ad campaign. It’s much more fragmented now, and brands are having to rely on third parties to really engage into illicit trust. People are really heavily reliant on that much more than they ever have been.

Christian Klepp  03:59

Absolutely, absolutely. And just, just going back to that second question, Where does, where do you think this originates from, this whole trust gap? Or is it multiple factors? I’d imagine it would be.

Tye DeGrange  04:10

Yeah, no, it’s a great question. You know, I think there’s so much about technology improvements that have really empowered people at a level that, you know, I just don’t think was even close to possible 20 years ago, not to mention 50, 60 plus years ago, right? We can kind of, we’ve been kind of taught how to fish, in some ways when it comes to finding information, and so you know, whether it’s going into a car dealership or seeing an ad on a streaming service about an outdoor, you know, equipment that you you’re in consideration to buy, you know, you have a lot of power in your fingertips. And information, as we know, information, is power to a degree. And so I think that you. Yeah, the technology is a huge we can talk about the multitude of factors, which there are quite a few, but the technology itself is a really big factor. And that, I think that’s partially why, you know, I think, and then conversely, I think, unfortunately, there’s been a lot of just misplaced trust and bad actors. And enough of that happens, and people get wise. They get their skepticism goes up. It’s not like you dwell on that, but I think the technology, plus some of the failures of people with that power and with that control as gatekeepers in media and marketing and business, you know, from Enron to all the other examples over the last, you know, 50 years, there’s just a numerous number of them. And so I think that’s why we found ourselves in a bit of a trust gap, to where consumers in a business setting, or in a marketing setting, kind of come in with a pretty heavy dose of skepticism, which I think we’ve all kind of seen.

Christian Klepp  06:02

Absolutely, absolutely. How much of this trust gap would you say is caused also by social media?

Tye DeGrange  06:13

Yeah, I think, I think it kind of is, in a big way, on a multitude of factors, right? You’ve got this wealth of information. You’ve got the ability to kind of crowdsource information, and on one hand, that can really increase your signal, and it can give you some info where you maybe didn’t have it before, especially on particular topics. But in other areas, you have, you know, a crazy amount of things that are false, lies, misinfo, however you want to describe it. So talk about a double whammy. It kind of creates, like, a lot of a lot more noise over signal in different ways, in that there’s expectations of knowledge, and it’s almost like the data marketing, you know, debates we get into, like, you get all this data, but are you really getting some information back? So I think you’re spot on. I think those things have really just only increased the kind of skepticism and trust gap that we found ourselves in.

Christian Klepp  07:15

Yeah, yeah. No, that’s absolutely right. You spoke about this a little bit earlier in the conversation, but talking about, like, trus