Oleg Egorov Of Flowwow: 5 Tips for Your B2B Marketing Strategy

An Interview With Rachel Kline

Use networking to implement new efficient marketing tools.
When networking with one of our contractors, they shared how they attract clients using learning webinars — you never know where useful insights could be coming from.

The B2B marketing landscape is a complex and evolving space, with its unique challenges and opportunities. Navigating it effectively requires well-thought-out strategies and insightful tactics. With a myriad of digital channels available, what are the best ways to connect, engage, and convert potential business clients? As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Oleg Egorov.

Oleg Egorov is a dedicated CMO with a proven track record of driving business growth and building high-performing marketing teams across diverse international markets. He has over 18 years of experience in digital marketing, nearly 6 of which he spent as a CMO of Flowwow (https://flowwow.com/en-en/). Throughout his career, Oleg has launched numerous campaigns for B2B and B2C products using various strategies. Passionate about leveraging data-driven approaches to optimise marketing strategies and achieve tangible results. Currently leading Flowwow’s global marketing efforts, spanning over 10 countries.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share your personal backstory with us?

My journey in marketing started in 2005: I was 20 and looking for a job. Fortunately, my university professor suggested a small digital agency, and I received an offer from them. The main expertise of the agency was in website development, and they provided additional services in digital advertising. Initially, I worked as a sales manager, but eventually, I began to launch and optimise online campaigns myself.

The first campaign was launched on Google AdWords, and I remember getting goosebumps from the excitement of the moment. During my next career stage, I opened an advertising agency of my own, and it became a very good lesson for me on how not to do business. Because I became a father at 21, having a stable income was my top priority, so my wife and I decided to close the agency, and I was on the lookout for another job. Those times were challenging: I tapped into different areas but eventually returned to digital marketing and pushed myself to become an expert in the field. One of the most influential jobs for me was at Yandex, where I gained a lot of valuable experience as a data analyst. There, I worked with plenty of campaigns from big brands like ASOS, IKEA, Aeroflot, and others. As the analyst, I was responsible for giving recommendations using data on how brands can improve their results in search campaigns.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful for who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

I am grateful to my first manager, Sergey Volokotin, who introduced me to search engine marketing and provided me with great examples of communication, time management, and other soft skills. Some of his advice I follow to this day.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

My favourite quote is ‘Do not think of small starts; dream of big finishes’ by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.

These words are very close to my heart. I remember how, in 2018, Flowwow’s CEO and I were discussing how we would increase our daily sales from 300 to 1,000 orders. Now, we receive more than 10,000 orders daily and continue to multiply our sales. I know from experience that inspiration from a big goal gives you the strength to resolve issues that are encountered along the way.

Can you share with us three strengths, skills, or characteristics that helped you to reach this place in your career? How can others actively build these areas within themselves?

My wife and closest friends often tell me I’m obsessed with my job. Sometimes, this might harm the work-life balance, but obsession is a powerful force for achieving any goal. Another thing is my aspiration to learn and general curiosity; for example, I learnt SQL in a week because I needed to fetch data to understand how users behave in certain apps. Later, I learnt Python and Pandas because I wanted to see if there was some relation between organic users and influencer marketing campaigns. In general, analytical skills are very important for marketers nowadays; the last one is communication team-building. When I was working as a product manager, I encountered an agile methodology called SCRUM, and nowadays this framework helps me to work more efficiently and get results faster. You can find a lot of free articles about the topics I mentioned online.

Which skills are you still trying to grow now?

Our team is growing very quickly: in my department, there are more than 60 employees now. Consequently, I’ve faced the challenge of improving communication between different team groups. I am learning how to deliver my vision efficiently and guide my team in the same direction. Additionally, I am teaching myself to trust and delegate complex decision-making to my team while recognising when I should take the initiative to help achieve our targets. It’s a very nuanced skill, but I have a good teacher — Flowwow’s CEO, Slava Bodgan.

Let’s talk about B2B marketing. Can you share some insights into how you perceive the current landscape of B2B marketing?

Today, similar to B2C, there are numerous useful tools for making B2B marketing efficient, from acquiring new leads to onboarding them. However, in my opinion, there is a lack of comprehensive information on how to use those tools effectively. Perhaps I’m mistaken, but I often encounter more B2C success stories than B2B ones. Despite this, both types of marketing seem to be developing side by side because they ultimately share the same goals and a common user flow: awareness > research > decision-making about purchasing.

How have recent market trends and changes influenced your approach to outperforming competitors?

Recent market trends like AI and Ads Platform with Machine Learning tools such as Facebook Ads are forcing us to be faster in hypothesis testing, getting feedback, and understanding how to make our offer more suitable to clients. Comprehension speed of what advantages are crucial for our customers gives us the possibility to implement the improvement faster and beat competitors. In a nutshell, trends encourage us to be fast decision-makers and be agile.

B2B buying cycles can often be lengthy and complex. How do you maintain engagement and nurture leads throughout the various stages of the buyer’s journey?

I believe that obtaining the correct data allows us to comprehend buyer behaviour at different stages. For example, we use cohort analysis to understand how much time, on average, it takes for our sellers to progress from filling out the lead form to activation and signing contracts. I consistently encourage my team to study and work with the data — this is referred to as a data-driven approach.

By understanding the conversion rate at earlier stages, we can forecast whether communication will be efficient or not. On the other hand, the marketing team needs to maintain a strong connection with the sales outreach team and constantly exchange feedback with each other. For instance, we have weekly meetings with our outreach sales team to review our achievements together and adjust our approach. A common set of questions we ask is: ‘Does the lead form work well? Are the attracted leads of good quality, or was it a non-targeted audience? Why aren’t leads progressing to the next stage of the sales funnel?’

Personalization is gaining prominence in B2B marketing. What are some ways marketers can effectively leverage data to deliver personalized experiences?

The simplest way to deliver a personalised experience is to ask the user what problem they want to resolve using your product. To obtain that answer, we encourage our users in ads to fill out the lead form and leave information about the product category, shipping area, and business size. Based on these answers, our sales team adapts the onboarding flow appropriately.

ABM has also gained traction for its personalized approach to targeting high-value accounts. What advice would you give to fellow B2B marketers looking to adopt this strategy?

One of the main challenges, I believe, was to build a common vision for sales and marketing teams, aligning them to think in the same direction. Fortunately, we were able to achieve this at Flowwow through our weekly meetings, where we set goals together and shared results, eliminating the debate on who matters more, marketers or salespeople. My advice is, be (on) one team!

What are 5 Tips for Your B2B Marketing Strategy to Help You Beat Competitors?

1. Build common goal for sales and marketing

Create one report where you see a common results plan and factual data.

2. Ask your customers regularly about why they use your product and what you should do better (or what issues they face frequently)
In this case, we send a mailing with a more general survey and then create cust dev — an in-depth, 1-to-1 review.

3. Don’t guess — ask your data
We have plenty of data on how our customers behave, and it helps us in adapting our channels and sales efficiently. We try to track almost all user behaviour steps on the Flowwow app or the website.

4. Use networking to implement new efficient marketing tools
When networking with one of our contractors, they shared how they attract clients using learning webinars — you never know where useful insights could be coming from.

5. Think about your brand awareness, not sales only. Share how your brand helps other businesses (or even humanity)
We put a lot of effort into sharing with people our product on social media and talking about our customers and sellers and their achievements. It helps us to be trustable and create a loyal audience.

How do you utilize data or AI to refine your B2B marketing approach, and what tools have been particularly impactful in gaining a competitive advantage?

Data helps us forecast results and understand whether a channel is efficient. It answers the question, ‘Which market is more interesting for our product?’ Eventually, data provides information about our KPIs, such as lead amount, CR, and CAC — and helps to rearrange our marketing budget accordingly.

Which digital channels have you found most effective in reaching your target audience, and how do you optimize your presence across these channels to outshine competitors?

We are a gifting marketplace, and our B2B audience primarily consists of florists and confectioners. We found the most efficient tool for reaching our audience is Facebook Ads Lead Forms, followed by post boosting for our Instagram account, and, finally, personal outreach.

Are there any underrated skills or qualities that you encourage others not to overlook?

I think you should be patient and trust your colleagues because business is like a tree: it’s growing, not being built.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

Our brand connects people around the world regardless of the country they live in, allowing them to send gifts to their loved ones. I believe Flowwow helps to erase borders to an extent, which is a very important issue today, as we see how some politicians try to incite hatred between people. I would like to encourage everyone to be patient and love each other regardless of nationality, skin colour or other differences — let’s save humanity together!

We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

I would be happy to have a private chat with Brian Chesky, the CEO of Airbnb. I think our platforms share a similar energy, so it would be very helpful to get some advice from him.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.