Ben Smith, Marketing Director at Reachdesk, shares his journey from professional ice skater to marketing leader and dives into the power of gifting in B2B. He explains how Reachdesk helps businesses source, personalize, and automate gifting at a global scale, and why combining physical and digital experiences creates deeper customer connections.
Ben also discusses Reachdesk’s marketing strategy, the role of AI in modern marketing, and why personalization, creativity, and genuine relationship building are key to successful outreach.
- Marketing B2B Technology on Apple Podcasts
- Marketing B2B Technology on Spotify
- Marketing B2B Technology on napierb2b.com
About Ben
Meet Ben Smith, a dynamic marketing leader with a passion for driving strategic growth and creative impact. As a seasoned professional at Reachdesk, he’s helped brands build stronger connections, unlock new opportunities, and deliver customer experiences that truly engage. Known for translating big ideas into measurable results, Ben shares actionable insights on outbound and allbound strategies — from sparking pipeline to scaling engagement. Join us as he brings fresh perspectives and stories from the cutting edge of modern marketing.
About ReachDesk
At Reachdesk, we believe that strong relationships fuel success. Whether you’re engaging prospects, celebrating customers, or recognizing employees, our platform makes it simple to deliver personalized moments that resonate at scale. As the only fully integrated gifting and swag solution, we empower go-to-market and people teams to:
- Strengthen connections with prospects, customers, and employees.
- Remove operational headaches with a seamless global fulfilment network.
- Measure the impact of every send, so gifting becomes a strategic advantage, not just a nice-to-have.
Time Stamps
00:00:00 – Introduction to Marketing B2B Tech Podcast
00:00:18 – Guest Introduction: Ben Smith from Reachdesk
00:00:41 – Ben’s Unique Career Journey
00:01:42 – What Reachdesk Does
00:02:31 – Challenges of International Shipping
00:03:15 – The Importance of Physical Gifts in a Digital World
00:04:30 – Customer Use Cases for Reachdesk
00:05:55 – Navigating Gifting Mistakes and Concerns
00:07:36 – The Philosophy of Gifting in Marketing
00:09:02 – Marketing Strategies at Reachdesk
00:11:35 – Building Brand Reputation vs. Driving Leads
00:13:04 – Influencer Marketing in B2B
00:15:05 – Understanding the Buying Committee
00:18:00 – Identifying Gifting Touchpoints in the Customer Journey
00:22:04 – The Impact of Technology on Marketing
00:25:21 – Advice for New Marketing Professionals
Follow Ben:
Ben Smith on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bensmith-reachdesk/
Reachdesk website: https://www.reachdesk.com/
Reachdesk on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/reachdesk/
Follow Mike:
Mike Maynard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemaynard/
Napier website: https://www.napierb2b.com/
Napier LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/napier-partnership-limited/
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing B2B Tech and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We’d also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform.
Want more? Check out Napier’s other podcast – The Marketing Automation Moment: https://podcasts.apple.com/ua/podcast/the-marketing-automation-moment-podcast/id1659211547
Transcript: Interview with Ben Smith at Reachdesk
Speakers: Mike Maynard, Ben Smith
Mike: Welcome to Marketing B2B Technology, the podcast from Napier. Today, I’m joined by Ben Smith. Ben is the Director of Global Marketing for Reachdesk. Welcome to the podcast, Ben. Thank you very much for having me. And we always like to start off by letting you give a bit of background about yourself, your career, and why you’ve chosen to work for Reachdesk. So, tell us why you’re there.
Ben: Yeah, absolutely. I’ve had an interesting career, jumped around a little bit. So, I used to be a performer for Disney on Ice, so a professional ice skater before transitioning into technology sales and technology marketing. I guess why I’ve gravitated towards Breach Desk and towards marketing is I’ve always had a passion for creativity, performance, people. I really felt marketing was the perfect fit. I did a short stint in PR and that really gave me my first glimpse into marketing and I joined Reach Test as the first employee starting out as a BDR and I was that person going to the post office, having to ship those direct mail sends out, you know, doing three, four trips a day. And when I heard about Reachdesk solving that challenge, I thought, if I’m ever going to market or sell something, this is a real pain point that’s stopping me get ahead in my career. And I imagine this is a challenge for a lot of other people as well.
Mike: So, you’ve kind of alluded to what Reachdesk does, but can you just explain exactly what it does and how it helps people?
Ben: Yeah, absolutely. So Reachdesk is the one-stop global solution for gifting, swag, direct mail. Essentially, we work with companies to help them with the logistics that comes with sending out physical gifts or e-gift cards. We help them with the sourcing, so the creative part of coming up with what to send, who to send it to. And then we help them be able to track and measure it all through the platform and automate it with the integrations into that technology, so CRM, marketing automation tools.
Mike: That’s interesting. I think there’s a couple of things I find particularly interesting. The first is shipping the gifts. I mean, it sounds very easily, but obviously, as a PR agency, we’ve tried to do this at Napier, and we’ve realized it actually gets quite hard, particularly when you’re dealing with international shipments. Is that one of the big reasons why people come to Reachdesk?
Ben: Yeah, absolutely. We work with a lot of companies who have clients or prospects based globally. And it could be challenges with logistics when you’re doing an event shipment. So, you’re based in the US, you’ve got an event which is out in the UK, for example, or it could be in Germany. You know, there’s always friction which comes with shipping internationally, and we help support that. But we also help on the personalization level. And it’s so important to really be personalizing everything that you’re doing. And what works for somebody who’s American won’t necessarily work for somebody who’s based in France. So, by using a platform, you’re able to give that extra layer of personalization and really send something quite meaningful that’s going to create that moment that you’re looking to with your prospects and customers.
Mike: If you think about gifting and swag, and you obviously talk about being the global gifting and swag platform, aren’t we all digital? I mean, are physical gifts still important in today’s business environment, do you think?
Ben: Yeah, it changes a lot, right? I think we put a lot of focus on digital and then we come back to needing some human elements and humanisation and levels of personalisation. I think where the two meet really nicely is when you combine the physical with the digital. So if you’re doing email campaigns, you know, adding in that gift to your email campaign where somebody can input their address, and we all work remotely, a lot of people now, so it’s not even just being able to send it to someone’s office, but being able to reach them wherever they are in the world, whether that’s their hotel room because they’re at an event and you want to make a special moment whilst they’re there, if that’s where, because they’re on an off-site and they’re visiting another office in a different regions where they might be based more often. I think it’s about finding ways that you can combine the digital approach and then really humanise it and create an amazing experience by adding something physical and tangible and something which saves the people for a lot longer time.
Mike: That’s interesting. Can you give me some examples of how your customers use Reachdesk?
Ben: Yeah, definitely. So, there’s many different use cases across the customer journey, whether that’s that you’re trying to launch a new product or you’re entering a new region, you might want to focus on more branded items. One of the customers that we work with, they had a partnership with Aston Martin. So, they sent out toy Aston Martin cars, Aston Martin cars with their branding on it and their logo on it and Aston Martin, and they were showing that partnership and collaboration and really just giving a unique way of creating that experience. One of my favorite campaigns ever though is when an up-and-coming new technology platform was trying to take on the heavyweights and the bigger companies that have been around and established more often. So, what they did was they sent out one boxing glove with content, messaging, and the call to action was to try and book a meeting, and when they booked a meeting the second boxing glove was sent out as well. So really finding unique and interesting ways to combine the messaging and then telling that story through something really physical. But you know, gifting is also impactful at events, having a flag that really stands out and creates those moments that matter. Those passing interrupts, whether through SAOs and BDR outreach, perhaps too. Maybe you know something personal about your prospect or customer and you want to celebrate a milestone, reward them for usage within the platform or something like that. So, there’s many use cases that you can use gifting and swag for.
Mike: What happens when things go wrong? I mean, for example, people are concerned about being seen as bribing or trying to influence others by gifts. And maybe people are also worried about sending the wrong thing. I mean, do people make mistakes and upset customers? And if so, how can you help people avoid these common mistakes?
Ben: Yeah, like any outreach, there’s always going to be preferences and things can go wrong. I would say our rules and what we teach customers to do is follow the law of reciprocity. Gifting is just a great moment to give without asking. It’s all about sparking that relationship and building stronger relationships through using the power of gifting. And we teach people actually not to ask for something in return. So gifting is there as a great way to support your other channels and your other efforts. It can be also used as a standalone, but think of it as a way of really, really standing out. That’s why it works really well with account-based marketing motions and works really well with, yeah, ABM motions and really developing those human relationships. So, I’d stay away from those plays, which is, here’s a $50 gift card if you take a meeting. If you are going to do that, send the gift card before the meeting’s even happened, right? Let them know that this is a relationship that’s really valuable to you and that you really care about and go a step further. You know, maybe it’s you’re sending out something really personalized. I think that’s where gifting platforms do help, to offer that level of variety and ultimately allow the recipient to choose a gift that’s going to resonate the most with them, rather than thinking of it as a bribery issue.
Mike: That’s great. It sounds like the message is don’t use it as something that’s transactional. You know, don’t imagine that if we give you this gift, you’ll do something for us, but actually just genuinely give a gift and use it to build relationships. Is that a good summary of what you’re saying? Absolutely.
Ben: I mean, we spend tons of money on digital marketing. in the hope that somebody’s going to reply to us and remember what we’re saying to them. But the most impactful way that you can start that relationship, have that conversation a lot sooner, is by showing them just how valuable that conversation, how much that relationship means to you.
Mike: That’s great advice. One thing I think that would concern people in these days of hybrid and remote work, though, is how do you know you’re sending the gift to the right location?
Ben: Yeah, sending the gift to the right location through Reachdesk, and I don’t want to make this a podcast all about Reachdesk, but we do have ways of verifying addresses and using address confirmation to make sure that the right gift is sent to the right place. It can be challenging without having a gifting platform to do that. If you’re not using a gifting platform, then I recommend calling up the receptionist at the office, seeing if the department or the person that you’re wanting to get in touch with if they are in the office or if they plan to be in the office. Tying it into your event strategy, so if you know that you’re going to meet people out at events, then taking them with you to the events or shipping them to the events and creating those moments in a slightly different way, I guess.
Mike: I love that. I’d like to move on though and understand a little bit more about how you actually market Reachdesk yourself. I’m interested, at a high level, what kind of challenges are you trying to overcome with your marketing campaigns? Is it awareness or is it more about convincing people of the value of what you’re trying to do, or the pain points you’re trying to address?
Ben: Yeah, great question. So high-level strategy is that we follow an all-bound approach, which what that means to me is it’s really demand generation and account-based marketing. We have sales, business development, marketing, partnerships. all working really closely together to ultimately drive pipeline and revenue. That’s what we’re all targeted on. It’s very clear that those are our key goals together. The challenges, if they come with it, is that we don’t do data content, we don’t do lead generation activities, we’re not really focused on MQLs. So, what we really care about is within our gear counts and our target counts, is progressing them through the funnel as efficiently as we can and staying top of mind. So, when they do have a problem or a challenge, they’re really aware of Reach Desk and they’re aware that we’re the company that can help support them through that. And there’s many different challenges that we can help people with. So, I think it’s just about being relevant through different campaigns that we’re running and making sure that they’re really timely. We’re optimizing and learning through those wider campaigns so that we stay top of mind and that we are ultimately improving our conversions. And it’s not just 95% that aren’t ready to buy now and 5% that are, but it’s 10% that are ready to buy now and 90% that aren’t perhaps ready to buy right now but are still aware of us.
Mike: And is there a particular profile of prospects that you’re looking for? I mean, is it based on company size or industry? I mean, how do you decide what the best prospect is for you?
Ben: Yeah, so we have a really defined, well-defined ideal customer profile. And then we break it down into segments, which for us is based on headcount, so enterprise, mid-market, and commercial. And then we run different plays around each of those segments. For us, we market two markets, which I think is potentially the best persona to market so you can do your marketing to yourself, you can have a lot of fun, you can be really creative and ultimately give marketers an experience which they’re quite often putting on for other people that they don’t get included in themselves. So, I personally love marketing to marketers and selling to marketers and creating experiences that ultimately stand out and go that bit further.
Mike: And it sounds like, from what you say, you’re one of those marketing directors that’s really focused on building a brand, building the reputation of a company, rather than just driving as many leads as possible. I mean, is that a good summary of your approach?
Ben: Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s working with the team that we have. We have a large business development team. Business development rolls up into marketing. They’re a part of the marketing team. It’s really working effectively on those outbound campaigns and those outbound plays. And ultimately, marketing is there to support sales and help them achieve their goals as well. So, we apply different tactics to different parts of the funnel. We create different journeys for different parts of the funnel. But ultimately, we’re trying to understand where people are and tailor that experience to them. Because if somebody is in a purchase stage, what they need is going to be very different to somebody who isn’t aware of us just yet or aware of the problems that we can help them solve. So, it’s really about bringing that personalization and using the team around us to create a great experience for the prospect, but ultimately progressing through those stages as well.
Mike: I’m interested, you know, you’ve talked a bit about marketing to marketers and how that lets you have a bit of fun. It sounds like you’re really at this convergence between B2B and B2C, and you’re not using the tactics that are your standard, dull, boring B2B tactics. Do you want to talk to me about some of those things you might be seeing as more customer focused, but are working for you at Reachdesk?
Ben: Yeah and I’ve really taken inspiration from this I think from my time in working in PR and working with consumer brands and it was kind of the boom at that point of influencer marketing within B2C and we’ve seen how well that’s taken off on platforms like Instagram, now it’s TikTok, video content is really coming into the fold and into the play there of how people consume content these days. We haven’t got long attention spans. It’s very different to producing huge reports. We’re not a very technical offering either. It’s gifting. It’s direct mail. It’s not cyber security and something very technical and wordy that can be bundled up into a pretty chunky eBooks. So, it really is the experiences that we’re playing on. One of my favorite experiences that we invested in more recently was an event out in Arizona. It was called Chili Palooza. It was with one of our partners, Chili Piper. It was three days in one of the best bars in the world, where we invited influencers along with us to create content whilst we’re there. that can be repurposed for use over social, on a website. Ultimately, it’s about finding different ways to build trust at an earlier stage. And working with these influencers and working with these companies that are in a similar space to us and creating fun, engaging content, I think allows us to do that. I mean, who doesn’t want three days out on a spa where you’re getting massaged, you’re going on hikes, you’re being able to network with leaders in the industry and your peers and ultimately get to know people on a deeper level.
Mike: Yeah, that sounds like a tough life to me. Seriously, just digging into, you know, you mentioned inviting influencers, and I think a lot of people in B2B would like to access more influencers who they think could help their brand. So how do you go about this? How do you pick influence? Did you look for those that are specifically marketing influencers, or did you maybe pick people who are outside the normal marketing world? I think it really comes down to the goals that you’re trying to achieve.
Ben: So, at Reachdesk, for example, we market to marketers, but that’s only one part of the buying committee. You know, there’s the chief financial officer or the people in finance. There’s the sales teams that ultimately might become the users of using Reachdesk in their day to day. So, there is a wider audience that we have to consider and we have to think about. Marketing might hold the purse strings, and they might be the decision makers within the technology and the tools that they’re bringing in and the strategies they’re implementing. But you still need people to adopt it and to understand it and really get behind it from that wider committee. So, when I think about influencers and the people that we partner with, I do think about leaders in the space that are really going to resonate and really have that trust with the marketers. But I also want to be working with influencers that appeal to the wider buying committee and the wider range of people that would be adopting our tool and solution as well. So, for this one in Chilipaliza in Arizona, it was a combination of both marketers, but also somebody well known that has a great influence within the sales community as well.
Mike: Fantastic. That sounds really interesting. I think, you know, just related to that, obviously you’re helping marketers do things that are very much directly engaging with individuals. It seems like you know that what’s happening with marketing in terms of taking up more of this customer journey and people spending less time with sales and more time engaging with marketing. So, do you see corporate gifting as a reflection of customers not engaging with salespeople and therefore maybe not going out for lunch with them and then getting gifts instead?
Ben: Yeah, absolutely. And I think we’ll come on to this more a little bit later as well. But the influx in AI is allowing people to do more with less. And quite often, when you do more, and you add more and more, it becomes spammy, it becomes less personalized, and it becomes less human. So gifting is a solution that isn’t chain-bringing, but if anything, it’s really helping people to stand out and to humanize the digital efforts that they might be doing. Whilst a lot of companies are doing more and more and more, I think it’s about finding those impactful moments and the right moments. A buy-in journey isn’t linear anymore. It looks more like a plate of spaghetti is the analogy that I always like to use. And it’s about finding those moments and understanding the relevant triggers and the relevant hooks and the relevant signals, and then making those moments really count and being impactful within them.
Mike: That’s fascinating. I’m interested, you’ve talked about some of the times when it makes a lot of sense to run corporate gifting, you know, events for example, but if I was looking at a customer journey, how would I identify the touch points where corporate gifting makes sense along that journey or maybe signals that, you know, a customer’s ready to receive a gift?
Ben: Yeah, great question. So, I always talk about the customer lifecycle, and I break that down into three parts, essentially. The first part is your targeting. The second part is engaging, and the third part is growing. So, if we look at the first part of that funnel, it could be that BDR, and sales teams are working from key accounts. There’s great platforms and tools out there, ABM tools like Demandbase, Sixth Sense. some modern ones as well that are coming up that give the buyers the signals that an account could be in a better place and more ready to buy. I also think it’s really important to be looking into your CRM data. There’s so much more relevant information in your CRM data that you can use to leverage gifting well. Whether that’s a customer that’s then changed jobs and gone somewhere else, rather than just reaching out and trying to to hope that they come back as a customer. It’s a great way to recognize that milestone and celebrate their new job with them and congratulate them with a gift to make sure that relationship is staying strong and continuing. And ultimately, you’re able to continue doing business with them wherever they might move on. So new job triggers, they’re a huge one for impactful gifting moments. It could be funding triggers. It could be that you’re doing a more wider, broader campaign. You’ve identified a subsector of key accounts which have really struggling with a particular pain point, perhaps, and you want to put together a more branded campaign to really tell that story. Whether it’s on the engaging side, perhaps somebody said that they would like to take a meeting with you. So why wouldn’t you send them a lunch voucher? Thank you for taking this time to meet with us. Here’s lunch on us today. perhaps it’s that they’re going away on holiday, and you’ve had a call with them, you know they’re going away. The last thing we all want when we get back is to go to the shops and have to stock our fridge up. Why not send in a food voucher so you can say meals on us tonight so that you can really get back into the swing of things. Perhaps people are going out on maternity leave or paternity leave. It’s a great way that if you have a branded bundle, and I know one of our customers throughout social, they do this really well, is that they have a branded baby bundle. They’re injecting their brand into a moment in that person’s life. It’s really, really human. Maybe it’s that somebody has just signed up for the platform for the first time, or maybe they’ve just become a customer. It’s a great way to send a congratulations gift and thank you gift all the time that’s gone into becoming a customer, because it does take a long time and sometimes these deals can go on for years. So, there’s definitely different moments within the journey that gifting makes sense and ultimately is just very impactful.
Mike: Thank you, there’s some really good ideas there. I’m just noting down some actually, because I think we miss them at Napier. And I particularly like the idea of tying gifting to an event, as it seems much less needy than begging for a meeting. So, I love that, and I also love the idea of tying the gifting to something related to the life of the prospect. I mean, is that the sort of thing you see?
Ben: Yeah, absolutely. And I’ll come back to this, because I said it’s all about the Laura’s Post team. One of the campaigns that we ran recently that had worked really; really well is we were going out to Adobe Summit. We didn’t have a booth there and we weren’t spending tons of money on having a booth, but we still wanted to book in quality meetings with our sales team and educate people at the event. We’ve all been to events, walking around three days is exhausting. So, what we did is we said, if you take a meeting with us at the event, then we’ll send you a spa voucher so that you can treat yourself to the spa, take yourself off and get pampered either at the event or when you get home. But when people replied, we sent them a voucher straight away. So that’s where the law of reciprocity really, really comes into it. But if you can tie gifting to an event or a milestone, then it is really human and it’s really common. It’s just a nice touch point that definitely goes that extra mile, goes that longer way than constantly just asking for something.
Mike: Definitely. I completely agree. One of the things we’d like to ask people as well is how they see technology impacting marketing. So, from your viewpoint, Ben, how do you see the change in technology, whether that’s AI or anything else, impacting marketing over maybe the next five years?
Ben: Yeah, I think it’s a question that gives a lot of people anxiety at the minute, I feel, and I think for sometimes good reasons, but it’s here and technology is always something that we have to embrace. I think markets have got very good at embracing technology and I know that every year we’re kind of being asked to review our tech stacks and look at new solutions and new offerings. There’s always new technology being developed as well. I think where I see AI being really impactful is helping people with their processes, helping people to improve efficiencies, helping people in general, because we are being asked to do a lot more and take on more responsibility. People still feel a lot of blame from marketing if revenue isn’t being generated, and I know that can be frustrating, but I think when it comes to technology, we can’t be short-sighted about the way we’re looking into this. It has to be developed into longer-term plays and long-term strategies. Where I see it working really well at the minute is definitely on the research phase, helping us to scale content and leverage content in different formats and different ways that would just take such a long time in the past to be able to do. Where I don’t see it working so well currently is replacing humans. I’ve had horror stories from organizations which have completely let go of their SDR team and they’ve worked with ghost market specialists to implement AI SDRs. And what they found out after three months of trying this is that they’re just not able to generate the pipeline that they were able to previously when they had a human reaching out to a human. I think it can really help us with understanding the right moments to reach out. But when it comes to a key account and a hot account and something that really does matter to you and to your business, then it should be a human driving that motion.
Mike: Yeah, I think that’s fascinating to see how we’re going to end up, you know, balance between technology and humans. And I guess it’s always going to be changing as technology develops. But I guess the good news is, is that us humans at least still seem to be adding some value.
Ben: It does, yeah. I mean, I don’t want to be talking to an AI. I use chat GPT all the time and it makes me better as a person, but I don’t want chat GPT to be talking to another chat GPT. It becomes a bit silly, and I think I’ve heard this concept of people feeling already that they need AI to be checking their AI.
Mike: Yeah, it’s unbelievable people are checking AI with AI. But actually, I think most people have seen AI get things obviously wrong. I really appreciate your time, Ben. It’s been so interesting. Before you go, there’s a couple of questions we always like to ask our guests. And the first is, what’s the best piece of marketing advice that’s ever been given to you?
Ben: I’ve got two for this one. The first one is, if the messaging isn’t resonating, change it. You should always be A-B testing and changing your messaging and making sure that it is resonating. But I didn’t get it the first time when I heard it. And then I read the book, obviously, and it makes a lot more sense. But be a purple cow. Do those things that make you memorable and stand out. And if you’re having fun, then other people will have fun with you and enjoy it too.
Mike: Perfect. And the second question we’d like to ask is, if you were talking to someone who was just starting a marketing career, what would be your advice to them?
Ben: My advice would be a sponge. It’s going to be a lot of work. It’s going to be hard. But my recommendation is be that sponge. Speak to as many different teams as you possibly can. Get involved in as many different things as you possibly can. Bail as fast as you can and make sure that you’re in an environment that allows you to do that. Experimentation is a wonderful thing. And I lean into my team so much to help me experiment and help me come up with different ways of doing things because you might just stumble across something which is absolutely gold, and you won’t do that if you’re not experimenting. So, failing fast is a good thing, learn from it, keep improving, but ultimately just come back to my motto and the team’s motto is be kind to yourself, be kind to each other and be kind to your customers. With hard work it can take a toll sometimes but just keep going with it. It’s going to be a great career.
Mike: I think that’s an absolutely brilliant way to end this discussion, Ben. It’s been fascinating. If people want to get hold of you or maybe learn more about Reachdesk, what are the best ways to do that?
Ben: You can look me up on LinkedIn, Ben Smith, and I’m with Reachdesk, obviously. I’m always out and about at events and trade shows, so hopefully you can meet me at one of those as well.
Mike: Thank you, Ben. I really appreciate you being a guest on Marketing B2B Technology. Thanks so much for listening to Marketing B2B Tech. We hope you enjoyed the episode. And if you did, please make sure you subscribe on iTunes or on your favorite podcast application. If you’d like to know more, please visit our website at napierb2b.com or contact me directly on LinkedIn.
