“I want to get customers to visit my website, but I’m not sure about the specific methods.”
“I know organic marketing is important, but I’m at a loss as to how to apply it to our business.”
“How should I balance long-term and short-term results in B2B marketing?”
This is likely a common concern for many B2B marketers. B2B marketing is based on trust and relationships rather than flashy campaigns. However, amidst long purchasing cycles and complex decision-making processes, it remains difficult to find a clear answer to how to build trust and drive sustainable growth.
Yeji Kim, CEO of Elifunt, who is participating as both the organizer and speaker of this B2B Roadmap 2025, aims to present answers to these concerns. Through the concept of 'trust capital,' we discussed essential marketing strategies for B2B companies and the conditions necessary for organic marketing to lead to tangible results.
I wanted to create an opportunity to find solutions together with my B2B colleagues.
Q. Hello, CEO Kim Ye-ji. Could you please briefly introduce yourself?.
Nice to meet you. I am Yeji Kim, CEO of Elifunt, a firm that helps businesses grow through organic marketing . At Elifunt, we are a team that believes in the power of content over advertising. We believe that content that lasts a long time once created exerts far greater power than short-term campaigns
In particular, we are implementing a strategy to drive leads into the search journey and convert the website into a tangible sales asset through content marketing specialized for high-involvement B2B products and services
Q. Please share a few words about your motivation for participating in the B2B Roadmap 2025!
I want to grow together with domestic B2B professionals who are fiercely paving the way for corporate growth.
Participating as both an organizer and a speaker at this B2B Roadmap Conference was a natural choice. Although Elifunt is a very small organization, it is comprised of people who want to share the knowledge we have acquired through experience and grow together with the industry. To make this a reality, we have held nearly 20 seminars related to B2B and content since last year. The most common feedback we received at the time was that "real-world case studies are needed." B2B practitioners are always waiting for concrete strategies spoken in the language of the field, rather than just theory.
In particular, I believe that compared to the global market, Korea's business strategy, marketing, and sales methodologies are still in the early stages of growth. There are still few success stories, and I think opportunities to share outstanding examples within the industry have been limited. Therefore, with the hope that this conference can serve as a valuable resource for the domestic B2B industry, which is currently navigating a path without definitive answers, I have organized this platform with colleagues who are fiercely striving to drive corporate growth.
As I accumulated experience across various domains, I gained insights that penetrate B2B marketing.
Q. You worked in various domains before founding Elifunt. How have these experiences influenced your current leadership of the organization?
I realized that the structure for solving problems is the same, even if the industries are different.
Having experienced various domains, I quickly grasped the fundamental principles that run through these industries. Semiconductors, biotech, media, construction… at first glance, they may seem like completely different sectors, but the customer's question is ultimately similar: "What improvements will I see if I adopt or purchase this?"
It involves zooming out to observe phenomena from the customer's perspective, identifying commonalities among various experiences, and creating a framework. In this way, Elifunt proprietary methodologies such as marketing strategies for different corporate growth stages and quadrant strategies for keyword-based competitive markets. In essence, diverse industry experiences have led to new insights.
The more complex the technology field, the more intricate the decision-making process customers go through. In such cases, I found that presenting content in an easy-to-understand way from the customer's perspective is the most successful strategy. On the other hand, mass-market industries actually require a more differentiated strategy. This is because customers are already well-informed about similar services, so a stronger point of differentiation is necessary.
Q. It has been a year since you started operating LinkedIn. Where did the driving force behind building 5,000 LinkedIn followers come from?
It is because I wrote articles that persistently answered the concerns of practitioners, rather than aiming for followers.
LinkedIn is a medium for building trust capital in the B2B industry. Today, LinkedIn is the Instagram of the business world. We operated it with the attitude of sharing Elifunt's philosophy and proven marketing methodologies, rather than aiming to increase followers. As a result, we were able to grow naturally. (Laughs)
LinkedIn was the optimal channel for our mission to grow the industry together, and I felt a lot of signals confirmed by the reactions when I shared stories that were actually needed. Follower counts should be results, not goals. In fact, there are many cases where people who weren't followers converted into customers after viewing our content.
💎 In B2B marketing, trust is an asset.
Q. You often use the term 'trust capital.' How exactly does it work in B2B?
Advertising ends when it stops, but trust returns as a favorable opportunity the longer it accumulates.
In B2B, it takes several months to reach a purchase conversion. When content is repeatedly exposed during this process, customers are more likely to conclude that they can trust the company. In fact, many of Elifunt's content leads to sales leads even 10 months after it was created. This isn't simply because it ranks well in search results, but because the content itself is responsible for psychological persuasion. Therefore, trust capital ultimately serves as the foundation for genuine growth that permeates both marketing and sales.
Q. The topic of this session is 'Strategies for Websites Customers Find on Their Own.' So, this would be one way for a website to build trust capital, wouldn't it?
A website built on verified content becomes the most powerful trust capital for B2B companies.
Content is the very core. Global SaaS companies like Zapier and Notion are prime examples. They have grown by acquiring customers solely through content driven by search traffic. Rather than simply describing features, they have accumulated hundreds of pieces of content demonstrating 'what problems this product solves,' and all of this content is responsible for the customer journey within their websites.
Elifunt is building this structure in the Korean B2B market as well. An ERP solution company that partnered with us has been consistently generating leads for several months using content with the message that “implementation can reduce the time spent writing field reports.” Since customers start by searching when they identify a problem, there must be content tailored to that specific moment.
Website strategy was the most well-received topic at last year's seminar as well. There are many global B2B SaaS companies that acquire customers solely through organic traffic, without the need for advertising. At this conference, we plan to analyze these success stories to share effective website building methods and strategies for translating them into tangible results!
Q. It seems that 'one team' play between marketing and sales is crucial for B2B success. Do you have any know-how for increasing the contract success rate together?
To make a big snowman, everyone has to push the snowball in the same direction.
Successfully securing a client contract is a task that grows only when rolled together like a snowball. Success is not possible if each department performs its individual role well alone. The most important factors are the division of roles and timing regarding who leads from the front, who pushes from the side, and who supports from behind.
The key to practical application is sharing context. In addition to lead information, the marketing team must present the sales team with (1) the solutions customers expect, (2) key points sales should focus on, (3) acquisition channels and customer pain points, and (4) the solutions customers expect.
Conversely, the sales team must periodically communicate to the marketing team (1) the message the customer actually responded to and that moment, (2) the reason the contract was made or not made, (3) the customer's wow points and recurring questions.
In practice, frequently asked questions are preemptively addressed through content, customers' "Wow" points are converted into key messages, and unfulfilled customer patterns serve as clues to redesign the entire marketing and sales strategy.
This exchange of information creates a virtuous cycle. I think the snowball grows larger and a solid snowman can be completed only when a feedback loop is formed where marketing supports sales, and sales, in turn, refines the direction of marketing.
🙌 In 2025, we aim to create a B2B ecosystem that grows together.
Q. What goals does Elifunt aim to achieve this year?
We are preparing the B2B Roadmap 2025 so that the industry can grow together.
The B2B Roadmap 2025 is a truly massive challenge, and we hope it will be a memorable event for all participants. We have not planned a single session speaker or topic haphazardly. We are sincerely preparing this as a time to contribute to the industry's shared growth and to be a moment worthy of being recorded in your May 2025 retrospectives.
Elifunt aims to achieve greater growth this year through this conference. Although we are still a small company, we are upgrading our internal marketing frameworks to directly contribute to the growth of more businesses. In particular, please look forward to the upgraded version of our customer success storybook that we plan to unveil at the end of this year!
Q. Is there a special message or insight you would like to share at the upcoming B2B Roadmap 2025 Conference? Please give us a sneak peek!
In B2B, you must believe in the power of trust capital and take a long-term view of the business!
I suggest taking a moment to catch your breath and look at marketing, sales, and business strategy from a longer-term perspective. Due to the nature of B2B business, strategies that attempt to kill two birds with one stone in the short term tend to be less effective.
The most important thing is to believe in the power of trust capital. If you seriously consider strategies to build trust with customers using your company's unique methods, you will naturally come to realize what is truly important.
Q. What is the concern you have been most engrossed in recently?
We want to create our own unique organizational culture.
Running a business, I give the most thought to organizational culture. At Elifunt, we believe that creating greater synergy as a team is more important than outstanding individual capabilities. Moreover, above all, I want to build an organization where team members remember the time they spent at Elifunt as the period of greatest growth in their lives.
That is precisely why we invited CEO Park Chang-sun of Aftermoment as a speaker for this B2B Roadmap 2025. CEO Park stated that the secret to companies achieving rapid growth even amidst a recession is successfully establishing a 'unique organizational culture' in their own language. We at Elifunt also intend to grow even bigger by refining our own methods of success and our own language.
My biggest concern is finding ways for the organization to adapt flexibly and achieve sustainable growth in such a rapidly changing environment.
‘Want to hear more insights and vivid stories from the field from Elifunt CEO Kim Ye-ji?
Meet B2B industry leaders at the B2B ROADMAP 2025 Conference
Don't miss the opportunity to expand and connect your business, from practical strategies to networking!
B2B ROADMAP 2025 Preview
- Speaker Relay Interview 1. LinkedIn Director Choi Min-hee: 'The Real Way to Use LinkedIn' to Maximize Output
- Speaker Relay Interview 2. Attorney Jung Ji-woo: May we use the Ghibli-style images created by ChatGPT as advertising material?
- Speaker Relay Interview 3. Yongmin Cho, CEO of Unbound Lab: Characteristics of B2B Businesses Attracting Investment in the AI Era
- Speaker Relay Interview 4. Desker Team Leader Yoo Hyo-young: Marketing Secrets That Captivated 30,000 B2B Customers
- Speaker Relay Interview 5. Elifunt Lead Kim Min-ju: How to Make Customers Come to You on Their Own—All You Need Is 'This'
- Speaker Relay Interview 6. Eventers CEO Ahn Young-hak: The Secrets of Planning and Operating Seminars That 'Lead to Transformation'
- Speaker Relay Interview 7. Ringle CEO Lee Seong-pa: B2B Sales Strategies That Work Globally, According to Ringle, an Aspiring Unicorn
- Speaker Relay Interview 8. Mirantis Director Grace Shin :Design Strategy with Customer Intent! The Future of B2B Marketing
- Speaker Relay Interview 9. Modusign CEO Lee Young-jun: The Secret to Modusign's B2B/B2G Expansion as a Latecomer
- Speaker Relay Interview 10. Open Your Eyes CEO Seo Ki-seok: Stop Marketing for Sales! Branding Strategies That Become Real Assets
- Speaker Relay Interview 11. Elifunt CEO Kim Ye-ji: How to Build Trust Capital, a B2B Growth Engine More Powerful Than Advertising
- Speaker Relay Interview 12. Park Se-yong, CEO of Ascent Korea: The Secret to Reading Customers' Inner Thoughts, Directly Linked to Marketing Performance
- Speaker Relay Interview 13. Serial Entrepreneur CEO Daiani Macedo: How to Build a Successful B2B SaaS, According to a Global Serial Entrepreneur
- Speaker Relay Interview 14. CEO Ettien of Jellyfish: Global B2B Marketing Strategy Presented by Jellyfish (Current Post)
- View all B2B ROADMAP 2025 posts
