"Shouldn't the approach to corporate and individual customers be different from the start?"
When expanding your customer base from B2C to B2B or vice versa, concerns about targeting often become significant. However, come to think of it, don't corporate customers also take on the persona of an individual at times? Consider Person A,
who is a team leader during the day, a multi-jobber after work, an occasional lecturer, and has recently started writing a book. As
a corporate decision-maker, an entrepreneur, and an individual all at once, Person A is no longer a fictional character. In today's world, where individual personas are diversifying in this way, distinguishing between B2B and B2C targets may no longer be meaningful.
Yoo Hyo-young, Team Leader of the Marketing Team at Desker, a work and lifestyle brand, has driven growth by targeting "working people" beyond the boundaries of B2C and B2B, securing 30,000 corporate members in just three years. Team Desker focuses on "customer problems and situations" rather than defining targets from a brand perspective. Gain hints for your own business growth through the story of Desker, which pioneered this forward-thinking B2B marketing.
Q. Hello, Team Leader Yoo Hyo-young. Please introduce yourself!
Hello, I am Yoo Hyo-young, Head of Marketing at Desker. I gained experience in 'execution-oriented' marketing for about 10 years while managing BTL campaigns and spatial marketing at Leo Burnett and Innocean. After working in the marketing team at Fursys, I moved to Desker, where I expanded my scope of work to focus on branding and strategy. Currently, I work while contemplating 'how can we solve customer problems and exceed their expectations to provide complete satisfaction?'.
Desker Marketing Team Manager Yoo Hyo-young
Q. How did you come to participate in the B2B Roadmap 2025? I am curious to know what story you wanted to convey.
Desker, which started as a B2B office furniture brand in 2016, naturally expanded into B2C by following "what customers want." Now, our business is evolving to the point where it is difficult to clearly distinguish between individual and corporate customers, much like B2B2C or B2C2B. Many colleagues who are building our B2B business together will be attending this conference. I hope this will be a time for us to grow together as we share stories on how Desker has solved B2B challenges from a branding perspective and how we design the relationship between brands and customers.
🤳 Innovating office furniture purchasing with an 'online non-stop service,'
attracting over 30,000 business members in just 3 years
Q. You launched the BizDesker service in 2023. What customer problems did you plan to solve with this service?
To improve the existing inconvenient office furniture purchasing process, we have transferred our B2C experience to B2B.
The process of purchasing office furniture for corporate customers is more complex than expected. They must personally handle every step, from searching for products and comparing quotes to coordinating delivery schedules. This is especially true for startups in their early stages or small organizations, where a lack of dedicated administrative or purchasing personnel often forces the working-level staff or the CEO to shoulder the entire burden.
Therefore, Desker attempted a kind of 'decoupling' strategy. By boldly innovating the standardized purchasing process of the existing market, they integrated the entire process—from proposals and quotations to logistics systems—into an online environment. The design allowed corporate customers, already familiar with online browsing and purchasing, to conveniently handle all procedures on the website. By enabling everything from quotation verification and payment to repurchase on a single platform, they provided an 'online non-stop service.'.
As this strategy of defining and solving problems from the customer's perspective worked well, we were able to secure over 30,000 business members since the launch of BizDesker in 2023.
From B2B in-house stores to data-driven growth strategy execution
In fact, we were operating a website even before the launch of Bizdesker. However, its role was limited solely to 'lead collection.' Even when we secured potential customer information online, actual purchases were handled through a human-based method, relying on callbacks or dedicated sales personnel. This structure not only required an excessive injection of internal resources but also made it difficult to systematically improve performance due to the challenge of tracking conversion rates.
However, upon launching BizDesker, we completely revamped the structure to enable self-quoting and purchasing after signing up. We streamlined our sales methods and delivery processes, designing the system so that customers can autonomously manage the entire process online. We now manage the customer purchase journey via a dashboard, much like in B2C, and closely track key metrics that contribute to our ultimate goal of 'sign-ups,' ranging from advertising performance to repeat purchase conversions.
I believe that building a funnel based on our own online store and being able to execute data-driven growth strategies is in itself a significant change and a meaningful achievement for Desker
✍️ A brand that meticulously considers the user's goals and circumstances
rather than defining corporate and individual customers separately.
Q. Who does Desker consider to be the most ideal target among B2B customers?
So that people who work dreaming of growth can focus solely on 'work'
During the initial planning stages of Desker, the CEO visited the office of a friend who had founded a startup. He noticed the office environment, with computers lined up beyond traces filled with passion and notes plastered haphazardly, and was deeply impressed by his friend’s remark, “Since it’s my first time, it was difficult to invest in furniture.”.
Desker started with the idea of providing concise and essential products that help those starting out focus solely on their work. This philosophy remains unchanged to this day. Desker's direction is to help those dreaming of growth—ranging from startups and small business owners to individual customers—work in a better environment. The long-running 'Office Change' campaign (an initiative to improve startup office environments) and the recently launched 'I Do What I Love' campaign are also projects that originated from this consideration.
Beyond simply selling furniture, Desker is building brand recognition and trust within the niche market of 'working people.' Regardless of the form or size of the company, everyone who works while dreaming of 'growth' is our ideal customer.
Q. It is impressive that you do not draw a boundary between B2C and B2B targets! Were there any memorable results while conducting B2B marketing?
Messages focused on individual issues captured the hearts of corporate customers as well.
Desker has been running the Workcation campaign in Yangyang since 2021. At a time when flexible work arrangements were becoming commonplace due to COVID-19, we wanted to propose a work style and culture that was uniquely Desker. Thus, in 2021, we introduced a Workcation where work and rest coexist in Yangyang, a small city by the blue sea, and it received much love. We operated the program until 2024, starting with the establishment of spaces and programs where people could work freely and enjoy leisure time through collaboration with WSB FARM, a leader in surfing culture, and D.CAMP, a youth startup foundation in the financial sector. Cumulatively, 1,500 individual users and 220 companies sought out Desker Workcation, and we also helped spread the culture by partnering with regional Workcation centers. Seeing many companies and participants embrace Workcation—which was initially somewhat unfamiliar—as a new culture and experience, and actively seeking it out, I felt that the Desker brand could reach people not only through products but also through experiences.
Desker – Yangyang Workation Campaign
Q. Do brand activities such as 'Desker Lounge,' 'Monthly Desker,' and 'Dipper' also lead to B2B business results?
We provide a 'positive experience' to customers facing various situations.
While it is difficult to directly quantify results with precise figures, I believe it played a crucial role in establishing Desker's direction and building brand trust. As mentioned earlier, we do not strictly differentiate between individual and corporate clients when planning marketing campaigns. Since the actual purchasing journey often naturally shifts from individual to corporate or vice versa, it is not easy to define targets or use cases linearly at the brand level. Therefore, our primary goal is to "enhance the user experience centered on individual customers." Through this approach, we aim to help working people experience "growth" at their desks, and we hope that this very experience becomes the image Desker seeks to convey. Various brand activities, such as "Desker Lounge," "Monthly Desker," and "Dipper," also pursue this same direction. We are constantly striving to ensure the brand is remembered as a space for positive experiences by providing content and experiences tailored to the specific situations and needs of each working individual.
[Monthly Desker] YouTube Content – A Brand Planner Companies Seek Out For
Q. I am also curious about the collaborative structure that naturally transfers leads acquired from powerful marketing channels to the sales team. How is Desker fostering a 'one team' play?
One team focusing on sustainable 'customers' rather than one-off 'sales'
The Desker Marketing Team generates customer influx through advertising and content, while the BizDesker B2B Team manages this as a sales channel. However, I believe that to function as a true 'One Team,' each team must not simply perform their own role, but rather concisely define customer problems and solve them together.
Our shared mission is to "resolve the customer journey easily and quickly." We believe that when this consensus exists, marketing and sales can naturally collaborate organically, working toward a single goal.
Furthermore, at Desker, we prioritize the number of long-term customers (sign-ups) over short-term sales metrics as our key indicator. Because we set goals based on "how many customers we can build lasting relationships with," I believe we were able to become one team moving in the same direction rather than competing with each other as departments.
Q. It sounds like you had a hectic first quarter! I’m curious about the Marketing Team’s goals for this year and your vision.
Desker approaches its 10th anniversary in 2026. While we have established ourselves as a "brand that defines and solves problems" so far, we are now contemplating how to take a step further and instill certain expectations in our customers regarding Desker. To this end, we are taking a deep look back at our existing customers and actively engaging in internal discussions regarding what issues need to be resolved and how to increase customer satisfaction and recommendation rates.
In that sense, I think this year will be a time to design Desker's 'next chapter'.
Q. Lastly, is there a special message you would like to convey through the B2B Roadmap 2025?
I believe that branding is ultimately about winning people's hearts. Whether it is an individual or a company, regardless of the type of customer, I believe the most fundamental aspect is how to solve the problems of 'people' and how to move their hearts. I would like to candidly share examples of how Desker has addressed these concerns over the past decade. I hope this B2B Roadmap 2025 serves as a valuable opportunity to share these stories and contemplate them together. 🙂
🏃♂️ Speaker Relay Question: What are your worries these days? I'll ask it for you!
Third Relay Questioner – Yongmin Cho, CEO of Unbound Lab
Yongmin Cho is the CEO of Unbound Lab, which operates a fund investing in AI deep tech, consumer, and B2B solution companies in Korea and the United States. At B2B Roadmap 2025, he will share stories about shifting problem-solving methods rather than technology, the conditions for AI to permeate organizational culture rather than just adoption, and elevating the level of the question itself, “What is the problem we really want to solve?”.
👉 Read the interview with CEO Yongmin Cho on “How B2B Businesses Survive in the AI Era”
Q. I am curious about your unique method of acquiring knowledge from fields outside your own. – Yongmin Cho, CEO of Unbound Lab
If there is a leader who uses a “unique and unprecedented” method rather than the typical reading or YouTube routine, I would really love to hear about it. For example, like randomly showing up at a famous company in the field and treating just anyone to coffee (laughs)
A. We understand the entire industry by creating a factbook that summarizes the industry's scale, characteristics, key players, and recent issues. – Team Leader Yoo Hyo-young, Desker
(I haven't studied fields other than marketing, so I don't think this is my own unique method. I'm not sure if this is an appropriate answer!) I worked at an agency for a long time and encountered various industries while working with diverse clients. In the preliminary stage for client proposals, we would create a 'Fact Book.' While working on the Fact Book was intended to help understand the client (a specific brand or company), I remember finding it interesting to gain a broad understanding by organizing the industry's scale, market characteristics, key players, and recent issues. Once I surveyed the entire industry, the client's requirements or the problems we needed to solve often became clearly visible.
Want to hear more insights and vivid stories from the field from Desker Team Leader Yoo Hyo-young?
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
