Expert Interview with … José García Guaita, Ferrovial

We had the pleasure of chatting with José García Guaita, Digital Content & Communications Manager at Ferrovial, about what an ideal omnichannel strategy looks like in a B2B setting, how to make remote interactions feel as intimate as in-person experiences and his priorities and challenges for 2023.

What do you feel are the key challenges your company faces in the next 12 months?

In today's content-saturated market, all companies must rise to the challenge of how best to transmit information effectively to users and make a visual impact. Social networks are evolving in response to this, raising many questions for communications professionals; what will happen with Twitter? What’s next for Meta’s Facebook? Is Tik Tok going to be the next platform for my brand? In the case of Ferrovial, our target audience is split into different segments as we operate in countries around the globe across various business lines. Our daily challenge is to work on specific targeted communication actions to reach them and ultimately generate value for the business. Finally, I want to highlight the future of analytics and data collection as an important challenge for all companies. The announced death of third-party cookies by Google will create the need to generate our own data. Contact forms, newsletters, and email campaigns will become more necessary than ever to create our own personalized databases.

What are your top 3 areas of focus in the next 12 months and why?

In the upcoming months, we will be working on new content that is more visual and focused on the user. To bring information to our target markets, we must create engaging content that adds value. We prize the quality of the content over its focus on the brand. In line with this strategy, Ferrovial launched a new claim and a campaign called “For a World on the Move”, where we share how our people and our different projects make the world move: airports, highways, urban mobility, etc... Secondly, we will focus on communication strategies where we put our team at the center of all messages. We also have an Ambassador’s Program, where we guide our employees on how to improve their personal brand through use of social networks. When our employees have a strong digital presence this in turn helps us strengthen the Ferrovial brand. This helps us to be more attractive to talent. Thirdly, we are going to work on data-collection. We need to contact our clients in a more personalized way. Users won’t provide us with their data if we don’t offer them something interesting in exchange. To do this, we are working on expert reports and thought leadership which users can download them from our website. But this process doesn’t end here, we need to keep our database constantly updated with engaging content. We are also experimenting with hyper-segmented campaigns on social networks, focusing on high-quality users who’ll be interested in that content.

What does an ideal omni-channel strategy look like in a B2B setting?

Ferrovial is a global company involved in the design, construction, financing, operation and maintenance of infrastructure and mobility. Our projects are roads, buildings, tunnels, innovations… so our challenge is to make our messages appeal to a variety of users. As a B2B and B2G, our communication objective is a mix between the reputational impact of our brand and the aim of adding value to our business through our campaigns. We always say that citizens are our users, but governments are our clients. I say this because each of our platforms has different objectives. Some of them are more corporate, such as the website. Others, like social media, have the aim of educating users about our business. Then there’s our blog and podcast which seek to entertain users.

How do you make remote interactions feel as intimate as in-person experiences?

Surprisingly, the pandemic has actually enabled us to connect more with our teams around the world more easily. However, as a global company with different languages, time zones and cultures to cater to, we needed to adapt our internal events to these characteristics. For example, we hold events on the same theme but there are distinct speakers and timetables established for different markets. Part of the experience of an event is the anticipation of it in the lead up, so we post about them on our channels in advance. Company speakers record themselves in a video, inviting users to attend the event. We work on internal campaigns as well as posting about events on external channels. We bridge the gap of not having a physical in-person event.

What are you most looking forward to at B2B Online?

I want to thank everyone for the opportunity to be here to represent Ferrovial. The most important thing for me is the chance to learn from other communication experts. It is going to be very interesting to listen to the challenges other B2B departments are facing in the sector and have the chance to share our ideas.

To find out more, view the full agenda here.