B2B Marketing, something very little people really understands and everybody thinks they know better than you do.
I’ve seen some hardworking marketing people over the last few months trying about everything to get more qualified leads and have a better view on the market. Indeed 2 critical elements during a recession. These are extremely important KPI’s in order to improve the sales effectiveness.
Looking back on my days in the states and some best practices build over the course of time, I learned a number of lessons that I think contribute to being a successful B2B marketer. It asks for a lot of discipline and hard work but the result will be measurable ROI and appreciation from your colleagues
10 must do’s: (Part I, 1 – 5)
- Visit your customers: The best way to know your market is visiting customers and prospects. Research done by Micheal Treacy shows that “Watching what the customers actually do is more reliable than listening to what they say”. Don’t rely on market research.
- Talk to the users
- Understand what problems they were faced with prior to be enabled by your solution
- Be able to quantify the situation before and after
- Write a half-page pain-based reference story in bullet format from the perspective of each impacted “role” in the company to be used by sales when they speak to these people.
- Segment the market based on your differentiation:you can read more on segmentation in a previous blogpost: Segmentation: increase the hit-rate and lower the cost of sales
- Educate the market: Building content deliverables such as white-papers, case studies, etc.. are the best tools in the quest to become top of mind. These deliverables should use the valuable information gathered during your prospect and customer visits. Don’t talk about your product/services or their benefits but rather explain a recognizable situation as is and a situation to be.
- Support Sales:One of your key roles is to facilitate sales’ ability to sell with the highest possible margin at the lowest possible cost of sales. Above mentioned deliverables are also key in helping your sales collegues to better understand their market. Work with them to build face2face best practices that work. You’re in the pivotal position to create and maintain an experience sharing platform.
- Study your competitors:Focus on their strengths not on their weaknesses and make sure you educate your internal and external customers on your differentiation not on your competitors. I see to many competitive reports and presentations leading to: ” We can do what they do and even better”. This makes your strategy to become defensive and positions you as a follower rather then a leader.
Don’t miss Part II, must-do’s 6-10 on “How to be a topnotch B2B marketer”
More than ever, this generation experiences the world as a rafting trip rather than a rowing-contest. This makes it impossible to tackle problems one at a time. A holistic approach, adapted to the specific environment, is the best way to a lasting solution. The marketing field is no different.
I see more and more companies seeking salvation in isolated short term plan of actions. Unfortunately these will only keep them out of the danger zone for a short while. Typical examples are: searching new target markets, one-off lead generation efforts hoping to find prospects that are ready to buy. This last one is a typical returning strategy in an attempt to find the famous needle in the hay-stack (lead generation).
Furthermore, today, more than ever, we have a multitude of tools and -techniques at hand. Numerous studies, amongst others the study delivered by the Aberdeen Group , have shown that optimal ROI can only be reached by using the correct mix of tools at all times.
Let me drill down on this new method of influencing your target market based on your own strengths (LEAD-NURTURING) rather than using lead-generation as a means of attracting new business. Lead nurturing means entering into a 1:1 conversation, on a continuous basis, with decision makers in your target market. This means communicating about the pains and the possible solutions your products and services can offer to solve these pains looked at it from the viewpoint of each decision-maker. The most common channels to market for lead nurturing are: email, website, blogs, whitepapers, documentation, speeches, 3rd party articles, follow-up by phone, webinars, podcasts.
Let me emphasize the most important advantages:
- The number of qualified leads will be at least doubled
- Cost of sales will be lower because your prospects will specifically seek your strengths
- Average revenue per order will be 57% higher (see Aberdeen study)
- Salespeople will succeed in winning more deals
- Next to your product-differentiation, your sales approach will also differentiate you
- A higher ROI of your marketing investments.
- Furthermore, these methods are cheaper than traditional promotional and advertizing campaigns.
Important to note is that the ROI is directly linked to the level in which you succeed to be perceived different. In order words: be different from your competitors instead of trying to be better.
Find more info on the Perpetos website:
To close off, some practical tips:
- Adapt the content of your message to the buying mindset of your prospect (meaning: Being interested, probably needing your solution or in the process of evaluating different suppliers)
- Define your product/market combinations directly linked to your your product-differentiation
- Make sure your website is optimized with the correct web key words (Search Engine Optimization – SEO). The website content must use language for all three mental stages
- Make use of Search Engine Advertising (SEA) to attract more traffic to your website
- Initiate a company blog. This is the ideal way to communicate with your customers and prospects. Don’t communicate about your products and services
- Use personalized landing pages to your website in emails. These will allow you to get more information about the click-behavior and the interests of each individual person
A step by step implementation of the above combined with follow-up by phone and email will guarantee your ROI.
Good Luck!
