Author: animeshjmathur

Losing hurts more than the joy of winning – Product and Brand Management – 2

B2B, ego, Fear, Human Brain, life time value, losing, Marketing, Product Management, winning

In yesterday’s post I spoke about how the human brain’s resistance to lose, makes the job tougher for a product management person to get a new product into the market. Nobody wants to be seen as a fool in case something goes wrong. The hurt of losing is very acute.

On the other hand there’s a positive side for the marketing person to utilise. Since marketing is applied psychology, you need to use this same concept to your advantage. That’s how brands are built. They are the trust / the promise that a user feels, when buying something from a known name (brand) versus buying an unknown name.

In the B2B space, therefore once you have entered into an account and done an excellent job, you need to spread your tentacles and try to do as many things as possible. Since the customer trusts you, they will prefer to first come to you to check out before going out into the market to find a new vendor.

So while getting into a B2B customer is tough, once there and if you have done an excellent job, the possibility of doing long term business is very high. So when looking at a B2B customer, you need to look at the lifetime value of a customer before taking any decision of refusing an order. Especially if it is at the time of entry into the account, you have to keep this dynamic in mind. Even if you have to make loss on a one time deal, for the first time, you should pick up the deal, provided you are clear that they do a lot of buying where they will involve you. You can then make up for the money you lose, by getting a logo to brag about in your brand building as well as the long term revenue possibilities.

You will also sometimes come across customers who will always want you to lose. For those types of customers, you should be ready to leave them at the earliest.

But coming back, the same feature of the brain which causes us hurt can also be used to increase revenues by ensuring that the customer realises why they trust you versus trying a new vendor.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Losing hurts more than the joy of winning- Product and Brand Management

B2B, ego, Human Brain, losing, Marketing, Product Management, winning

I had written two posts on my practical experience the other day on how not getting one packet out of the two I had ordered….made me feel bad while getting a complementary gift from the company which was roughly 8 times more in terms of value did not cause me as much joy.

This has a lot of implications for us marketing folks, whether you’re in product management or brand management etc.

Once people have experienced your product or service, then they would not like to try another brand. This is especially true for high value items. Since most B2B procurement tends to be high value, there’s an even bigger inertia to change. No one wants to feel or be seen as a fool who took a wrong decision.

Since our brain feels the loss more acutely, if something goes wrong with a decision to take a new vendor, the manager who took the decision will lose face. They may have taken a lot of right decisions but one wrong decision will keep haunting them. So they would rather go with the tried and tested vendor even if the technology they have is old or product is not as good as yours.

As a product manager , you need to figure out how you will find those companies who have a management which is willing to take risks with your new offerings, if you are coming for the first time in the market. On the other hand if you already have customers, you should always take your new offerings to them to try out. Since they know you they might be willing to experiment with your new offerings.

We will continue on this topic further in tomorrow’s post.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

B2B – Single Target Market – Deep Analysis – 3

B2B, Marketing, prioritizing, single target market

We have in the last two posts, looked at the challenges of the B2B market, whether its the hierarchies involved or the dynamics between various roles.

There’s another two dynamics which are specific to the companies and the people in those specific companies.

Some companies are marketing driven, which means that generally they want to lead the market whether its in the use of new technologies, tools, new initiatives. They are willing to experiment to continue to be the leader in the market. Since these companies are willing to experiment, they are generally more receptive to new ideas. The culture in these companies is to experiment hence down the line every one is generally open to seek new ideas. People are generally not afraid to take decisions.

Then there are others which are finance driven and keep a very tight control on “accounting ” costs, audits etc. They are always wanting to ensure that they take steps once something is proven. They want to have proof before moving forward because they don’t want to be caught up in audits. People are always trying to ensure that their “backside” is protected. These companies are therefore slow in adopting new initiatives.

These are the two extremes. If you look at it as a continuum then most of the others fall in between. There’s nothing good or bad about either of these. It’s more important to map with you’re selling

If your product or service is ‘new’ with technology or process etc. then it makes sense to start with marketing oriented companies. On the other hand if your product or service is more a replacement or substitute for something where you can give cost benefits, then you should look at starting from the other end.

Once you have identified the Single Target Market, your next step will be to identify the companies and do more research on them to prioritize your efforts.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

B2B – Single Target Market – Deep Analysis – Part 2

B2B, ideal customer, Marketing, single target market

Yesterday we looked at the key challenges that you face in the B2B space because of the various hierarchies involved as well as the inertia because of the various stake holders and the dynamics / politics between them.

When you target the consumer market, in a lot of situations your prospective customer may be invisible (as Dean Jackson would put it). In the case of B2B customers at the industry, company and even to a certain extent on the person level, you may be able to identify the people but you may find it difficult to reach them to verify if they are actually the right people for your offering.

In case of the consumer market, if you have given an incentive or a cookie (again as Dean Jackson calls it) to make her identify herself, in case of the B2B market, a lot of times I have seen that the people just take the white paper or any other cookie just to gain knowledge whether its part of their job profile or not.

So while the B2B buyer is partially visible, getting her to qualify herself is a lot tougher in my opinion. That’s why identifying the Single Target Market makes the work a little easier.

But identifying the Single Target Market is a massive amount of work. It may require a lot of iterations to get to the exact definition with the right set of constraints defined including going down to the set of people you intend to target, their roles, hierarchies and the challenges at each level of the hierarchy. Here the concept of the Ideal customer profile goes down to the individual role. That’s critical.

Till next time then….happy identifying

Carpe Diem!!!