Working backward from the customer result – B2B scenario -2

B2B, Customer Delight, Customers, Marketing, Marketing Stamina, messaging, service quality, single target market, Triggers

In my post yesterday I had shared all the challenges that a B2B target audience faces in her day. Having recognised the result you can offer to your customer to delight them and also identified clearly whom you won’t want to attract. How do you get their attention? If they don’t get their attention, they won’t know if you exist and you won’t be able to do business with them. However given the challenges on their time and attention, you window of opportunity is just a few seconds, before you are dumped.

The other bigger issue is that the B2B buyer is not an impulse buyer. She cannot just buy something, until and unless it’s something of extremely low value. Chances are that the need that your product or service is fulfilling is already being done by some other vendor or some other means (the Porter’s model of competitive forces) . If that be the case, its absolutely impossible to displace the existing set-up until and unless the dissatisfaction has reached a threshold value.

So one of the things that works with B2B buyers is identifying the points of dissonance and then communicating with the buyer over the long term. Over a 3 year period, at least 50% of the buyers will face challenges and if you are there in front of them at that time when the threshold is reached, they will consider you. However for this you need to plan your marketing expenses in such a way so that you don’t run out of money before the business starts coming. Marketing stamina in case of B2B is critical.

The other things which could get the attention are typically triggers – I have done detailed posts on this topic earlier also, so I won’t go into the details here. But a new customer getting onboarded or a their existing vendor going bankrupt or a new boss. All those triggers can suddenly change the dynamics, if you can exploit them.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Working backward from the customer result – Part 3

Assumptions, Customer Delight, Customers, Marketing, Product Management

Now from here onwards, things get interesting. We have worked on the Future Reality Tree. We have identified the possible chokes / constraints in the system. We have also exposed the unspoken assumptions in our thought pattern.

So now we realise that the same Product or Service can be used for different use cases. And based on the use case the delivery can be different, the users can be different and therefore the method to reach them to give them your message can be different. This is where the role of product management stands out.usto

Lets take a very mundane example of an everyday product – car engine oil. Every car needs it. There’s not too much differentiation. Now the engine oil can be sold to the OEMs – here its a bulk purchase. It can be sold to the authorised service centres of the car companies – it will still be bulk purchase but the quantity and therefore the negotiations will be different. And you can sell it at gas stations (so you have to talk to multiple gas stations and the quantities are smaller) And you could also sell it via maybe big box retailers.

For each of these different markets your packaging would change, the people you connect to for getting the deal change.

So you identify each segment and how you will reach them, what are the dynamics. A big OEM may not want to add another vendor to their existing suppliers even if you have better product specs, because it can hamper production/roll-out schedules.

On the other hand a gas station may only keep small quantities of small size packages. Since she already has existing suppliers giving the products why should she look at yours.

This is where your true marketing creativity comes out, when you start working backwards from the end result.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Working backward from the customer result – Part 2

constraints, Customer Delight, Marketing

Yesterday we discussed on how you can start with the Future Reality Tree (FRT)from the theory of constraints. For this to work you need to have a very strong understanding of your market, so that you can keep the assumptions down to the minimum.

Once you have created the (FRT) it will also help you identify the chokes or constraints in the marketing process. This is the critical part because with this knowledge you can work on mechanisms to ensure that your process incorporates the constraint and then gives the result.

As an example if you are an author and you want the physical copy of your books to sell say 10000 copies in the first 30 days of its launch. For that to happen two things are critical – one is people know that you have a book coming out on a specific date and two they should go and buy it. For buying they have two options – online retailers and physical bookshops. Lets now only look at the physical book shops.

If a person knows that you are coming out with a book, and he reads your books and he likes to read physical copies of books and he does not like to wait for the book to arrive by courier/mail THEN he is a prospect for you to buy a book from a bookstore.

So how will he know that the book that he wants is available at the book store at the airport / railway station , when he is catching his flight/train. You will need to figure that out because now this is where everything can come to a halt. Whether you need to tie-up for signage with the shopkeeper, whether your books should be kept right at the entrance, then what would the shop charge you. You need to find that out and close all those pieces.

What this whole process of working backwards helps you do is come to what you need to do today – in the now / present – so that you can sell 10000 books from launch date to 30 days.

Today is all that you have. The future will come when it becomes “now” and we can’t forecast it. But we can take steps today.

So work on your customer journeys backwards to create delighted customers.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Working backward from the customer result

constraints, Customer Delight, Customers, ideal customer, Marketing, single target market

When you think you have identified the niche, single target market (ideal client) and you have to figure out how to reach them, a good way to start is by thinking about the result your client will get by using your product or service.

Suppose you know the ideal result you can get for your client. Does that result actually make an impact on your ideal client. If it does not, then you need to rethink about the ideal client and the single target market. If it will make an impact will they become Raving Fans. If not what will need to be done to make them Raving Fans.

If the result you can get is going to make an impact and make them Raving Fans, then you need to think in terms of the journey the client will need to take to reach that stage and then work backwards. Its something similar to the Eli Goldiratt theory of constraints – future reality tree (FRT). You go through the complete logic , starting with the end in mind and then flow backwards to the starting point, to figure out where things could go wrong or the unsaid assumptions.

Recently my team and I were doing a Future Reality Tree for one of our operations and my colleague stopped me from proceeding because we had listed out way to many assumptions for the success of the end result. With so many assumptions not getting into certainty stage, it was going to be a disaster. So now we have one person who is going to work through the next two weeks to figure out how many of the assumptions can be made into certainty by working on platforms like Linkedin etc.

When you do this FRT, you will also be able to work out the medium which can help get you the best/fastest results. It will help you also see the chokes in the system, for you to get the result for your customer.

We will work on the next steps from here in the next post.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!