Marketing does not work on formulas

differentiation, Marketing, Positioning, Product Management, segmentation

I have the biggest challenge with people who use spreadsheets to work on a target and then break it down with formulas. If marketing or product management was so formulaic, no product would ever fail.

If you check my team also, you will find them telling you that my fundamental question is “Why will it happen”

Spreadsheets are very good, especially for making lists and milestones. However assuming that the market you operate in will behave like a formula in the sheet is fallacy and targets will never be met.

The reason for that is markets and customers have a mind of their own. As I have mentioned earlier also marketing is applied psychology.

While the demographics and psychographics will list out typical characteristics, each of these people in the B2B segments, operate in an environment, where they interact with different functions. Each function has different priorities.

Unlike the consumer market where the risk is low for most of the items, when it comes to B2B technology products there’s a lot of perceived risk and people don’t like to change the status quo.

Since technology changes so fast one of the first inertia points for the customer is – am I investing in the right technology, how will it impact my other operations. Then come other questions like, what if it doesn’t work, what if this company sinks etc.

For the product management folks its critical that they take into account all these inertia or resistance points. Think through as deeply from the customer’s point of view, write an autobiography of the customer.

You can’t do this if you take a broad spectrum of the market. That is why it’s important to identify a niche in the market and then a market in the niche. Then actually go out and meet customers and understand all the reasons, why they won’t buy, then continuously improve your offerings.

Never rely on spreadsheets to govern the actions for your product but use them to govern the milestones.

Till next time.

Carpe Diem!!!

B2B Messaging – sequences

Marketing, messaging, Positioning, Product Management, Sales, segmentation

The job of a cold email is to get a response to validate the quality of the database. That’s it. As I have been ranting, over the last few posts, therefore these mails have to be extremely short and to the point.

Once someone responds, you can start a sequence of mails. Dean Jackson has a very interesting term called “offering cookies” to educate and motivate propsects.

However one key thing I have noticed in B2B marketing is whenever you are launching or marketing a new product, there is a lot of resistance/inertia in the mind of the prospects to change.

The reason for this is the amount of sanctions and approvals, people have to take, from multiple stake holders to get a new thing in place. So people don’t like to bother about software or solutions or technologies which will, at best, offer some incremental change. This is even more true if its for an internal process. So one basic thing to keep in mind is to see how your product or service can dot he job differently and therefore give a dramatic improvement of an internal process.

If its for a customer facing item they may still be open to things which are incremental, if they think, that it will help in better customer acquisition of customer retention. Therefore in these situations, more than the technology part, you should look at the impact on business in your communication.

To work through this inertia or resistance you will need to keep sending a sequence of mails to increase the awareness of the product/service, to drive in a wedge of dissonance with the existing setup that they have and to share case studies on how other adopters have used your product or service.

I have seen cases where we have targeted prospects for more than year – which means at least 18-20 touches, before they even thought of talking to us.

There was a time when people would offer whitepapers as magnets to pull prospects to see their level of interest. Today in the technology/IT arena everyone is offering so much content via YouTube and other social media channels that putting “gates” to see the level of interest can be worthless. This is however my opinion.

As I tell my team, I am also telling you – the market is the final judge. Pls test and see what works in your market. If offering whitepapers via “gates” helps gauge the level of interest of a prospect in your market, by all means go ahead and do it.

However doing a sequence of touch points /messaging is absolutely imperative in B2B marketing. So don’t get disheartened if even after sending out 4-5 mails you don’t get a response.

Till next time.

Carpe Diem!!!

In marketing Less is More – quite often

differentiation, Marketing, messaging, Positioning, Product Management, Sales, segmentation

If you have been observing the posts I have been writing, in the last few weeks, you would have noticed one common traits.

I have been asking you to continuously reduce and sharpen your focus.

In the marketing focus I spoke about identifying a single niche which is small enough for the big players but large enough for you to focus. So we eliminated all the remaining markets/segments and isolated a minimum viable market to start. Once you become successful in one, then you can move to the next segment and so on.

In the B2B messaging that I have been speaking about in the last few days , again, I have insisted on you sending a message which cannot be made shorter for conveying the information or problem. Once you can start the conversation with the recipient, you then have enough time for discussing about the various services that you offer. But there are so many distractions and complexities in our lifes, that if your message will look even slightly complex people will ignore you.

Its very tempting to try and grab as much as possible in the market, to write as much as possible in your message, but that is the sure shot way to not get anywhere in marketing .

Like the master piece sculpture in the picture, if the artist had not chiseled away the unwanted stone, you would notice this sculpture. Similarly for your market remove all the things which reduce your focus.

In marketing , most of the times , Less is actually More.

Till next time.

Carpe Diem!!!

B2B Messaging -Part IV

differentiation, Marketing, messaging, Positioning, Product Management, Sales, segmentation

Today’s post is just to reiterate one single fact.

If you see the picture above, all those apps on the phone screen are to help you. But all those apps are also sending out push notifications to interrupt what you are doing.

Then there are the actual phone calls that come on the phone which interrupt the person reading her emails and after that she gets called into a meeting. Your email which had just reached before she got interrupted by one of the above, now becomes one of the 20 emails which she has to look at when she against starts looking at her mail.

Now look at the challenge for the email in the job that it has to do. The job of the email is to only to get a response from the recipient for you to start a conversation

But to that job,

It has to avoid all the Spam filters, which can quarantine it.
It has to stop itself from being labeled a Marketing Mail and
It has to attract the attention of the recipient among all the distractions listed above and more

A lot of sales books I have read tell about the time of day and days when you should write a cold email. My team has tried a lot of these ideas in various permutations and combinations. I have not been able to figure out statistically if I can confirm or contradict these theories.

What I have however found is that the shorter the cold email is and the more focused it is, the higher is the possibility of getting a response.

If the job of the email is to only get a response for you to be able to start a conversation and your product/ service is clearly identified for a single target market then crafting the message will become a little easier.

Till next time.

Carpe Diem!!!