b2b messaging

Single Target Market – Once Again – Testing

B2B, Marketing, Marketing Stamina, messaging, Product Management, single target market

In my post yesterday I wrote about how deep these three words – Single Target Market -are, for a product or marketing manager when they are launching a new product or service.

Even if you have a checklist based on which you identify a Single Target Market, you still need to test if there’s actually a need for your product / service in that market. “You have identified a niche in the market, but is there a market in the niche” I don’t remember where I first read this quote but its absolutely critical.

Before that you will need to test if the message that you are conveying resonates with the market. You will need to test if the medium you are using, actually takes the message to the market which people notice.

So testing, as I emphasised in my posts multiple times earlier also, is absolutely critical for your success. You may do as much analysis sitting on your desk, its only when the “rubber hits the road” that you realise how good your actual planning isarke.

If you have thought through the Single Target Market really well, then you would have also hypothesised about the conversations going on in the mind of the prospects at different stages in the buying cycle. However whether what you have sent out as a message is resonating or needs to fine tuned can only be figured out as you start playing in the market.

Similarly you may decide to send out pamphlets, to the audience, but the audience prefers to see a message on the social media platforms, that also needs to figured out.

Last but not the least – there’s a lead time – for any market to convert. In the case of B2B the lead time is actually very long – sometimes even upto two years. Reason being most B2B buying happens after a lot of effort where multiple departments are involved. So there’s lots of inertia as well as processes that need to be closed before another vendor is brought in. In addition until and unless the incumbent vendor has really messed up, the companies you target will not like to consider someone new. If you have a new technology which the existing vendors don’t provide, they may still consider you, but the process is still very long.

For this you need to have a lot of marketing stamina to not only test but also for conversion of prospects.

So while the Single Target Market can make your market entry strategy very structured, you still need to prepare for doing testing and tweaking your message or your medium.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Boredom in marketing….cause for distraction – Part 2

B2B, Marketing, messaging, Triggers

In the first part we spoke about how marketing is all about applied psychology. So to ensure that the prospects read and respond to your message they have to get curious about what you send to them.

When you are marketing to consumers, you can have different nuances like comedy, location and other things to make the prospect curious about your offerings. However when you are marketing to B2B customers the messaging has to be a little more formal. The remaining part of the post is focused on B2B messaging and how to make it more interesting for the recipient so that they don’t get bored and move to the next item.

One way, to ensure you are not boring, that I have written about multiple times earlier, is using triggers. These could be related to the industry in general, the company in particular or the person specifically. The more specific the trigger, more the chance of getting a person interested.

In B2B messaging, the concept of triggers, works best when you’re doing one – on – one messaging. A person could have joined new, a person could have got promoted, a person could have moved to a new department within the company. The CEO of the company could have set new priorities. Or the price of oil going up could impact the company positively or negatively. You will need to have people dedicated to working on tracking these triggers for your list of prospects.

You then need to mold your message about your offerings and make it relevant with the triggers. If you’re using FedEx or a similar service you could even deliver an oversized package to draw the attention of your prospect even further. On the other hand if you’re going to use email then the message has to be short and should invoke curiosity.

We will discuss in more detail next time.

Till then….

Carpe Diem!!!

Boredom in marketing….cause for distraction

Distractions, Marketing, Marketing Stamina, messaging

One of the main causes when a person gets distracted is because of boredom. The other three being hedonic adaption, negativity bias and rumination. As per Nir Eyal in his book Indistractable, the way to avoid boredom is to get curious. Even very mundane tasks as per him can be made interesting if we are curious about something. Curiosity can kill boredom and can stop you from getting distracted

Marketing is applied psychology. What is valid for the individual in his daily routine is also valid for the person who gets your marketing message.

If your message is boring, the prospect will get distracted from your message and move to something else. So you need to make the prospect get curious about your offerings. That’s the only way she will be interested in interacting with you further.

When do people become curious. In my opinion when the message has something directly to do with THEM. Which means the message should look like it’s ONLY TO them and ABOUT them. If the message anywhere screams marketing, it will automatically get banished.

So the messaging has to look one – on – one (to them) and should target the conversation that could be going on in the mind of a prospect (about them). It cannot be a sermon. It has to be specific because people now have a very short attention span.

Which brings us to the most difficult part. Understanding the conversation in the mind of the prospect, building multiple communication pieces which invoke curiosity in her mind.

And you then need to have staying power to ensure, because people respond when they want to respond. If you don’t have the marketing stamina to last long enough then you won’t be able to win.

Till next time then….we will continue on this

Carpe Diem!!!

Who’s your customer?

B2B, differentiation, ideal customer, Marketing, Marketing Ecosystem, messaging, Product Management, Sales, segmentation, single target market

This is one of the most critical questions for any product management person or a marketing person and further any sales person.

I have written various articles on this same topic taking a hit at it from various angles. Some people people call it the Ideal customer profile, some the single target market.

The critical issue is that person and what could be going on in the mind of that person which will make him think about talking to you, responding to your message, asking for your white paper etc.

Understanding this one concept is such a core to all of marketing that not addressing this one issue will cause all your differentiation be useless.

Inspite of so many years doing marketing, if I get this one thing wrong, my whole plan goes for a toss. Sometimes your colleagues will tell you that its such a small slice of the market so you should expand your attributes. Slowly you start diluting the ideal profile and the marketing becomes cluttered and the message does not attract anyone.

You also need to be clear therefore on who is not going to be your customer , so that when your message starts getting diluted your alarm bells start ringing.

Once you have clearly defined this customer – even in B2B – its a person whom you will need to profile, then the company, then the industry. What’s going on in the mind of that one person, who else is selling to that person, what could be the challenges of that person. There’s no doubt its more difficult to do this profiling than it’s to do for the consumer segment because there are many more people involved in a B2B environment.

On the other hand its easier to profile industries, loss or profit making companies etc. because that data is publicly available. In addition you have tools like Linkedin which can help you identify the colleagues of the profile, you can identify the statements made in the public by their executives etc.

Once you are clear on this one aspect, then the other things like the economics, the batch size of the market, the go to market strategy, the marketing ecosystem you need etc. become easier to handle.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!