b2b messaging

Testing for marketing messaging

B2B, messaging, Testing

Everyone is given the motivational talk about Edison and that he failed to 9000 times before he was successful with the light bulb. While you cannot take away the fact that he was a master inventor, he also utilized the principles of mass testing. He tested vigorously and kept learning from each test….so they were iterations not failures.

When a company says that the electric motor they manufacture has an average life of 3000 hours, they would not test each motor for 3000 hours. They would typically create a sample and then keep the sample on for 3000 motor-hours. If no motor fails then 3000 hours is a safe figure to commit. By continuously testing samples over a long period of time you will be able to come to a figure which is then extremely reliable.

What Edison did was employ multiple people for testing different filament options at a mass level on the electric bulb. So even though there were more than 9000 failures, these failures were not all sequential done by one man, but parallel tests.

In messaging also you can’t keep trying to check which message will stick to your target audience in B2B. What you need to do is test parallel messages and see on which message you get traction. Then the message that gets you the best traction, becomes your “control” piece. Now you start testing against this message by changing one variable at a time.

You need to test very fast at mass scale. One of the challenges I have faced in doing these mass testing procedures is that the people involved lose patience and the tests go haywire because people start compromising. The testing process has to be rigorous, for you to get a clear winner.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Asking questions in the market – 4

Marketing, messaging, Positioning, Questions, route to market

Over the last few posts I have been talking about how better questions can make a difference in the success that you achieve in the market. While my focus is on the B2B market, the general principle will apply to any market.

Today the questions I am talking about would help in making your messaging and route to market better. It will then help you identify the constraints you can face, the models you have to apply etc. Again I would highly recommend Dean Jackson’s Morecheeselesswhiskers.com podcast and his & Joe Polish podcast ilovemarketing.com

1. Is the product or service that you are wanting to sell going to be used as a first time buy. If someone has never used a motorized vehicle then a 100CC mobike is a first time buy for them. Trying to sell them a 650CC motorcycle will not work.

2. Will the product be an upgrade or replacement. If you know the customer is already a user of your Air Conditioner for the last 5 years then they could be ready for a replacement or upgrade. In IT is called a refresh cycle which each company decides.

3. Will the product or service be for emergency use. If a tornado strikes and there’s a damaged roof or water in the basement then you need to get it out NOW. Then there’s no time for evaluation of multiple options.

4. Will the product be an accessory to a key product. Smart phone covers are an every day example. So you need to be able to reach those buyers who use the phone for which you have the covers.

5. Will the product/ service be for the repair of an item. Duck tape is a very good example of this or a tyre repair shop.

6. Is what you are selling aspirational in nature. Then you have to target the people who already use something and may now have the money to aspire for something bigger or because their families or job responsibilities have changed. Aspirational is a little different from upgrade in the sense that upgrades are generally considered incremental in nature.

There could be some specific scenarios which apply to your business and have not been listed here.

Once you can map where all your product or service plays, you can design the market route, the messaging etc.

Generally I keep my posts short so you can read them while waiting in the line to get coffee. This one has become slightly longer. I hope its useful.

Let me know your views.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Asking the right questions in the market -3

B2B, Business, ideal customer, Marketing, Questions, Technology

I have had a lot of situations where we thought we had an amazing product / service but we were not getting a response from the market.

We tried various scenarios, tested various markets but the response was just not there.

In B2B technology services, you may have a wonderful product or service, which is well differentiated but the market does not respond to your service. This inspite of the fact that you are looking at a very small niche, you have identified your Ideal Customer (the person / role) and talking about the pain points that they may have.

The reason for this as I have explained in my earlier posts is that technology companies follow an “infrastructure” or “ecosystem” model. Which means if your product / service does not easily fit into the existing infrastructure then the adoption will be very low.

In this situation instead of asking questions like is this the right market to focus or does this market have the ability to pay. The questions that need to asked could be more oriented towards what could be preventing the audience from responding to your messaging.

Is it that you don’t explain how you fit into the “infrastructure” or is it that they feel it will be too much of an effort to even think about your product / service. To be able to analyse this you need to sit quietly and brainstorm all the possible reasons which could prevent them from interacting with you.

Once you list all the items then quickly start testing to eliminate each of the issues and see which ones have the most impact.

Most often I have found, the reason for not getting to the right answer has been the fact that I had not reached the right question. Once I had asked the right set of questions, things were generally a cake walk.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Identifying the dissonance for engaging a B2B customer

B2B, Business, competition, Marketing, Marketing Stamina, messaging, persistence, segmentation, single target market

With B2B customers, as I have mentioned earlier in my earlier posts, its difficult to get instantaneous decisions because of various reasons. These could vary from inertia to customers having to do cross functional team decisions, budgets and the works.

In most cases until the dissonance with the existing supplier is so large and repeated that the customer can no longer bear it, they don’t change. However in a bundle of 1000 prospects, the Dean Jackson “inevitability principle” eventually kicks in and some incumbents falter and that’s when you get a chance to stake your claim.

Now you need to be in front of the customer to stake your claim. In addition you should, on a consistent basis keep highlighting the possible challenges the customer could be facing.

For this you need to know your competition well. Competition could be from a company or an alternative technology. You need to understand the places competition is weak and then work your messaging to highlight the challenges the customer could be facing because of the those issues. These messages need to be about “rubbing salt over their wound” so that the pain gets even more highlighted.

Its not always possible to know all the challenges until you ask the customer and then hypothesize for others – since you have already focused on a narrow segment of the market. So if you get in front of a customer on the phone or in person or via web you need to check if they value the benefits that you offer versus what the incumbent does not have. You will then realize for yourself if those benefits matter to a decent set of your audience.

Once you have done that then the the key is to be persistent because we don’t know when the customer will decide to change. Also since customers do more than 60% of their research in the sales cycle even before they call the vendors, if you are not in front of them when they are doing the research, you won’t even get considered.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!