Persistence is a critical aspect in B2B marketing – 2

B2B, Customers, Marketing, Marketing Stamina, messaging, persistence, Triggers

In yesterday’s post I had mentioned Dean Jackson’s philosophy on 100/1000 leads – where 50% of them will change the incumbent in the next 3 years. The only challenge is that we don’t know which ones will. Its a game of patience int he B2B space.

Changing an incumbent need not be the exact category of what you sell. The “incumbent” in the B2B space is about how the customer presently gets the job done.

If presently someone licks a stamp on their tongue before sticking it on the envelope, then this is the incumbent , if someone is trying to sell a franking machine. Now until the person whose tongue is used to lick the stamp quits for a better job ( a trigger) or someone in the company realises that keeping this person only for the “licking” is an expensive option (another trigger) your messages for the franking product or services will not work.

However whenever a trigger takes place with respect to the incumbent, if you are present in front of the customer, then you become the first person they will call.

So you need to have the persistence and marketing stamina , to ensure that you are in front of the stakeholders on a regular basis. In case of B2B this is one way you build your brand. The other aspect is to make your messages “instigating” the dissonance. Slowly hammering away at possible problem areas.

Tomorrow we will look at another aspect of this persistence story.

Till then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Persistence is a critical aspect in B2B marketing

B2B, Marketing, Marketing Stamina, messaging, persistence

As a marketers we generally like to send out a message and expect to get a response. Very few times you will get some response, but in most cases it takes a long long time.

Earlier I used to hear numbers like 7 to 12 contacts before a contact will respond. So people used to talk about running multi touch campaigns between email, voicemail and cold calling. However especially after Covid struck and a lot of people were working from home, the primary means of connecting has been email or to a certain extent Linkedin.

While I don’t have statistics on how many touch points you need to have before a response is received I got some research done on different geographies for response to emails. On an average its taking more than 20 email messages to be sent (these are cold emails) on different service lines before a given service line attracted a response.

Now this is a critical aspect if you are getting into the B2B space. As I have mentioned multiple times earlier in different posts, B2B buying is not impulsive so even if the message is interesting, you may not get a response. The second aspect to be kept in mind is that identifying the right person in the hierarchy who can act on the message. Designations can be deceptive.

So you need to have marketing stamina to be in the game for the long haul. As Dean Jackson says – look at it as a 3-5 year project. Out of a bunch of 100/1000 leads at least 50% will change their incumbent vendors. You only don’t know which ones will. Tomorrow we will look at another aspect of this.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

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 – B2B scenarios

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

I wrote a few posts on how you start with the customer result – what will delight the customer so much that they will become “raving fans”.

Lets now look at how this could possibly work in a B2B scenario where you have a multiple people involved in making the decision.

So if you start with a result that will delight the customer – define that customer in as much detail , with who that customer WILL be and who WILL NOT BE. I keep emphasising on this point in all my product management and marketing posts. It is always more important to define whom you will not like to serve. That portion of the market is always larger than the market which you can serve.

Once you have defined the boundaries of your service or product to delight, then look at how you will reach her and get her attention. In a B2B scenario this is a very big challenge.

Many people are wanting to get attention of our person. These are primarily 3 sets of stakeholders who are vying for her attention. First is her seniors, then her peers and more than anyone her reportees.

Now within all this chaos there are hundreds of messages which are also vying for her attention from all these stakeholders as well as vendors like us. In addition there are the pressures of her personal life which could also be occupying the same attention span.

So who gets priority
Not your message for sure….until and unless it is something that catches her attention.

Till next time then

Carpe Diem!!!