Single Target Market – getting down to the person in B2B

B2B, Business, Customers, ideal customer, Marketing, single target market

When you are looking at the B2B space, you have to keep one thing in mind always – you are dealing with multiple people not one person. In the consumer space you could look at the consumer and maybe the influencers like the wife / husband or children who can influence, but generally it’s a small set of one or one plus.

In the case of B2B sales however its always by default Many Buyer Persons getting involved even though at the company level this may be your Ideal Customer Profile.. Its very very rare to identify a single person who can take all the decisions. This however may happen if the buying value is very low.

Now if there are going to encounter multiple people that you have to influence towards your product or service then your first exercise should be to identify all the people involved. So before you talk to thousand clients in the single target market – you first need to analyse just one customer and how will the process move.

Recently in one of the cases that my team was fighting we got blindsided by the procurement team of the customer. We did all the evaluation exercises , the technical team was coordinating with us and we were supposedly rated the best. But suddenly we got to know that the order was handed over to someone else.

Our challenge was that we had not analysed the hidden agendas that were getting played out. This happens a lot when you are in the B2B space. Its called getting zigged when you should have zagged.

Once you have analysed the niche and got down to the usage, you then need to start mapping who all could be involved in the decision making in ONE customer. Once you have analysed what happens with ONE, then you can replicate the process across the whole segment that you have identified. You may still get zigged, but if you have put the identification in your process, then the chances of being zigged will get reduced.

Till next time then…..to your success in the market.

Carpe Diem!!!

Consistency in your marketing

B2B, Consistency, Marketing, Marketing Stamina, messaging, single target market

I keep talking of the single target market, the messaging , the related supporting “infrastructure ” . Marketing books talk about the 4Ps and various other different ways to structure your marketing.

What gets missed out is the consistency to ensure that we follow what we plan. A lot of times, some new urgency comes up and what was planned gets put on the back burner to attend to the urgency.

One of the ways you create a brand is by ensuring that your customers see you on a consistent basis and remember you when they have to take a decision for that kind of a product. Everyone knows Coke, so why advertise. But the Coca-Cola company wants you to first think and ask for a Coke when you’re thirsty. That’s consistency.

Even in B2B , where decisions are generally not impulsive you have to ensure that you are consistently messaging your audience. You have to be patient with B2B because you don’t know when a requirement comes up and they reach out to you because you have been consistently following up.

That’s why the concept of Marketing Stamina becomes even more important. You have to plan with a 3 year window and keep focused to ensure that you are always “in the game”

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Hedonic – Adaptation. impact on your marketing

Human Brain, Marketing

In yesterday’s post I wrote about the how you can benefit from this ability of the brain to easily adapt to the new normal. So if you get money automatically deducted from your account for a systematic investment, then your brain will quickly adapt to having less money to spend and you will be able to build a decent amount of corpus. While these two categories are considered as “sin” products, even in things like milk or bread or shaving blades you can see this “hedonic” adaptation play out.

Lets look at how this can also help you in your marketing and how some brands actually utilise this. If you look at alcohol and cigarette companies – they have been able to pass on price increases or tax increases to customers without any dent on their profits. This is because our brain gets used to the new price rise very fast and justifies the price to itself with the lack of taste in other brands.So someone who is used to having the Chivas Regal will have it at almost any cost and similarly someone who’s used to having Jack Daniel’s will have it even if they increase the price.

On the other hand in the B2B space, in IT, the cloud has been one of the key drivers for a lot of applications with a lot of software companies now offering their products on a pay per use model (also called SaaS offerings). Now once you get used to working one set of applications that you have subscribed to, then a two dollar increase on a per month basis, initially gets you thinking, but after couple of months you don’t even think about it. But the software company who has more than a million subscribers has suddenly increased its revenue by more than a million dollars a month with this minor increase. Some people who are really tight financially and find the existing price per month already on the edge of their spending capability may decide to close the subscription, but most will continue.

Therefore your agenda should be to figure out a way to get the customer, because once you have the customer and your product or service is good, then you have the ability to influence higher margins either on the same product or alien products.

Till ext time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Losing hurts more than the joy of winning – Product and Brand Management – 2

B2B, ego, Fear, Human Brain, life time value, losing, Marketing, Product Management, winning

In yesterday’s post I spoke about how the human brain’s resistance to lose, makes the job tougher for a product management person to get a new product into the market. Nobody wants to be seen as a fool in case something goes wrong. The hurt of losing is very acute.

On the other hand there’s a positive side for the marketing person to utilise. Since marketing is applied psychology, you need to use this same concept to your advantage. That’s how brands are built. They are the trust / the promise that a user feels, when buying something from a known name (brand) versus buying an unknown name.

In the B2B space, therefore once you have entered into an account and done an excellent job, you need to spread your tentacles and try to do as many things as possible. Since the customer trusts you, they will prefer to first come to you to check out before going out into the market to find a new vendor.

So while getting into a B2B customer is tough, once there and if you have done an excellent job, the possibility of doing long term business is very high. So when looking at a B2B customer, you need to look at the lifetime value of a customer before taking any decision of refusing an order. Especially if it is at the time of entry into the account, you have to keep this dynamic in mind. Even if you have to make loss on a one time deal, for the first time, you should pick up the deal, provided you are clear that they do a lot of buying where they will involve you. You can then make up for the money you lose, by getting a logo to brag about in your brand building as well as the long term revenue possibilities.

You will also sometimes come across customers who will always want you to lose. For those types of customers, you should be ready to leave them at the earliest.

But coming back, the same feature of the brain which causes us hurt can also be used to increase revenues by ensuring that the customer realises why they trust you versus trying a new vendor.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!