Finding out “where” to meet your B2B buyer

B2B, ideal customer, Marketing, Marketing Ecosystem, messaging, single target market

In the consumer space its generally possible to identify which places your audience visits physically and on the web. It is possible if they visit discount stores or if they visit the high end malls.

With B2B buyers the biggest challenge is in identifying the role different people play during different phases of evaluation of a solution.

Since most people do the evaluation using the web even before connecting to a sales person from one of the companies on their shortlist, its a major challenge if you don’t make it to the shortlist.

One way to handle this is with companies who give you “intent” data. I have used some of these companies for their services. What is challenging is we don’t know the method of how these companies run their algorithm and with what data points. So I have personally not had too much success though a lot of people do think this kind of service helps.

Since B2B buying is not impulsive, its easier to identify the things a customer will do before they use your technology and after they use your technology.

If you can have some kind of a marketing partnership with the companies on both the before and after, you can automatically identify the set of people you need to reach much earlier in the buying cycle and be in front of them consistently and build your BRAND in their minds .

I would love to hear your comments if you have successfully used “intent ” data or if you have tried another successful method.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Who’s not your customer – Part 2

B2B, Business, ideal customer, Marketing, Positioning, Product Management, segmentation, single target market, Technology

Yesterday I spoke about why having a “Whos’s not your customer” can help put a check from you getting de-focussed from your Ideal Customer / segment / niche.

Who’s not your customer can be seen from different angles – lets explore that in a little more detail.

If you are in the technology space in B2B then it could be – all customers who still use physical IVRs cannot be my customers or all customers where the CIO reports into the CFO cannot be my customers or all customers who don’t use “cloud” cannot be my customer.

Inspite of being in the technology domain you could have non-technology disqualifiers as well – like the CIO reporting to the CFO or if the customer does not have a specialised program for diversity companies. Another disqualifier could be all companies who ask for a credit period of more than 30 days. Depending on the kind of business you are in you can choose the people you don’t want to work with.

Depending on the business you are in these , these disqualifiers help you fine tune your company’s ICP even more. So suppose you are a small company in IT services. As part of the the ICP you realise that you would like to work with multi billion dollar enterprises. However these companies might have payment terms which are 90 days credit. Now even if you were able to get this kind of a customer you may realise that you cannot sustain that kind of credit terms and your business suffers.

In this case it would be a better idea to identify multi billion dollar companies who have payment terms of less than 30 days only as your ideal customer. This way you don’t waste your energy.

As I mentioned yesterday – sometimes when looking at just the positive side of the ICP can defocus you. By identifying the people whom you cannot do business with, whether based on technical or non-technical criteria can dramatically improve your chances of success.

I would like to see your comments if this idea helps you as well.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

B2B Buyer’s and the ecosystem

B2B, Marketing, Marketing Ecosystem, Positioning, Product Management, segmentation

I have written earlier about the “infrastructure” that needs to be in place before you can place a new technology solution in the customer environment. This infrastructure also akin to the ecosystem which exists in nature which helps everyone survive and grow better

If that be the case, then who would the customer contact for a new technology that she’s hearing about.

If you have niched your market well, then you would know most of the market participants.

If you have niche your market well then you might be able to anticipate the questions that will come in the mind of your prospect.

If you can anticipate these you may also then be able to anticipate who would be the existing vendor/partner that the customer may want to talk to. Can you think of building a partnership with this company to get a quicker entry into the ecosystem.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

B2B Buying Processes in technology -II

B2B, differentiation, Marketing, Product Management, segmentation

While I keep talking consistently about segmenting the market and identifying niches, I also talk about identifying niches by use case rather by demographics and psychographics.

Typically in B2B buying especially when you are selling (I am using this term in a very broad way) to mid to large size companies there’s an hierarchy of positions within departments. In typical sales situations you want to identify a decision maker and then message to them. Unlike an individual or family buying a low value item where decisions are taken on the spot, in case of decisions which require substantial investment in technology buying, there are always multiple layers

In B2B buying there’s a someone who can say yes and a lot of people who can say no. However in most cases the decision maker herself does not evaluate the options. She typically would ask someone or some people in her team or make a cross functional team to evaluate the options and bring them to her and then she takes a decision.

Now this is where it gets tricky for the Product Management person. The decision maker does not evaluate options. The people who evaluate the options in today’s day and age are hidden because they do more than 60-70% of the sorting using the internet and reach out to specific companies whom they have shortlisted. So even if you have the most elaborate technical product, if you didn’t come in front of this team and this team does not evaluate you then you don’t stand a chance.

So how does the Product Management person identify the persona to whom the messaging has to be targeted. That’s what makes the B2B buying process complex for the marketing folks.

When you choose a very small segment of the market to target , the advantage is that you can do iterations in your messaging, you can actually interview prospects who didn’t buy from you and other things to identify what is resonating with your market and incorporate the learnings very fast.

This is not an easy task at all. Once you are able to “crack the code” as Dean Jackson puts it, you can scale in that market very fast.

Even now I have to learn so much in each new product we launch. Its never easy to say that because I launched a security product last year successfully I will be successful for a new AI product I am launching this year. While the frameworks can be in place and evolving, the learning is always new. But that’s what makes it interesting.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!