B2B

Sustained Lead Generation- keeping the funnel full

Business, differentiation, Marketing, messaging, Positioning, Product Management

Today is the financial year closing for all organisations in India. I had an extremely hectic day where we were trying to close a very large deal – which eventually slipped the deadline.

So again tomorrow morning we get back to figuring out how to get the deal in our favor.

As they say – There’s many a slip between the cup and the lip – so do large blockbuster deals have a way of going through multiple iterations before they fruitify.

That’s where having a sustained method of generating leads of average value orders makes a big difference to your pipeline. There’s better predictability in the system for your cash flows and you build the processes and infrastructure in your company to ensure that these orders can get revenued systematically without any chokes.

For most businesses however generating the sustained leads becomes a nightmare because we try to focus on too many things at the same time. If we were to focus on only a very few markets, by segmenting them and differentiating our offerings for each segment, there would not be too much of anxiety. The occasional blockbuster then can be managed within the existing system.

On the other hand if the growth is based on the back of the block buster while there’s no pipeline for sustained order booking then you are in for major challenges. Segmenting and niching the market is the only viable way for a Product Manager to ensure that they can get success in the market

Lets see what the new financial year has in store for us.

Till next time.

Carpe Diem!!!

B2B buying processes – technology products & services

B2B, Product Management

For the product management person its not only necessary to understand the product that they have, the narrow market niche that they are focusing on , the benefits the client will get and other issues.

In the B2B buying process there are the technical people involved – like the CIO and his team or the CTO and her team or the Manufacturing head and the team. Now all the these teams have their own set of gate-keepers and number crunchers. I have earlier spoken about how the existing “infrastructure” needs to be in place for your your solution to get in place.

In addition to the “infrastructure” the financial people need to figure out the implications to their “cashflow” or “profits” with the new solution and then there are the procurement guys who like to get every vendor on the same level so that they can negotiate and get the lowest possible price.

In addition to all this if the CIO is not “powerful” in the political dynamics of the organization then she won’t be able to push your solution through the management committee. In the buying decision, people today do their research more than 60% of the way before they even interact with a sales person of the selling organisation. Which means as a product management person you should create content which can help the CIO move the technology proposal through the management committee in advance.

Similarly today technology is getting more and more pervasive. So even customer service and marketing are getting things like AI involved. So its no longer about just the CIO/CTO. You now have to prepare content which can be consumed by these folks also.

Unlike a product manager of a consumer goods company, for a B2B company, the role becomes more complex because decision making is more collective in nature and therefore you should be able to cover all the personas involved.

Till next time then

Carpe Diem!!!

B2B Messaging – getting the message delivered

differentiation, Marketing, messaging, Positioning, Product Management, Sales, segmentation

We do a lot of testing continuously on the messaging that we send and we have observed that more that 90% of the times the messaging does not get a response the first time.

We have to continuously keep making changes and do iterations to figure out “what’s working”

If you however analyze the key things whenever you don’t get a response even after sending a sequence of mails, it would boil down to the following :

  1. We have not identified the pain point of the customer and therefore the messages are not resonating
  2. We have not identified the right person
  3. Our mails are not reaching the right person

For each of these one of the key thing is to segment the market so well to begin with, such that you can identify all the possible pain points and then test them.

Similarly if you have segmented the market well and niched it by usage as well, then you should generally be able to hone in on the function which is impacted by your services, quite well. However sometimes in B2B scenarios the challenge is also there because roles may be ill defined or there might be shadow responsibilities. So while there might be a CISO in a company and they may be the public face, the decisions are taken by the CIO or CFO. If you have selected aa small segment then these kind of patterns start coming up and you try to verify the data in advance or send to all the possible functions.

The third is on the deliverability issue if you have the mail id of the right person. I have mentioned this in my posts earlier also. The spam filters block anything which even smells like a spam message or will stamp it with a “marketing mail” stamp. So your message needs to reflect the pain in the least amount of words so that the spam filters think of it as a genuine conversation.

Lastly while email is the lowest cost mechanism to connect, it also has the least efficiency. Due to Covid a lot of the methods to send direct mail like letters and post cards has become tougher to deliver with so many people operating from home. On Linkedin, people may accept your connection request, but if they find that you are trying to sell them anything then they withdraw. So we are stuck with only using email.

If you’ll have come across any better delivery medium for your message, please share.

Till next time.

Carpe Diem!!!

Marketing does not work on formulas

differentiation, Marketing, Positioning, Product Management, segmentation

I have the biggest challenge with people who use spreadsheets to work on a target and then break it down with formulas. If marketing or product management was so formulaic, no product would ever fail.

If you check my team also, you will find them telling you that my fundamental question is “Why will it happen”

Spreadsheets are very good, especially for making lists and milestones. However assuming that the market you operate in will behave like a formula in the sheet is fallacy and targets will never be met.

The reason for that is markets and customers have a mind of their own. As I have mentioned earlier also marketing is applied psychology.

While the demographics and psychographics will list out typical characteristics, each of these people in the B2B segments, operate in an environment, where they interact with different functions. Each function has different priorities.

Unlike the consumer market where the risk is low for most of the items, when it comes to B2B technology products there’s a lot of perceived risk and people don’t like to change the status quo.

Since technology changes so fast one of the first inertia points for the customer is – am I investing in the right technology, how will it impact my other operations. Then come other questions like, what if it doesn’t work, what if this company sinks etc.

For the product management folks its critical that they take into account all these inertia or resistance points. Think through as deeply from the customer’s point of view, write an autobiography of the customer.

You can’t do this if you take a broad spectrum of the market. That is why it’s important to identify a niche in the market and then a market in the niche. Then actually go out and meet customers and understand all the reasons, why they won’t buy, then continuously improve your offerings.

Never rely on spreadsheets to govern the actions for your product but use them to govern the milestones.

Till next time.

Carpe Diem!!!