Persistence is a key aspect in B2B marketing – 3

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

I have written in the last two posts about the key importance of persistence in B2B marketing.

Now the advantage of B2B is that you can generally get a database of contacts. So if you have segmented the market well and you have a clearly defined Single Target Market, then you can go and buy it from multiple sources.

What’s important are 2 aspects viz. The age of the database- how old it is and second figuring out if the designation and function is matching.

A lot of times designations can be deceptive in terms of the power equations within the organization.

Generally larger the organization, lower is the level of the people who will be entrusted with the responsibility for doing the research and identifying vendors, creating comparison sheets etc.

So not only do you identify the the key decision makers and send messages, you also need to identify the functional people who could be responsible for doing the evaluation. You will need to influence multiple people.

So your first step would be to verify the accuracy of the database because more than 50% of your success will be determined by the quality of your database. Incidentally this would be true whether you are looking at B2B or consumer markets.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Working backward from the customer result

constraints, Customer Delight, Customers, ideal customer, Marketing, single target market

When you think you have identified the niche, single target market (ideal client) and you have to figure out how to reach them, a good way to start is by thinking about the result your client will get by using your product or service.

Suppose you know the ideal result you can get for your client. Does that result actually make an impact on your ideal client. If it does not, then you need to rethink about the ideal client and the single target market. If it will make an impact will they become Raving Fans. If not what will need to be done to make them Raving Fans.

If the result you can get is going to make an impact and make them Raving Fans, then you need to think in terms of the journey the client will need to take to reach that stage and then work backwards. Its something similar to the Eli Goldiratt theory of constraints – future reality tree (FRT). You go through the complete logic , starting with the end in mind and then flow backwards to the starting point, to figure out where things could go wrong or the unsaid assumptions.

Recently my team and I were doing a Future Reality Tree for one of our operations and my colleague stopped me from proceeding because we had listed out way to many assumptions for the success of the end result. With so many assumptions not getting into certainty stage, it was going to be a disaster. So now we have one person who is going to work through the next two weeks to figure out how many of the assumptions can be made into certainty by working on platforms like Linkedin etc.

When you do this FRT, you will also be able to work out the medium which can help get you the best/fastest results. It will help you also see the chokes in the system, for you to get the result for your customer.

We will work on the next steps from here in the next post.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

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!!!

Raving Fans & The Single Target Market

expectations, Marketing, service quality, single target market

Raving Fans was a book written by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles. A printed version is not available easily and I haven’t seen it on Kindle when I was searching for it a few years.

If you are fans of the The One Minute series like The One Minute Manager , The One Minute Sales Person etc. then you will know that Ken Blanchard writes books which are very short- just around 100 pages – but with a deep meaning. They are written in story format which ensures your interest in the book.

I was re-reading the book Raving Fans today. Being a short book, I started it in the morning and had finished it in a few hours. By its name Raving Fans is all about customer service. But if you get down to the underlying concepts that they write about, they are pure marketing.

One of the core concepts that they talk about in the book is about choosing the correct market where you can define the perfect experience and ensure you overdeliver on what you promise.

They also therefore talk about who you should NOT have as your customer because then you cannot make them Raving Fans.

Which brings me to what I keep talking about choosing the Single Target Market, because then you get to know your customer intimately and can give them an out of the world experience. In a B2B setting as I mention you also need to go down to the role, the level etc since there will be multiple people involved in any decision.

If you can get this book the Raving Fans, I would highly recommend you reading it. In today’s world where customers shift loyalty so fast, its a must read book.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!