Uncovering Opportunity
From the moment we wake to the moment our heads hit the pillow we are exposed to millions of messages encouraging us to spend our hard earned cash. So, it’s not surprising that we have become advert hardened.
This is not good news. Making your messages cut through the ‘noise’ and stand out is one of sales and marketing’s hardest tasks. We all know when the message is right: Alexander the Meerkat’s ‘Simples’ has got immediate recall and recognition. But can this marketing trick be used in a business to business environment? Unlikely.
Yet all is not lost for the B2B marketer. We can engage, be compelling and cut through the competition’s marketing ‘noise’ and here are four principles that we to apply when designing campaigns:
Provoke a fight.
Not literally!
Successful businesses challenge conventions, they push boundaries and in doing so find new and better ways of working. Your goods and services improve your customers’ operations. But getting that message across can be difficult especially where there is a ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ attitude.
Provoking a fight challenges potential customers to re-examine their processes. It takes them away from their comfort zones and makes them look at their business through fresh eyes. To provoke a fight:
1. Take a commonly held belief in your marketplace and rubbish it.
a. Does your challenge stand up to scrutiny?
b. Have you exposed weaknesses in the ‘belief’
c. Where there are identified weaknesses, what angles can be explored to really challenge convention.
Challenging conventions without rigorous processes to test your ‘anti-establishment’ arguments is risky; it can make you look foolish. However, to cut through the noise risks need to be taken and, provided your ‘fight provoking’ is thought through you should create debate and get your market to re-examine its processes – which is what you want to achieve.
Get into your customer’s shoes.
Truly getting into your customers’ thinking is difficult if not impossible. Most marketing and sales professionals put a personal filter when looking at situations from a customer’s perspective. It is difficult to see ‘holistically’, and too much attention is given to the area and processes that your products serve.
Understanding the needs of your customer provides perspective on the challenges they face. And guess what; your solutions may not be useful for the one thing they have to solve today. Industries have different challenges. The problems that keep your customers awake may not be directly related to the solutions you provide. But today business processes are rarely isolated. Getting into your customers shoes provides insights and intelligence. It enables you to focus attention on your customers’ headaches and develop scenarios where you can assist. To get into your customers shoes:
1. Visit them and talk.
2. It may be blindingly obvious, but talk generally, about the business as a whole: don’t get channelled into your area of expertise.
3. Use service opportunities for staff to chat to their opposite numbers; they can learn about the business, new hires, internal changes.
4. Why did the client first become a customer; what was it that you solved for them.
5. Learn where their business is going, its objectives, its marketplace.
Getting into your customers shoes helps you identify potential issues you can solve. And using the ‘provoke a fight’ method above, you can help them challenge the status quo.
Get the message right.
Provocative messages come with risk; there is a balance to be struck between offense and surprising revelation. Not too long ago an eMail campaign which ran the subject line ‘Product recall at (Company Name)’. Unsurprisingly the open rate was phenomenal, as was click through and interaction. However, there was much negative publicity and a number of angry replies. Did the campaign work? It certainly got the advertiser noticed and provided plenty of leads for follow up discussions. But these positives had to be weighed against alienating many potential customers.
Messages their tone and strength need to be adapted to audience and industry. The checklist we use is below:
1. Is the ‘headline’ message compelling enough:
a. Does it touch on an area of pressing need?
b. Is it provocative?
c. Active voice?
2. Level of intended recipient.
3. Education/Background.
4. Industry.
5. Previous messages.
6. Customer or Prospect.
Timing and the medium.
In B2B timing is everything. Getting the timing right can be as simple as being prepared. Having campaigns ready to run as soon as a news story breaks can deliver phenomenal success. One eMail campaign for DHL Global Mail was launched the day after a BBC documentary on industrial mail services. Targeted to engage distribution executives we achieved open rates above 60% and engagement above 50%, a ‘lead fest’ for the client.
OK we are biased but B2B marketing is all about dialogue. And no medium is better at first initiating and then than enabling dialogue than digital. The flexibility enables campaigns to be developed and expedited efficiently. Split testing and amendments can be carried out automatically. Responses graded and routed to the most appropriate resource.
Most decision making executives use technology and the Internet on a daily basis and much business communication is electronic.
Conferences, telemarketing and networking have their place but to uncover new opportunities, digital delivers, by far, the best ROI.
Posted: August 10th, 2009 / No Comments /
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