2nd of 4 in a series…
In our last post we suggested that, if you are a B2B Marketer, you’re not competing with other companies in your space – you are actually competing FOR ATTENTION with internal forces at your target company.
To make more sense of this, let’s tease out an example. We’ll take a bright, shiny new piece of software. Can be any kind of software that makes any business better. We’ll go with CRM in this example – as its adoption rate is pretty large, but there are still lots of places that don’t think they need it. Or don’t know what it is. (Here’s a CRM primer from Wikipedia.)
You’re marketing this software, and you’ve found the right target company – a mid-sized widget manufacturer. What’s your next step?
WidgetCo may do a good job of taking care of its own customers. Where they don’t do a good job (in your opinion) is in tracking sales data. They know when orders are shipped, but they don’t understand what happens afterwards: their repeat customers are coming back, but not coming back in droves.
The NEEDS, at the bottom of the Martini Glass, aren’t going anywhere. But, as you move up the glass, you see the potential for “spillage.” Sales teams, sales communication, sales data – none of those things are spent on. Opportunity?
The key here, again, is not in marketing yourself or your company – it is in finding out what needs the customer has — known or unknown — and coming up with a way to help fulfill those needs.
Solve their problems.
Even if it’s a problem they don’t yet know they have. Some B2C marketers have done a brilliant job of this — and B2B marketers can actually learn from them.
[See you on the next post…tomorrow…]
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