B2B marketing in 2010: focus on three key issues
As we perhaps enter the phase of post-recession, this article highlights three key issues for B2B marketing in 2010.
Relevance, Synergy and Creativity should be key components of B2B marketing in 2010
Generally, marketers can get more bangs for their bucks during a recession because as marketing-spend falls, suppliers are increasingly pressured to cut prices in order to make sales. To capitalise on these opportunities, marketers need to be focused on:
- highly-relevant messages that are accurately-targeted
- increased synergy with their company’s other core functions
- more creativity to ensure ‘front-of-mind’ positioning in the market
Perhaps surprisingly, B2B marketers are aided by a recession in a number of ways: cheaper advertising rates and opportunities to move up a level in terms of premium media; less noise and clutter coming from the competition; and cut-price everything – from printing and photography, to exhibitions and promotional ’swag’.
RELEVANCE: creating results-driven marcoms
Although elements of the world economy are coming out of recession, 2010 will probably be a very cautious year for B2B – the lingering memories of the worst times will strongly influence buying motivators as markets either remain static or only begin to recover slowly.
Marketers need to be sure about the clarity of their messages and that these messages are serving marketing’s two, bottom line objectives: cultivating consistent customers and preventing price pressure – CCC and PPP. Messages need to be relevant to all components of the market and they also need to be relevant in terms of increasing sales, margins and customer loyalty.
To achieve this two-fold relevance, marketers need to be particularly clear about the type of responses that are needed from their various audiences.
It might sound obvious, but the starting point for creating relevant messages is to identify the results that are needed for CCC & PPP and then to tailor the messages accordingly for each audience. Equally, it’s important to understand the composition of the market – who your audiences are – and what will motivate their positive influence on buying decisions.
Read more about creating results-driven marcoms:
Using funnels to create relevance and accurate positioning Leveraging B2B’s buying motivators
Recession marketing: no such thing? Building brand relationships: ‘The Long Hello’
Getting real in B2B markets Mapping audiences in B2B markets
SYNERGY: harnessing marketing with other core functions
No man is an island. And, in the same way that we are interconnected as people, marketers need to be sure that they are fully-connected with all aspects of ‘customer management’ – typically including sales and support, production, finance and distribution.
The purpose of these connections is to ensure that customer-expectations are matched by customer-experiences. It’s a common complaint among marketers that the brand gets let-down at various points of contact with customers.
There may be many reasons for this, but my gut-feel is that too many marketers inhabit an ivory tower that has no relationship with the day-to-day activities of working with customers – in essence, they create expectations that the business cannot fulfil.
The solution to this problem? Marketers must spend time with customers and experience the interactions for themselves. And having made this a habitual process, it’s no good trying to drive square pegs into round holes: if the business really cannot deliver on the expectations created by marketing, then marketing better change its messages…
Read more about marketing’s synergy with other functions:
Marketing united Marketing and sales: bridging the divide
CREATIVITY: innovate to differentiate
Given the diversity of audiences within B2B markets, you could argue that there are more opportunities for creativity in B2B than there are in B2C. For me, these opportunities are extended even further by the diversity of outcomes produced for the overall market by B2B products and services.
Once marketers understand what their messages are for each audience, creativity is important in formulating those messages in ways that are relevant, arresting and compelling.
And it’s not just about creativity in terms of design: creativity is also needed in targeting and the mechanisms that marketers use to deliver their messages.
The commercial goal that should motivate this creativity is to forge brand-perceptions that assist in positioning your products and services as being the most likely to contribute to customers’ success.
This positioning needs to be front-of-mind across the market. It needs to cut through all the sameness and clutter and to clearly and continuously highlight what sets you apart from the competition.
Read more about the commercial importance of creativity:
Creativity in B2B marketing: are you serious? Brand positioning: a quick case study
Sappi pays the ref: World Cup 2010
Back to The Long Hello: making B2B marketing work for the bottom line
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
