B2B buying motivators
B2B customers: 50 things they wish you knew
Fifty things customers wish you knew about them:
about how they see you, and about your relationship.
Sonia Simone of Remarkable Communication recently posted this list on her blog. Thanks to B2B Social Media for highlighting it.Â
Sadly, the concept of customer focus or of being customer-centric has become badly tarnished.
A lot of the blame for this lies [...]
The unfolding state of the economy 2010
As we move into 2010 and a period of slow, cautious growth in B2B markets, negative memories of the past 18 months will definitely remain and they will have a powerful influence on buying-decisions.
This means it’s essential to generate brand messages that are not only credible, relevant and compelling, but also highly reassuring to each component of your overall [...]
A B2B message from The Man in the Chair
It might be hard to believe, but the print ad below is 50 years old.
Promoting the business, professional and technical magazines published by McGraw Hill, the message is as fresh and relevant today as it was fifty years ago: sales start before your salesman calls.
In July this year, the Business Marketing Association staged a ‘live’ version [...]
B2B marcoms: using funnels to create relevance and accurate positioning
Developing marketing communications for relevance throughout the buying cycle
The graphic below is from a whitepaper by Tippit Inc and it illustrates the phased nature of the B2B buying process. It’s such an important graphic for marketers because it provides a roadmap for developing and positioning marcoms that are relevant for each phase in the buying process - ranging from initial awareness through [...]
The Long Hello: building brand-relationships in B2B
People come and go. Brands endure.
One reason why marketing doesn’t always pull its weight in B2B is that there is often such a strong emphasis on relationships with customers. Developing and sustaining these relationships can shift attention from managing the brand’s relationship with the overall market. And this can undermine the potential to strengthen sales, margins and [...]
The role of ‘Value’ in B2B marketing
In B2B, Value comprises Five Factors: Response, Service, Time, Quality and Price.
These are the criteria that influence and motivate B2B buying decisions. This extract from an ealier post looks at analysing how products, services and processes create Value in relation to each of the Five Factors.
It is a simple approach, but it produces bottom [...]
Leveraging B2B buying motivators
Developing B2B marketing communications for bottom line results.
All marketers understand the need for getting the right messages to the right people. What’s not so straightforward is defining the messages and who should be getting them.
Marketers need to be looking at what their market is buying, because B2B marketing is not about selling, it’s about buying.
An incisive approach [...]
Preventing price pressure
As one of the two objectives in B2B marketing, the task of preventing price pressure has a lot to do with communication.
In terms of the Five Factors of Value, Price is ranked as the least influential of the five B2B buying motivators. It’s also the component of Value with the most straightforward definitions: Competitive, Rational [...]
Outcomes make the difference: differentiate or die…
Just as no two individuals are the same, no two companies are the same. We are all different.
As individuals, we are not necessarily very good at describing ourselves. Because we often take them for granted, we tend to think that our experience, abilities and skills are either somehow self-evident or not particularly significant to those [...]
B2B marketing is about buying: What? How? Who?
Marketing is not about selling. Marketing is all about buying:
What are customers buying?
How does buying contribute to their success?
Who is buying?
These are the must-knows that determine tactics in B2B marketing. Cultivating consistent customers and preventing price pressure – CCC & PPP - provide the strategic direction, but What-How-Who drives implementation.
1. WHAT are customers buying?
Customers [...]
