Getting real in B2B markets
Getting back to fundamentals in B2B marketing: what do you represent?
Brandchannel recently ran a piece about Tagline Guru, and their analysis of 150+ corporate taglines to discover: “the most frequently used words in this year’s taglines, and whether they reveal how companies are strategically re-casting their brand message to forge a closer connection with their customers.” And here, alphabetically, are the most commonly used words or concepts:
Far Future Imagine Innovate More New Save Together You
Read the full story on brandchannel
In the recessionary aftermath of the global banking crisis, many marketers are talking about the need to offer ‘value’ and re-assess their approach to customers. An example of this is how car manufacturers are having to adjust their marketing - highlighted in a post about branding being the ‘Heart of B2B Marketing’.
Perhaps the ‘new copy’ will read like this:
“Far in the Future, Imagine: we’ll Innovate More, with New stuff to Save money. Together – with You.”
Taking it to the other extreme: it’s all about You. Huh?
These ‘re-adjustments’ are an admission that marketers had lost touch with the realities of their markets and that their markets no longer trust them.
Some of the reactions seem to have swung too far – a lot of B2C marketing is now moving headlong towards an obsession with ‘You’ and the notion that products can be whatever customers want them to be.
In his regular, must-read column for Marketing magazine, Mark Ritson had this to say about it all:
Vodafone, Yahoo! and T-Mobile have repositioned themselves around being whatever you want them to be. Vodafone is spending millions declaring ‘Power to you’. Yahoo! is proclaiming: ‘There is a new master of the digital universe. You’.
Meanwhile, T-Mobile is launching its myTouch smart-phone by asking consumers to imagine a ‘one-of-a-kind phone for your one-of-a-kind life’.
‘We are about you,’ say these brands. ‘Whatever you want, that’s what we are.’ It’s very ‘co-creative’, ‘empowering’ and all the other things 22-year-old marketers crap on about.
Unfortunately, it’s not going to work, because when you don’t stand for anything, you get eaten alive by competitors who do. We are attracted to substance – not vague and open assertions of empowerment and affection. You must represent something specific to a particular segment or you will lose.
In B2B, it’s even more important to represent something – or you will keep losing.
Earlier today, I was flipping through a respected trade magazine and was reminded – yet again – of how little effort generally goes into differentiating one B2B company from its competition. Numbing sameness, lack of relevance and boring product shots tagged with lists of features simply will not do the job.
Marketers must differentiate if they are to provide a solid platform for sales. Just because Jack and Jill have a good ‘relationship’, doesn’t mean that Jill’s company will keep on buying from Jack’s. Sure, the sales relationship is important. But it is limited. Normally, it’s limited to customers and has little impact on other influences within the overall market – or even on other functions within the customer.
The varied components of B2B markets can exert powerful influences on buying decisions, and marketers need to be addressing each of these market reflections in ways that are individually relevant.
Who are you?
In July, the Business Marketing Association staged a live version of McGraw Hill’s ‘Man in the Chair’ print ad from the late Fifties that clearly highlights the importance of ‘representing something’.
‘The Man In The Chair – Live’ is well worth watching because it tells it like it is: B2B customers and markets need to know about your company, what you are selling, how it will help them and why they should believe you. And all of that comes before even considering to buy from you.
In ‘Differentiate or Die’, Jack Trout says that if you don’t differentiate then you better have a low price.
Scary. Margins cut to the bone and ‘loyalty’ based on price and price alone. Not a good place to be – and not much chance for sales to build any relationships.
For B2B marketers, it’s a fairly simple choice: tell the truth about the brand and everything it represents to each component of the market. Do that, and you will be differentiated – because no two companies are the same and neither are the outcomes they deliver.
Read more on developing results-driven marcoms:
Outcomes are the differentiators Brands & market reflections - right message, right people
The Long Hello: building brand relationships Leveraging B2B’s buying motivators
Back to The Long Hello: making B2B marketing work for the bottom line
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