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 [...]
Mapping audiences in B2B markets: building a marcoms strategy
B2B markets are complex structures consisting of different audiences that influence customers’ buying decisions. Marketers need to understand who these audiences are, how they influence one another and the significance of their influence on buying decisions.
Mapping audiences and their connectivity within a ‘sphere of influence’ is the first step in creating a marcoms strategy that [...]
B2B Marketing for Dummies
IAS b2b Marketing, winner of Agency of the Year at the UK’s B2B Marketing Awards 2009, has created a concise guide that highlights how to deliver the right B2B messages to the right people at the right time.Â
The minibook addresses key issues that anyone working in marketing may face with B2B brands. It’s easy to understand [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Recession marketing. No such thing?
Protect market share. Maintain margins. Demonstrate value. Cut costs. Increase ROI. Get closer to customers. Build relationships. Innovate. Drive the brand. Boost visibility. Neutralise competitors. Refresh the message. Take cover!
Around July 2008, I started getting mails about how to protect your business in hard times. About how such-and-such could demonstrate how to do all or [...]
