Marketing Glue - Making Your Organisation Sticky
This article could quite easily have been called marketing
magnetism, or marketing gravity, it is an overview of how to
pull clients to you instead of constantly pushing out
information that does exactly that, pushes them away.
Who are you selling to?
Identify those people who really want and can afford your
products and services. Note that it is people; even in the
business to business (B2B) world you are selling to people,
not organisations. Many B2B companies profile the type of
companies they want to target by size, turnover, geography
etc, which is important but it doesn’t go far enough. To make
your organisation sticky you need to know the people who
are buying your products and services.
In the business to consumer (B2C) world, much emphasis is
placed on understanding the consumer and why they
choose certain brands etc, focus groups and marketing
research is undertaken to nth degree. However this has
become lost in the B2B world and so many organisations
sell on technical features or unrelated benefits, without really
understanding what the commercial buyer wants or needs.
It is important to realise that people buy emotionally not
logically, even in the commercial world. Remember, they are
the same people who go out and purchase TV’s and cars
etc. When was the last time a person bought a car on pure
logic, i.e.” I want something that gets me from A to B”. If that
was the case we would all be driving round in small,
functional car with no brands.
People buy things because of the emotion they attach to
them, I want a Ferrari because it makes me look successful,
it makes me more attractive to the opposite sex, it makes
me feel great. Guess what, it’s really no different in the B2B
world.
Try this...
Put yourself in your client’s shoes and begin to understand
what drives and motivates them and how you can pull them
towards you?
♦ What is their role – not just job title?
♦ What do they look like? Stressed, in control, content etc
♦ What are their stresses and pain points?
♦ What are their core competencies?
♦ What support are they looking for to succeed in their role?
Make the
connection
By building up a profile of your typical client you begin to
understand what makes them tick and you can identify their
hot spots. Those things that make a connection with them
and compel them to want to find out more about what you
can do for them.
Some of the most successful product based companies
never mention the technical capabilities of their product, they
identify what their product or service can do for their client
and use this as their marketing glue. They do the following:
♦ Ask questions in marketing material or on their website
that connect with their pain points
♦ Create benefits that identify with their needs
♦ Build a relationship with them; let them know that you
understand the issues and challenges they face.
♦ Make a list of the compelling reasons why a client should
want to buy from you – you will be surprised as it isn’t
always what you expect it will be.
♦ Undertake a survey and find out the reasons why existing
clients bought from you?
What are you selling?
Once you understand who you are selling to, you need to
really think, what you are selling?
Clients worry about working with you. They worry if they
choose to work with you they will incur costs that exceed
the benefits. Not just in time, effort and money but also in
terms of their reputation within the organisation. The need to
connect to you and your products and services and feel that
they have made the right decision in choosing you. Think
about the following:
♦ What are you selling? Not just the functionality or the
services but what value do you actually provide the client
with, i.e. peace of mind, enhanced status within the
organisation or organised project management
♦ Why would companies want to buy from you? What
makes you any different from the competition – although
price etc is important, think about how developing
relationships and how this can help to make you sticky?
♦ How do you make it easy for potential clients to
understand your products and services and the
benefits they provide?
A final thought...
Whilst working for a technology company some years ago
we realised that although they were successful, they weren’t
realising the growth potential of the market they were in. All
their marketing was based around the technical excellence
of their products.
Their datasheets showed how fast their products processed
data, with boring pictures of the machines and a list of facts
and figures that would send most people to sleep in an
instant.
The key to unlocking their potential and sending their
company profits soaring, was understanding the IT
managers who bought these machines.
The company thought they “ought” to provide screen shots,
pictures, statistics and technical capabilities etc as this is
what the buyer wanted to see. It was obvious wasn’t it, they
were technical buyers so they would buy on technical
features wouldn’t they...
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