Tuesday, April 30, 2013

What are the Differences in B2B and B2C Marketing



Some people think whether you are marketing to consumers or marketing to businesses, you are still just marketing to people – Wrong! Business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing is not the same.

In essence, B2B depends largely on building relationships and your marketing efforts need to reflect this. If you use B2C strategies you may lose customers as well as money.

In many ways they appear to be the same in the programs and channels used - events, direct marketing, internet marketing, advertising, public relations, word of mouth and alliances. It’s in the execution, what is said and the eventual outcome where they diverge.

The first step of any marketing initiative is identical for both sides: identify the customer and find out why they need to hear your message.

Any marketing plan needs to take into account the differences and ensure you are developing the right types of activities for your particular market.


B2C Marketing


  • Product driven
  • Large target market
  • Short sales cycle
  • Single step buying process
  • Brand identity created through repetition
  • Merchandising and point of sales activities
  • Emotional buying decision based on status, desire, or price


The goal of B2C marketing is simple - convert shoppers into buyers as aggressively and consistently as possible.  Let’s be honest, B2C companies use solid merchandising activities like coupons, displays, store fronts (real and virtual) and offers to entice the customer to buy.

B2C marketing campaigns, are shorter in time and need to capture the customer’s interest immediately. “Show me the money!” is the chant we hear in the background. Conversion is the be all and end all.

For example, in emailed versions of online marketing, the link takes you directly to a page that will convince you and then allow you to purchase almost immediately. No more than 2 or 3 clicks or you have lost that new customer.

The opposite side of this aggressive, find them and sell them attitude is the concept of loyalty that many companies have now taken to in a big way. Their marketing is based around keeping their customers. For example, anyone who has purchased anything from Amazon will continue to get suggestions on possible new products to buy while educating you at the same time on what is new and upcoming. The same goes for any number of retailers now. Just check you r inbox on a daily basis for solid examples


B2B Marketing


  • Relationship driven
  • Small, focused target market
  • Longer sales cycle
  • Multi-step buying process
  • Brand identity created on personal relationship
  • Educational and awareness building activities
  • Rational buying decision based on business value


The goals are the same - convert prospects into customers – but the process can be so much longer and more involved.

A B2B company needs to focus on relationship building using marketing activities that generate leads that can then be nurtured during an often elongated sales cycle.

An effective and solid marketing strategy with B2B companies is the appropriate education of various players in the target audience; the decision to purchase is usually a multi-step process involving more than one person. Content is everything in B2B marketing and white papers, newsletters, and coverage of products and services by the media helps businesses educate their prospects with a view to an eventual sale

Let’s take the example of an email campaign in B2B as compared to its B2C counterpart. The email is designed primarily to drive prospects to the web to learn about the products and services, not to sell immediately. It needs to have sufficient contact information for further discussions and the landing page will show features and benefits, and sometimes, but not always, an indication on pricing although this is often omitted as a way of driving contact. This is only the first, tentative step in a longer campaign that may include direct mail, Webinars and newsletters and a follow up call by a sales representative who will discuss the prospect’s specific business needs in more detail as a way of progressing through the sales cycle.


The B2B Buyer vs. the B2C Buyer

I mentioned that marketing is about people, so we need to look at the buyers in each channel a little more.

The B2B buyer is a more sophisticated animal in many ways. They are more aware of industry trends, technology and sometimes understand your product offering or service better than you do. They need to buy a product that help their company stay in business, be more profitable and more competitive. They are motivated and have a high interest in your product and the problem it solves. Consequently any marketing materials must be more complex and more relevant to make sure that the right information is delivered in the right way.

Conversely the B2C customer is often looking for the best deal, the best price and the latest products. They will research the competition prior to shopping. Trust is an important part of their sales process as even though they can often buy the product cheaper from different sources off the internet, they may stay with a trusted source of supply. B2C marketing needs to assist in building that trust. However much marketing is done to build that trust, customer service becomes critical and can derail all well-intentioned marketing.


Branding

Companies such as Nike, Disney, Prada as just a few examples, spend large sums of money on focused branding campaigns as a strong brand will convince the B2C customer to buy, remain loyal and often pay a much higher price for a product. Although branding does play a part in B2B, it is not the reason to purchase, and its major role lays in helping you be considered not chosen.

A quality brand is needed in any business in order to make a good impression, but putting excessive marketing dollars into building brand awareness in the B2B markets is not what counts in the end.

The Differences

The biggest difference between B2B and B2C marketing ultimately comes down to the perspective and motivation of the buyer. Consumers make decisions based on brand, trust, quality and price. Business buyers make their choices on solid business rationales - increasing profitability, reducing costs and enhancing productivity, essentially solving problems.

So if you are marketing into the B2B channel, spend your marketing dollars on education, information and offering solutions to business problems. Lead prospects to understand how your product or service can directly benefit them and their company.

If you are a B2C business, then figure out what motivates your customer and how to deliver compelling marketing content that appeal to the emotional side of the buying process.


Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Creating Content that’s Relevant for B2B Marketing



“What shall I write about today?” 

The standard question heard whenever someone has to create some new piece of cleverly worded content in the B2B marketing arena.

Stare at the wall. Go to your email to check it once again. Look out of the window. Pray for a phone call; all good delaying tactics that we've all used, more often that we’d like to think, to be truthful.

Creating content that an industrial and technical audience will find important and engaging is not easy.

You can only create so many application notes and case studies. Case studies for example are notoriously difficult to produce because customers don’t want to give their permission for fear of appearing to favor a vendor. Sometimes it’s because they don’t want to tell their competition what they are doing. 

How often have you written a case study starting “A large manufacturing company in the Midwest….” or “A major food producer on the East Coast…”

The marketing books will tell you to address the customers’ pain points. Excellent advice from someone sat in a nice office with no need to sell a product or service. It’s not that easy sometimes.

So question number one is why would anyone buy your products or services if they don’t know they have a problem? The old adage, “if it aint broke, don’t fix it” always seems to work well.

To make your content significant, you need to raise awareness of your customer’s impending problem and help them understand that they actually have a problem that they may not even be aware of yet.

For example, changes in Regulations, new technological innovations all come under the umbrella of forthcoming issues for customers. In many instances they are simply not aware of changes.

Now, you may think that your only job is to sell more products. It is certainly not your responsibility to educate your customers about the future product trends and regulatory initiatives. If you take that attitude, then you’d be wrong and miss out on potential sales opportunities. 

If the content that you write can provide free assistance to your customers you will always be viewed as a valuable vendor and a source of knowledge and expertise and not just another supplier. These individuals within your customers who read your highly relevant content may very well become your internal champions in time, giving you advance notice of projects and requirements.

So when thinking about what to write, turn to the Regulatory websites, read the trade press and look ahead to what is coming, not what is already here. Stay one step ahead of your competition and always have a foot in the door with your customers.




Marketing Internationally - Beware!



The concept of growth outside your own country can be an appealing concept. After all, you have sold your product or service successfully for many years here and now its time to expand into foreign climes. It will be easy. Just take what you've already done so well here, translate it and hey presto, instant sales!

Nice thought – doesn't work that way unfortunately. Ignore everything you've heard about a Global Village and we’re all connected. People, cultures, languages are all very different and they need to be treated that way. Try and force your traditional marketing and sales tools on different countries and you’ll have empty order books!

Legal Constraints 

Countries have a variety of different laws to cope with advertising and marketing and they are unique to each country.  In Europe it has only just become permissible for Comparative Advertising, comparing your product to competitors, although this has been around for many years in the States.

What is acceptable from a decency perspective in one country may not be acceptable in another. Showing too much skin or making too many innuendos may get your company sued. 

Given that this is a highly complex set of rules, running afoul of the law could cost brand equity and fines so expert in country advice is indispensable. It is important to understand which countries do not permit your product to be advertised. Many countries do not allow the advertisement of pharmaceuticals. 

In addition, some products are permitted to be advertised in limited media or at specific times of the day and may be limited to the number of times that they may be run in a specific period of time.

Finally, in certain countries, such as China, the sole access to media is denied to foreign nationals and companies of foreign origin. This can creates great challenges for advertising and marketing. It is important to understand these issues and their potential solutions before investing in an international market.


Language limitations 


Unless you are a native speaker of a target country who is up to date with all of the latest linguistic fashions such as  slang, idioms and jokes you have a big problem in designing marketing in another country. For example the word “Mate” has a very different meaning and connotation in the USA than it does in the UK or Australia where it is used extensively to refer to a good friend. And this is just an example where the language is actually ‘common’ to both countries. Where languages spoken are actually different, the problems can be greatly magnified.

Encoding and decoding of an idea between two people of different linguistic backgrounds is filled with pitfalls. Even if the parent company decides on the basic message for a product, the native language speakers must change that message and adapt it as necessary. Now that is assuming that there are native marketers available. In many instances it could be sales staff who may not be the best judges of any messages. So target audience feedback is necessary.

In many instances you may not be able to understand the subtle nuances of a language and there is the temptation to step in and readjust back to the corporate line. For example, the French are very proud of their language and often use words and phrases that have multiple meanings. You may not understand this and will miss out on the message.

So simply translating messages and text word for word is not as easy as we would like it to be. There are problems ahead. Obviously the solution is to get professional help in the target country wherever possible. But this comes at a cost.


Cultural Diversity


In America there is a certain amount of cultural diversity but we do not fully understand what it is like in other countries. In international marketing, it is what you don’t have an awareness of can often sabotage your plans. Consumers respond to it in terms of their culture, its style, feelings, value systems, attitudes, beliefs and perceptions. 

For example, in advertising where the individuals may stand closely together, it can inadvertently communicate something sexual. Body language involved in the presentation of a gift may insult a whole section of a culture and mixing the sexes in a marketing piece can be a definite mistake in some countries. A specific color may even have meanings of which you are totally unaware. Without a native’s appreciation of the subtleties disastrous unexpected controversy could result.


Media and Measurement Systems


This may be a small point but it can be important. Paper! In the USA the standard print size is based around the letter – 8.5” x 11”. Elsewhere it is A4 (8.3” x 11.7”). So when creating cross Country literature it must be able to be ‘stretched’ to this new dimension, especially with PDF documents. 

The other issue is the measurement systems used in the US. If you have technical documents, inches and pounds mean nothing to the majority of the world’s technical customers, so a translation has to be made of this also. 

It’s the little things that will trip you up.




So what’s the Answer?

There are a wide variety of issues pertaining to moving marketing and sales activities to different countries, especially from the USA – legal, cultural, language and more. However, many companies have made the transition well and are highly successful. So how do you make the jump yourself?

First – get a marketing professional who has international experience. He or she should be able to see many of the problems ahead and can guide you through the maze. Then invest in on the ground natives who have the knowledge to fine tune the product and the messages correctly


The Use of iPads in B2B Sales Channels


The iPad has fueled an explosive uptake in interactivity in the business world. It has changed how businesses interact and more importantly how they sell to each other in the business to business arena, transforming the effectiveness of external sales teams.

The iPad was a strong seller right from the start, selling 3.2 million units in its first quarter - in the first 3 months of 2012 over 35 million iPads were sold.


iPads are not just for internet access and ‘Facebooking’. They are also making significant inroads into the world of corporate computing, where 9 out of 10 Fortune 500 companies are either testing or deploying them. Forrester Research expects businesses to purchase $10 billion worth of iPads in 2012, and another $16 billion in 2013.


The iPad grows in Businesses

The biggest beneficiaries of this new economy may be the many thousands of businesses and professionals whose day-to-day work flows are being altered by tablets. A change took place with the release of the 4th-generation iPad this year: buyers of the new iPad are more likely to use it for work, according to a report from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners in July 2012. According to CIRP’s research, 21 percent of owners of the new iPad use it in a work situation.

Business users can benefit directly from the wide variety of productivity tools, ranging from email and note taking to creating and sharing presentations and remotely accessing files. In addition, they can choose from thousands of specialized applications that have been developed for education, retail, health care, financial services and other industries.

Realtors like Coldwell Banker now use iPads in the field to access property listings and other information for potential buyers. Aflac has developed iPad sales presentations for their field agents, resulting in almost a 20% increase according to one statement from the company.

The use of Personal Tablets

In recent years, Sales professionals have adopted personal iPads as a tool for themselves especially when tablets have not been supplied in the face of reticence by companies. Much of this reserve can be placed firmly at the feet of IT departments who are struggling to have the same control over these devices as they have with PC’s and who have found to their chagrin that the iPad especially, is not easy to have command over.

Together with Angry Birds and Google Earth, salesmen have uploaded images, documents and videos of their products as a way of gaining interaction with their customers. Businesses have been slow to realize that they should be supplying both the iPads and the Apps that enable rapid deployment of company information and collateral.

High costs and measurable ROI have often been thrown in the face of supplying iPads for their sales team. This has been a false economy in many, many instances. For example a single piece of glossy literature (which is probably already out of date by time a salesman gets it) can run to a least $3000 for a small print run. An iPad II can be often obtained for less than $360 today. So by producing marketing collateral in PDF form only and deploying electrically can pay for a significant number of iPads.

Sales plus Tablets equals Success

These tablets in the hands of motivated and trained sales professionals can be an incredibly successful tool that gives them the edge over their competition. Customers today are looking for solutions rather than a straight product supply. An iPad, with a suitably sales focused App, can assist greatly in engaging clients and getting commitment at the earliest stages. It can actively help in closing sales.

Surprisingly there are only a few highly quality Apps available that allow businesses to do just this. There are certainly some free and paid apps that allow for PowerPoint presentations to be shown on the iPad. However these are limited in their scope and their applicability. There are some however, that are incredibly powerful with a many features, from images, to word documents to videos, all simply and centrally organized and deployed– iSalesHub (www.isaleshub.com)  being a definite leader.

Businesses have a surprising amount of information available to them. Often, very little is available to the salesman, especially when needed – in front of the customer. Having an App that can be created, managed and filled with valuable information is a must for them. A service that allows for simple creation and organization of collateral and data that can be automatically updated and pushed to the salesman’s iPad is crucial to keeping him current and effective at all times, especially when he is remote from the home office.




Tablets, like the iPad, have become one of the most multipurpose, user-friendly and significant business tools to arrive in years, and they are only just starting to reach their full potential. Sales based Apps are also coming into their prime.

If you’re a business and you haven’t begun developing tablet-optimized sales tools, you’re missing an incredible opportunity. If you’re an IT director and you’re not yet evaluating what tablets can do for your organization, you may be surprised to discover that much of your workforce is using them already.

Monday, April 15, 2013

5 Tips for Great Sales Presentations


Giving sales presentations can be intimidating at times. There have been some spectacular successes and failures. I remember one of the latter when a slightly bitter presenter who was leaving the company where he was having to work out his final weeks, simply stood up asked if everyone could read and then proceeded to flip the slides over every 30 seconds or so. You could have heard a pin drop. The most painful (and funny) presentation I ever saw.

Obviously, not the best way to give a presentation!

There are some basic tips for presenting in front of a large or a small group.


1. Understanding

Any sales presentation should help you to get that sale. You need to understand what you would like to get out of the session. Equally important is to understand what your customer is hoping to accomplish in the presentation and ensure that they meet their goals as well. Prepare in advance.

2. Engage the Audience

Unless you are presenting to a large group, allow questions when they come up – not just at the end of the presentation. That way you can deal with questions when they are fresh in the attendee’s mind. However you need to ensure that you keep on track and stay focused. It is easy to end up talking to only one person in a presentation if you do this. Remember to engage all

3. Timing 

Time is valuable and over-running your allotted time in a presentation is a big sales fail.  Plan out the sections and how much time each should take. You certainly don’t want to run out of time or even worse, be rushed in a part of the presentation that you feel is very important. Keep an eye on time at all times.

4. Keep It Sharp and Clean

Slides should be uncluttered and clean.  Forget transitions and movement as they often become irritating. Video clips can be highly useful but keep them short and to the point. Remember that too much text forces your audience to be reading when they should be listening to you. Get your point over and then move on. Don’t be tempted to put too much on one slide

5. What’s Next?
The final slide should be one asking the audience to react – “Next Steps?” Ask them how they want to proceed from here. Use this as part of your sales methodology. Use it to start to close.


Has Traditional Marketing Collateral become Obsolete?


A simple glossy brochure that projected a company’s statement of value and pedigree was once the norm in a salesman’s toolkit; in many cases it was backed up by a more expansive, and therefore more expensive, catalog that defined his products. He used these as the major selling devices in all presentations and contacts. Furthermore, his customers expected this form of collateral, whether they were a buyer or an engineer. Every vendor and every salesman had boxes of printed literature to hand. The more extensive the product range, the more extensive was the mounds of flyers and datasheets apparently required.

Obsolete Brochures


In the time that it took to create and print this literature, things had changed and often we were all left with out of date materials or brochures that didn’t work as the market had moved in a new direction. Every new marketing manager has had the experience of finding boxes of obsolete glossies that nobody wanted to dispose of due to the original costs.

Then, there was the advent of the DVD as companies, in an effort to be viewed as ‘high-tech” or forward thinking, paid external marketing firms to produce sometimes quite lengthy video brochures which were given away with almost careless abandon. The problem being that together with the high cost, very few customers were willing to sit through watching them. Add some more boxes of ineffective collateral to the dusty pile in the marketing closet!

Then we moved to the Internet and the next round of promotion began. We all internally produced or had built a wonderful web site, often as not with Flash intros that again tried to define us as at the forefront of technology. The problem was that they didn’t change and simply became an online version of the original sales brochure. When it became sufficiently out of date to warrant serious comment we all went through the same process again and rebuilt it continuing the process of eventual marketing obsolescence.

The times they are changing!

And so are the customers.

If a potential customer is interested in a certain product or service, most of them get their information from the internet. Within a short space of time, depending on their Google abilities, they get to know virtually everything that they wanted to know – the good, as well as the bad.

Today, with advent smart devices and the immediacy of the Internet, marketing materials need to be up to date and relevant. Customers are not prepared to accept literature that is out of date when it was printed. They expect solutions that are tailored to them, and they expect collateral that reflects this. 

Company Marketing is Irrelevant?

So, then why do we need product brochures anymore? Has home-grown marketing copy become irrelevant? If you’re reading a company’s product brochure, you already know that you’re not going to read anything untoward. Apart from features, benefits and technical specifications, what use is the rest? The text is always going to be complementary, right?

 But does the fact that the company themselves have produced the text make the result less credible, or less believable? We’ve all read the “we’re the best / you’d be mad to buy anything else” type of corporate nonsense. It’s no wonder most of us take company-sourced marketing content with a pinch of salt.

When user-generated content – social media – is everywhere, marketers have to get in on the act. Companies don’t control their brands. Customers do. The role of a marketer has changed, to now include the creation of user-generated content and use the company’s visibility to push this content to the audience.  

It’s a lot more effort than sending out the occasional press release, updating the website news page, or reprinting the product brochure with new specs and images. But, increasingly, it’s what your audience is expecting of you.


Engaging Customers in B2B Sales Channels


Today the expectation of customers is much higher than ever before with regard to customer service, especially in a face to face sales call. They demand more personalization, faster response and discussions that help them solve their problems.

In the last ten years, B2B selling has changed due to the prevalence of remote technologies – email, Twitter, texts. Customers often rail against having to spend time in face to face sales calls. Businesses are beginning to define and measure the cost of such meetings. From the vendor’s perspective it can be equally expensive unless there is solid value to be had – dependent on the industry and products sold, a simple meeting can cost upwards of $300, much more if it involves significant travel.

With this being said, when a face to face call does occur, and customer and salesman invest the time there are ways to add value.

Plan the Meeting

Strange as it may seem, many sales professional do not plan the sales call. Thinking on their feet and hoping for the best is never a good strategy especially when limited time and interest is available. Meetings that have been prepared for will have a more favorable outcome. A good understanding of the customers needs allows the salesman to gather the appropriate materials and thoughts together in advance and present only the information and solution that their customer require.

Sell the Solution not the Product

Truly successful salesmen provide the value of their products to the customer, not just the features. Applying understanding of their products capabilities to the customer’s specific issues is key.  A poor salesman relies heavily on prepared marketing collateral that may already be in the hands of their customer, and are often generic in their content; a stronger salesman uses their knowledge of the customer to frame value propositions.

Use Real Life Examples

The use of examples of how their products and solutions are applied across like industries and similar customers can be highly interesting and engaging - customers like to hear some real-world applications on products they are thinking of buying. However talk is cheap and the use of videos and images is the most effective especially when these can be used in combination with the discussions ongoing at the meeting. Flexibility is key and the ability to have such materials readily to hand. 


Follow up Fast

A customer always has questions. That’s a good thing. However they also have a limited attention span so being able to respond quickly and effectively is important. Today they expect personalized answers in real-time.  If you deliver an outstanding customer experience they’ll tell their friends and followers about their experience.  55% of customers are willing to recommend a product or service if they receive exceptional service.  Service will generate more referrals than price.


Following these basic, common sense rules, will go a long way to developing your sales channels, keeping your customers engaged and happy and ultimately, in closing the deal.