PDF We created a Buyer’s Bill of Rights a couple of months ago, but didn’t have the right context to explain the “why” of Buyer-Centric, but now in context it is becoming clear that this is the “how” to become buyer-centric in your engagement within your markets. Imagine if all vendors treated buyers this way how amazing our buying experiences would become. All movements start with a “moment” and a core of early evangelists. Here is to hoping this one catches on…. please, soon…. and start with the worst offenders who provide lights-out customer service… I mean literally “no one is home in our call-center bad service”… or the “SPAM to your inbox chokes” marketing offenders. Continue reading “Buyer-Centric Bill of Rights” »
Archive for the ‘General Marketing’ category
Buyer-Centric Bill of Rights
February 6th, 2012Defining Buyer-Centric Marketing
February 6th, 2012We are Seeing a Disconnect Between The Way Buyer’s Approach the Market And The Solution-Centric Marketing That Vendors Provide
- Buyers are active and participating within on social websites, forums etc., but the social market is noisy, saturated, mature, and cluttered with vendors so buyers are faced with many options to choose from which makes the decision making process more difficult
- Vendors are using technical jargon (educated buyer) and needs to shift towards more “pain” and “generic” social search orientation for a less educated, but more strategic buyer.
How do you develop customer relationships, influence requirements, and drive sales if buyers are doing research and making buying decisions before your organization becomes aware and engaged?
- Understanding how buyers solve business problems, research and weigh solution options, reconciling various organizational
motivations, along with assisting the organization to solidify business, functional, & technical requirements §Identify buyer motivations, triggers for purchase, and research/selection/ buying process, and behavioral market segmentation - Focus marketing engagement around buyer’s needs, not with solution awareness messaging §Leverage social networks &
online communities to reach buyers in their communities of interest - Provide decision support, not solution advocacy
- Assist them in building targeted strategic business cases based upon their particular needs before then addressing
tactical functionality and feature requirements.
Social Marketing Adoption
March 28th, 2011Social marketing is not social media adoption. However, you cannot have an effective social marketing if your people do not use social media.
You can’t legislate that your people all of a sudden embrace social media, just as you cannot expect them to all of a sudden love the CRM system. In reality, all new technologies follow the maturity curve; some faster than others, but at the end of the day, many will be slow to embrace.
We have seen it come up in conversations with sales organizations. Many are resistant to social media as they are uncomfortable with the change in relationships. “I don’t connect to anyone who I haven’t done work with personally.” I don’t like my relationship out on LinkedIn for everyone to see.” “Why would they connect to me?”
Continue reading “Social Marketing Adoption” »
Social Lead Generation: Why it is different from regular lead generation.
January 31st, 2011Lately we have been working with several clients on lead generation programs within their organization. When they first approached us, however, their stories had a common denominator line — “we’ve tried social media but it has not yielded sales/results/ROI for our organization.”
Indeed, these days most organizations are utilizing social media in one capacity or another. However, from a lead generation perspective, many of these same organizations have been:
- Applying traditional activities to social lead generation (e.g. posting advertisement copy on social sites, requesting a meeting with the first interaction, etc.)
- Incorporating social inconsistently for sales generation –ad hoc participation creates ad hoc results.
- Focusing social media activity on popular versus strategic social sites that target a specific audience (and utilizing these sites casually rather than in a business manner).
Continue reading “Social Lead Generation: Why it is different from regular lead generation.” »
Solution to the Pains of BtoB Complex Sales Process is a Good Social Marketing Lead Generation Program
January 31st, 2011Most people don’t think BtoB Complex Sales when they think of social media, but social’s ability to target with laser-like precision, enable buyers to self-educate, and allow for a variety of different buying paths; BtoB complex sales may become easier, in the long run, to demonstrate social media’s ROI in terms of marketing and lead generation.
We pulled together the common challenges and opportunities that we have seen for BtoB customers specifically. Many of these overlap for BtoC, but given these tend to be more transactional; BtoB or complex channel sales processes have more specific pains associated with the need to build multiple relationships with much greater strategic impact within a sale. The number of moving pieces can be much more visible and more easily managed via a social lead generation programs. We thought this list might help a sales & marketing executive realize they are not alone in their challenges and begin to help them build the foundation for a business case for social marketing.
