PDF In response to my last two posts, an “Open Letter to Buyers” and an “Open Letter to Buyer-Centric Organizations”, I have tried to articulate the evolution in the conversations I’ve had about why social is disruptive to business as we know it, why a buyer-centric approach is so critical to the long-term viability of your business, and why your team needs to pay attention now. Continue reading “Welcome to the Buyer-Centric Movement” »
Posts Tagged ‘Lead Generation’
Open Letter to Buyer-Centric Organizations
December 20th, 2011The last two posts, an “Open Letter to CMOs” and an “Open Letter to Buyers” have triggered a large number of pretty intense conversations about the frustrations that you’re feeling today around the disruptive impact social media is having on your markets. It’s disruptive, not because of the technology, but because of the impact it’s having on your relationships with your buyers, their perceptions of your organization and their desire to want to begin or continue to do business with you. The fear and the uncertainty that you’ve shared with me is not knowing what impact this disruption will ultimately have on your company’s reputation, revenue, market share, the quantity and quality of the relationships with your buyers, if you were to just continue down the same path you’re on today.
Continue reading “Open Letter to Buyer-Centric Organizations” »
Recent Social Executive Council Post: Open Letter to Buyers
November 7th, 2011
We owe you a mea culpa…. We’ve been seller driven, not buyer driven. We’ve focused on selling you what we think you need (what we sell) versus helping you make better decisions. We haven’t helped you make the business case for why this is a significant problem. We’ve automated our marketing systems to better reach you, but never asked if or what you’re interested in. We’ve treated you as a company, not as a group of individuals with different needs, perspectives, and roles. We don’t know what a “day in your life” looks like to give us context as to why you don’t have the time to sit through our “canned” presentation, educate us on your business, and sift through all of our market claims.
Continue reading “Recent Social Executive Council Post: Open Letter to Buyers” »
Anti-Marketing is the Anti-Matter Equivelant for Marketing and is Now Back in Vogue
October 13th, 2011Anti-marketing is coming back into vogue. Anti-marketing is the anti-thesis of the flashy, emotional appeal. It is the lengthy, detailed, fact laden, and intellectual outline of the context of the problem, value proposition, feature and functionality comparison. In short, it isn’t short, but substantive. Not “anti” marketing where marketing is evil, but more like Anti-matter and matter. Marketing and anti-marketing cannot exist in the same space, but one cannot exist without the other. Anti-marketing is the long form of campaign marketing; not a “quick read”, but it is designed for those who want a more qualitative understanding of a solution to make an educated decision.
Look at ads pre-Madmen 1960’s where text was a large portion of an ad, but Madison Avenue changed and started to focus on eye candy to appeal to your emotions. Now, appeal to impuse purchase outweighs the educated, thoughtful, and careful deliberation.
Recent Social Executive Council Post: Open Letter to CMO’s
September 9th, 2011
It has been awhile since I wrote my last open letter to the SEC, but my goal with these is to summarize important trends that I see consistently across the executive members within the group in a way that helps highlight major strategic challenges. Continue reading “Recent Social Executive Council Post: Open Letter to CMO’s” »
