Essence in B2B Marketing

There have been numerous articles on B2C Marketing and a lot has been written about various subjects like – different approaches for marketing to them, branding, segmentation, profiling, customer delight, CRM and the list goes on, also covering new age tools like social media, viral, blogging, web, etc, etc…

This blog talks about B2B marketing and especially, those set of companies, with the following characteristics –
* whose products cannot be sold in the retail market
* where sales function is critical
* it’s all about big numbers
* where the normal gestation for sales conversion is 6 months or more

It is interesting to devise strategies to market such companies. Most of the things, I have read about, don’t have any relevance for such mammoths. Having spoken to some key people in some similar companies and taking their perspective alongwith my thoughts, my take on the things that forms the essence of B2B marketing.

Unlike most products in the B2C category, these products are not sold over mailers or phone or even the more recent ones, internet. In fact, because of the big world wide web, customers have a chance to meet your competitors as easily as ever. So, in traditional times, success of winning customers relied on the strength and smartness of your FOS, keeping other things constant, have changed now. It is, no doubt, important, but because of the overall emergence of new channels of information readily available, the buyer has become more aware and conscious about his requirements.

Things have changed dramatically, companies planning to buy your product or like, have the ability to research a hell-lot on the internet. This not only helps to get them self-educated, but also helps them reach to potential sellers (across the globe).. Markets are not restricted now to geograophies, bring in more competition..

I would like to detail the objectives, such companies want to achieve from marketing teams –
* Building a brand – which can be associated (and recognised) by employees, partners and customers (incl. prospects)

* Generate high credibility – by showcasing USPs, competitive advantage

* Develop internal resources to be industry experts (spokesperson) – who can exhibit detailed understanding about indusrty and its products/services in the marketplace

* Getting participation in the right forums / discussion boards / associations – which helps more involement from the industry as opinion leaders / experts

* Reaching out to a larger audience – by adopting new age tools like interactive web marketing, writing blogs on relevant subjects, Search engine optimisation, etc – to be in the loop and which can help educate customers about their requirements

I am concluding by stating my individual take on the most critical elements / stakeholders that need to be effectivey addressed in this space –
Employees – These are of utmost importance to your business. They are your mouthpiece in the market. Since, advertising does not play a big role here; these set of people, not only drive revenues, but also publicise your company and offering. More successful companies put huge efforts on this stakeholder to ensure their positivity and involement. Most of the advertising is restricted to hiring employees.

Partners / alliances – Most of B2B businesses work with partners (either forward or backward integration), their relationship is key to your business success. They might only enhance your offering, bring operational ease or help your business to be cost-effective, they can be strong advocates. They will talk a lot about you and another channel of being your spokesperson.

Customers – They bring you the money. They bring you the credibility. More the merrier or few but more satisifed the merrier would depend on the business

New age tools – All companies need to adopt / step-up to the new-age marketing.
Advertising on non-relevant, non-targeted space can just keep the marketing function occupied, but hardly generate results. The new-age is about interactive marketing where the relationship is changed from one-way-one-to-many to two-way-many-to-many. It’s the age where customers have more options to research (extensively), get educated and be informed.
The new-age PR is not about pushing a story to a publication. The new-journo finds relevant articles through web-sites, blogs and discussion forums on the topics they wish to write. They create a pool of information, overtime, and use it as an input to their writing.