Forewords to B2B Marketing
One of the best and most motivating aspects of my marketing career is the people: team members, colleagues, customers, partners, peers, even competitors. Working in a multinational company with a globally respected brand is truly a privilege. It is and has been an honor to be inspired by many knowledgeable people around the world. One of them is André Morgado, with whom we led a formalized global customer reference program in a B2B environment. I’m delighted to share a few thoughts and learnings as forewords in a pioneering B2B Marketing book in Portuguese authored by André, who now serves as Professor of Marketing at AESE Business School in Lisbon, Portugal. His students are lucky to have him open the door to the opportunities in marketing with his signature energy and inspiration. The book is in Portuguese, so I’m posting the forewords here in English.
B2B marketing is both art and science and quite different from consumer marketing. In B2B, your target audience is often smaller in number, but makes larger, organizationally orchestrated and possibly standards-based or otherwise regulated purchase decisions. As a marketeer in this value chain, you need to reach and influence the decision-makers and their influencers - and know who they are. As the investments are notable, your value proposition must provide peace of mind with respect to the longevity and sustainability of the purchase decision, while delivering on your company’s brand promise and value. Optimally, you will influence even the selection criteria of the purchase with the insights you convey before the procurement process starts.
The customer relationship is much more than a purchase – it is the delivery and service, and continuous everyday interaction with your customer where marketing can play a positive role. Taking the pulse of the customer experience regularly can help forecast the future purchasing climate.
Even though purchasing decisions are organizationally driven and vetted, people still matter. It’s not organizations but individuals who decide. As a marketeer, don’t talk to the institution, enterprise or organization. Talk to the person. We like to think that in our professional roles we are naturally driven fact-based professionals - comparing and analyzing features, road maps, capabilities, etc. Which we do of course. But our subconscious is also hard at work – reminding us to consider how we can measure emotions and even biases in this mix? And asking what role they play in the decision-making process?
As a marketeer, it is equally important to address the left and right sides of the brain. Present the facts without sugarcoating them, but with a compelling value proposition that appeals to the left side of the customer’s brain. Deliver and operate efficiently. This is something you can measure with clear KPIs – success backed up with numbers, which can be called performance marketing. But to be successful as a marketeer also means appealing to the right side of the brain. Create an emotion. Be creative. Surprise positively. Build trust. Use emotional intelligence. How well you combine the left and the right side of the brain will ultimately help you differentiate and win in the market.
Marketing analytics and technologies have become an art form of its own and when well-harnessed can provide us with unique insights to action. They help us understand what worked and what didn’t, and how to optimize the customer engagements and journey. What are our customers’ needs? And is that need different from one role to another within the same organization. Most likely. What are the emerging trends and needs? When we take time to know our audience and customers, the better we understand them, the better we can create the right kind of marketing message and actions and, ultimately, serve their needs. Successful customer relationships are created through conversation, where listening and data-based insights are just as important as research, observation, communication and actions. The best kind of marketing may feel like great customer service. And this builds trust - the holy grail of the customer relationship.
This relationship marketing - utilizing the best of analytics, optimization, experiment and a variety of marketing mix - is what ultimately sells the product. Customers want to be confident and excited about the relationship with the brands they interact with.
The secret is to integrate all customer touch points, both online and offline. We need to have an engaging call-to-action strategy to connect the dots, and to move the relationship with customers from a one-way dialogue to a two-way relationship. A thriving marketing organization designs experiences for people in real-time, utilizing marketing technology to leverage unique expert content. We are wise to harness our creativity for more than just our messaging and marketing asset creation. We need to go deeper, reconsidering how to build new forms of brand engagement, and re-evaluating the right channel mix at any given time. Opportunity marketing and communications doesn’t occur by happenstance. They require a well-oiled, thoughtful, creative and competent team and process behind it.
In today’s world, whether in business-to-consumers (B2C) or business-to-business interactions, digital plays an increasingly important role in our purchasing decisions. We actively search and compare products and brands before we even indicate our desire to purchase. Often we are teased to consider a solution that we didn’t even know we needed…
While it’s important that brands do a good job in digital marketing – both paid and owned – it is the earned category that I’d like to especially highlight. People follow people more than brands, people click on articles shared by their industry peers or friends notably more than they do those shared by brands. We should encourage our employees to be masterful collaborators. Employee advocacy and peer advocacy are today’s methods of reference marketing, and our call to action is to enable and power up our teams with a platform to significantly increase reach and impact. We can amplify our existing paid and owned strategies through our most authentic brand advocates – our employees. Peers are considered credible experts even if they represent their own company.
In large B2B investment purchase decisions, much of the same marketing mix applies as in B2C: excellent digital marketing, excellent value proposition and assets addressing both the left and right sides of our brains, but ultimately it is differentiated by the relationship and trust. Peer advocacy helps build and enforce this trust.
Today we are also faced with the challenging new world of “permission marketingâ€, a term introduced by Seth Godin. While we want to be more helpful to our customers, we need to know more about them in order to be accurate in targeting our marketing initiatives. At the same time, increasing privacy concerns and enforced related legislation have made consumers wary about giving consent to be marketed to. A double-edged sword. Therefore, each customer interaction, each marketing initiative needs to be relevant, anticipated and useful to our audience.
We’re also living in the time of “dark social†i.e. web traffic that is untraceable such as email, messaging apps, and all instant messaging platforms. Likewise different social platforms are not created equal with respect to how their APIs can be logged into marketing tools for analytics and optimization. The channels and platforms will develop over time with what is permissible and right regarding individual privacy, but in the meantime what we can do to gain and retain consumer attention is to be respectful and authentic. If something sounds like a polished marketing slogan, then that’s all it is. Being authentic about what our brand stands for, what we sound and look like, and what we do as employees and as a company, really does matter. Keep it real.
Looking forward, the only constant continues to be change, also in marketing. Digital is set to be holistically ingrained in the customer journey and will take on new forms and improve. Technology will impact how we work and the tools we have in use both as consumers, buyers and marketers will multiply and develop. Virtual assistants and voice are becoming more popular, as is the utilization of machine learning and artificial intelligence in marketing technology and actions. As a marketeer, you are never ready. While you build on your experience by working with others in a variety of projects, foster your professional network and build yourself a clear development plan. Make sure it includes training and stretch assignments to help you grow, reach your potential and meet your career aspirations.
When I joined Nokia the five C’s of marketing were: Context (talking to the right people), Confidence (quantifying messages convincingly), Consistency (unified messaging), Competence (ability to deliver message), and Content (facts tailored to customer needs). With hindsight, I would add one more: C for Curiosity. People and companies keep changing, so staying curious is not only fundamental to the marketing mindset but will also keep you relevant and fuel your career. It’s an exciting time to be a marketeer as we harness the power of social media and digitalization, with Augmented Reality and the Internet of Things set to enrich our toolkit.
I truly believe that marketing has a key role to play in understanding audiences’ business challenges and helping turn them into opportunities. The challenges are different for everyone, but the goal hasn’t changed. To build successful customer relationships, and to build successful business.
So stay curious as you embark on your exciting journey in the world of marketing!