If B2B marketing isn’t dead, it is changing very quickly. But the real change isn’t the marketing, it is how marketing has evolved in response to the evolving buyer.
The biggest factor driving the changes in today’s buyers is the accessibility of information technology has enabled. This change has turned demand creation upside down. In the past, your prospect held the budget cards and you held the information cards. Through the sales and negotiation dance, the cards were slowly revealed one at a time, with you and your prospect jockeying for advantage through the entire process.
With the prevalence of personal publishing and peer networks, even information you attempt to hold close is often freely available, published by someone and discoverable through a peer network or a quick Google search. Access isn’t limited by time or place, research can be done with an iPad on the couch while watching television more effectively than in a library just ten years ago.
Today, buyers hold the budget cards and the information cards. Your prospective buyers do not need to negotiate with you for knowledge using their timing and budget information. As a marketer, if you continue hanging on to this traditional process your marketing will slowly become part of the messaging clutter that besieges us every day and you will lose the opportunity to connect with potential buyers.
Here are five changes your marketing needs to make.
Embrace Mobile
As Michael Brenner said, Mobile Marketing is a Strategy, Not a Tactic. Make mobile the assumption, not the add-on throughout your planning. Value the mobile experience like the desktop experience. Your audience is driving, be ready in their channel of choice.
Make Social Media About the Social, Not the Media
As Jay Baer put it, you are at “The Crossroads: Social or Media.” Social media marketing is becoming a push tactic and you may be dangerously close to acting like a used car salesman instead of the potential partner you want to be.
Set Your Content Free
You don’t produce content mindlessly and then promote it with a compelling description just to get a registration. Your content was designed to benefit your audience and position your company favorably. If it is not easy to get information from you, your audience will get it from someone else.
Develop Your Own Audience
Your business probably already has an audience, one you likely have abused. Your audience is far more valuable than you realize. Begin meeting their needs, or they will tune you out.
Stop Relying on Brand Marketing for Influence
According to recent research from WPP Group’s Kantar Video and Synaptic Digital, there was zero lift in men’s brand awareness from adding brand media exposure to earned media exposure. Here are three more powerful influences than brand marketing.
Your traditional cards are gone. What will your next move be?
