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Marketing Is NOT About Relationships

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A Couple Walking Across the LawnDevelop a relationship. Don’t propose on the first date. Relationships take time.

You talk about relationships as a marketer. You use the same words and clichés. However, you don’t really mean a relationship.

You won’t take a walk in the park with me because we enjoy spending time together and share what we did today just because we want each other to know.

What do businesses really mean when they talk about relationships and what is marketing’s place in those relationships with clients, prospects and the marketplace at large? [Read more…]

Content Will Not Be King

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Coronation crown of Louis XVNearly every marketer in every industry has heard the cry “Content is King“. Even the cover of Ad Age was emblazoned with Content is King last month, complete with a crown. Once a call for change and recognition of a new marketplace reality, Content is King has become conventional marketing wisdom.

The problem is, conventional wisdom is average. Following conventional marketing wisdom will not differentiate you.

Why is content king today:

  • Being customer-centric required moving away from creative executions as the primary way to deliver a message. Focusing on the customer requires providing something that meets their need, and content perfectly fits the bill.
  • Content marketing was not the norm. Companies embracing content marketing were able to provide unique value to clients and prospects.

Today, the situation has changed. [Read more…]

Three Reasons To Stop Calling Customers “Assets”

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Customers Drive Your Business, They Are Not Your Assets

Yesterday’s #IMCchat (Integrated Marketing Communications) on Twitter included a conversation about customers as assets. I don’t believe customers should be called assets, and I found myself in a very lonely minority. As always, conversation refines and clarifies perspective, and the following tweet from Anna Barcelos was key in refining this perspective.

Customers are incredibly valuable, and the things that are valuable in business are assets. Your marketing analytics or financial analysis group even tracks the exact value of your customer, and it is a metric you should cherish. That is reasonable, but I still will not start labeling customers “assets.” Here’s why. [Read more…]

Has Your Passion Been Lost In Your Marketing Process?

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Tomatoes in Seed Starting AreaI had not spoken to Lisa in a year, and only a handful of times ever. So imagine my surprise when Lisa greeted me and then said “you grow Momotaro tomatoes, right?”

Wow, that is making a connection. That is what relationship marketing should be about. Connecting on a common interest and common passion. That passion is what B2B marketing is missing. As personal relationships in your business are replaced by machine-personalized communications, your passion has been lost.

Lisa, who runs Our Little Farm and Nursery, a small local business that sells, among other things, vegetable starts, immediately found something we have in common, and she is passionate about it. In the spring, she grows more than 100 tomato varieties alone for sale as starts at their small farm and local farmers markets. Her passion is clearly reflected in what she does.

In B2B marketing, you build relationships around [Read more…]