|  |  | | How2 Make your B2B Marketing Buyer-Focused | |
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| | |  | | The main thing to remember is that people buy products and services for one reason only: to solve problems. They may have too much of something they don’t want, or too little of something that they do want. The problem that they have is the gap between where they are at present and where they would like to be. | | |
| The problem that prospective buyers want to solve is crucial: if they are aware of the problem and are concerned by it, they will make a purchase. If they’re not concerned, they won’t place an order with any supplier. The question is How2 determine what the most pressing problem is facing the B2B buyer, and How2 incorporate it into the marketing strategy.
| |  Here are my four steps to help answer those questions: | | 1. | First of all, consider your own organisation’s basic marketing strategy: - what to sell;
- who to sell to;
- what channels to use.
| | 2. | Examine the challenges in implementing this strategy: - identify your potential buyers’ problems and needs;
- identify your competitive solutions;
- list those solutions and prioritise it.
| | 3. | Shorten this list so that you have just one ‘most competitive’ solution to a need/problem. You will need to make a very careful choice. If you have a very competitive solution that generates limited margin, you will not boost your company’s profits by very much. On the other hand, if you’ve selected a problem with a very well-established need, but you don’t have a strong solution, the competition will win instead. Choose the one problem that will financially reward your business the best, and one for which your company has the best solution.
| | 4. | Next, abandon your existing marketing strategy and rebuild a new B2B strategy, specifically around the problem/need that you’ve selected. |
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| If you’ve chosen the best, most competitive problem/need, you will also help yourself in determining your future B2B marketing strategies. Establish which B2B businesses share this particular problem, and whether they will have the necessary budget. Then select which channel will be best at uncovering this problem/need.
You will now be able to get an overview of the complete solution – this is your new B2B marketing strategy. Having developed this new strategy, you now need to encourage your prospective buyers to act - buyers don’t simply decide to purchase something on the spur of the moment. | | Consider the buyers journey, as the B2B buyer takes the following steps: - first of all, the buyer doesn’t have a problem
- a problem is identified
- the buyer decides that a solution is needed
- different options are considered
- a choice is made
- the hoped-for benefits are achieved.
I refer to this chain of events as ‘the buyer’s journey’. | | |
| Depending on the B2B market sector, the buying cycle can last many days, months or years. The B2B sales process does not follow this same path. There are additional steps the seller must take which are not part of the buyer’s journey.
The big question is, how can you draw together the buyer’s journey and the seller’s journey? |
| Marketing is crucial in terms of identifying and encouraging the steps in the two journeys. First of all, identify the problems your regular customers had before they became customers – what was the repeated pattern? Then determine other businesses that also match the same criteria pattern, and target future your business at this target market.
Focused marketing will help you provide your sales people with the information they need to convince prospects that inaction is not an option. It’s essential to help your sales people explain the ramifications if they put off a decision.
It’s a good idea to use marketing tactics like seminars and eNewsletters to warn prospects of potential problems and explain to them that your company has the solutions to overcome the particular problem. You need to help your prospects take each step in the buyer’s journey.
The bottom line is that businesses will pay to solve their problem. All you need to do is to select the right one, help your buyers recognise that your solution is the best, and the end-result is orders and profit. |
| | | "The main thing to remember is that people buy products and services for one reason only: to solve problems" |  |
| | |  | | |  | | | | | "Having developed a new strategy, you now need to encourage your prospective buyers to act" | |
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| | | "The bottom line is that businesses will pay to solve their problem" | |
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