ARE ALL Bs REALLY Cs?THE 9 COMMANDMENTS OF B2B

IN THE DIGITAL/MOBILE AGE

HAL2L.COM • SEATTLE • MUNICH • PRAGUE • SHANGHAI

Business-to-business marketers continue to shift considerable resources toward CRM—both online and offline. In addition, B2B marketers like to say “All Bs are Cs” and then apply B2C best practices based on this insight. But is it true?

The devil remains in the details. Mobile tech gives you unprecedented capacity to target and serve prospects in highly specific geo-fenced location—at highly specific moments. And while you may be able to serve your message to a B2B prospect during their kids’ little league game, should you? Are you missing an opportunity if you don’t? Or are you annoying and disengaging the prospect if you do?

GET DIRECT WITH B2B

Like all marketing in the digital/mobile age, it’s not a question of whether you can, it’s a question of whether you should. The answer is different for every target segment, product and service.

SO WHAT CAN YOU DO? Simple. Start by increasing your chances for success (and reducing your opportunities for error) with Hacker Agency, and our 9 B-to-B commandments. We developed these 9 commandments over decades of head-to-head testing and optimization across B2B segments, verticals and sizes. They’re not only a battle-tested foundation for B2B efforts from Leads to Loyalty, they can also help guide you through the grey area between Bs that sometimes act like Cs.

DIGITAL + MOBILE MEDIA HAVE BROKEN DOWN MANY TACTICAL BARRIERS BETWEEN B2B + B2C, BUT THE DELTAS THAT REMAIN CAN GREATLY IMPACT YOUR RESULTS.

THE 9 COMMANDMENTS OF B2B

1KNOW YOUR TARGETToo often, marketers fail to define key emotional drivers for their segments when compiling their target universe. Do the concerns of a CEO differ from a CIO? What are their pain points—and barriers + levers? Only start building your value prop and messaging after you know what makes them tick.

AVOID THE KITCHEN SINKThe kiss of death often starts with an innocent statement: “As long as we’re already talking to them, why don’t we . . .” Just say no! If your campaign’s goal is to generate leads, that should be its sole objective. Adding additional objectives—increased company knowledge for example—forces response rates down.

SELL SALVATION, NOT PRODUCTSIt’s customer-centricity. People don’t want your products; they want what your products do for them. They want the benefit. Truth be told, they only care about themselves. Appeal to their self-interest—not yours—to be successful.

MAKE AN EMOTIONAL CONNECTIONYou have seconds to grab your target and avoid the recycle bin or a delete tap, so make an emotional connection, not a rational one. Testing shows that emotional positions beat rational ones—hands down.

IT’S THE OFFER, STUPIDA good offer is a great way to drive higher initial response—and generate higher consideration of the rest of your communication. Bottom line? Your offer is the fastest way to answer “what’s in it for me?”

2

3

4

5

THE 9 COMMANDMENTS OF B2BDON’T GIVE THEM A CHOICEWhen you make an offer, don’t give them a choice. When confronted with a choice, prospects may be afraid of making the wrong one—and will protect themselves by making none.

WORK BACKWARDS FROM THE SALEYou won’t change customer behavior. So don’t try. You can’t change telesales or field sales behavior either, so understand what they do and how they do it. Then, work backwards to support the selling systems that are already in place and maximize sell-through.

AVOID THUNDERSTORM MARKETINGB2B marketers like to key off of product launches or arbitrary campaign plans and ignore field capacity issues. If, for example, your field organization can handle 100 leads per week, give them 100. If you give them 2,000, they can still only work 100, and the rest will go down the drain.

DON’T HIT THE PANIC BUTTONPanic marketing almost never works. If the customer needs six months to make a decision, your marketing can’t affect sales this quarter. The proper way to use marketing is to generate qualified leads on an ongoing basis. Then, if the quarter needs help, the sales force can use incentives to convert some of the qualified prospects into buyers.

6

7

8

9

ONE LAST THING: YOUR X FACTOR

THE “X FACTOR” IS YOUR APPROVAL PROCESSResearch shows that the more complicated the approval process, the lower the response rate. And unlike market conditions, target mindset, competitive offerings or complexity of segmentation, your internal marketing approval process is something you have absolute control over. To improve your program performance, get as many people out of the approval loop as possible. Next, change your approval rules to limit input to those areas where stakeholders can apply professional judgment—and leave personal opinion at home.

X

If all else fails, remember this: B2B in the digital/mobile age forces marketers to make ever-more complex decisions—with ever-increasing stakes. So while you evaluate all the things you can do, remain guided by what you should do.

At Hacker Agency, decades of successful B2B CRM experience across all markets, target sizes and industry verticals has led us to data, acquisition, retention and optimization techniques which consistently deliver greater ROI for our clients’ marketing efforts—from Leads to Loyalty.

YOUR NEXT STEP

At HackerAgency, we are obsessed with results. We’re a global direct marketing agency with expertise across all media channels and a focus on the metrics that matter. Our success generating ROI for our clients makes us the leader in the world of CRM. From Leads to Loyalty, no agency on earth develops and deploys data-driven strategies and creative that engages and compels customers to take action the way HackerAgency does. We don’t just move the needle—we bury it.

If you’d like assistance in planning and executing your marketing, contact Kristin Flor at 206.805.1500 or kflor@HAL2L.com.