B2B marketing is based around constructive communications with firms who may be willing to use your company or business. Billions of conversations are shared online each day with many marketers able to tap into customer perception, using the data to favourably position their company and products – but what happens when you take a look from the other side of the fence?
Why it’s never been more important to understand online perception
Before meeting with a new business acquaintance many of us will try and gather as much online information about them as possible, through sites such as LinkedIn and Twitter, and the same is the case when businesses seek out new businesses they may be interested in working with.
The problem that many companies face is that they are forced to spend a large proportion of their time thinking about how to promote themselves without ever asking, “What do people actually think about our brand?” This result is poorly positioned campaigns which go against the underlying perception of the company and ultimately miss the mark when trying to drive new business.
Online interactions are a constant and so it is essential for marketers to keep this at the forefront of their mind with every external action they make. By considering this in every Facebook message, every tweet, and every blog post, a company can create a strong, clearly defined perception of itself in a bid to attract new business.
Understanding what’s the ‘right’ level of feeling towards your firm?
Whilst it’s important for any business to understand what is being said about them online, is it often more valuable to understand how it is being said, through use of sentiment analysis.
Marketers must determine what the natural level of sentiment is for their industry – for example it’s likely to be less positive for an arms dealer than it is for a cupcake maker. It is by understanding this that marketers can carry out an analysis on their own online interactions, before comparing this with competitors within their industry. The resulting difference dictates whether businesses feel more or less positive towards your firm than others within the industry. If more positive, this could be a particularly good time to press on with outstanding business leads, if less positive it may be worth taking time out to get your house in order before making a fully-fledged new business push.
It is also worth noting that perception to an industry, and the subsequent main players, will change over time. This means that regular reviews of your industry standing is key to timing your new business approaches.
Understanding what prospects are looking for, and where?
Firms who understand where the conversations about their industry are taking place can gain a competitive advantage. Gone are the days where companies are only discussed in the trade press. Nowadays, most prospects gain information from a wide range of sources before entering a dialogue with a company.
Analysing where business decision makers are discussing your product or industry gives you a greater opportunity to get involved in the conversation and interact directly with those who are likely to work with you. It’s important for companies to monitor multiple channels in order to have a clear picture of the industry and conversations around it, which is why you should always analyse more than just social media – including blogs, forums, news and review sites.
Weight the sites in order of importance and make sure you are alerted when conversations relevant to your industry come up on important sites, allowing you to immediately become part of the conversation and take advantage of any business opportunities this can provide.
Leveraging influencers to improve your image
By assessing whose comments hold most weight in your industry, you can identify key influencers and bid to turn them into brand ambassadors. This is someone who speaks positively about your business to other companies. It can often be surprising that those with the most influence in an industry may actually differ significantly from popular opinion.
Influencer identification has been a strong topic for some time now, however we fully believe that out of the box solutions merely skim the surface. As a company you must determine who is truly influential in your arena, relating to your products or services, something which can only be realised through a tailored influencer scoring system. This may mean that once you’ve identified the key influencers you can reach the correct people, whilst competitors may just continue to talk to the same people who have traditionally been influential but in fact have very little power. It’s in this way that companies can miss the changing of the guard, and in turn miss out on important industry insight.
To sum up, for any business actively seeking to build longstanding commercial partnerships it has never been more important to analyse your online standing before making approaches.
A savvy marketer will understand not only what the feeling online is towards their firm but also how this compares with the competition. They will know where conversations about their industry, company and product are taking place and will act to leverage influential voices within the industry to further increase positive sentiment towards their company – ultimately winning more new clients.
For long terms success, the process of analysing the industry for changes in sentiment and prospect expectations should regularly be reviewed with shrewd companies making changes to their overall operations. This will improve feeling towards the business, before making another concerted push for new clients.