If you’ve been a regular reader of this column over previous months you’ll be pretty well armed with the theory to implement effective B2B data-driven programmes. We’ve talked about the principles and best practice in B2B lead generation, hopefully demonstrating that all programmes need to start with insight, and that insight requires data.
I’ve shown that insight delivers understanding of who customers and prospects are, what propositions to talk to them about, how to talk to them, the value they are likely to represent to you and thus, what to invest to acquire or retain them.
Your investment in data and insight therefore provides much, much more than a targeting model. It actually provides you with the framework within which to plan all marketing programme activity creating a context for media and channel planning and the ability to measure at all stages. It provides information for proposition development, for messaging, for tone, for brand support and more.
‘Who’s doing this well in B2B?’ is the question that often follows one of my evangelising sessions to new customers and prospects. Outside of Information Art’s customers I’m unable to answer I don’t know, because in truth there’s little evidence of anyone else doing it well.
I’ve no doubt that there are lots of companies developing models and doing lots of analysis but too often it’s apparent that the thinking is not joined up. It’s also clear that there’s no context for implementing these various pieces of work at a customer level, it’s product focused and therefore little real traction is gained from these efforts.
Reinforcing this is the fact that there is little real evidence of commitment from corporate boards to putting the customer at the heart of all the company’s activities (which actually is the big issue that we’ll come back to another time). Anyway, so far I’ve made the case from a data perspective and I want to lighten the mood a little and talk a little about the execution-end of the programme.
What I really mean is why is most B2B creative and copy so bland and boring? There may well be exceptions, but none springs to mind and as a small business person myself (I mean as a normal sized director of a small business) I see bags of direct mail (and spam) everyday. It interests me from an industry perspective to see who’s mailing what but I couldn’t really blame anyone for binning most of it without reading. It’s designed to bore.
Which readers have seen any of these creative treatments?
- two people in suits shaking hands
- a briefcase
- a computer
- a mobile phone/iPod
Alternatively, most will have received a letter starting:
in today’s global economy…
as a small business owner…
as a busy small business owner…
we understand what it’s like to be a busy small business owner…
Copy tends to be spattered with bamboozling technical jargon, the over liberal use of the word ‘strategic’ (okay, I do that too!) and written in some strange formal ‘business talk’ that no one (other than Cap Gemini consultants) actually really use at all in their day-to-day working lives.
It’s as if the copywriters imagine that we human beings running these small businesses somehow shed a persona as we exit our homes everyday and swap it for a business persona as we enter our offices, shops and factories. That may have been the case 30 years ago, but times have changed.
The fact is of course that we the customers’ are just like them (the copywriters). We share the same emotions and values, we probably want most of the same things, and we’d like someone to talk to us in a normal way and without using all of the usual clichés.
The serious point of course is that differentiation in many B2B categories of spend is very difficult. Many products and services are viewed as commodity, small business people don’t want to spend money for the sake of it and it’s actually pretty hard to get excited about the thought of switching suppliers.
No one running a business jumps out of bed in the morning thinking ‘Yippee, I’m going to change my electricity supplier today!’
So achieving cut-through is hard but critical if you want to get away from the self-fulfilling short game of ‘we can beat your current supplier on price’.
I’m not talking about whacky for the sake of it. I’m talking about distinctive, brave communications, with relevant and appropriate imagery and messaging. This should be aligned to a business cycle and engaging with all of the insights that data can provide, referencing the things that small business people really think about.
But what do small business people really think about? Oh well, back to data.
