I had the pleasure of speaking at the recent B2B Marketing Summit in London with Alison Orsi from IBM. Discussions at the summit reinforced a number of truths about marketing that have always been, and a few new ones that we need to pay attention to. Here are my top 3 truths discussed at the conference:
1) Know your target audience
This is so basic, but as marketers we get enamored with the next technology, or distracted by the love that someone internally has for a product or service, then suddenly we are marketing things that our audience isn’t actually interested in. t happens to all of us. Joe Pulizzi’s talk on content marketing reinforced this truth: simple wins. People want simple. Joe’s advice – pick one persona, define one content type, deliver consistently, over and over again.
2) Consistent delivery works
As the more creative types in organizations, marketers like to take on the next big thing and brainstorm new ways of working. This is important. But also important is just delivering to the customer what they want and need and delivering it well. Repeatedly.
3) Talk less, listen more
Several presentations and discussions focused on this theme of how to get businesses to listen and act faster and more often. Agile marketing methods are still required for making our organizations more nimble. Several marketers I spoke with are going back to the basics and trying to really understand what makes their customers tick.
The B2B Summit was a reinforcing program for all of us that attended. In this world of speed and noise, we need to stop for a moment and reassess whether all of what we are doing is really resonating with the audience that matters most – our customers.
