Better Business Marketing

In my opinion the key to better Business Marketing is actually recognising that every business is made up of individuals and every customer is made up of individuals too. Once you speak to the individuals in those companies in a relevant way, then you will succeed at better business marketing.

It’s still all about people

Many of our clients would class themselves as B2B companies. They sell their products/services to other businesses. At J&M, one of the first things we do is try to understand the individuals in those businesses which they are selling to. It means creating personas and starting to build a picture of their core audiences. Once this is completed then future marketing becomes easier and the results of that marketing tend to be better. But Why? Having a picture in your mind of the customer means we can write better copy, relevant to the viewer. We can design better graphics, knowing who will be viewing. And as a result of being more relevant, campaign success tends to improve.

Online Advertising

The same logic applies to the online advertising campaigns we create for our clients. Faced with rich targeting tools from Linkedin, Facebook and Google, we can think a little more out of the square. Rather than simply targeting by role or industry we can cut through a little deeper by considering pastimes, hobbies and interests. Thinking about what a person might likely be reading and what media they might be consuming enables us to market to these clients in unexpected places, which delivers better results for our clients. 

The difference between B2C and B2B is money. In B2C marketing you must persuade a person to part with their hard earned cash, but the decision maker is one person and they often don’t need to seek approval.

It’s also about money

With B2B marketing, the person you’re marketing to may well simply have a budget. It’s not their money that they’re spending. But they do often need to seek approval. This chain of command needs to be well considered. Ignore the approval process at your peril. To win at business marketing  you need to make it easier for your direct customer to become an advocate of your business. You must provide them with all the tools to on-sell your product to others in the business. Do this though, and the hard work is done. But how? Provide plenty of marketing materials that appeal not only to your direct customer, but also provide to other departments about why your product or service is vital to their needs. 

The longer sales cycle

When marketing to businesses the sales cycle is much longer, due to the approvals process and often larger spend. That’s why it’s important to continue marketing throughout the cycle, from initial interest through consideration and right up to purchase. Customers that shop around need regular persuasion. They need to know that purchasing from you is low risk, even when it might be thousands of dollars. And we don’t mean low risk to the company, but also low risk to the individual. At times they may be very cognisant that a wrong decision might mean their job is on the line! We focus our marketing efforts on allaying these fears. Simply put we get your business marketing sorted.