The Quisenblog

If you and I found ourselves standing on a street corner, waiting for the light to change, and it struck you to ask me, “What’s the one thing I could do that might help make my Social Media efforts more successful?,” in the few seconds I had to answer before the light changed, my response would likely be this:

“Think like a Business-to-Business marketer.”

Traditional marketers often struggle with Social Media because it doesn’t operate by the traditional rules we learned regarding marketing, advertising and promotion. Traditionally, we were able to buy attention. To be successful with Social Media, we have to earn it.

The problem with looking at Social Media through traditional marketing lenses is that it’s too seductive to view them primarily as additional channels to deliver brand messages. To get out of this mindset, it might help to approach Social Media with the mindset of a B-to-B marketer.

What do B-to-B marketers do that B-to-C’ers could learn from? Consider this list:

1) B-to-B’ers build relationships. B-to-B purchase decisions generally take much longer than B-to-C because there are multiple people or teams that need to have buy-in. Throwing your message out once or even a handful of times won’t be enough to close the sale. Building a relationship built on trust will.

2) B-to-B’ers focus on providing solutions, not just making sales. They get to know their customers and what their needs really are, then use those needs as a platform for conversation and conversion.

3) B-to-B’ers enable the customer to have her own “period of discovery.” In a B-to-B environment, generally the customer comes to you after she’s done a good deal of homework. She’s already “short-listed” you. The lead time or “courtship-phase” demands the marketer to constantly engage, communicate and maintain a dialogue with the prospective customer.

4) The B-to-B’er rewards loyalty. Once B-to-B clients make a purchase decision, they tend to be more loyal and spend more money.  Marketers who dedicate more of their resources to keeping current customers happy generally do quite well in the B-to-B environment.

5) B-to-B’ers enable their customers to get input from others. Successful case studies are important. First-person testimonials are important. Actual customer experiences are important.

6) The B-to-B’er understands that not all buyers are the same. Customers may come to them for different reasons, and different stakeholders in the organization are looking for different things. A one-size-fits-all pitch is unlikely to work across the board. Understanding the whims and agendas of all stakeholders allows the B-to-B marketer to directly address each need.

7) The B-to-B’er enables prospects to find out as much about them as they can. B-to-B purchase decisions are made in a very logical, deliberate way with a strong ROI case to justify them, whereas often B-to-C purchases are based on emotion.   Prospects often must justify their purchase decision to investors, bosses, or boards of directors.

Social Media, managed thoughtfully, can help any organization, whether B-to-B or B-to-C, better engage with its customers in each of these ways.

A brief side note: regular readers of this blog are familiar the importance of generating and publishing quality content on an ongoing basis. I will be hosting a three-hour workshop on Developing Killer Content on April 28^th through Greater Spokane Inc.’s BIZ Street series. You can get more information on the workshop and register here. Or just drop me a line.

Posted by Mickey

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Mickey New Media, On Clients, On Customers, Social Media, Uncategorized, customer experience B-to-B, building trust, business-to-business, relationships, Social Media

I came across this article, authored by John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing, last week. His points about the importance of ethics in business relationships were so articulate, I thought the readers of The Quisenblog might appreciate them undoctored. So here, in its original form, is Jantsch’s article, “A Return to Decency.”

“As one of the worst recessions in recent history seems to loosen its grip, both fundamentally and psychologically, it’s time to take stock in what I hope we’ve learned.

Real relationships took a back seat in business. That’s not what caused the recession, but a quick scan of the worst headlines would suggest that if the major ethical lapses reported on Wall Street could occur, then perhaps even the smallest of firms had let go of behavior that looked something like decency.

As we rebound and even boom, I hope that we will see a return to business relationships built on a foundation of mutual respect, trust and decency.

While words like trust and decency can be hard to define tangibly, there are behaviors that any business can adopt to keep the focus where it should be.

Create more value

Price is a function of value, there’s no question about that fact. And value is delivered in many little ways. Now is the time to deconstruct our products and services, and perhaps more importantly, the way our customers experience our organization, with an eye on making the entire collection more valuable, remarkable, fun, flexible and personal. Doing that can set an organization on the path to a solid foundation of customer loyalty that serves in good times and bad.

Take a holistic view

As we view your customer needs, what if we tried to understand everything they need, including areas unrelated to our products and services? If we can come to appreciate all of our customer’s desires and goals, we can develop a team of strategic partners that can plug into our offerings and help us dramatically deepen our customer relationships.

What if we began to think of our role as a customer booster rocket and “go to” resource for everything they needed? Do this and we also develop a referral network that will turn into our ongoing lead generation machine.

Mine the collaboration universe

One of the greatest developments associated with the growth of the Web is the proliferation of tools that make it very easy to collaborate, both online and off, with prospective customers, vendors, mentors, suppliers, staff and even competitors. We must mine this technology and enable the players in our collaboration universe to expand what they can offer us, our team, and our customers.

And for decency bonus points…

Let’s take a quick look at our closest competitors. What’s happened to them during this downturn? Is there an opportunity to grab market share? If so, resist it and consider lending them a hand instead. I know this may run counter to competitive wisdom, and I’m not suggesting we need to take on their payables, but I do think there’s a long view in being the kind of company that uses their position in the community to establish a statement about what’s really important.

I grew up in a farm community and while it’s unlikely one farmer thought of themselves as fierce competitors of another, they did provide a market with the same products. However, if one farmer experienced a hardship, a broken down tractor, loss of livestock, or need to get the crop in before a big storm, they could usually count on the help of neighboring farms without the need to ask or expectation of payment. Everyone in the community knew that they would probably need this same kind of support and gave a hand willingly. I wonder if today’s small business community could take this view?

Learn from social behavior

Social technology affords us a glimpse into the personal lives of those around us. Certainly this can be abused on both ends, but it also calls out for a new form of leadership that is much more open and willing to blend business and personal.

With mainstream acceptance and sharing on social networks we have the tools to automatically build deeper relationships that take into consideration the challenges and objectives of those around us in ways never before experienced in the business world.

I often use the Mister Rogers quote, “It’s hard not to like somebody once you know their story,” to drive this point home. If we use the shift in social behavior to tell our own stories and learn from the stories of others and we’ll be much more equipped to create a culture of decency throughout.

Say thank you

With the rush and go, always crushed with things to do, it’s pretty easy to get complacent about who and what pays the bills. If we’ve lapsed into this, we need to remake space to thank the people that make our businesses possible.

This process starts with letting our staff members understand how valuable they are and how much we appreciate what they add. (In fact, acknowledging a job well done is the most powerful motivation tool in the box.)

I’ve taken up sending hand-written notes to those I should thank. It’s not that hard to establish a habit of sitting down at a set time each week and sending inked words of appreciation, recognition and observation.

That might be the most decent thing any of us can do.”

Thanks, John, for your thoughts.

Posted by Mickey

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Mickey On Clients, On Customers, Ramblings Duct Tape, ethics, John Jantsch, relationships, respect, trust