B2B – Defining the Bullseye

As a copywriter one of the first things I’ll ask a client is: “Who is your target market?” This is closely followed by, “Describe them. What are their characteristics?”

So it struck me as quite interesting when a client said, “Well, I don’t sell to consumers so giving the characteristics of the target market doesn’t apply to my business.”

Why did they think that characteristics of the market weren’t important? After much pondering, I realized this: We’ve confused ourselves. Those of us who market our products and services to other businesses view our marketing as ‘B2B’.

It’s a great little acronym – very catchy, very memorable. Yet it isn’t right. In fact, if you follow the concept that you’re marketing to another business, you risk wasting time, and money on campaigns that totally miss the mark.

Why is this so? How can it be?

One of the fundamental principles of any writing is to write for the target market. You may have even heard the concept of imagining one person and writing specifically to them. It’s a very powerful activity that I thoroughly recommend.

Why? Because it focuses your attention. You’re imaging that person. You’re considering the words that would really appeal to them. You’re using images that evoke emotions – in them. You’re writing to connect and its’ that connection that is the essence of great promotional material.

So what does all this have to do with B2B marketing?
Exactly this: Businesses don’t buy – people buy.

No matter what product or service you’re selling, I 100% guarantee you there is a person at the end of the pen that signs the cheque (or these days the keyboard that transfer the money).

Remember, people do business with people they like. For the purposes of writing your copy, B2B is actually P2P.

Now before you run screaming from the room, this is actually great news. It makes your writing task so much easier. Consider this: How do you write to a business? It’s a legal entity. What words and images are going to appeal to a legal entity? There are so many different aspects to this legal entity. Which one do you focus on? It becomes complex, confusing and virtually impossible to craft an emotive message.

Now imagine that the person giving the ‘Ok’ is a HR Manager. Suddenly you have some inkling of what challenges they might be facing. You can put yourself in their deskspace and imagine the environment around them. You can empathise. And if you can empathise in words, you can connect. Additionally, if you can connect, you can successfully market.

Simplistically then: Target Market of B2B = Decision Maker

Now, it would be remiss of me not to make a small complication here. Sometimes the decision maker has help. Or perhaps more realistically put, someone down the chain influences their decisions. A CEO might decide whether the IT department can buy new monitors or hire consultants to integrate their systems. Yet they won’t do the research. They won’t read your marketing blurb. What they will read or hear is their IT Manager’s sales pitch.

Does that make it more complicated? Not really. Have you ever tried to say no to someone who is truly passionate about and committed to a product or service and have them accept that answer? (If you’ve got kids I’m betting the answer is, “Not without days, weeks, if not months of a hard-hitting, focused campaign).

Our role as marketers is to connect with the person who really makes the decision; the one who provides the arguments ‘for’ with passion and energy. If we capture their imagination, they’ll spruik longer and louder than we would ever dare!

Does that mean you should discard the characteristics of their organization? Definitely not. Those characteristics are vital information. They give you insight into the environment that impacts the decision maker. And that helps you understand the challenges they’re faced with and the solutions you can provide.

In practical terms then, how can you refine your target market down to one person?

1. Decide the businesses that make up your ideal client group.
- Do they belong to a particular industry?
- Should they be a particular size? Have a minimum turnover?

2. List the characteristics of those businesses.
- How many staff do they have?
- How many approval layers are there?
- What is their annual turnover?
- How long have they been in business?
- How flexible is their culture?
- How dynamic is their marketing?
- What is the management style?

3. Determine who in those businesses would be the decision maker.
- Do they have an entire department (eg. marketing, IT, HR) or a single person?
- Is it a Manager or an underling?

4. List the characteristics of that person.
- Is the decision maker a ‘jack-of-all-trades’ or are they a specialist?
- What is their education level? Gender? Age?
- What do they value?
- Where might they live?
- What concepts might appeal to them?

5. List the challenges that they might face in their role as decision maker.
- Are there cost considerations?
- Do they need to convince a hierarchy of Managers?
- Does the culture embrace evolution or reject it?
- Are they over-worked and underpaid?
- Is their role stressful or energizing?

The list of questions you can ask is limited only by your imagination – and the time available to write them all down.

Sure this might seem like a lot of work. Yet nailing exactly who you’re writing to is at least 85% of your copywriting task. The remaining 15% is writing the conversation you want to have with them.

And remember, to make your B2B marketing count, write P2P.

Weighty Water

A lecturer, when explaining stress management to an audience, raised a glass of water and asked, "How heavy is this glass of water?"

Answers called out ranged from 20g to 500g.

The lecturer replied, "The absolute weight doesn't matter. It depends on how long you try to hold it. If I hold it for a minute, that's not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, I'll have an ache in my right arm. If I hold it for a day, you'll have to call an ambulance. In each case, it's the same weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes."

He continued, "And that's the way it is with stress management.

If we carry our burdens all the time, sooner or later, as the burden becomes increasingly heavy, we won't be able to carry on.

As with the glass of water, you have to put it down for a while and rest before holding it again. When we're refreshed, we can carry on with the burden. "

"So, before you return home tonight, put the burden of work down. Don't carry it home. You can pick it up tomorrow. Whatever burdens you're carrying now,

let them down for a moment if you can. "Relax; pick them up later after you've rested. Life is short. Enjoy it!”

And then he shared some ways of dealing with the burdens of life:

* Accept that some days you're the pigeon, and some days you're the statue.

* Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them.

* Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.

* Drive carefully. It's not only cars that can be recalled by their maker.

* If you can't be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.

* If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.

* It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.

* Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time, because then you won't have a leg to stand

 on.

* Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.

* Since it's the early worm that gets eaten by the bird, sleep late.

* The second mouse gets the cheese.

* When everything's coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.

* Birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live.

* We could learn a lot from crayons. Some are sharp, some are pretty and some are dull. Some have weird names, and all are different colors, but they all have to live in the same box.

* A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.

Saying to Soar by

The human race has improved everything except the human race. Adlai Stevenson

Email: mandy@talkingturkey.com.au
Web: www.talkingturkey.com.au

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