According to B2B Marketing Trends 2010, a report by the Institute for the Study of Business Markets, the #1 trend getting the attention of B2B marketers is:
what CUSTOMERS REALLY NEED, beyond what they can
say or articulate. Opportunities to CREATE REAL VALUE."
Among their concerns were being able to "tease out rare and valuable insights that lead to true competitive advantage" and the "ability to make the connection between customer needs and the core competency of the enterprise."
Those are two very admirable goals - goals, I might add, that B2B marketers won't be successful into the future without achieving.
So, why is it so hard?
The report indicates this is not the first time this trend for concern has been at the top of their list. This is a passion of mine, so I thought I'd take a shot at helping marketers get closer to framing how they think about what their customers need.
Here are a few points to consider when sussing out the needs of your customers:
- It's not your product, it's the outcome they get by using it.
- The words and phrases you use when you talk about your products, and what they do, are likely not the words and phrases your customers use.
- Issues you think are simple to solve—because you know how your products work—is probably overwhelming to your potential customers. Otherwise they'd have solved those issues already.
- Your customers don't have time to think strategically - they're running too fast with all their daily ToDo lists. Helping them learn how to think about solving their issues is a critical skill marketers need to hone.
- There's a fine line between jargon and helpful, easy-to-understand terminology—which are you using?
- Your customers are smarter than you think. They can smell self-serving sales hype a mile away. Are you focused on helping or hyping?
- People digest things in chunks, not all at once, so give them a little at a time and build the concept within a context that makes sense to them.
In order to align your thinking with your customers' needs you need to get to know them. And know them well. Guessing won't cut it. Extrapolating what you think onto them will fall on deaf ears. This is why changing the way you think about your customers requires that you change the way you think about marketing.
Marketing must be reformed into a conversation that has more pull than push. However you market, you need to involve your potential customers. Not just by getting them to click on a link in an email, but by monitoring and reacting to their responses in ways that generate ongoing dialogue about things they're interested in today. Things they may be interested in next month are too far off their radar, run off by other high priorities that come first.
Marketing Automation systems can help. In fact, I'd stipulate they're critical to helping marketers develop the intelligence they need to learn about their prospect's and customer's interests. As well as in assisting you to establish an ongoing dialogue.
Instead of trying to fit your customers to your solutions, the challenge is ensuring your solutions fit to your customers' needs. To get there, you'll need to get really good at walking in their shoes. How needs look from their perspective is very different than the way you're looking at them now.
