GET BACK TO THE BASICS

“BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU wish for.” For business-to-business marketers, this old adage has never been more true.

B-to-Bers have abundant sales and marketing technology and enormous databases of prospect and customer information. But for most organizations, technology has not translated into more sales-and when it comes to understanding our customers and why they buy from us, there is far more data than real answers.

With all these advances, why is business-to-business marketing as confusing as ever? Is there a method to the madness?

The fact is, all marketing, sales and customer service efforts come down to three basic goals: Finding, keeping and growing customers. The advances in direct marketing have been incredible, but we’ve lost our focus. To get the greatest value from our efforts, we need to simplify our thinking and go back to the basics.

If you market products and services to businesses, ask yourself the following questions.

What is your company’s best and highest function in the marketplace? Are your products or services optimally bundled into a compelling offer?

Can you quickly identify the real pain you resolve for customers and explain how your product or service alleviates that pain?

Who are your very best customers? Even the most sophisticated companies still define their best customers by such elementary criteria as SIC code, sales volume and number of employees. Targeted marketing requires a deep understanding of customers and their needs that can only be gained by being exceptionally close to customers. Have you asked your best customers why they like you, why they buy from you, and whether they’d refer you? Referrals are the only true measure of customer satisfaction.

If you can answer these questions, you can identify the crucial intersection that should drive all your sales and marketing efforts. It’s the point where your firm’s best offer is of most value to a narrow slice of the market because it resolves the greatest pain. The more precisely you can define this intersection, the better you can pinpoint prospects. This should be the rallying point for all your company’s marketing, sales and customer service activities.

Defining your target prospect is the first step. Using a series of scoring tools that strictly adhere to your target prospect profile, you can create three sales “funnels” to organize and implement your plan for finding, keeping and growing customers. Your goal is to advance prospects from the acquisition funnel through the retention funnel and into the development funnel. All marketing, sales and customer service activities can and must be designed, justified and measured by their contribution to each stage and this process.

* The acquisition funnel systematizes the activities needed to turn suspects into prospects, prospects into qualified prospects, and qualified prospects into customers. Your goal of finding customers becomes the end and your tactics, programs and channels the means to the end.

* The retention sales funnel fulfills your goal of keeping customers by progressively moving one-time buyers or ex-customers to the desired status of customers who make multiple or sustained purchases. These are the customers with the highest long-term value.

* The development funnel is used to grow customers. Here the goal is to move stable customers through activities which convert them into up-sold/cross-sold customers and then to the status of advocate or champion.

The results are obvious: a larger number of customers with the highest value to your company. The “graduates” of this process are to be coveted and lavishly rewarded.

This system simplifies all your marketing, sales, and customer service activities. By returning to the basics-offer, need, and target market-you define your best prospects. This drives the creation, execution and measurement of sales and marketing activities through the acquisition, retention and development stages, providing a method to the madness.

On one hand, it’s remarkably simple. On the other hand, the work has obviously just begun. Implementing and managing your business through this process requires discipline and passion. But when you have simple goals and clear ways to get there, the results are worth it.