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B2B Intl Confirmed At IDM 2012 Business Marketing Conference

The 9th IDM Business Marketing Conference: New world, new values, new customer rules

The role of marketing in driving the business, and the need to have nailed down a robust and well thought out business strategy to underpin your marketing, has never been greater. To achieve results and demonstrate their impact on the bottom line, business marketers need to embrace new and innovative strategies and tactics to engage with their customers (and stakeholders) and integrate them into their existing approaches.

Technological developments and economic challenges have fundamentally changed the way business marketers do business and the shift in power to the consumer has had a profound impact on moving from a push to listen/nurture/respond approach.

Nick Hague, Managing Director of B2B International has been confirmed as a speaker to talk about “Taking account of global cultural differences and understanding the complexities of international expansion”. On the day, Nick will be joined with other speakers including:

• Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Mubaloo

• Chief Marketing Officer, Psion

• Marketing Director, Reed Business Information

• Head of B2B Marketing, KLM

• UK and Ireland Brand Manager, IBM

• Head of SME Business Marketing, 02UK

To understand what the new b2b world looks like in 2012, the new values that hold true and the new customer rules in b2b marketing come along on the 24th May 2012 at the Commonwealth Club in London.

For more information visit: http://www.theidm.com/marketing-events/b2b-conference/

Posted in B2B Marketing, B2B News, Events, Marketing |
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Business Surgery – Market Research Is Dead!

In our next Business Surgery, Nick Hague discusses how the world of market research is changing.

Market research is dead! Or at least it may be in its traditional sense. Times they are a-changing. For a long time at B2B International we have argued that delivering strategic insights is the key reason why companies commission market research in the first place; not for the sake of providing even more data. This is even more important in today’s world where data explosion has rendered marketeers paralysed.

Think of a ‘typical’ market researcher and in your mind you may conjure up a picture of either a back office fact finder or a lady with a clip board in the street wanting to find out what cereal you had for breakfast this morning. Of course, business-to-business research is very different to consumer research and we, at B2B International, would like to think we have broken the mould and bridged the gap between market researchers and consultants. However, whether carrying out consumer research or business-to-business research, a market researcher in the modern world needs to be a data analyst who can synthesize the myriad of datafeeds that are open to us today but more importantly pull out the key action points from a study to clearly inform a client what it all means and what the next steps should be.

Kevin Lonnie in his latest article, ‘The Limiting Adjective of “Marketing” Research’, talks about a changing market research world:

Even the AMA has dropped the word “Marketing” to promote their annual research conference. After 30+ years the “Marketing Research Conference” is no more; the event is now being called the AMA Research and Strategy Summit. When even the American Marketing Association is running away from the word “marketing” how many more hints does it take before we realize that the times are a changing?

With the increasing use of social media and a greater use of buzzwords like innovate, ideate, insight, collaborate and crowdsource being used; is this not a sign that the industry needs to act and become more like consultants:

While marketing research is and remains part of who we are, it no longer confines and defines us. Rather, we need to stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us. We need to reclaim our rightful role as conduit to the customer and the guardian of rigorous scientific principles. But we also need to seize the moment and become strategists integral to our clients’ success.

Kevin argues that it is time for a name change for the industry: “a new descriptor for our industry, one that respects our past, but speaks to our present and our future”. Maybe, but I would argue that actions speak louder than words and in this modern world, the winners will be those that can walk the walk (rather than just brand labeling) and add value whilst delivering action to more readily meet the needs of client’s customers and deliver growth and differentiation for their organisation.

To read ‘The Limiting Adjective of “Marketing” Research’ visit click on the link.

Posted in Market Research, Marketing, Nick Hague, The Business Surgery |
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Polocrosse Comes To Town

The teams have arrived, the horses are ready and everything is well underway at the 2011 Polocrosse World Cup!

B2B International, shirt sponsor of the USA polocrosse team, was there to cheer them on over the weekend. After beating the UK on Friday but losing heavily to the South Africans on Saturday, the US team needed a win against Ireland to keep their World Cup dreams alive. Their game against Ireland didn’t disappoint and was a close run thing, with the US winning 17-16 thanks to a golden goal in extra time.

This means that the teams that have made it through to the semi-finals next weekend are: USA, Australia, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Who will win? Not long till we all find out… See you there!

Posted in B2B News, Marketing |
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The Most Important Tool For Any B2B Company

Arguably the most important tool for any b2b company is an up-to-date database of its customers. Most b2b companies have just a few thousand (and sometimes just a few hundred) current and potential customers. And yet, if you asked to see a list of these companies with all the required contact information, you would be surprised how many would fail this acid test.

This list is the most important vehicle for talking to customers. It drives communications through newsletters, product launches, company announcements, price increases, and more. It is the starting point for a more sophisticated customer relationship management (CRM) system.

Why is it so difficult to prepare this simple tool? There are a number of reasons:

1. Salespeople are extremely protective of their accounts. They believe that knowledge is power and they seek to keep their contacts close to their chest.

2. The customer contacts are a moving feast with a constant churn which is hard to track.

3. The task of keeping the database up to date is often considered trivial and boring; beyond the responsibility of anyone in a position of seniority. Indeed it is sometimes delegated to an intern as something to keep them occupied.

Keeping an up-to-date database of customers and potential customers is an ongoing effort. Yet, it is one of the most critical tasks in growing any business.

Posted in Customer Retention, Data Quality, Marketing |
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What Sandwiches Tell Us About Marketing

This week, Oliver Truman looks at a purchase decision many of us take every day, and how this reveals the fine line involved in getting marketing right.

Let’s talk sandwiches. It’s a topic that’s been broached a few times on the B2B Blog, and is a mainstay of British conversational repertoire. It’s also a subject that never ceases to provide insight onto the challenges facing your average marketer. A quick Porter’s Five Forces analysis of “the sandwich market” tells us that rivalry is intensely fierce because:

• Buyer Power Is High – Consumers are rarely stuck for choice as to where they can get one. People tend to be quite sensitive to the price of sandwiches, such is the routine with which they’re bought.
• Threat Of Substitutes Is High – It’s not too much of a stretch to bring your own Tupperware-entombed chow to the office. In pressing economic times like these, leftovers from yesterday’s dinner can be a frugal, yet hearty alternative. Moreover, there’s often little to prevent defection from one retailer to another.
• Supplier Power Is Low – The flipside of high buyer power, and the abundance of lunchtime options open to your average punter, mean that sales are often fragmented between many players. Suppliers have little latitude to charge a premium, lest they price themselves out of the market.
• Barriers To Entry Are Low – Premises and other overheads aside, making sandwiches isn’t the most difficult of tasks. Nor is substantial capital investment required to put something edible between two pieces of bread.

In some ways, my own buying behaviour bears out the above characterisation. Of a lunchtime, I like to maintain a balanced portfolio of sandwich suppliers, assiduously rotating them over the course of a week. Bramhall (home of B2B’s HQ) is blessed with a range of stores selling sandwiches (and other lunchtime fare), from retail behemoths like Tesco, through to quite a few independent delis.

The sandwich retailers’ response to this kind of promiscuity is typically to rely on the reliable crutches of the 4Ps in order to win business:

• Price: “Meal deals”, where several items can be chosen for a set price are a common strategy for getting people through the door. Even taking into account the price of a sandwich alone, this usually gravitates to a fairly-steady £2-3, at South Manchester prices (only tending to be more if you’re being really fancy).
• Place: Increasing numbers of retailers now offer the option of delivering sandwiches to the workplace, thus removing one of the few remaining excuses for unshackling one’s self from the office desk.
• Product: Tastes in sandwiches on these shores tend to be pretty staid. There are, however, signs of this entrenchment changing. Only the other day, the chap from the local deli asked my colleague Matthew if he could get his hands on the canteen menu from our office in the States. This, avid readers of the B2B Blog will remember, is an outlet offering around 9,600 unique combinations of sandwich. News clearly travels fast in the world of sandwich retailing.

Taking the final P – promotion – My sandwich antennae were recently drawn to an advert that’s cropped up outside the local petrol station forecourt. It was promoting the range of snacks that can be bought there – all of which are available under a “meal deal” promotion.

You have to admit that the brief of trying to promote a petrol station’s sandwiches to anyone other than fuel customers is a tough sell. Petrol and service station sandwiches are about as revered as the standard of catering found in most NHS hospitals, or at the zenith of British Rail. In short, there’s a credibility gap to be made up. Even so, someone’s had a go.

The advert I mentioned is worth further scrutiny, though. While it’s laudable that the oil majors are seeking to diversify into the Panini Pound, the execution of this campaign is so crass that I felt moved to include it below (click on the image to enlarge):

I should perhaps first draw your attention to the strapline – “Inspired by farmers’ markets”. With a claim like this, I bet you’re wondering what exactly it is that your local garage is selling nowadays – Homemade chutneys? Free range eggs? Organically reared pork and leek sausages? All sounds rather appealing…

Except it’s not quite these sorts of things. How about a 500ml bottle of Coca Cola? Or a Grab Bag of Walkers Salt and Vinegar crisps? Somehow, I can’t see these items being laid out on canopied trestle tables on the village green any time soon. Perhaps I’m being cynical, but I’m also guessing that these goods won’t also be presented to me in a rustically-adorned wicker basket.

Quite aside from the absurdity of the products involved, the message also seems to be that the mere process of selecting three items of your choice (a pre-packed sandwich, a bag of crisps and a carbonated drink) is somehow highly evocative of folksy, rural life. That’s besides the fact that the concept of “pick your own” has more to do with picking berries than it does buying farm produce at market.

All of this got me thinking – would I ever fall prey to the wiles of the marketer so easily? I was certain my answer was “no” until I returned home yesterday evening. Upon entering the kitchen, I saw several cans of Heinz “Farmer’s Market” soup on the side, which I’d bought only a few days earlier. I’d been had. There really was no sense in which this soup was any more a genuine slice of rural life than buying your lunch from a petrol station.

And all of this shows the difficulty of getting marketing right. There’s often a very fine line between good and bad implementation of an idea – both the oil company and the soup manufacturer started from the same premise – but only the latter had implemented the idea credibly.

The notion of credibility in a market is important. In launching any new product or service, companies must first establish whether their brand is well-placed to meet expectations. Even with the best product in the world, if you’re not seen as being a plausible choice, there’s a high chance of failure. For the record, the petrol station won’t be going on my roster of lunchtime venues any time soon.

Posted in Marketing, Oliver Truman, Thursday Night Insight |
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