This document discusses powerful B2B communications and marketing strategies. It recommends developing clear positioning, value propositions, and visual styles. Content should be comprehensive, engaging and move people to action. A three-phase approach is outlined: 1) Define position and plans, 2) Create clear content, 3) Bring plans to life consistently across all touchpoints. Content marketing and search marketing are highlighted as two successful tactics. Implementing the strategies requires leadership, investment, talent, trust, principles, work and time for long-term success and growth.

1. Secrets of powerful B2B communications
Enterprise Ireland eBusiness Workshop
Galway, 15th
June 2016

2. Consider your ideal customers.
The ones who are a perfect fit for your offering.
For whom you really make a difference.
The profitable ones.
The ones you love.

3. Now, would you like 2, 4 or 6
times more of those wonderful
sweet spot customers?
OMG
The joy! The growth! The satisfaction! The profit!

4. Well now you can.
Today’s buyer behaviour and technology means you
can now cut through the clutter, reach anyone,
anywhere and immediately engage them.
Your sweet spot prospects are waiting to hear from
you.

5. Are you going to get your image
and communications in order?
Build impressive, clear, engaging, persuasive,
comprehensive communications. Foundation &
ongoing.
+
Are you going to let those sweet
spot prospects know you exist?
Build a proven, sustainable set of activities to
reach and engage.

6. Done right your return will be…
Retain and up-sell existing clients.
Protect and increase margins.
Increase lead-to-sale conversion rates. Reduce effort required.
Increase flow of high quality warm leads.
Improve recruitment and increase motivation.
Make easier work of business.
Open up to realise the full potential of the business.
More sweet spot customers.
Greater profitability.

7. Our purpose is to help
smart, ambitious,
internationally focused,
B2B companies realise
their potential.
We do that by ensuring they have
everything they need in terms of
positioning, branding,
communications and sustained
marketing activities to realise their
ambitions.
Since 2005.
Team of 13.
Deep digital expertise.

8. Maverick Consultancy
Positioning, Value Prop Development,
Communications and Marketing Planning.
Maverick Brand & Comms
Brand development, copywriting,
photography, graphics, websites, sales
materials.
Maverick Lead Gen
Semi and fully outsourced marketing
programmes. Deep expertise in content
and search engine marketing.

9. Before & After

23. Raise your expectations

24. Expect your communications
and marketing to reach,
engage and move people
I feel excited; you are exactly what we need.
I feel I can trust you; clear, competent, specialist, established.

25. Communications
+
Marketing activities

26. 3phases of work to create
communications which
can move people

27. 3
Clear, comprehensive, engaging content
Clearly defined position & plans
All fully and consistently brought to life
across all touch points
//
//
//
phases

28. Purpose
Value proposition
Personality & visual style
#1 Clearly defined position & plans
//
//
//
// Communications development plan

29. Purpose:
Why?
Why does the company exist?
How do you help? What difference do you make?
Today and for the next 20 years.

31. Our purpose is to help make telecom
networks stronger, smarter and faster.
We do this by driving innovation in telecoms connectivity.
Our purpose is:

32. To enable large organisations who use
ERP solutions to better automate and
manage high volume financial
transactions.
We do this by focusing our expertise and technology on supporting
ERP platforms which need more advanced AP, AR and Bank Rec
automation, functionality and control. We help create more intelligent,
more automated, more feature rich financial operations and thereby
increase efficiency, increase effectiveness and reduce costs.
Our purpose is:

33. Our purpose is to help smart, ambitious,
internationally focused, B2B companies
realise their potential.
We do that by ensuring they have everything they need in terms of
positioning, branding, communications and sustained marketing
activities to realise their ambitions.
Our purpose is:

34. Value Proposition:
What? How?
Who? Outcome?

35. Value proposition development
1. Challenge/need/pain for your sweet spot customers?
2. Ideal solution for them? (regardless of provider)
3. Your unique solution? (directly reflecting what’s above)
a) The need you fill spectacularly well?
b) For who exactly?
c) What you’ve got that makes this possible?
d) Key outcomes/value and proof of that?

36. Prove everything!
Your capability, your uniqueness, your results. With numbers,
facts, testimonials, stories – and ideally video testimonials.
Value proposition:

40. Personality & Visual Style
Personality
What personality is true to your company and will resonate with
your prospects? How should you look and sound? Define it.
Visual style
Then develop a distinctive, fully developed visual style which
reflects your defined personality - logo, fonts, colours, graphical
styling, images, tone of voice.

42. Personality – Aubren – how should they look and sound?
- Trustworthy, heart in the right place, integrity
- Creative, innovative & progressive
- Open, approachable
- Collaborative
- Precise
- Capable - people & facility
- Specialists, experts

44. Visual Style

48. Purpose
Value Proposition
Personality & visual style
#1 Clearly defined position & plans
//
//
//
// Communications development plan

49. P’s Doc
The table of content’s from this
typical P’s document gives some
sense of the scope of work in our
first phase ‘Research, positioning &
planning’.

50. #2 Clear, comprehensive, engaging content
Elements What you’re doing
e.g.
Your unique solution(s)
Your success stories
Your story
Your capabilities
Your ideas/thinking
Pitching
Story telling
Answering
questions/concerns
Sharing/educating
Always:
Selling, persuading & moving to
next step.
Using
Words
Photographs
Explainer graphics
Video

51. Simplicity is
the ultimate
sophistication
“
Leonardo da Vinci

52. Simple can be harder than
complex: You have to work hard
to get your thinking clean, to
make it simple. But it’s worth it
in the end because once you get
there, you can move mountains.
“
Steve Jobs

53. Copy Before & After //
Moving to more precise, engaging,
persuasive copy.

55. In all materials With the team
Website
Print materials
PDFs
Sales presentation
Proposal documents
Social media presence
Trade show stand
Signage in your premises
Vehicles
Packaging
All singing from the same
hymn sheet.
Especially:
- Management
- Sales
- Service
#3 Fully and consistently brought
to life across all touch points

61. 3phases
Clear, comprehensive, engaging content
Clearly defined position & plans
All 3 consistently and fully brought to
life across all touch points
//
//
//

62. Are you going to get your image
and communications in order?
Build impressive, clear, engaging, persuasive,
comprehensive communications. Foundation &
ongoing.
+
Are you going to let those sweet
spot prospects know you exist?
Build a proven, sustainable set of activities to
reach and engage.

63. Content marketing
Search marketing
2most successful B2B
marketing tactics
//
//

65. Search Marketing // “Chemical Stores”
(UK)

66. Search Marketing // “IBC Storage” (UK)

67. Content Marketing // Solgari

68. Content Marketing // Solgari

70. Done right your return will be…
Retain and up-sell existing clients.
Protect and increase margins.
Increase lead-to-sale conversion rates. Reduce effort required.
Increase flow of high quality warm leads.
Improve recruitment and increase motivation.
Make easier work of business.
Open up to realise the full potential of the business.
More sweet spot customers.
Greater profitability.

71. Why do so few
tap this power?
Few small and medium sized companies seizing today’s
opportunity to harness the full power of branding,
communications and marketing to win more sweet spot
customers and power growth and profitability.
Why?

72. Don’t value it
MD doesn’t understand that branding, communications and
marketing is as important as product/service.

73. We’re ok
MD doesn’t see that their comms and marketing is weak,
thinks it’s much better than it is. Not seeing that comms and
marketing weaknesses are the source of many of their
problems.

74. Don’t know the way
And go the wrong way.
Let’s just get a new website!
A website is just a container. It’s the ingredients that matter; value
proposition, stories, facts & stats, explainer graphics, diagrams,
bank of images, brand identity, visual style.

75. Lacking purpose,
focus & clarity
Purpose not clear = all is weakened.
Unclear value proposition = everything unclear.

76. Lack of providers
For end-to-end solutions, with B2B expertise.
1.Defining P’s
2.Branding, copywriting, graphics, photography, website, print etc.
3.Developing marketing activities

77. What does it take?

78. MD’s sees the need &
leads the way.
Leadership

79. Investment depends on many factors including:
• standard of current brand, comms and marketing
• complexity of offering
• level of detail required
• number and scale of outputs
• level of internal expertise & resources
Branding and comms best viewed as a capital investment.
Marketing activities operational spend.
Investment

80. Marketing Director +
Researchers, planners, copywriters,
photographers, graphic designers,
print designers, web designers,
website builders, marketing
specialists.
Talent

81. Find the talent and trust
them to deliver.
Insufficient and weak trust is the most
common factor in compromising the
work.
Trust

82. There is a way
A programme to follow and rules for each step.
Many ducks, and hard to get them all in a row.
Principles

83. For MD & senior team.
- Workshops
- Reviewing & discussing internally, providing feedback
- Gather content, creating new content
- And ongoing
Work

84. No quick fix.
5 months+ for complete positioning, image
and comms re-vamp.
Then sustained marketing activities, keep
planting seeds.
Time

85. Don’t judge each day
by the harvest you
reap but by the seeds
you plant.
“
Robert Louis Stevenson

86. We’d suggest ABC allow
21 weeks to complete these 6 phases.
•Research, positioning & planning, approx. 5 weeks
•Develop visual style, approx. 3 weeks (with 1 week overlap with above)
•Develop copy & image bank, approx. 4 weeks
•Plan & design website, approx. 5 weeks
•Build, test and go live with new website, approx. 5 weeks
•Plan, design and roll out all other branding and sales materials, done
while site is being built
Timeline for ABC

87. Your Opportunity.
Today’s buyer behaviour and technology means you can
now cut through the clutter, reach anyone, anywhere
and immediately engage them.
Your sweet spot prospects are waiting to hear from
you!
They are the key to a growing, sustainable,
profitable business.

88. Ed Field // 087 699 7068 // +353 61 620 147 ext 203
edfield@maverick-intl.com // maverick-intl.com
Secrets of powerful B2B communications
The art of
communication
is the language
of leadership.
James Humes
“