We explore the changing buyer; polarising between transactional and high touch revenue and relationships. What does this mean to the marketer who must relate at scale to transactional opportunities and with depth and meaning to the business buyer
Remaining Relevant to the Connected Business Buyer for Adtech
1. MARKETING AND THE HIGH
TOUCH CUSTOMER
Remaining relevant to a new type of
business buyer
Dale Roberts
2. Historically we have always
overestimated the value of access to
information and underestimated the
value of access to each other
― Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody
3. Customers
want little
interaction
Customers
want advice
and guidance
Transaction High Touch
4. Customers
want little
interaction
Customers
want advice
and guidance
Marketing
Led
Advertising,
Campaigns,
Creative,
Digital, Direct
Technology
Rich
Sales
Led
Sales
Content,
References,
Expertise
Technology
Sparse
Scale Engagement
Transaction High Touch
5. In a consultative sale, you are creating
the product as you sell … How do you
market for a product that is being
designed as it is sold?
― Anil Menon, Global SVP Marketing for IBM
6. High Touch Customers
• Knotty, nuanced or nascent
• Prolonged recognition of needs
• Education throughout
• Many (very different) potential solutions
• Highly Competitive
• Trust, longer, deeper relationship
• Driven by the Connected Business Buyer
7. Business Buyers are Informed
For every 1 piece of content
sales or marketing place in their
hands
They will find 3 more for
themselves
Source: Forrester
8. Business Buyers are Connected
Buyers in every industry, B2B,
B2C research an average of
10.4 sources before purchase
Source: Brian Solis
9. Business Buyers are Social
75% of B2B Buyers use social
media to make purchasing
decision
Source: IDC Social Buying Meets Social Selling, 2014
10. g Challenge
High Value
Customers
Highly
Personalised
Greater
Value
Expected
Pre-Sale
Needs
1 to 1
Relationshi
p
Requires
Sales and
Marketing
Collaborate
Customers
Want to Be
(and feel)
Listened To
11. • Helps Customers Find You
• Establishes Reputation
• Scales
• Social Act of Generosity
16. The problem is not
information overload, it is
filter failure
― Clay Shirky
17.
18. New CFO
Management
Reporting
73%
Planning,
Budgeting,
Analysis
79%
Audit,
Compliance 53%
IT Systems
34%
Tax,Risk
32%
Source: The CFO’s First 100 Days: A McKinsey Global Survey
21. Takeaway Board
Customers increasingly bifurcating between
transactional and high touch
Technology is helping transactional to scale and
high touch to engage
Combining Inward and Outward Perspectives on
Customers is Powerful
Marketing evolving solutions for deeper engagement
Sales required to take on a marketing mindset
One final takeaway of profound wisdom …
23. Thank You
Dale Roberts
W: artesiansolutions.com
E: dale.roberts@artesiansolutions.com
T: @decisionhacker
L: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/dalesroberts/
Notas do Editor
Let me start with an opening thought
in 2012 Cisco announced that its equipment was recording a zettabyte of data.
The next metric for measuring data after a zettabyte is a yottabyte (10 to the power of 24)
The IEC, the group that decides these things have not yet agreed the next standard measurement. They exist but they are not agreed.
So that’s it. We have literally run out of words to describe how big, big data is
We are living in the post Information age, the era of so-called Big Data.
There is something tacit about Big Data, it is getting all the press, all the attention, the mindshare. It speaks to the sheer size and weight of information. It’s Big.
But there has been another technology revolution taking place. A social one. In some ways an equally noisy one. The way in which we interact as friends, family, citizen and as customers and businesses is also changing.
And to quote Shirky. We often overestimate the value of access to information but we underestimate the value of access to each other.
In other words, we underestimate the importance of human interaction.
Note:
Giga, Tera, Peta, Exa, Zetta, Yotta)
Let me start with an opening thought
in 2012 Cisco announced that its equipment was recording a zettabyte of data.
The next metric for measuring data after a zettabyte is a yottabyte (10 to the power of 24)
The IEC, the group that decides these things have not yet agreed the next standard measurement. They exist but they are not agreed.
So that’s it. We have literally run out of words to describe how big, big data is
We are living in the post Information age, the era of so-called Big Data.
There is something tacit about Big Data, it is getting all the press, all the attention, the mindshare. It speaks to the sheer size and weight of information. It’s Big.
But there has been another technology revolution taking place. A social one. In some ways an equally noisy one. The way in which we interact as friends, family, citizen and as customers and businesses is also changing.
And to quote Shirky. We often overestimate the value of access to information but we underestimate the value of access to each other.
In other words, we underestimate the importance of human interaction.
Note:
Giga, Tera, Peta, Exa, Zetta, Yotta)
So social technology is not just about scale and size. It opens up new possibilities for interacting and relating to our customers.
Social presents opportunities to improve the quality of our interactions, the depth at which we relate not just the sheer volume of interactions.
What does this mean to us as marketers
First of all, lets consider types of customers
We have transactional at one end. This end is best described by Jeff Bezos who suggests that ‘The best customer service is if the customer doesn’t need to call you, doesn’t need to talk to you. It just works’.
High Touch at the other end, requires consultancy, advice, interaction, expertise and meetings. This is where B2B marketing typically sits.
And we tend to think everything in the middle is distributed in in terms of a bell curve.
However, in the online, social and digital age this is becoming more black and white. If any part of the sales process can be automated and the choice put in front of the customer on-line then it will be. So transactional is becoming even more so.
Digital is causing a hollowing out of the the middle. A bifurcation of revenue and customers. It’s bimodal according to Daniel Pink author of Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. Neil Rackham, author and speaker on Sales and Marketing says the same thing. Transactional and consultative (aka complex, nuanced)
Marketing at the transactional end is increasingly digital and the technology is chiefly about dealing with scale (branding, advertising, campaigns, digital) ,
But What about Marketing at the high touch/consultative end. This is where we see a need for innovation to help managed the quality of interaction. Here is where we are seeing a growth is what are termed systems of engagement.
This is where Artesian lives. Helping businesses to scale meaningful engagement where they could only previously do so by scaling their sales team
--
Of course we use content for transactional too as is evidenced by Coke and Content 2020
Anil Menon articulated this best. Marketing at the high touch, consultative end is a challenge. This was best put by Anil Menon, Global SVP of Marketing at IBM
So systems of engagement (and Artesian) live in that high touch, high engagement customers
What are the characteristics of this kind of
The customers problems are complex, nuanced or nascent
The period in which need is recognised is long
The customer may need educating
Requires trust and often longer, deeper relationship
Many potential solution (and I mean wildly different) A business that is causing local traffic congestion might need to make an investment in local infrastructure or invest in home working solutions
Highly Competitive
Driven by the Connected Business Buyer
This area is primarily sales led. High touch, requires high levels of consultation so we invest in a sales team. We try and match one to one
In other words it needs ENGAGEMENT
And it is driven by the Connected Business Buyer
The Connected Business Buyer
Whilst there is much talk of Generation Y or Millienials those born somewhere between the early 80’s and early 2,000. (Digital Natives or so called Screenagers) there is a much more pressing change. Connected Buyers are not about to enter the workforce. They are already there. In fact the connected buyer is of no specific age. What they have in common is not about birthdays, instead it is about these three things;
1. Firstly, They are Better informed.
A Connected Business Buyer will find three pieces of content for every one piece that marketing can publish or sales can deliver (according to Forrester)
2. They are Digitally Connected
Connected Buyers in every industry, B2B, B2C research an average of 10.4 sources before purchase, 5.8 for a burger, 14.7 to vote marginally below 14.8 for electronics (Brian Solis)
3. Socially Networked.
75% of B2B Buyers use social media to make purchasing decisions according to data from IDC that is bang up to date, it is a 2014 study.
What’s more, the more senior the decision maker, the more likely they are to use social media
It rises to 84% of C Level/VP Executives
What this all adds up to is that B2B Buyers are 57% of the way through their decision making before they engage Sales (CEB) 67% according to Sirius Decisions
Connectedl Business Buyers are increasingly influenced by each other and less and less by marketing and sales.
2. They are Digitally Connected
Connected Buyers in every industry, B2B, B2C research an average of 10.4 sources before purchase, 5.8 for a burger, 14.7 to vote marginally below 14.8 for electronics (Brian Solis)
3. Socially Networked.
75% of B2B Buyers use social media to make purchasing decisions according to data from IDC that is bang up to date, it is a 2014 study.
What’s more, the more senior the decision maker, the more likely they are to use social media
It rises to 84% of C Level/VP Executives
What this all adds up to is that B2B Buyers are 57% of the way through their decision making before they engage Sales (CEB) 67% according to Sirius Decisions
Connectedl Business Buyers are increasingly influenced by each other and less and less by marketing and sales.
So what challenge do high touch customers and the connected business buyer present to us as marketers
Small number of high value customers generating high value opportunities (Risk)
Demands highly personalised marketing (such as they get from sales)
Expectation of more value pre-sale
Want a 1x1 relationship but this does not scale
Want to be (and feel) listened to
Requires careful collaboration between sales and marketing
Lets take a look at one response to High Touch Customers is Content Marketing which addresses many of the challenges;
It educates the customer
It helps customers find you
Establishes your credentials as a thought leader (eminence and reputation)
It Scales
It Builds Relationships
Is social, act of generosity, builds brand image
And If we think about what we learn from content marketing, it is a lot.
From seemingly simple customer interactions such as download an ebook, view an infographic or watch a video we can, with carefully targeted content understand the buyer journey and persona.
But it is only one dimension. It is an understanding built on how the customer is interacting with us and our content.
Customers that are online, social and connected present us with an opportunity to understand them from a second dimension. From outward signals. i.e. What is happening with both the people and the company outside of it’s interactions with us.
And this is the starting point for systems engagement. Listening. Listening is the starting point of engagement, answering specific questions, adding value.
All through listening to outward signals
First of all these are just some of the places we need to listen and these are just the social platforms
And then, of course, it is happening in every minute of every day
100 New LinkedIn Accounts
320 New Twitter Accounts (and 100,000 new Tweets)
And this is where technology can help
It can filter the signal from the noise
Here is an example of what I mean by that
B2B Sales and Marketing teams are interested in what is happening to the business (not just the people in it)
Less interested in incidental references, store locators etc
What would Google alerts do? A google results alert
And when we do this is what we can hear signals
Signals that give us insights into our buyers world.
This is one type of signal; Intent Signals
Take for example an Intent signal, from your customer, that a CFO has changed.
What we know is that a new CFO’s will make a number of big decisions in the first 100 days
These are (according to the McKinsey Report) above
A new CFO is a signal, a trigger of intent that they will need a conversation about new solutions (products or services) for Planning Systems, Management Reporting, Audit, Tax and Risk
How receptive do you think a new CFO will be to your audit offerings if you can catch them in the first 100 days
Some of these are social, some are editorial, some might be good old fashioned corporate data
Senior Management Change *
Business Growth *
Product Launch *
Verizon Example *
Traffic congestion
CEO Profits/Soft Pound
Banking, Currency Exchange Product
So, lots of theory. Lets make this real
This is a screenshot of Artesian
Being used by 15,000 Sellers across many of the leading UK B2B Businesses
Filtering the noise and not missing the signals by monitoring over 200 different types of signals to increase relevance
You can see this score points to some recent gamification that effectively awards a higher score for those that most successfully adopt the marketing mindset
Customers increasingly bifurcating between transaction and high touch
Transactional is technology rich to handle scale
High Touch is ripe for innovation through Digital Systems of Engagement
Up the Signal/Reduce the noise
Extend existing B2B marketing such as content with a picture of the buyer outside of their interactions with us
True 1 to 1 Marketing at Scale
Engagement through listening
High Touch is Redefining Relationship between Sales and Marketing
The Only 2 functions charged with gen revenue
Marketing evolving solutions for deeper engagement
Sales evolving into 1 to 1 Human Marketing
One final takeaway of profound wisdom