Dear Bex,
Is it true that business-to-business products and services should be marketed in a different way - one that is more practical and emotion-free - than business-to-consumer products and services? Bizness, NY NY
Dear Bizness,
No.
If I may expand on this for a minute, I have always vehemently maintained that business people are people people too. They do not instantly turn in to emotionless automatons, only responsive to features, facts and figures the moment they cross the threshold (real or virtual) into the office space.
In fact, business is one of the most emotional places you’ll ever be in. Legacies and livelihoods hang in the balance. Yes, its about bottom lines but its also about wellbeing, culture, inspiration, identity, creativity, empathy and community (internal and external). So its marketing should reflect that.
I get emails all the time that promise to get my business 500 leads in a week (or whatever). That’s great, I suppose, but in order for the advertiser to stand out I’d like to know exactly to what end. How will the quality of the leads change my life? How does having you in my corner make a difference? How do I trust you?
Also my inbox has thousands of unread emails in it, I’m juggling dozens of projects, my staff are in open revolt and I’m late.
So why should I give a shit about you?
Agree 100%.
I recently interviewed a number of senior salespeople who did very big contracts for financial administration services. It shouldn’t get much drier or more rationally hard-nosed and bullet-pointy than that, you’d think.
Yet one of the most important criteria amongst prospective customers was, “do you share the same values as us?” Another was, “Do I believe that my employees will like and trust you?” Emotional, human, gut-feely stuff.
And where creativity that touches them is a better use of their time than boring them to deaf with more or less the same facts as everyone else.