Playing to customer emotions in B2B
Posted by Kris Kaneta in Marketing & Branding, Random Musings on July 11, 2011
This post is in reaction to an interesting blog from @econsultancy. If you read through it, though I don’t advocate the notion of attacking a competitor, you’ll likely find it common sense. But the thing about common sense is that its often rare in practice. How often do we really consider how our customers feel emotionally about their problems or our products in the B2B environment?
It seems to me we, as marketers, spend way too much time articulating features / benefits and not necessarily about what drives customers emotionally. Some key emotions that come to mind relevant to B2B -
1) Security and peace of mind
2) Fear of complexity (and a need for simplicity)
3) Fear of obsolescence
4) Disdain for the big, evil OEM or corporation (that could even be you)
5) Need to be top dog or seen as a thought leader (not necessarily as an organization but as an individual)
6) Fear of unpredictability, inconsistency or failure (not at the product level but as a team or organization)
7) Desire to be perceived as charitable or benevolent
Obviously not every customer in your world is going to share all (or even one) of these emotional needs (that’s where the segmentation comes in). But when it’s all said and done, hard as we try, people are irrational decision makers.
How often have you tried to rationalize a purchase that in your head you knew was irrational? We see it all the time in the consumer world – products and services become emotional extensions of ourselves and we rationalize in our heads why we need something that we really don’t. I refuse to believe the same can’t be said in B2B. Buyers are still people, and people are still irrational. There are just different emotions at play.
In my current role we are commercializing a new solution playing to some extent on #s 4, 5 and 6 from above. That said, we’re still in the early phases so I won’t try and convince you of my genius…yet. In the meantime I would love to hear about what others have seen or done to tackle emotional needs in B2B. I’m all ears, so what have you got?
To be a kid again (Making Make-sense Marketing)
Posted by Kris Kaneta in Marketing & Branding on July 7, 2011
A few weeks ago I was in Chicago wandering through the water tower shopping plaza with my family. Foot traffic was light to moderate with the exception of two stores.
The Lego Store – Looking beyond the life-sized Darth Vader, the store was standing room only. At the pinnacle of co-branding from Starwars to Cars to Toy Story, there is no end in sight to Lego’s product evolution. All the while you could argue the fundamental product hasn’t changed or evolved since inception. More importantly people love it. My kid loves Starwars and he loves Legos (I know, apple…tree). Together, they’re a co-branding force (no pun intended).
The American Girl – I’ll admit I’d never heard of this brand until a few weeks ago. But just about every little girl below the age of 10 was carrying around an American Girl doll. I didn’t think much of it until my wife pointed out The American Girl’s store front. In it was a packed floor of girls and their moms. Of course the dads were all huddled to the side staring into their smartphones, no doubt reading ESPN to compensate for a general lack of testosterone… but you get the picture.
Now I’m not sure how much market research these organizations invested in (I’m sure they did enough) but clearly these two companies have their target audience hanging on every word. More importantly, whether or not they did any market research is completely irrelevant. My point is that these concepts just make sense. And sometimes that’s all it takes; finding whatever it is that excites us as a user. Case in point the movie clip below, from one of my favorite movies growing up…
Walking through through both of the stores mentioned above, I was reminded of this scene from the movie “Big”. It serves as an important reminder not to get caught up in nailing down all the facts and figures. Forget for a moment the conjoint. Forget the exact market size.
Does the idea make sense?
Clearly, the idea of a Transformers skyscraper made little sense what-so-ever. But, two of the coolest innovations of all time, Legos and Starwars make perfect sense. Dare I say like chocolate and peanut butter. And while I’m not exactly the most female savvy consumer, a customize-able doll that little girls can carry around and build as a reflection of themselves, something they can actually create – that too, makes sense.
I’ll end with this thought. We all (myself included) need to do a better job of embracing our inner child. Embrace that impulse to just run out and do something if it makes sense; to let ourselves get excited about an idea, not about a market size; to get passionate about creating something, not selling something. You just may find yourself on the verge of something big.
Hubris
Posted by Sam Kale in Product Marketing on July 1, 2011
In classical mythology, the concept of hubris is often illustrated by the story of Icarus. The son of the master craftsman Daedelus, Icarus let his pride overpower his humility and paid dearly for his mistake. Wikipedia says it best:
Before they took off from the island, Daedalus warned his son not to fly too close to the sun, nor too close to the sea. Overcome by the giddiness that flying lent him, Icarus soared through the sky curiously, but in the process he came too close to the sun, which melted the wax. Icarus kept flapping his wings but soon realized that he had no feathers left and that he was only flapping his bare arms.
How many times have you been in a meeting where the topic of competitive threats come up? And how many times are those threats answered by assertions of “Maybe, but we’re better!” Better technologically, better in some specific attribute, or just downright better overall. Whether or not the customers believe you (and one only look to the sales and market share numbers to quickly learn the answer to that question), some people will forever hold on to the idea that being better is enough.
This morning Dave Winer posted on Google+ and an incumbent’s ability to innovate against the status quo. It’s an interesting piece, especially when he argues that the incumbents become too enamoured with the status quo (aka “Why would we leave money on the table?” syndrome), while anyone they could bring in to shake up the status quo would probably fall prey to office politics. I’m not sure how much I agree with those conclusions, but they are interesting food for thought.
The larger question here is whether it’s possible to get out of your own way long enough to attack the big issues head on. While it might be true that your product is technically superior to the competition’s, if the customer is buying the competition’s products, you’ve got a problem in desperate need of solving (viz: Kris’ piece on Being Good Enough).
If you’ve got yourself convinced that you’re infallible, impervious, or otherwise untouchable, you might spend some time thinking about what happened to IBM, Microsoft, and DEC, or what’s currently happening to Nokia and RIM, or will no doubt ultimately happen to Google, Facebook, and even my beloved Apple, when a young, small, agile upstart comes along and puts a technically superior product out of business.
The schizophrenic marketer
Posted by Kris Kaneta in Communications & Social Media on June 30, 2011
Schizophrenia – noun - a severe mental disorder characterized by some, but not necessarily all, of the following features: emotional blunting, intellectual deterioration, social isolation, disorganized speech and behavior, delusions, and hallucinations (dictionary.com)
Sound like anyone you know? How about us marketers? Well maybe not you, specifically, but I’d argue that many of our peers seem to be showing signs of schizophrenia. See if any of these sound familiar…
Exhibit 1: Company X wants to promote a new mission or vision or product. So they hit up Twitter with some spiffy new hashtag. At first glance Company X is ready to proclaim the short endeavor a success but then realize the only ones using the hashtag are employees. Moreover, it is the same few constantly talking among themselves, or more to the point, to themselves.
Exhibit 2: So Company X decides to give LinkedIn a try. They’re a B2B firm and they know from market research that their target segment is actively involved on LinkedIn. So what do they do? Duh, start a group. Start yet ANOTHER LinkedIn group. But this one will (of course) stand out because it has THEIR brand on it. Who *wouldn’t* want to be part of a conversation sponsored by their brand. Knock knock, it’s reality. Please come on back.
Exhibit 3: My favorite still is the Facebook promotion. Company X starts promoting a Facebook page. “Like” them and earn a chance at a winning some prize, or get a 5% discount on your next order. I’m probably in the minority, but my loyalty or endorsement has to be worth more than that. And even if it’s not worth more, human nature is to assume that it is. Now as for the “like” sluts out there (you know who you are), does Company X really even want those endorsements? The “like” button has become a hyper-inflationary currency. Marketers can’t print it fast enough, and the more they print the less valuable it becomes.
So my dear marketers – I beseech you to do the following…
1) Stop talking to yourselves out loud. Frankly, it’s weird and uncomfortable.
2) Stop assuming that the conversations you start are necessarily going to be the most relevant.
3) Don’t act so desperate. It’s not becoming and certainly isn’t going to drive customer loyalty.
Instead – be sincere. Go to where the conversations are already taking place. And for goodness sake, you don’t have to do all the talking. Listening from time to time may also be helpful.
Marketing vs customer value
Posted by Sam Kale in Marketing & Branding, Random Musings on June 29, 2011
Many times I’ve heard marketers say something like “You have to give something to get something.” And many times, the person means “[The customer] needs to give [their personal information] to get [my content].” As a marketer I can see the logic, especially when it comes to targeting, measuring, and tracking. But as a consumer, it’s not always clear to me that what I’m getting is as valuable as what they’re giving.
There’s a great article from HBR [N.B. requires purchase and/or login] that talks about the gap between sellers’ and buyers’ perceptions. According to the article, sellers overvalue their wares by up to a factor of 3x, while buyers undervalue those same wares by up to 3x, resulting in a nearly 10x gap between what the seller thinks their thing is worth and what the buyer is willing to “pay” for it.
Put it another way: how many of us have clicked a link or gone to a website only to be immediately challenged to “log in or register to see that content”? Before you are even able to evaluate whether the information is good and valuable and credible you have to give up your personal information, sometimes including your street address and employer’s name. It might not seem like that big of a deal, but given the recent rash of security breaches around the internet (viz: Citibank, Gawker Media, Sony, et al), it should make you wonder exactly how secure your information is, what is the risk of that information being leaked to the rest of the internet, and what happens to you if it does get leaked. Only then will you start putting your information in the right context to decide whether giving it up is the right thing to do.
As a vendor, you have to ask yourself whether that White Paper is telling the customer something they can find in any first year MBA textbook, whether that blog post titled “37 Ways to Supercharge Your Marketing Plan” is really all that insightful, or whether the news you’re hiding behind a paywall is something the customer can freely find somewhere else (see also: the Disney Corporation).
Good marketing is not about targeting, or measuring, or tracking; good marketing is about getting inside the customer’s head and offering something that they really find valuable. Not something that’s inside the 10x margin, not something that’s slighly less crummy than the competition, not something that was easy for you to get done and approved, but something that helps the customer solve a problem that’s big enough to matter and let them do it without a bunch of “exciting (upsell) opportunities” standing in their way. Only then can you really become the “trusted advisor” that is the holy grail of customer-marketing relationships.
Skype: An option for a brain drain
Posted by Sam Kale in Product Marketing, Random Musings, Technology Marketing on June 27, 2011
UPDATED 12:01, Monday June 27, 2011:
According to Silicon Alley Insider, the executives who were let go will be receiving some/most of the equity compensation in question. While it’s still difficult to know exactly what’s going on or the motives behind it, it’s still a good illustration how bad publicity and the appearance of impropriety can travel very quickly. I still think what I wrote below applies: the changing tide of compensation, and how it’s perceived in the market, could severely stifle innovation in this country, at least as much as any tax, levy, or tariff.
—————
A few weeks ago news broke of Microsoft’s purchase of internet VOIP/VidOIP service Skype. At the time I wrote about what the strategic play might be for Microsoft, what they might consider doing with the service, and how I’d like to see it incorporated into my work digital lifestyle. Now, a few weeks later, news about Skype is again breaking acrosss the interwebs, but this time it paints the service – and specifically it’s management team and a key investor – in a much different light.
Sunday morning Michael Arrington wrote on TechCrunch about stories of Skpe employees being terminated and their stock options being reclaimed by the company (he uses the word “worthless” in the title). Rob Beschizza at Boing Boing had similar thoughts on the matter (he invoked the word “screwed” in his title). Over on AVC.com, Fred Wilson had slightly more tempered thoughts on the matter but does recommend the entire system be rethought.
The intricacies of employee stock options in general and these stock options in particular aside, there’s a larger issue that Skype and Microsoft need to consider. Whether or not it’s true, it appears as if Skype terminated a bunch of people just before a big payday and then took away one of the major incentives that convinced the person to work at Skype in the first place. What’s more, they did it in a way that has been called disingenuous and perhaps even actionable.
At some point, the current Skype management team is going to want to start another company, and they’re going to have this reputation to overcome. Their other investors are going to want to invest in another technology company, an organization who’s employees might flee the moment the deal is announced. Ninety nine times out of 100, acquisitions and investments are for the people, not the technology.
We talk alot about the impact of taxes, tarrifs, levies, and other monetary vehicles on innovation and advancement. But what of the impact of this type of behavior on technological innovation? Silicon Valley, one of the major hotbeds on American innovation, has long depended on the promise of equity compensation in lieu of cash. If employees no longer trust equity compensation, start-ups and small businesses might be forced to switch to more traditional cash-based compensation, which could severely limit their ability to bring enough people on staff to get things done as quickly as necessary, thereby stifiling technology innovation.
The people that really have to be carefule here are Microsoft. If Skype’s people start to view their options as completely worthless, then there becomes very little incentive for them to stay. Since the talent should be at least as much of a concern as the technology in any acquisition, Microsoft could find themselves holding a shell of a company worth much less than the $8.5B they paid for it.
Kathy Sierra: Pixie Dust & The Mountain of Mediocrity
Posted by Sam Kale in Communications & Social Media, Marketing & Branding on June 20, 2011
Kathy Sierra: Pixie Dust & The Mountain of Mediocrity
I never understood how any of this made sense, given that very little of what I see “brands” (or their human spokestweeters) do on social media is changing the fundamental nature of how users interact with their products. “But that is not the point! It is about being human!”. Nope, I still don’t get it. Why would anyone want to compete on *that*? It felt fragile to be in essentially a marketing arms-race of who-is-the-most-engaging-social-media rock star. What does that really have to do with what users do with the product?
A nice companion read to Kris’ Going beyond the sizzle (of technology marketing).
Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc
Posted by Sam Kale in Data Visualization on June 13, 2011
On Friday, the HBR Daily Stat posted a story about the link between high school club memberships and a person’s propensity to be a manager later in life. Later that day I ran across a tweet from Dave Zinczenko of Men’s Health Magazine, claiming that 7+ hours of sleep a night leads to a lower risk of heart disease.
The thing that strikes me about both of these articles isn’t necessarily the information that they convey – I think many would agree that getting more sleep is better and that the editor of their high school yearbook will make a good manager. What strikes me about both of these articles so completely confuse the concepts of correlation and causality.
Is seven the magic number of hours of sleep to ensure you’ll live a long and prosperous life? Or is the kind of person who sleeps at least 7 hours a night the kind of person who takes care of themselves, watches what they eat, exercises, and tries to limit the amount of stress in their life? Does being in a certain school club raise the likelihood of being a manager, or do people who gravitate towards certain school clubs (a la Freaks and Geeks) tend towards a certain kind of success?
President Bartlet: CJ, on your tombstone it’s gonna read ‘Post hoc ergo propter hoc.’
CJ: Okay, but none of my visitors are going to be able to understand my tombstone.
President Bartlet: Twenty-seven lawyers in the room, anybody know ‘post hoc, ergo propter hoc’? Josh?
Josh: Ah, post, after hoc, ergo, therefore… After hoc, therefore something else hoc.
President Bartlet: Thank you. Next? Leo.
Leo: ‘After it, therefore because of it’.
If you think I’m nitpicking over very fine distinctions, consider this: how many times has a finance manager asked you to quantify, in dollars, the benefits of your marketing activities? How many times have you been asked to predict – and later to show – causality between what you’ve done and some form of business result, no matter how multi-variate and subtly complex the interdependencies really are.
Did sales go up because of the advertising campaign you recently launched, or did they go up because the economy got better and people feel more comfortable spending money? Did market share go up because of they change you made to your product or the change that your competitor made to their product? Is your product not selling because people simply aren’t aware of your product, or is it not selling because people don’t see a need for your product. Or are there many more factors that contribute to your success or lack thereof?
While I think its important to set measurable goals and work towards attaining them, I also think its important to know when your thing did something and when you did something while something else happened at the same time. And I think its important for all of us to be honest about when it’s the former and when its the latter.
Going beyond the sizzle (of technology marketing)
Posted by Kris Kaneta in Marketing & Branding on June 8, 2011
In case you haven’t picked it up on it, I’m in the business of marketing people. Yes, I market B2B solutions with a complex array of services and technologies, but at the end of the day those solutions are designed by, implemented by, managed by and bought by people. And one of the worst things an organization can do is sell a technology without keeping in mind the people that it takes to really maximize the value of that solution. So why then do marketers overlook the people that make their solutions attainable and tangible to clients?
As I like to say to my consultants and engineers, the technology on its own is the sizzle. Yes, the sound and the smell is what draws people in; it’s the “sexy” part of what we sell – but when the sizzle eventually dissipates, it’s the experts in front of the customer, strategically evaluating the situation, who will ultimately be held accountable for the technology’s performance.
And rest assured – the sizzle will dissipate. And unless you’re really not in to retaining customers, this should be a pretty big deal for you. No one, I repeat no one, is safe from the “so what have you done for me lately” conundrum.
So go ahead and keep marketing the crap of the technology. It is after all what brings customers in the door. But getting them in the door is only half the battle. Once they’re in the door – the technology needs to tell a story, and that story ultimately needs to be about marketable people. For without people, technology comes down to bits and bytes and eventually we all start to look the same (see PC industry).
One of the senior executives I work with and whom I have a tremendous amount of respect for has a mantra I oft hear him recite.
“People do business with people they like, trust and respect.”
We’ve reached a point where technology is a great differentiator but also our greatest challenge. In this age of rapid obsolescence, something better will eventually come along. But good people, trustworthy people, who have a vested interested in their customers can quell that fear.
If you stop and think about it, we are surrounded by companies who win because of the people they market, who are bringing products and solutions that are not only at their respective forefronts, but also backed by great people. From Apple to Xerox, these organizations win because there are people behind them that we like, trust and respect.
Seth: Are you a scientist?
Posted by Sam Kale in Marketing & Branding, Random Musings on June 7, 2011
Ask a physicist what will happen if you fire a projectile like this in that direction, and she’ll know. Ask a chemist what happens if you mix x and y, and you’ll get the right answer. Even quantum mechanics mechanics can give you probabilities that work out in the long run.
I’m not always the biggest fan of Seth Godin’s brand of “crackerjack marketing” – for my taste it generally lacks the subtlety and nuance that paints life in anything other than primary colors 1– but I do have to admit that most of his observations are sound, at least in the broad strokes.
As someone who spent the better part of his life as a scientist, I can tell you that while Seth’s observation might be technically right, it does lack the subtlety of insight. Scientists spend vast tracts of time testing and observing the world, and only after gathering, collating, and interpreting the data do they build hypotheses of how the world works.
Scientists make predictions, and predicting the future is far more valuable than explaining the past.
In reality, scientists predict the future by explaining the past. And to be fair, they don’t so much “predict the future” as tell you what would be consistent with past observations.
But buried somewhere here is a lesson, whether you’re in science, marketing, or any other knowledge worker driven field: future insights are only as good as the summation of your past observances. It is, at times, attractively expedient2 to rely on “key thought leaders in the field”3 to generate your “insights” rather than a full-fledged primary marketing research study. We can’t do large-scale marketing research studies, the argument goes, because we don’t have the budget.
But ask yourself this question: what’s more expensive – fielding and executing a good primary marketing research study, or better on a product that only a small handful of people will like?
Or as I’ve heard said before, “The plural of ‘anecdote’ is not ‘evidence’.”4
- I know there are a great many “Seth-heads” out there. Please understand that I’m in no way saying that being a “Seth-head” is wrong, only that he doesn’t suite my taste. It would be a shame if the only thing you took from this article was this comment about Seth, as I’m trying to address a larger point, which you’ll hopefully see below.
↩ - READ: Cheap and fast.
↩ - READ: A few good customers.
↩ - I can’t seem to find the original source of this quote, so I’ll link to where I first remember hearing it. It now graces a crude printed sign hanging on my own cubicle wall.
↩
Kris
Sam
Recent Comments