0:00
Jamie Turner
Minute or two, my screen on there and it should say B2B consumer behavior secrets. So if you do not see that screen there, let us know. Otherwise we'll assume everything is a go. I'm going to make a few minor adjustments here, but we're going to Talk today about B2B consumer behavior secrets and we're just going to go through 10 different things that you can do in order to improve the effectiveness of your B2B marketing campaigns. We'll go through a ton of different information just to talking generally about how to leverage B2B consumer behaviors in order to get more prospects to convert customers. Because after all, that is what we're here to do is figure out how to get our B2B custom prospects and get them to convert customers. So a tiny bit of background on me on your screen right now. You should see a couple of books. It says how to Make Money with Social Media and also Go mobile. I've written a couple of books. Those are the two books available around the world. We just found out that how to Make Money with Social Media is being translated into Polish as well as into Chinese. So interesting stuff going on that side of the equation. I do get on TV sometimes. CNN and HLM will pull me in. And I've also helped a few clients like you or a few clients you may have heard of. But the main thing I like to do is help people like you sell more stuff. Because in the end, that's really what this is all about. It's about figuring out ways to get more people to buy more of your product more, more frequently. And if we can figure that out, then suddenly our jobs get easier. Our bosses are happier with us. The business grows. We get into a role of hiring people and also into a role of really executing what we want to do, which is to sell more stuff. So that's what we're going to talk about today. And glad to be here. Let's talk a little bit about B2B consumer behavior secrets. As I mentioned, we've got 10 secrets we're going to share with you in the 30 minutes that we have for the webinar. And then at the end of the 30 minutes, we're going to go ahead and do a Q and a sess where I'll be able to answer any questions you have about business to business. And I do do also B2C marketing. Which brings us to secret number one, which is the second B in B2B is actually a C. A lot of times we get all swept up in all the differences in B2B marketing has over B2C marketing. But the net net is that the second B in B2B is actually a C. That means that people still buy things for the same reasons on the B2B world that they do on the B2C world. Now, we are going to talk in a second about the differences, so don't jump on it because we're really understanding that there is a difference between B2B and B2C. But don't forget that in the end, we're all human beings. We all buy things for reasons. And we can understand those reasons and leverage them for the B2B world as much as we leverage them for the B2C. So let's talk about the distinction, distinctions between B2B and B2C. First of all, there are fewer larger buyers in the B2B world. Now what does that mean? Well, if you think about as an example, the fate of Goodyear is in GM's hands. If GM called up and said, hey, we're switching over to Firestone for all of our tires, effective immediately, you've got 90 days to deal with that information. That would change Goodyear's fate pretty quickly. So all of us on the call today, we're in the B2B world. We typically have fewer larger buyers as opposed to a ton of small one off buyers that you do in the B2C world. The second point is there are close buyer customer relationships. So what do I mean by that? Well, a paper company may sell to a chemical company which is also a supplier to the paper company. That's an example. A lot of times you are working with a company that is also a client of yours. So that's a slight difference in the B2B world over the B2C world. Third point, professional purchasing. This drives me crazy, but it's the fact of B2B marketing is that you get requests for quotations, purchasing contracts and proposals that aren't typically part of the B2C world. So it ties things up. A lot of times my business is 60 second marketer is the blog. 60 second communications is the marketing communications firm. Now what's changing in our world is that sometimes they're sending the ad agencies into professional purchasing people in order to go through that sort of process before we go in and actually pitch to the client prospect. That is a big change. It changes it into a commoditized world, which is never good for anybody. You never want to see your products getting commoditized. And that's what happens with Professional purchasing. But it's a reality of the B2B world and something I'm sure you guys deal with all the time. There's also several buying influences. More people typically influence the buying decision. That's good news and bad news. Mostly bad news because it means that it's not as simple a sale as in the B2C world. So that's some of the distinctions between B2B and B2C. Let's jump over and talk about four other distinctions. Point number five, multiple sales calls. A sales cycle is much longer. We're dealing right now with several large global brands. And I had forgotten how slowly these global brands move. In fact, many, many years ago, I was in at Coca Cola. I was doing a presentation. We'd already won the business. We were already doing the work with Coca Cola. It was January. We were in at Coca Cola. We gave them the plan. And I'm talking to the 10 people in the room, and I say, okay, it's mid January right now, and coming out of this meeting, we're ready to get started on this. Everything that we're going to do for you, and we should have everything launched and good to go by the end of March. And no lie, the person, our key contact raised his hand and he said, jamie, excuse me, do you mean the end of March this year or the end of March next year? And I said, no, I mean the end of March this year. He said, yeah, that ain't going to happen. So it was a great example of how much slower large corporations move. And it doesn't even matter if you're a global corporation or at a small Corporation. On the B2B side of the equation, things move slower than they do on the B2C side of the equation. Point number six, inelastic demand. What does that mean? Well, shoe manufacturers aren't going to buy much more leather in place of leather fall. So there really is an inelastic Demand on the B2B side of the equation. That can be good news, actually, because things are a little slower to move and because the way the infrastructure happens on the B2B equation, what you really get is things move slower. And there's a little bit of inelasticity on that front. Point number seven, geographically concentrated buyers. More than half of U.S. business buyers are concentrated in seven states. New York, California, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, New Jersey, and Michigan. That's really a fascinating statistic there and maybe something even worth sharing via Twitter if you're on there. And if you do tweet some of these facts Out. Feel free to use that hashtag B2B Secrets. As Valerie mentioned earlier, then point number eight, direct purchasing business buyers often buy direct from a manufacturer. And that doesn't necessarily happen very frequent in the B2C world, but it happens a lot more frequently in the B2B world. Secret number two, let's dive in on that now. I've got a fascinating case study here. Sometimes people don't know why they prefer one brand over another. In fact, Baylor University proved this with a blind taste test with Coca Cola and Pepsi. I know this is a B to C case study, but it's relevant because as we mentioned in the first secret, the second B in B2B is actually a C. If you understand just how the human brain works and how we process information and how we buy things for reasons that we may not even really understand, sometimes it'll help you as you move into the B world. Even though this is a B to C case study, Baylor University went in, they did a blind taste with Coke and Pepsi. And they went out and they said, okay, cool. They got 100 people in the room. They said, we're going to do a blind taste test. That basically just means we're going to give you Coca Cola, we're going to give you Pepsi, but you're not going to know which is which. What do you think the answer came out on that? When people took a sip of the Coke and then took a sip of the Pepsi, what do you think it was? I'd be interested if people want to put over in the questions pane, just drop some answers in over there. Do you think it was 80% preferred Coke? Do you think it was 80% preferred the Pepsi and the blind taste study? That's the question that they were trying to find. Which one tasted better. When you did a blind taste study, guess what happened? It came out 50, 50. Half the room liked Coca Cola, half the room liked Pepsi. Now that just shows that in the end consumers don't really understand in a blind taste test which is which, they just go 50, 50. Now guess what happened when they took away the blind side of the equation and went into the same group of people. They cleared off the blind taste test and they said, all right, now we're going to put a Coke bottle in front of you and we're going to put a Pepsi bottle in front of you. Now we want you to taste each brand and now we want you to tell us which brand you prefer. Guess what the answer was. 80% of the room preferred Coca Cola. What that's crazy. I mean, how can 80% of the room prefer Coca Cola in the non blind test when we already know that 5050 happened in the blind study? Well, what the answer is, of course, the power behind the Coca Cola brand. When people pick up the Coca Cola bottle and take a sip of it, are they taking a sip of a soft drink? No, they're taking a sip of all of the brand imagery behind Coca Cola. So think of the brand imagery that you associate with Coca Cola. Just right now, just think of what you associate with Coca Cola and you're going to think of phrases like Santa Claus, I'd like to teach the world to sing happiness, mean Joe Green, all of that verbiage and all of those images about Coca Cola. Now I want you to do the same thing with Pepsi. Now just sit down and think. What do I think of when I think of Pepsi? The odds are you're thinking of Michael Jackson or you're thinking of Britney Spears or Madonna or anything like that. Now you tell me, which has more impact on our psyche, Michael Jackson or Santa Claus? And when you understand that it's Santa Claus has a deeper, more ingrained appeal to us, then you understand why people said 80% of the time they preferred Coca Cola because of all of the brand imagery that they associate with Coca Cola versus the kind of brand imagery they associate with Pepsi. So the study highlighted the importance a brand plays in purchasing behavior. And it doesn't matter if you're B2B or B2C. Brand is an important consideration when you go in and sell B2B or B2C. I had a friend of mine who used to sell phones via AT&T at the AT&T store, but he was in a B2B sort of segment of the AT&T store at the time AT&T was taking logos, they were taking Toshiba phones, if I recall correctly, and just putting the AT&T logo on it and selling it. This was many, many years ago, selling it at a 20% premium. And they sold eight phones on the AT&T branded phones versus the Toshiba branded phones for every two that they sold of Toshiba even though it was at a premium. So that again shows the importance of brand in B2B. Even though a lot of times we think of brand being important in B2C, it's actually important in B2B and equally important too. So let's keep going on to secret number three. Secret number three is people buy for emotional reasons and then rationalize purchased with logic. So what Do I mean by that? Well, people actually go in a lot of times now in the B2B world. We do know that price is a driver in the B2B world a little more than it is in the B2C world. Studies have shown that. But in the end, people are still buying things for emotional reasons a lot of the times. And then they're rationalizing their purchase with logic. Let's take a B2C example here. When somebody goes out and buys a Porsche, they are buying it for what reason? Emotional or logical reasons? You tell me. The answer is they're buying it for emotional reasons. Nobody ever bought a Porsche for logical reasons. Oh, yes, they can rationalize their purchase with logic. They go in and they can say, hey, the bottom line is it's German engineering and it's the value I get with the car. But the reason they're buying that Porsche is for emotional reasons. And you just ask any Porsche buyer. Now, what's interesting about that is, despite what Porsche buyers will tell you, nobody actually buys a Porsche for logical reasons. They buy it for the emotional reasons that we talked about. You can leverage that, too. When you do B2B sales is you can go in and say, hey, we're going to make sure that the emotional component that we have in here is as powerful as the logical component. If you can win that battle with your B2B prospects, you'll win your competitive situation with people, because you'll end up going in and they'll have the whole complete picture. Yes, they'll be able to talk about the logical reasons, but they'll also be buying things for emotional reasons. We're going to touch on that again in a second. But here's secret number four. The women on the call today understand this. The men don't as much. Women are smarter than men. There is actually research that shows there are 25% more connections between the right hemisphere and the left hemisphere of the brain of a woman than there are in a male brain. What that means, as we know, the right hemisphere controls the emotional side of the equation. The left hemisphere controls the logical side. Women's brains are actually talking to themselves better than the male brain. And it's why women are better at communication skills. It's why women are better at intuitive things. It's why women can pick up on signals that men don't necessarily pick up on. It's because their brain is actually talking to itself better than the male brain. And you can leverage that when you go out and start thinking about how you're talking to your B2B customers. Now, here's an X ray of the female and you can see in the X ray that would show, if we could see those connections, that there are 25% more connections between the right hemisphere and the left hemisphere in the female brain than there are in the male brain. Let's see an X ray of the male brain that you can see right here. Not quite as well developed as the female brain, but the net net. The fact is that women's brains actually do a better job talking of communicating within the brain than the male brain does, simply because there is that 25% more connections between the right hemisphere and the left hemisphere in the female brain. Secret number five. Sometimes people buy for reasons that reason will never know. What do I mean by that? Well, a lot of times, if you did research, if you did a research study with people, with your customers said, hey, we want to find out why you buy our product. Those customers, as I mentioned before, are going to give you logical reasons. They're going to say, well, I bought because your pricing was better, because you have, because your terms are better, because you deliver on time more frequently than the other people. But none of them will offer up unless you ask them specifically things like, well, I just get along better with your sales force or just actually think the salesperson who sold me the stuff is attractive and I like them and I want to buy something from them. That is a very, very real reason. It's not a reason that we want to go out and talk about much, but it goes back to secret number. Sometimes people buy for reasons that reason will never know. When you go in and interview people and say, why do you buy Starbucks coffee? What is it that makes you pay five times more for a cup of Starbucks coffee than you'd get at Waffle House? They will always say things logically like, well, I like the flavor of the coffee better. But they will never say, well, I actually like the fact that I feel cool when I'm at Starbucks. Or they'll never say, well, I go to Starbucks when I'm feeling lonely. Those are the reasons that people don't show up and talk about on research. You have to drill down and kind of ask them more specific questions to get to that. So remember that as you're going out and thinking about your own B2B marketing strategy, what are the hidden reasons that people are buying our product that they aren't going to tell us about? What are those sort of secrets that people that we can leverage to the best of our ability in order to convert more of our prospects to customers. And if you understand how the human brain works and that sometimes people buy for reasons that reason will never know, you'll be able to leverage that much, much better. So that goes onto the point I'm making here. What are people really buying when they purchase a cup of coffee? They're really buying is much more than just the coffee. They're buying the sound of the Starbucks store. They're buying the music that's playing in the background. They're buying the cool factor when they go in and put their feet up on the sofas. They're buying the fact that they like the barista who's selling them the cup of coffee. There's much more complexity behind that than people will often tell you. Secret number six. There are 10 questions you should before you launch your next B2B marketing campaign. What are those 10 questions? Get out your pens. We are recording this so you can recap you launch your next B2B campaign. The 10 fundamental B2B questions. Who buys our product or service? Bottom line is a lot of times it's somebody different than you think it's going to be. We're going to talk about that in a second. Second one is who makes the decision to buy the product? That's as important as who buys our product or service? Who's really the person influencing the decision and making the final decision? That's a much more complex sale than it is on the B2C side of the equation. Point number three, how is the purchase decision made? Who assumes what role? Who's influencing this decision? Who are the people that are playing behind the scenes who we think are not important, but who actually are important? I had a mistake I made. Let me share a real blunder I made 10 years ago. We were in on the B2B side of the equation, equation for my marketing communications firm. And we were going in and we had eight people who we were talking to about finalizing a proposal that we were in front of them. And I made a fundamental mistake by writing one of the guys off. And I didn't write them off in a bad way, but I was basically nurturing all the other people in the room, doing all the classic B2B things, taking them out for dinners, just doing the normal stuff that you would do, sending them books that I had written so that they could read them and just sort of nurturing them along. And I made the mistake. There was one guy in the room who I thought, well, he is not necessarily really relevant to the conversation this is outside his jurisdiction. And I was polite to him like I always am. I was courteous to him, but I wasn't giving him that special sort of treatment that I was giving the other people. That was a mistake because the guy came in behind the scenes and really kind of unraveled all the work that I'd done. My fault for not honoring the fact that everybody's important in a B2B equation. Had too many people in the room and I couldn't take every single one of them out to dinner or nurture them the way I would normally do it in order to build that relationship and do that hidden sales tricks that we were talking about before. Not trick, but that hidden motivator that people buy from other people they like. And I didn't nurture that as much as I should have. So remember that as you go out for your own campaigns, who's assuming what role? How is the purchase decision made? Point number four, what is the customer really buying? What are the hidden reasons for the purchase? Are they buying? If you think about, think about. If you go down the spectrum at the C level, when you're talking to somebody at the C level, of course they're buying results. They want results. They want an ROI on this CFOs, CEOs, that's what they're buying. If you go down the chain of command to the next level, the management, what they want is not to look dumb for buying your product or Service. In the B2B sale, their main consideration is slightly more political. Yes, they want results, but they also want to look like a hero for making the right decision on that. And then when you go down to the people who work for them, what are they actually buying? Well, they're going in. They want to make sure that this is a seamless transition, that they don't end up having things blow up in their face through logistics and problems on that side of the equation. So you have to understand what the customer is really buying, and it changes based on the level of person you're selling to. In the B2B side of the equation, why do customers buy a brand? That's a question you have to ask. I mean, people pay a premium for Apple computers. Is it a cool factor? Is it factor? Is it a combination of all that? It's probably a combination of that. But you really have to drill down and understand why customers are buying our brand. Where do they go or look before buying our product or service? Here's a little trick that you can do that's really, really Important. A lot of times people do customer research with their customers and they want to find out why you bought from us in the end. And they go out and they do that. Here's something that you can do that's even more important. Go out and do research with the people who you were your prospects, but who didn't buy your product or service. Because when you go to them and they've done their homework and they say, hey, we were looking at three different companies for five different companies, and in the end we chose somebody else, those are the people who are going to give you the real gold. Those are the people who are going to give you real information on why they got all the way down the sales funnel, but in the end decided not to buy your product or service. That's where you want to mine the data. So when you go out and do number six, where do people go? Before buying our product or service, you also want to interview people who thought about buying your product or service but chose your competitors instead. That's where the gold is. When do they buy? Are there seasonal factors behind their purchase and how can you leverage those things? How is our product perceived by our customers? What are the real motivators? You can use social media for this. You can do social media listening tools and find out, do people call your product inexpensive in social media or do they call it cheap in social media? Those two minor distinctions actually hold a lot of weight because if they're calling your product cheap online, then you've got a problem. If they're calling it inexpensive, that's a totally different mindset that helps you understand how your product is perceived by your customers. What other factors might influence the purchase decision? Those are kind of things that you really need to understand. Which ones of those can you control and which ones are outside of your control? And then finally, how do personal or demographic factors influence the purchase decision? How can we get inside the mind of our prospects and understand what it is so that we can leverage that for our B2B equation? Okay, let's go on to secret number seven. As we kind of round the bend here, we've got 10 secrets that we're going to go through. Secret number seven is the B2B purchase is much more complex than the B2C purchase. If we have people on the line who are B2B, we know that all up and down. I know secret number one was, remember what it was. The second B in B2B is actually a C because they are still a consumer. But the purchase in secret number seven the B2B purchase is still much more complex than the B2C purchase. And we understand that by going through all the people who were involved in it. So this is the person you're knocking on their door. They say, go away. I don't want to talk to you. I don't want to buy your product or service. That's because there's a bunch of different people influencing the sale. The first are the initiators, those who request that something be purchased. Those are the people who just kind of initiate the actual sale. They're not necessarily unimportant, but they may not be as important as some of the other people. They're the users, the people who are going to be using the product or service. They, of course, are very, very important. They're interested in what? They're interested in making sure that when they buy the product or service and the transition to your brand, your company goes smoothly and that there aren't any things that blow up in their faces. The influencers, of course, are the people who influence the buying decision. These are very important people. You want to make sure you nurture them along as much as you possibly can, because they're the ones who are going out and saying, hey, the bottom line is we've got to make sure that they can be your friend or your foe. As I discussed earlier in the webinar, the deciders, the people who decide on the product requirements or on suppliers, they're the ones who basically kind of start figuring, hey, what are the qualifications we're looking for on this? Of course, ultimately, it's got to be approved by the approvers, the people who authorize the proposed actions of the deciders or buyers. That's followed by the buyers, people who have formal authority to select the splinear, whatever that means. It just means the supplier. I have a typo in this. I apologize. But the bottom line is people have the formal authority to select the splinear. That's actually a new term we're going to come up with today. So make sure when you do the B2B Secrets hashtag that you said, hey, I learned a new word today on the webinar with Jamie Turner. It's called Esplenier, which is Greek for supplier. Gatekeepers, of course, are the final people, people who have the power to prevent sellers or information from reaching members of the buying center. Those are as important as the influencers in terms of making that decision or making your life easier or more complex. Secret number eight. What is secret number eight? Don't lump small and mid sized businesses together into SMBs. I know that's kind of a normal thing that we all do because we say, hey, I work in the SMB world. Actually it should be I work in a small business world or I work in a mid sized business world. Why is that? Well, small businesses are different from mid sized businesses. How? Well, here are some tips on that. Don't think of a small business as a mid sized business. There's a big gap between a million dollars in revenue and 50 million in revenue. The whole structure of the company is different, as is the mindset of the people there. Don't waste their time, no entertaining sales shows or sales pitches over long lunches with small businesses. Do keep it simple, keep it one point of contact so that things move through quickly and then do your homework. The realities of small or mid sized business management is different than those of large corporations. Secret number nine There are four essential types of business customers. The first are the price oriented customers. Price is everything. The second is solutions oriented customers. They want low prices but will respond to arguments about lower total cost or more dependable supplier service. So they'll listen to you on that front. Gold standard customers, they want the best performance in terms of product quality, assistance, reliability, delivery and so on. And then strategic value customers, those are the ones that want fairly permanent sold suppliers, seller, supplier relationship with your company. Those are the guys that you really want to kind of nurture along who understand that relationship is really an important side of the equation. So here are some key points to remember as we move forward on this that we want to tap into. Here are the key points. Compared to consumer markets, business markets generally have fewer and larger buyers, a closer customer supplier relationship, and more geographically concentrated buyers. The second point, the B2B buying process involves initiators, users, influencers, deciders, approvers, buyers and gatekeepers. Much more complex sale on that side of the equation. And then finally, business marketers must form strong bonds and relationships with their customers and provide them added value. So some of the things that Oktopost brings to the equation on all this, by the way, if you're only vaguely familiar with Oktopost, we use it in our, essentially our social media management and monitoring services, Oktopost. And it works great for us. The bottom line is we use it as a way to nurture prospects into our sales funnel. And we do it pretty consistently, not only by using Oktopost, but also by using other tools. And those tools are important for everybody because if you don't form strong bonds and relationships with your prospects, they'll never convert to customers. I'M going to turn it over to Valerie in a second who's going to walk us through the questions that we have and I can answer those questions before I jump off and turn it back over to Valerie, a little bit about us. My company, 60 Second Communications, we create mobile social content, online display and lead generation campaigns for well known brands. And I can be reached at the number here or the email address here. But most importantly, I want to answer your questions because I want to talk about B2B marketing and B2B. It's an important thing. B2B outweighs B2C in a big way and I want to answer questions to help help you guys do that. So Valerie, I'm going to turn it back over to you and we can see what questions we have here.
29:35
Valerie Levin
Jamie, thanks so much for that incredible presentation.
29:39
Jamie Turner
Absolutely. Glad to do it. Thank you for having me.
29:42
Valerie Levin
Of course, of course. If you could just quickly make me the presenter and then I'll be able to put up the Q and A slide on my end.
29:49
Jamie Turner
I will do that. Let's do that. I think it's happening right now and as it's shifting over, Valerie, just talking. It didn't work but all.
29:58
Valerie Levin
It didn't work out, but I think I might be able to do it myself on my end. There we go. I think we're good to go. Just hold on one quick second and
30:11
Jamie Turner
while you're doing the mechanics back there, Valerie. Yeah, I'll just jump in with a couple of things. If you think about the key points that I covered off on, the main thing coming out of this that I want people to remember is that the second B in the B is a consumer. There are still secrets that you can use in order to leverage consumer behavior. Even if they're buying a B2B product, they still buy things a lot of times for emotional reasons. They still buy things for hidden motivators or an influence on it. Just keep that in mind as we roll over to the question side of the equation because I think it helps people understand how to frame things up for the B2B world. So fire away, Valerie. I'm all ears.
30:52
Valerie Levin
Sounds good. So first of all, thanks again. And second of all, we've been receiving questions throughout the presentation. However, you're more than invited to continue posting your questions in the GoToWebinar Questions Panel on the right hand side of your screen. So the first question is that you spoke a little bit about the Pepsi Cola tasting test. Someone actually commented that it might have been different if they were able to Drink the entire can and not just a sip. But that's already a different story. So the question is brand is crucial and we know that. But what's the best kind of social proof that a marketing team can create for a brand in order to increase its visibility and its credibility?
31:31
Jamie Turner
That's a great question and I'm going to address two things. One is the. Yeah, you're right, the research, when they do research between Coke and Pepsi, they found that when you drink the whole thing, Pepsi ends up being a little sweeter than Coke. I think it is. It does change some of those outcomes versus when they just take sips. Whoever asks that question knows marketing case studies. Congratulations. Great information on that side of the equation here on the question, the second part of the question, which is sort of how do you social proof? I'm going to use my own company as an example and you can use this for your business as well. But when somebody visits our website, 60 second communications website, the first thing I want them to do, I want them to see two primary things, three things. The first is what do you do? They've got to understand that entering into it. And then the second is who do you do it for? So very, very rapidly when you go on our website, you see the brands that we've done work for because all of a sudden when I say, hey, we've got Fortune 500 experience, even though we work with small to mid sized businesses, we have experience working with, with Coca Cola and Holiday Inn and TransUnion and all these major brands, all of a sudden I don't need to sell anymore because the person visiting me is saying, oh well, if you're good enough for Holiday Inn and you're willing to work with a company our size, then I'm sure that we can work with you. So it adds credibility. So point number one is very quickly try to add some third party credibility by talking about the other companies that use your brand. And then the second thing is testimonials. The faster that you can get somebody seeing a testimonial of somebody who's used and worked with your product or service saying, hey, the bottom line is these people are good. That's the sales, that's the mindset as people go in and sort of engage with the brand for the first time. So I'll just recap very quickly when people are talking to a salesperson or visiting your website and the question is, how do we sort of instill social proof? The first thing they need to understand is what do you do? Why am I Here. The second thing they need to understand who have you done this for before? And if you've got big brand names behind that, that's great. And the third thing is, can I see some testimonials that prove that you've done something for somebody who's like me that's saying good things about your brand? So those are the three things. But that's a great question. I appreciate them asking it back over to you, Valerie.
33:49
Valerie Levin
So thanks for answering. I know that a lot of people also even add client logos to their email signature and of course put them all over their website. And even simple things like that can give a lot of credibility as well. So the next question is, what's the best way in terms of marketing strategy to appeal to a B2B buyer's emotions?
34:08
Jamie Turner
It goes back to some of the stuff that we covered off on here. Figure out what the hidden emotions are, the things that they don't necessarily talk about, and leverage those as much as you possibly can within reason. Let me give an example here, and I don't mean to. This is a slightly risky example and it's sort of off topic. But if you look at what Fox News does and part of the reason Fox has such high ratings, a lot of it has to do with the quality of their journalism and blah, blah, blah, all that sort of stuff. But a lot of it, quite frankly, has to do with the fact that male or female, the journalists they bring onto Fox News are attractive. So that's a hidden motivator for people tuning into Fox News. I'm not disparaging Fox News and we all have our points of view on Fox, but the bottom line is they go in and they say, hey, we're going to make sure that when you engage with our brand, it's as appealing as possible. So jumping back to the specific question this person asked, go in and find the hidden motivators for people and figure out what is it? Do they like coming over to our office? I have a client that always likes to come down for lunch to our part of Atlanta, Georgia, because they like to visit it where I'm located. That's a hidden motivator for them. It's not necessarily going to make or break a sale, but it's going to add up over the course of time. So the net net is try to drill down. The question was really how we leverage the emotional component of our brand. Try to drill down, get inside the mind of your customer, figure out what it is that they're really buying. And 80% of it is going to be the logical, the normal things that you would think about are product and services better and all that sort of stuff. 20% of it is going to be that emotional component. If you can leverage that emotional component, that 20% will differentiate you enough from your competitors that it will change your business. So try to drill down by doing research with your customers and go down that path. Back over to you, Valerie. Great questions, by the way.
36:08
Valerie Levin
Thanks. There was also a funny comment that I thought we would talk about just for a second about the slide where you said that women are smarter. And of course they. One of the comments was, I wouldn't say that women are smarter, but I'll let my wife know anyway. So that was one of the funny comments. So the next question that we got was if you can give an example of a B2B campaign marketing campaign that took on B2C characteristics that you were really impressed by.
36:37
Jamie Turner
Ah, that's a good boy. That's a little bit of a curve ball. But I'm going to. I hate to default to Apple. I apologize, because Apple is like everybody just uses Apple. But in the end, Apple really is selling B2B in addition to B2C. But their approach was to go in on the B2C side of the equation first, set up the retail stores and then do such a good job on that side of the equation that now on the B2B side of the equation, Valerie, you and I were just talking about this the other day when we were doing the rehearsal for this. More and more people on the B2B side of the equation are switching over to Apple and I think that was very intentional. It goes beyond just the fact that the computers run differently than PCs, but it also goes into their specific strategy on that side of the equation. So great question. And I hate to default to Apple because everybody does that, but it is actually a good example of a B2B play, even though people think of it mostly as a B2C play.
37:36
Valerie Levin
Yeah, it's always easier to default to Apple. So the next question is actually a really interesting one. So the question is, we're a startup company and don't have a big brand, but we have a patented solution that targets the professional services industry. How might we get to C level buyers in that industry? Specifically systems integrators and management and strategy firms that are responsible for the revenue generation. I can repeat the question if you'd like. It's a bit long.
38:00
Jamie Turner
That's okay. It's essentially how to get to the C suite, which is A tough, tough, tough answer. There's no easy, simple an answer, but I will tell you a path and I'll use a case study. This jumps back a little bit to the previous question and it'll also answer the current question. So the previous question was, what's a B2B case study? And I defaulted to Apple. But I came up with another one that's even better. And this relates to the person who asked this current question, which is essentially, you're a new company. How do you stand out? How do you get noticed by the C level level? One of the ways to do that on the branding side of the equation is to do something that is slightly outrageous. So the great B2B case study on this is Geek Squad. Geek squad also goes B2C, but they also do B2B. And what they did. When you read interviews with the guys who founded Geek Squad, they said, if we had been part of a large competition or if we had had VC funding early on, we would have not done the Geek Squad kind of branding that we did because it was so risky. I mean, who goes out and buys cars and wraps them in Geek Squad stuff and dresses the people up as 1960s Blues Brothers cops, that kind of stuff. But Geek Squad took a risk, and in order to do that, when they took that risk, they really stood out. So here's how that relates to the question at hand, which is this. The bottom line is to get to the C level. You're going to try salespeople knocking on their doors. Very, very difficult because they've got gatekeepers who say, forget it, I'm not interested. So what you have to do is get noticed by them. They have to come to you. And the way to get noticed is by going in and making sure that you do something that stands out and grabs people's attention. One other quick story on that that relates to that is, as Valerie mentioned, I get asked to go on CNN and HLN to be interviewed about social, mobile and marketing. I went down and met with their talent person one day and I said, I want to get on more frequently than I do. What do I do in order to get on CNN more frequently? She said these important words. We have to find you. Don't bug us. We have to find you. So go out, sell more books, do more speaking engagements around the globe. We will hear about you and then we'll come to you. The same holds true for how do we get to the C suite? They have to find you. You have to do something that stands out and that grabs people's attention and gets people talking about you, your brand, outside of the normal stream of the sales process. So try that and I think that's the best thing that you can do in terms of getting C level attention. Back over to you, Valerie.
40:47
Valerie Levin
Valerie. All right, thanks for the great answers. I think we just have enough time for one more question. This question is a bit general and I asked for some clarification but I haven't received it yet. The question was just, oh, I might have actually. Here we go. So the question is what, what should one expect in terms of lead generation? People contacting us, interested in our products. And the clarification was such as SEO. When you get clicked based on your positioning, when they are looking, I think there might be some more clarification. So maybe you could just talk a little bit about lead generation specifically and hopefully that will answer the question.
41:20
Jamie Turner
Yep, I can lead generation. What happens in B2B marketing as well as B2C marketing is that every so often there's a new silver bullet out there. A few years ago it was social media. Right now it's mobile marketing. And everybody thinks, oh, that's going to solve all my problems. The net net though is none of them are going to solve any specific problem. Nothing is a silver bullet. The best campaigns work in cohesion with each other. They have what I call circular momentum and what that means is they build upon one another. So your social media campaign isn't going to necessarily drive a ton of specifically as much as social media is going to help everything else you're doing perform better. The same with your SEO. The same with your lead nurturing campaign via email marketing. The same with all of the stuff that you're doing out there works together. And when you're running everything together, then it just has that critical mass, that kind of circular momentum that builds up and actually starts functioning better. The best advice I can give as we wrap up is don't think of any one thing as a silver bullet. Nothing is a silver bullet. But if you use the hub and spoke model where you're the hub and all the tools you're using are the spokes and nurture them along and use them properly and consistently. And that's the thing trick is using them consistently, then I think over time what you start seeing is better and better results because people hear about you, they talk about you and they hear and talk about you through social media, through email marketing, through mobile, through all of these tools that you're using in your lead nurturing program. So I hope that answers the question for the question. It was a great question and I appreciate it.
43:05
Valerie Levin
I hope so too. Unfortunately, that's all the time that we have for today. If you have any further questions that we weren't able to cover in today's session, then you're welcome to send an email either to myself and you can see my email up on the screen or to Jamie and I'll leave up the slide just for a minute or two so that you can copy the contact details. Thanks very much again for attending, and I hope you found all the information to be very valuable. I know that I did and that you have a great rest of the day. Okay, thanks.
