Your customers are looking for solutions to problems, they’re not Googling for your product or technology. Talking about solutions and problems helps you get discovered, and makes your message stronger by relating to an acute pain point; done right, this approach earns you the product and technology conversations that come later. The last Communitech Marketing P2P of the year took a Lightning […]
The good news is that investing just a little bit of time and effort to understand and address real-world buying barriers delivers wonderfully asymmetric returns, because doing so empowers you to develop high-impact messaging, effective content, and efficient sales processes. In practically all of our client engagements, I ask about ‘buying barriers’. Most times, I receive a quizzical expression in response; occasionally, I’ll hear […]
In a very tactics-obsessed industry and environment, Alex advocates for a strategic approach to longer-term success that, in all likelihood, will take time to develop; however, when presented against the backdrop of the unsustainability of digital advertising, it seems a prudent, logical course of action. The last Communitech Marketing P2P of the year took a Lightning Talk format that featured two guest […]
Tactics are important, obviously – they’re the part where stuff gets done – but they have to work for you, and not the other way around. I’m just gonna come right out and say it: start-ups and scale-ups doom themselves with well-intentioned, but dangerously stifling, overemphasis on marketing tactics. And I’m not going for hyperbole here. I mean the literal meaning of […]
“People can come up with statistics to prove anything. Forfty percent of people know that.”—H. J. Simpson If you’re even remotely involved with B2B marketing, then you’ve almost certainly seen the oft-cited B2B statistic that 60 percent of a customer’s buying decision is made before you even learn they’re interested. It shows up everywhere…I’ve personally come across it in at least half […]
It is not your customer’s job to buy from you. It is your job to find out what would make for an exceptional experience from their point of view, and invite them into it. – David Nour Recently, I finished reading Co-Create, by David Nour, and perhaps my biggest take-away was his model for the Customer Experience Journey. TL;DR At the very […]
Getting digital marketing right is a necessary, but insufficient, part of the overall marketing puzzle; it needs to be accompanied by strong messaging and content. Like Hansel, digital marketing is so hot right now. Whether we’re talking Google AdWords Google Ads, retargeting, organic discovery, social media, UTM codes, and so on and so forth, digital marketing arms businesses with effective and measurable […]
Delays put your business at risk, so execution speed – without compromising on quality, of course – is essential if you want to outpace the competition and meet customer demands. Whether because of a skills gap or – and maybe this is the main cause – being unable to focus due to distractions, competing priorities, lack of organizational support, or other issues, […]
There are lots of technical people out there: people who understand how technology works, why small implementation differences matter, and so on. There are also lots of capable communicators: people who can deliver an engaging presentation, who recognize the importance of information design, aesthetics, clarity, etc. It’s pretty rare that both sets of characteristics are found in the same person, intersecting as […]
Most technology companies are engineering-focused, with some operations personnel and salespeople in the mix to keep things running and to try to land some deals. Marketing is often an afterthought, whether because of the better-mousetrap fallacy, due to genuine lack of awareness, or as a result of financial limitations. Unless you can find a marketer who’s proficient at other roles, you can’t […]