I was reading an article about B2B’s marketing like B2C’s and a couple thoughts come to mind. Here is the link to the original article on MarketingProfs.com.
First was a comment a long time marketing consultant recently told me. There are more marketing similarities across industries than there are differences. Now that may have been a self serving statement coming from someone who made a career as a consultant working with all kinds of business. But it could also have been an honest assessment based on a lifetime of experience. Well Russell Glass, the author of the above mentioned article, seems to agree. As he put it “Smart B2B Marketing = B2C With a Twist.”
The second thought was that Mr. Glass understands the different roles marketing can play. One role is to create awareness that will be recalled later when the customer actually moves into the evaluation phase of the buyer behavior model. The other role is to stimulate a favorable decision once the customer has begun the evaluation process.
Different media lend themselves to different roles. The extreme example is that little coupon dispenser hanging on the shelf in the middle of the aisle at your local grocery store. This point-of-purchase display assumes you are in the market for whatever product is in that aisle. That is not an accurate assumption when it comes to me, personally, since I can never find the right aisle and spend too much time in the wrong aisles. But that is yet a third role for marketing that we won’t get into at this point.
Another example is that billboard you see when your driving down the highway. You are in a different state of mind when you are on your way to work than when you are in a store. A billboard also has extreme limitations to the amount of information it can effectively communicate. Thus it often lends to a branded message that will hopefully get your attention and be able to recall when you do decide to evaluate your options.
There are exceptions to every rule. I do not offer these examples as rules. They are only to illustrate that a marketer has to think through how an entire campaign reaches customers throughout the whole buyer behavior path. Then optimize the campaign by balancing the message given the channel, available resources and nature of the product.
Many of the organizations we have helped have leaned to far one way or the other in this spectrum. We can help you find that right balance. Contact us at info@fresnelpointe.com
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