High velocity B2B marketing is critical for new B2B products, whether launched by innovative start-ups or by established organizations. You want to have a significant customer base for your new product as soon as possible.
Market Segmentation is that early step in marketing strategy that urges the marketer to focus resources for results. In a perfect world, if the B2B marketer could identify a segment “perfectly” then she could sell to each organization in that segment with a very short sales cycle.
Instead of the at least 9 touch points before purchase- perhaps the touch points might be just two or three and instead of the sales process going on for 12 months with an uncertain outcome; sales would close in less than 3 months.
Since the marketers understanding of the market is always a work-in-progress, we suggest a more modest approach i.e.
Segment your B2B market very very narrowly and then target for a 50% conversion at one third your typical sales cycle time. Ignore other prospects not in your target segment- unless they are beating down your door for your product
Here are some reasons to try this approach:
- B2B Markets have buying centers: The B2B buying process is all about group decision making that can be painfully slow and complex. Focusing only on a select set of prospects that have certain common criteria makes your sales and marketing pitch and process easier. Remember that the idea of segmentation is to bunch “similar’ types of customers together so that your entire offering viz product,price, distribution and advertising can be geared to to that segment…. only. For new products you need to account for the characteristics of “early adopters” for your category for quicker diffusion of your innovation.
- You have limited marketing resources: No organization has endless funds for limit-less advertising, sales promotion or sales force. Your limited marketing resources must focus only on a few prospects that are the best prospects or “super” qualified leads.
- Identifying target B2B segments is easy in the digital age: If your market organizations have a website and web presence, researching them is far easier today. Let us say that there are 5500 prospective customers and you believe that only 500 might immediately benefit by adopting your product or service. Creating a list, using your criteria is relatively easy and then ordering that list by “best” prospect is also easy from public sources.
- Focusing on 500 prospects than 5500 can change your marketing game: Instead of spreading thin with 5500 prospects focusing on just 500 “hot” prospects makes your marketing task that much easier.
- Marketing content becomes easy to tailor: Both online and offline marketing content is far easier to tailor for 500 immediate prospects that 5500 diffuse prospects that might eventually all buy your product.
” We will loose out on 5000 customers” is something that you might agonize over
Not at all because, its just a time bound program for those 500 without the temptation of chasing the other 5000 unless they come knocking. Sounds like a sacrifice but we assure you that it makes good marketing sense for high velocity B2B marketing.
The question is – can you resist the temptation of going after 5500 customers instead of the most easily possible 500? About StratoServe Digital Marketing Services.