Avoid "Mad Barketing" by Answering These Questions
Question: Are you "Mad Barketing"?
Answer: The answer is yes, if you "talk at" instead of "communicate with" your customers. We call this "Mad Barketing", and define it as the continual process of shouting at the market and your customers without offering something valuable in return.
Sure, you use brochures, direct mail, general advertising, web sites, co-op marketing, events, e-marketing, sales tool support, etc., but do these connect you with your customers in a relevant way?
The harsh reality: Your company is relevant, if and only if, your customers can MEASURE the value you provide for them. Want to keep your business growing? Ask yourself – and your employees, customers, ad agency, and consultants – the following five questions to avoid "Mad Barketing":
- How often do you talk with customers? If it's not every week, change it. Communication is about interaction. Keep up the dialogue and ask about the good and the not so. Customers are your bottom line. Use sales dead time to reconnect and continually educate.
- How do you measure success? Widgets sold? Number of installations? Components shipped? No doubt, charting these performance metrics are vital to optimize your business. However, in b2b, we think that businesses buy results and therefore recommend that you take your success measurements to the next level -- assess the impact you made on your customer's top or bottom-line. Measure it! Try to quantify the intangibles and emotive impact.
- Still advertising? Take a serious look at your media investment. How does it educate your audience? Is it driving opportunity for dialogue? Focus your time and money on sharing your knowledge through invention, events, partnerships and other 'in the market' activities. See #2. If you provide results that your customers can measure and value, they will tell others and help you enter new markets. Work with your agency to enable or enhance this activity.
- Are you the expert? Listen to and offer advice to anyone who calls. Share your expertise via speaking, writing articles and distributing a newsletter. Be known for what you know, not just what you sell. Get help if you don't write or speak with an edge.
- Do your sales and marketing teams, and your marketing services provider, push you? If they don't regularly challenge, pester or just tick you off, you're not getting your money's worth. Invite, appreciate and value an outsider's perspective. Remember, your customers reside outside your organization, too.
Ask these five questions. Now. Then repeat. Often.
Got Feedback? We'd love to hear it! Send us an email at feedback@rurelevant.com.
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