A partner at the consultancy where I started my career, once taught me something valuable, as they occasionally do.
Set up barriers and rules for yourself as a means to drive creativity
This is for example the principle of the Dogma 95 movement in movie making or haiku poetry in lyricism.
Limitations to force new thinking and creativity.
In modern marketing there is an urgent need to get creative about how a company engages with its target audience. In a world where there’s a war for attention, and traditional marketing methods are being ignored, the B2B marketing department needs constant new thinking.
Here are the 3 dogmas that we urge our clients to set up for themselves to successfully engage with potential buyers.
Print these and hang them up in your commercail department
#1: WE ARE NOT ALLOWED TO TALK ABOUT OURSELF AND OUR SERVICES
#2: WE GIVE AND NEVER ASK FOR MORE THAN WE HAVE GIVEN
#3: WE FAIL WITH CREATIVITY AND LEARN SYSTEMATICALLY
MARKETING DOGMA #1: NO TALK ABOUT OURSELF AND OUR SERVICES
A cardinal rule of B2B sales is that you always meet the buyer, where the buyer is in the buying process. If the buyer is in the early stages of the buying process, your products and services are not top of mind. Attention is on identifying potential problems to focus resources towards and defining needs to address said pain.
If your content and messages at the early stages of the buying process is all about you and your solution you are not meeting the buyer where the buyer is. You should be focused on helping them understand potential pains to address and what needs they have to address the pain with a solution.
The first rule you set up (PRINT IT AND SET IT UP IN YOUR MARKETING DEPARTMENT!)
#1: WE ARE NOT ALLOWED TO TALK ABOUT OURSELF AND OUR SERVICES
Engage with your target audience about something they are interested in and that is helpful to them. If you deliver value they will engage with you when they move forward in the buying process to define solution
MARKETING DOGMA #2: GIVE AND DON’T ASK FOR MORE THAN YOU HAVE GIVEN
A typical problem in B2B marketing and sales is that we are so eager to move the customer forward in the buying process that we force our (sales) process upon the potential buyer instead of helping them move forward in theirs.
You will see this on many B2B websites (perhaps even your own?), that the call to action on blog posts is “contact [sales person X] on telephone or write an email to learn more”.
How many people do you think will call us or write us an email immediately after reading this posts?
It’s like the telemarketer who gives you a call out of the blue, without having given you anything of value. It’s inefficient, ineffective and it provides a terrible buying experience.
At first you share an interesting insight (e.g. Did you know that every hour in Europe, €3.8m is spent in B2B, producing marketing content that will never be used by sales?), in exchange for 5 seconds of their time.
That maybe leads them to a blog post where you ask for 3 minutes of their time, in exchange for additional insights on what might be causing this pain
That maybe leads them to an guide on how to address the pain, in exchange for their email address and permission to send helpful material.
Etc. etc. etc.
The second rule you set up (PRINT IT AND SET IT UP IN YOUR MARKETING DEPARTMENT!)
#2: WE GIVE AND NEVER ASK FOR MORE THAN WE HAVE GIVEN
Be generous and have helpful, insightful, engaging content and messages designed for changing levels of attention and interests throughout the lead proces
MARKETING DOGMA #3: TEST AND FAIL TO LEARN AND ADJUST
I’ll let you in on a little secret of the trade. Come closer…. THERE IS NOT SILVER BULLET IN CONTENT MARKETING!! This is why A/B testing exists.
It’s all about setting up continuously setting up inexpensive experiments, test what works the best, learn and make adjustments. THIS IS THE SILVER BULLET to growing your return on marketing investment.
This is also the exciting part about modern marketing and digital demand creation! You get to be creative in how you engage with the target audience and you now have digital tools that enable you to test and track what works the best.
Creativity and system in perfect harmony.
The third rule you set up (PRINT IT AND…!)
#3: WE FAIL WITH CREATIVITY AND LEARN SYSTEMATICALLY
Dare to play with content, format and distribution but be structured in how learn from your experiments to constantly stay ahead of the game.
