ABM, targeted advertising, customer-led content, and social selling are hot topics that share a common theme: All are ways to get closer to your customers. Yet most marketers and sellers spend 80 percent of their effort trying to attract and close new opportunities, instead of building lasting relationships with current customers. Cultivating happy and loyal customers means communicating continually, helping them succeed, and empathizing throughout their entire journey—beyond just winning the deal. Laura Ramos looks at why engaging buyers in an empathetic manner leads to customer obsession, and the ability to thrive in this Age of the Customer.

See the presentation slides below:

Session Notes

Courtesy of Karine Bengualid from Brought to you by the Letter K

Marketing content dilemma: we do ______ until our buyers have had enough and put up barriers to avoid us.

It’s all about us… WE WE WE…

Sounds like little French pigs going to the market #B2Bpiggieswenttothemarket

But what if we tried something else? Engaging content on B2B websites will help buyers want to get involved with your brand. Some things to consider:

• B2B buyers prefer to do research online without sales and marketing

• B2B consumers are acting more like B2C consumers

• B2B raise their hand much later in the sales process

• Digital changes the buyer behavior forever

Tips

• Have a customer-centric homepage. Speak to buyers using their own words, like “I need.”

• Use video for your narrative. Show a day in the life.

• Use thought leadership.

• Offer useful tools.

• Ask “which is right for you?” to help with self-diagnosis.

• Allow them to engage on their own terms.

• Understand your customers in depth, and put them first with strategy, budget, and plan.

• Become customer-obsessed. Customer-obsessed marketers are 4x more engaged post-sale and receive 3x more customer advocacy.

• Create case studies or peer stories for people in each industry. People want to know about others like them.

Obsession requires a new mindset that puts the customer at the center, which leads to empathy. Make your content ooze empathy.

• Reinforce customer knowledge. With good marketing you do it over and over again. It helps everyone in the company better understand. And customize it to different departments for what they need to do their jobs.

• Demonstrate that you understand their feelings. If your features sound like everyone else, they won’t stand out. Create an emotional bond and share frustrations and struggles to make it more real.

• Curate and cultivate community. Reward engaged community meetups led by users. This enables marketers to have conversations with the engaged community.

• Turn fans into advocates. Other people want to hear what advocates have to say. Ask for tips and give credit to those who share.

Remember, empathy creates trust.

Trust builds loyalty.

B2B buyers need the information to be useful and trustworthy.

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” – Mark Twain

If you want to be customer-obsessed, start with empathy.

“Marketers spend a lot of their time proving their work not improving their work.” – Laura Ramos

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