This article s provided by ZenithRise Group, a technology marketing agency in California, with technology clients around the country.
While efficiencies are the outcome of technology, taking an efficiency based approach to your marketing is highly inefficient. It makes your target feel that you don’t understand the challenges and pressures they face in making that purchase decision.
And as we all know, even within B2B, technology purchase decisions are made by people. And 95% of our purchase decisions are directed by subconscious mental processes according to Forbes. Purchasers are real people that have functional needs that are based on pain points and there are inevitably emotional reactions to these pain points (e.g. the frustration of having a custom-coded lead platform fail for the 15th time without recourse).
So time invested in an understanding first will enable efficiency down the line. This understanding means among others:
- Detailed audience archetypes. Go beyond demographics to understand their roles, challenges, goals, preferred information sources, and decision-making processes. With each aspect of their responsibilities, what is my target thinking? What are they feeling? How will my solution help? This may involve shadowing a target or engaging in a real-time exercise to map thought patterns and emotions with specific instances.
- Detailed customer journeys. What are the stages of the funnel? What sources of information does my target use? What media is associated with those information sources? What information gaps do they have? What is running through their head and heart at this time? Which influencers do they consult? Which parties are they accountable to? Have I taken into account their functional and emotional needs? You can see – a complex mapping exercise that must be considered to understand the message we need to convey.
- A focus on solutions and not on specifications. Tech audiences, whether B2B or B2C, are looking for how your technology solves their specific problems, improves efficiency, or enhances their lives. Your target’s stakeholders will care less about the specs and more about how those specs impact the user experience. Specs are only relevant if they are translate into tangible benefits for your target and their stakeholders.
Once you understand the above, you can develop the message and determine how to distribute it. And with digital channels especially, you will see the marketing efficiency systematically unfold.
