Is the Role of Marketing Changing?

Have you tried any prospecting lately, or talked to any potential customers for your products or services? If any of these people do have the problems your products or services solve, have you noticed that they may already know quite a bit about the types of features your solution does offer.

Many savvy B2B purchasers are now able to begin the buying cycle without you. It used to be that when a prospect was in the hunt for a solution to a problem he would call his local sales rep, and have him come over for a chat. In fact, he would probably call three or four different companies and have each of them send over a representative.

As business and sales people, we salivated over this, because this was what we called "low hanging fruit, ripe for the picking". – We always thought, "I have the information, and they need me to find out about the types of solutions I could offer them to solve their problems."

The Internet has changed all of that. Now your prospects can go online and learn almost anything they want to know about all of your products and services, as well as the products and services your competitors offer. This takes away the advantage you may have had before. So what can you do to take back that advantage?

There are a number of things that can help you. That is why marketing has become so important now more than ever, and it will become even more important in the future. You need to have different marketing campaigns that will grab your prospects and want them to come to you first.

Here are five marketing ideas you can pursue to keep your company name constantly in front of your prospects and customers.

  1. Offer them something to prove you understand their business problems. Offer them a free report, a white paper, a webinar; have them sign up for your newsletter, etc. Show them you understand their business, and that you can help them.

  2. Increase the frequency of your communication with your customers and prospects. You should be sending them something of value at least every two weeks. If you aren’t doing this, you can bet at least one of your competitors is doing it.

  3. You should have at least five marketing approaches you are using; Trade Shows, Direct Marketing can include any of the following; Public Email capture, telephone marketing, Webinars, Conference calls. And there are; Focused Advertising, Referrals, Press Releases, Public Relations, and many, many more ways to keep in touch

  4. Ask more questions every time you get a chance. Try and understand your prospect and customer from every angle. Get a 360 degree look at your customer. Then send them an email thanking them and confirming everything you talked about.

  5. Get a third party to interview your present and past customers. These types of interviews yield very positive results for two good reasons.

  • First, your customers are impressed that you would pay someone money to interview them.
  • Secondly, your customer will be more frank and objective with a third party and you will learn more this way.

Always remember to help your customers. Don't pester them and you will be successful.
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