About B2C marketing in simple words. "Winning B2B Marketing": Key Ideas from Christopher Ryan's Bestseller

B2 Bmarketing, otherwise called industrial marketing, as a process of managing production and marketing activities, takes place in the market for industrial goods. I.e B2 Bmarketing deals with those goods that are sold by a company or entrepreneur not to the final consumer for personal consumption, but to other entrepreneurs for further use in business. B2B marketing accompanies the product throughout all stages of its life: from the moment a new product is created to its full consumption (destruction, recycling, etc.). Therefore, industrial B2B marketing is very closely related to the company's strategy, and interacts more closely than B2C marketing with direct production, engineering and inventory management. B2B marketing implies, especially Russian conditions, the emergence of a special relationship between the seller and the buyer.

Since the market for industrial goods is a specific market, and only in some of its features is similar to the ordinary market, B2 Bmarketing also differs from marketing in the general sense. Some generally deny the need for marketing in the B2B market, but this is an erroneous opinion: a competent B2 Bmarketing is able to provide the company with victory in competition for the buyer, to see new prospects for the production of goods and the scope of its use, to study the needs and expectations of consumers of the company's products, to obtain comprehensive information about competing companies on the market and their offers. Having this information, the company can build its work and conduct an advertising campaign, taking into account the specific expectations of the market, and, depending on the offers of competitors, place the necessary emphasis on useful characteristics your product. B2 Bmarketing, forming a unique commercial offer, helps consumers navigate among the mass of similar offers of goods and services on the industrial market, to see and highlight the specific offer of a particular company, ideally suited to the existing needs and needs of the buyer enterprise. Thus, one can call B2 Bmarketing the art of creating competitive advantage in the industrial market.

At the same time, today it is becoming more and more noticeable that dry rationalization is giving way to creativity in matters of branding, while before B2 Bmarketing focused only on the rational component. Customers in the B2B segment today are well informed about the characteristics and capabilities of goods and services, which is why the role of the seller's image and reputation has increased so much. Preliminary monitoring of suppliers, carried out by many companies before closing a deal, is now a fairly common practice. This is why B2B marketing tools should include promotional techniques such as unique trade offer, availability of technical justifications, competence centers, after-sales service, etc.

Structure and content of the strategic plan.

As marketing evolves from a predominantly marketing activity to a modern concept of marketing, its role in the implementation and development of a development strategy and plans for the current activities of a business organization increases. Of particular importance is that part of M activities that is associated with the strategic planning of the company, with the choice of target segments, with the choice of activities, the range of goods and services.

Strategic decisions of formation and justification, which are based on the use of marketing information and marketing tools, determine the composition and achievable effectiveness of subsequent decisions related both to the area of responsibility of marketing and to other types of main and auxiliary activities of the company, including production, MTS, research and development.

Strategic decisions are based on M and can take a central place in functionally integrated planning, providing a link with the external environment of the business, integrating all relevant information developed in the firm and received from the external environment.

The problems associated with the implementation of marketing planning and its absence lead to the conclusion that the failure of marketing planning is fraught with the appearance of more serious problems for the business, ranging from the loss of the opportunity to increase efficiency to the loss of control over the development of the business.

Well-organized marketing planning is important in order to establish cross-functional interactions and mutual understanding in order to unite the leadership core of the company with a common goal and development path. Strategic marketing planning can bring significant benefits to a company by achieving:

Broad sense of purpose

High degree of employee motivation

Scheme of stages of marketing planning:

Phase 1 - goal setting phase

Phase 2 – overview of the situation

Phase 3 - strategy formation

Phase 4 – Resource Allocation and Monitoring Phase

At the first stage, the company clarifies the strategic goals and conducts a marketing audit, the results of which are summarized and used in the SWOT analysis process. This allows you to identify and evaluate opportunities and threats, analyze the current state of the company.

At the second stage, the marketing goals are clarified, alternative courses of action are compared and formed, and achievable results are evaluated. If the necessary information is available, a comparison of alternatives can be made on the basis of a comparison of costs and benefits using commercial efficiency criteria. In the future, based on the selected option, plans and budgets are developed, which are detailed for the next planning period.

Tools used in the analysis of the marketing system

The strategic marketing plan is part of the company's strategic plan. It covers those aspects of its activities and development that relate to products and services, consumers and markets. Strategic marketing planning has a lot in common with the strategic planning of an organization:

Are used common tools– SWOT-analysis, PEST-analysis, portfolio analysis.

Common tasks are solved

In the process of developing and structuring the plan, only marketing audit and SWOT analysis are singled out as the main tools. They play an integrating role, generalizing the results of using many other tools. Porter's 5 competitive forces analysis and PEST analysis can be used to analyze external opportunities and threats. When studying the internal environment, analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of the organization, gap analysis, value chain analysis can be used. The perfection of the tools used has not yet been brought to a level that would allow automating a significant part of the planning work. Non-automated creative processes remain the basis, including both the individual conditions of the participants and collective discussions. Existing tools make it possible to structure work, increase the efficiency of interaction, and their improvement creates the prerequisites for the creation of human-machine and expert systems, in which only the creative part of the work falls to the lot of a person.

In some cases, when developing a strategic plan or its individual sections, a project approach can be used, which has proven itself as a technology for conducting projects.

MethodologySWOT-analysis

At all stages of developing a strategic marketing plan, models are used that are based on the principles of SWOT analysis. The methodological techniques of SWOT analysis are widely used in strategic planning and management and in related fields. The task of the SWOT analysis is to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the company, as well as the opportunities and threats coming from the external environment. In order to assess the prospects of the company, taking into account their mutual influence. The solution of this problem helps to improve the quality of strategic diagnostics and assessment of the strategic perspective. The SWOT model allows you to assess the position of the company and its strategic perspective based on the ongoing changes in the external environment as a whole. It makes it possible to determine a new alignment of forces in the market under the influence of these changes. Identify strategic priority areas to take advantage of emerging opportunities and prevent emerging threats. The model makes it possible to more reliably assess the competitive position and stability of the company's strategic position:

Better understand the current situation and possible development paths

Capture the dynamics of changes in competition and the position of competing companies

Timely identify favorable prospects for improving the company's position or the threat of loss of competitive advantage

Assess the fit of the organization's existing competencies and resources with its ability to adapt and benefit from the changes that occur in the external environment

Reveal external factors, which can be included in the company's zone of influence, identify favorable zones and zones of potential success, identify potential crisis zones and risk zones

Highlight new priority strategic directions, landmarks, goals and areas of focus.

Currently, the principles of SWOT analysis are applied to qualitative analysis for the purpose of structuring intuitive and expert information, or as part of a more formalized process of strategic analysis. There are 2 classes of SWOT analysis models:

Qualitative analysis models based on intuitive information that allows you to better organize and structure the analysis process

Qualitative and quantitative analysis models using intuitive, expert and calculated information that allow comparative analysis, evaluate the mutual influence of individual factors and obtain generalized, integrated estimates.

The shortcomings of the traditional statistical qualitative approach to conducting SWOT analysis can be compensated by the use of dynamic SWOT analysis models.

These models are aimed at assessing the possible directions of change in the position of the company under the influence of dynamic processes occurring during external environment. As a result, it becomes possible to more reasonably develop strategic alternatives for individual time horizons. An analysis of the current situation of identifying the forces, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that are currently active allows us to get closer to understanding the problem. Dynamic SWOT analysis focuses on the analysis of the dynamics of external changes that can affect the existing strengths and weaknesses of the company. The purpose of a dynamic SWOT analysis is to assess the main opportunities and the main threats for the company and its competitors at the moment in the short and medium term. SWOT analysis also allows you to highlight the distinctive capabilities of the company in comparison with its competitors, taking into account the new market situation in each time period. This makes it possible to understand whether its comparative advantages are increasing or decreasing in the future. Will the alignment of competitive forces in the market change if companies do not take new measures, competitors will implement their projects.

The websites of many B2B companies resemble stands at an industry exhibition: there is some design, there is some information, there is a product, but the client is still eagerly seeking the attention of a manager. Achievement by the client of any goals in automatic mode is simply not provided. This suggests that Internet marketing for the B2B segment is far from effective.
Internet marketing for B2B - dancing with a tambourine. It is clear that sites become dusty showcases with news from the year before last for a simple and understandable reason - B2B products that can be closed using only the site are a rare exception.

The restrictions for this are:

product complexity;
high cost of the transaction;
multi-stage decision-making, agreement on the details of the contract;
a long period from the moment the need arises to the purchase;
often an individual approach to pricing;
and a million more real and far-fetched problems.

But if the site does not sell, then what tasks will it perform in Internet marketing for B2B?

Often, when answering this question, they recall “image”, “positioning of the company” and “competitors have”. Sellers add their own catalog of goods and services.

And what other tasks can and should Internet marketing for B2B perform in the context of persuading and retaining a client?

We'll leave the question of attraction target audience to the site beyond the scope of this review and focus on interacting with those visitors who have overcome the unknown path to your resource. Moreover, in relation to B2B business, the issues of search engine optimization, contextual campaigns and attraction through industry platforms are discussed much more often than effective work with traffic.
Internet marketing for B2B - from lead to client. The site is the main springboard for conducting a marketing campaign on the Internet, but Internet marketing is not limited to it.

What goals can and should a B2B company set for Internet marketing?

Getting Leads

The site is a valuable source of replenishment of the client base. Ostap Bender knew 400 relatively honest ways to take money from the population. We offer you the TOP 5 (in fact there are more) absolutely honest opportunities to convince a site visitor to leave his e-mail:

mailing list subscription form;
the form feedback(this category also includes possible reviews, comments, questions);
calculation of the project with the subsequent sending of the results by e-mail;
document request form (give the visitor the necessary and useful content by requesting information about it in exchange);
registration form (offer registered users additional options).

How well the site copes with the task of obtaining leads can and should be constantly analyzed and tested, looking for ways to increase conversion and immediately implement them. Changes in the size or color of the button, the number of fields to fill in and their width can increase the conversion by tens of percent.

Lead heating

The second important task of online marketing for B2B is to get the lead into a hot state.

So, the nets are set, the leads are caught, what's next? Automatically transfer the entire database received to the sales department and let them separate the wheat from the chaff there? No, it's inefficient.

Of course, it will be better if managers enter into negotiations when the client is already ready to discuss the satisfaction of his need with the help of a product sold by the company. But what if we caught a cold lead? Heat.

Building a long-term relationship with a client involves a certain level of trust that can be achieved with internet marketing tools. The client gradually gets acquainted with the company, learns about its services, service, receives useful information.

The selection of points of contact with the client and specific tools of persuasion depends on the specifics of the business. It can be:
Website. The more complex the product you offer, the more information the customer will need to make a decision. Your client must have a comprehensive understanding of the company, products, service. Moreover, he must convincingly talk about the benefits of your proposal to colleagues and partners on whom the decision depends.

This sets certain requirements for the content on a B2B site - it must be specific, understandable and as capacious as possible. Don't limit yourself to articles, often much greater result can be achieved using infographics, presentations and videos.

Placing useful and well-executed content on the site can cause a viral effect when members of the target audience themselves promote the information they are interested in. Don't forget to include your logo and a link to your site in order to benefit from the distribution of your content.
Email newsletters:

regular information reviews;
autoresponders - chains of letters that are automatically launched when the client meets any conditions;
special letters (promotions, events, surveys).

Blogs. Blogging on professional topics allows you to demonstrate competence, interest the client and engage him in a dialogue. If the content published on the blog really meets the needs of the target audience, the blog becomes an additional source of customer acquisition. Blog materials can be additionally used in email newsletters.

The recipe for success in the difficult business of gaining trust is honesty, professionalism and consistency. The process of generating useful content for the client should be put on a regular basis. It can take a lot of effort to convince a company to take the time to write a good article or make a training video. A political decision is needed from the leadership - yes, competitors will see this, this is valuable knowledge, but we will write and share.

But in the end, it works!
Recommendations. When concluding major agreements, one of the most important decision-making criteria is the reputation of the company. The Internet provides your client wide opportunities to collect additional information about your past successes and failures.

An Internet marketing strategy for B2B must necessarily include work with opinions published on the network.

In order to understand how effectively you use all the possibilities of recommendations, answer a few test questions:

In this text, we have covered only some of the aspects of successful Internet marketing for B2B companies. Systematic work in these areas will increase the effectiveness of your Internet marketing and allow you to set up the right networks for your customers. However, in order to build long-term and mutually beneficial relationships with customers, this is not enough.

Traditionally, relationships with existing customers are the responsibility of sales managers, support staff and customer service. What is the problem with this approach?

For the specialists of these departments, the task is secondary and, as a rule, is given "as a load". As a result, initiatives to maintain and develop relationships with customers are not implemented or are implemented on a residual basis.
If dozens of clients are assigned to a sales manager, it is impossible to fully work with each of the employees personally.
In order to effectively manage customer relationships, a unified communication strategy and coordination of activities between the departments involved is necessary. Usually there is a problem with this - employees of various departments act autonomously and inconsistently.
When working with large clients, the tasks of building relationships with client employees are the responsibility of key account managers. However, there are gaps in this approach as well. Firstly, there may be dozens of involved employees on the client side, each of which cannot be worked individually, and secondly, the account manager does not have the marketing competencies required to communicate with clients using various channels.

B2B marketing - attract or retain

It would seem that B2B marketers should pay serious attention to working with existing customers and work closely with sales and customer service departments. However, the reality is that in most companies, the marketing department has little to no involvement in the customer experience. This situation is the result of a number of systemic causes and subjective circumstances. Let's take a closer look at them.

Unbalanced motivation system. Often, the KPI system for marketers is built in such a way that priority is given to attracting new customers, and repeat sales are considered as something taken for granted or as the responsibility of sellers. According to surveys, the effectiveness of the marketing department is primarily measured by the number of new leads and potential deals, bypassing the effectiveness of working with existing customers. As a result, most of the marketing budget is spent on attracting new customers and strengthening the brand - advertising, PR, exhibitions, corporate sponsorship. The marketing costs of working with existing customers are not comparable to the costs of attracting new customers.
Lack of mature processes and integration between departments. Dealing with existing customers is challenging and requires customer relationship management processes to coordinate sales, marketing, and customer service. For many companies, this is becoming one of the key obstacles to building effective CRM processes.

All over the world, B2B marketing is undergoing a phase of active transformation. Its role is greatly enhanced. The emergence of concepts such as account-based management (ABM) is seriously influencing approaches to attracting and retaining B2B customers, providing active management of customer relationships - from the lead generation stage to after-sales service.

Such a breakthrough is largely associated with the emergence of new tools and concepts. Let's consider the most important of them.

CRM system

Marketing Automation

Marketing automation is new paradigm managing marketing activities using all available channels of communication with customers. Marketers can implement automated scenarios for working with each employee of a client organization based on dynamic segmentation and analysis of its activity. This allows you to significantly reduce the burden on sales managers, "warm up" interest in the company's solutions, increase the loyalty of customer employees and stimulate sales.

Depending on the software automation tools can be very different. In the context of working with existing clients, first of all, opportunities for managing client base. We single out three main functions that are most in demand in the context of CRM processes.

Segmentation bases based on predefined criteria and interaction history for maximum personalization of interaction with customers.

Scoring(Scoring) - a quantitative assessment of the client in terms of his interests. Depends on the profile, activity on the company's website and many other parameters. Scoring allows you to identify the needs and areas of interest of customers, their willingness to make a deal, their tendency to churn, etc.

Formation of interest(Nurturing) - the process of forming and developing the interest of a company representative through content marketing, mailing lists, SMM, marketing campaigns.

With the passage of time and the expansion of the horizons of management and the scale of the company, everything more features business development is transferred to managers. However, in order to take full advantage of the available opportunities, see new horizons, identify and eliminate bottlenecks in a product or service, you need a marketer who will thoughtfully, professionally and purposefully manage these issues.

What to pay attention to? How to approach setting up a marketing service? How to combine it with a commercial service and provide support for strategic issues? There are many questions. And, as practice shows, there can be several answers.

How to define marketing?

It all depends on the medium-term goals of the company. Define goals, choose features, and build your marketing brick by brick. The definition of marketing can be used as a starting point.

Marketing is a skill look at everything through the eyes of the client,
(marketing ability)
to prepare the customer for the purchase,
(practical task)
to minimize sales efforts.
(practical purpose)
Peter Drucker.

When can we expect the first results from b2b marketing?

A common situation: the customer, having invested money, expects an immediate effect. However, almost all marketing activities have a delayed effect. This is especially true for B2B markets.

The project, which managed to achieve a sales growth of 300% (an increase in market share from about 20% to 60%), was implemented within 9 months. It was a market for sausages, where the production cycle is short, the product is popular and bought with enviable regularity.

The first results and the first tangible growth began 6 months after the start of work. A team of highly qualified specialists worked on the project. A commercial service was created, a full-fledged marketing service, the assortment was almost completely changed, serious work was carried out to improve quality, a constant dialogue was maintained with retail chains, and a set of promotion measures was implemented.

It makes sense to talk about the first results that can be calculated after at least 6 months from the start of work.

It is very important for a manufacturer to approach marketing systematically, consistently and purposefully.

Only the system gives good results. The use of any separate "piecewise" measures does not solve the tasks. The marketing function is an investment in the future of the company.

The role and functions of b2b marketing. We assess needs and form a marketing service

Marketing in the enterprise, on the one hand, supports a number of strategic functions, on the other hand, it forms an environment for making purchases.

Directions of the strategic contour requiring marketing support:

The company decides on further development. This can be both the development of a medium-term development strategy and the assessment of possible strategic alternatives.
The company is considering the possibility of developing and launching a new product(technologically new product).
The company is considering entering a new geographically remote market, which requires some modifications in the proposal.
Companies need to work on innovation: collection and evaluation of ideas, development and launch. This may apply to both new projects and improvements in the current business.

The possibility of implementing at least one of the indicated areas requires the inclusion of a marketing analyst on the staff (read about end-to-end analytics in b2b and dealer networks).

Strategic and operational contours of marketing In addition, it is important to provide feedback to customers on a regular basis when the marketing specialist / product manager makes several calls / visits to the client: upon purchase, after a month from the start of operation, after 6 months from the date of purchase.

This kind of interaction and surveys play a huge role in working on quality and, as practice shows, they can often open up new markets, niches, additional services, or the need to strengthen purchase support (additional training, customer equipment diagnostics, etc.). Providing feedback allows you to receive objective information on quality and compare your positions with those of competitors. Marketing in a b2b enterprise is inextricably linked with sales. He, using various tools, shapes, maintains and actively develops the shopping environment.

Relationship between sales and marketing

Marketer functionality

In addition to the tasks of the strategic contour listed above, there are also works on regular monitoring of competitors, and this, together with feedback, analytics and strategic research, is a full-fledged functionality for a specialist in an industrial enterprise of a medium-sized business. If a company combines several businesses or products that are very different from each other in properties, several high-level product managers will be needed.

In addition to product management and analytics, there are several more important functional blocks:

Writing articles, preparing content for social networks and thematic sites

This block of work requires a writing specialist, from whose pen come out catchy texts and headlines, who can write articles on order in half an hour and on any topic. In this case, the existing ties are less important: this issue is resolved quite quickly, as well as work in in social networks. Other equal conditions in this matter, the priority is the ability to write texts. This block can be subcontracted to a freelancer or a company that deals with complex promotion on the Internet (not only SEO and contextual advertising, but also PR).

Website: content, seo, usability, etc.

This is a significant block of work, in which the accumulated experience plays a key role, and not talent, as in the first case. The site needs constant attention. Content and usability need to be constantly worked on. SEO is one of the areas of marketing where the first high-quality results will be visible only after 6 months. This block of work is optimally outsourced to a specialized company.

Exhibitions, conferences, print media and other functions of "traditional» marketers.

This is a separate unit that is available at all enterprises without exception.

Call center.

A unit that every enterprise needs, which needs to be formed and which will conduct customer surveys, make cold calls, and collect feedback information.

What might it look like organizational structure marketing

How to approach the search for a specialist? Is it necessary to combine the incompatible?

When compiling a list of requirements and preparing a work plan for a specialist, it is necessary to take into account the company's medium-term goals in the market (for 3-5 years).

Are key people in your company aware of these goals?

If important development, analytics and support - take a person with work experience and give the design to a specialized company.
If need a design - look for a specialist with a design education and portfolio. A designer and a marketer are completely different people.

Typically, the average marketer makes bad layouts, doesn't know how to organize a sales conference, can't handle writing a flashy article, and most likely won't help with analytics. This is an assistant who will carry out small assignments and solve minor organizational issues.

What is a good specialist with experience?

Very often, the choice of a marketing specialist is approached from the standpoint of assessing his theoretical knowledge in the field of marketing. However, matrices, schemes are just author's descriptions of possible approaches to assessing enterprises/markets/situations. They are relevant and important, but given the specific situation and specific market, so it's important to define "your" set of tools for the job. To determine the direction of business development, a competent marketer needs time to get to know the company - about a month.

During this time, a highly qualified specialist can:

Carefully analyze the sales of the company.

Seasonality, growth dynamics, assortment structure, dynamics in segments, regions, dynamics in channels, bounce statistics, average sales, main customer, average sales frequency, what ABC looks like and a number of other indicators. The set may vary from industry to industry. In FMCG, these indicators are called differently, but the essence is the same: you need to understand what the company earns and what it loses.

Analyze in detail the effectiveness of promotional activities.

Website, Internet promotion, conferences, exhibitions, etc., as well as websites and events to promote the closest competitors.

How to develop a website for a b2b company using a systematic approach, read.

Chat and get to know all the top managers, get acquainted with their vision of the situation.

Communicate with major clients of the company, and also (preferably) with key customers of competitors.

The sequence is important here: first communication with management, then with customers.

Gather detailed information on the Internet and other sources of information.

Prepare a detailed and short analysis.

Formulate approaches to the implementation of the tasks and work plan.

Thus, you will get an objective picture, and perhaps some of your conclusions will change. Expert opinions and the objective situation often differ.

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Bottom line: about marketing for b2b mid-sized enterprises

It is important to remember about setting up marketing in a b2b enterprise:

Marketing is created for the real goals and objectives of the company

It is extremely important that they are understood equally by all employees. If your company faces the task of active growth, development of new markets, then you need a serious specialist, an analyst-strategist.

Almost every company needs a “marketing minimum”

Marketing Specialist (feedback functions, site work control and analytics) + exhibition/advertising/events specialist.

Part of the work is optimally outsourced to professionals

For example, the development of design layouts, promotion in the network. The first direction requires highly specialized experience, knowledge and taste, the second requires experience and developed work skills. As a rule, complex promotion on the Internet is the work of a team of specialists in narrow areas.

Feedback on the fact of sales - good tool

It allows you to optimize the service, product quality, receive objective information on the market. This is no less important than the timely and high-quality preparation for exhibitions, as well as the production of printed materials.

You Can't Expect Miracles from Marketing

In B2B, the “shortest” tool in terms of time is direct sales. Customers who come through marketing channels need more time. stable and good result will be visible in 9-12 months, the first results will appear in 6 months.

How to develop a systemic email marketing strategy for a b2b company, read.

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