Needs Based Marketing

This approach borrows from marketing for disruptive innovation. Christensen (see references below) talks about a “jobs to be done” approach that focuses on helping customers solve their problems in order for them to get a job done.

Marketing is trying to get your potential Customers to think about your products or services when they need it. At the point in time when a customer needs something that you can help them with, you want them to know about you, how you can help them and for their trust to be strong enough that they will call on you or your product for help. Think of big brand advertising like Coca-Cola (refreshment) and Michelin (safety) – these companies and their marketing focuses on Customer needs and events.

Instead of focusing on all the great features of YOUR product, your marketing should focus on the Customer’s problem or need and that EVENT in their life where your product can help them.

Each and every meeting or call gives you a change to discover needs or potential future needs of your Customer for your services. Try thinking about the event when they might need your help – this will help you work out how to target that event so that when the time comes, you have already sown the seed for the customer to think of you or your product. These meetings also give your Customer an opportunity to develop an appreciation and trust of how you can help them. Make the most of their time and remember, it’s all about helping the Customer.

Reference: “Six Keys to Building New Markets by Unleashing Disruptive Innovation”, Clayton M. Christensen, Michael E. Raynor, and Scott D. Anthony, March 10, 2003, http://hbswk.hbs.edu/cgi-bin/print?id=3374.

Craig Hansom. 21 July 2009.

Cold Calling an existing Customer

Do you cold-call? I think there is better use of a salesperson’s time, but sometimes it’s the only way. What about cold calling an existing customer?

“WHAT?” I hear you say, “that doesn’t make sense. Why would you cold-call someone you already know?”.

I was speaking to a customer recently who was telling me how they were being called by a very large, multi-national supplier. They were asking questions like “what products do you use?” and “how big is your organisation?”. The problem was that this large, multi-national company was already a supplier to this customer. It left the customer feeling confused and abused – Why were they asking questions they should already know the answers to? Where was the usual contact person?

Why would you do this to a customer? It seems like a case of one part of the organisation not talking to the other – maybe a remote marketing department not talking to the local office? This is lunacy. The large multi-national supplier would almost definitely have a CRM system. It begs the question: are they not using it or did someone just decide to do their own thing?

In a world where customers are looking for better engagement and a more holistic approach to service delivery, you can’t afford to waste their time and risk alienating them by doing something so stupid. What are the lessons?

• Use your CRM and the data in it.
• Have a single point of contact or at least co-ordinate your customer contact.
• Make sure all your “customer facing” staff know the rules of engagement.

Enough said.

Craig Hansom. 6 June 2009.

Marketing in an Economic Downturn

Things are tough. A lot of organisations are struggling. Sales are down and profits are tight. But there is hope. People and Businesses are still spending money. They might be more selective, but there is still activity. The challenge is to target those customers that have got money to spend.

Now is not the time to stop marketing and cut your sales effort. Now is the time to ensure that your sales and marketing resources are being maximised. In the good times, sales and marketing was relatively easy. If you had a reasonable product or service and got a few good customers and referrals, then customers came to you. Now you need to work harder. You need to work to find and retain customers. But don’t just work harder – work smarter!

So, how do you maximise your sales and marketing spend?

The first objective is to look after your existing customers. Do you know who you key customers are? Make sure you don’t lose them to a competitor who undercuts you with a better product, service, price or after-sales service. You need to nurture your relationship and make sure you are meeting their changing needs. How is your customer hurting? How can your product or service change to help them? What other products or services do you offer that they could use right now?

While we are talking about existing customers, ask yourself this – how loyal are they? You should be trying to make your customers loyal rather than just satisfied. Do you exceed their expectations? Do you elicit a “wow” response? Working with your customers and trying to help them through these tough times will certainly help.

The second objective is to look for new prospective customers, new opportunities. But I wouldn’t recommend just pulling out the telephone directory and cold calling just yet. This is where a little bit of strategy and doing a situation analysis will save you a lot of wasted effort and time. Start with analysing your existing and past customers. This is where a CRM system comes in handy, but if you don’t have a traditional CRM tool, don’t despair – you are likely to have the data you need in other systems, such as your finance system or even files and emails. What you are looking for is groups of customers or product purchases that will help you determine where to spend your sales effort. You might discover some of your customers in a particular market segment are still spending – how can you target other prospects or past customers in that same segment? Or maybe a particular product or service is doing well – what other customers might be interested? While you are doing this analysis, consider which opportunities are most likely to pay off. Focusing on the high probability, short sales cycle opportunities will start filling your pipeline now. Try and get some quick wins on the board that will then give you more time to focus on the longer term deals. While you are analysing your data, if you can acquire metrics such as sales per customer and even sales per call, this can help you focus on getting the best result for your marketing spend.

If you get it right, not only will your organisation ride out the storm, but you might even prosper. The ultimate reward for getting your sales and marketing right now is to increase your market share and then be ahead of your competitors once the market recovers. Depending on what business you are in, this might be sooner than you think. Well, that’s what I hope.

Craig Hansom. 16 May 2009.