Editorial
The Gist
- Customer focus. Effective marketing prioritizes solving customer's problems over promoting innovation.
- Credibility matters. B2B buyers trust companies with proven records and relatable product stories.
- Authentic testimonials. Sharing real customer experiences enhances brand trust and drives sales.
In technology marketing, everyone wants to be seen as bleeding edge, next generation, revolutionary — the list goes on. The reality is, most aren’t. And, for the most part, it doesn’t matter anyway.
Why? Because, if you really want to pique your audiences' interests, your marketing should be about them first and you second (and quite a distant second at that).
And your customers don’t much care that you’re revolutionary. The harsh reality is that they only care that you have something that can help solve their very specific, very pressing problems — the ones that are wasting time and hemorrhaging money.
Ultimately, for most buyers, it’s enough that what you have to offer can fix your customers’ real-world pain points.
Related Article: Generative AI for Email Personalization: A Hallucination Wrapped in Confusion
Don't Hype Your Marketing Tech Innovation Story
There’s another issue at play here, which is this: In the world of B2B, being the first at anything can actually be a disadvantage, especially if you’re selling into risk averse industries or large enterprise customers. The don’t buy v1.0 of anything rule still applies for many.
Of course, you won’t want to abandon your innovation story altogether. But it can be more effective to root it in the world customers know than one you made up at your last offsite. So rather than being “a new paradigm for customer interaction,” be “a CRM that uses AI to remove the data hygiene burden from salespeople.”
The reality is, a company with an easy-to-understand product and a track record of being trusted by named industry peers will almost always beat a startup that’s come out of nowhere with a shiny never-before-seen offering.
Remember that B2B sales are quite different from B2C. With low-cost software as a service (SaaS) subscriptions to small business customers an obvious exception, sales tend to be in the five- or six-figure range. They can also be incredibly disruptive to the company that’s buying. So, they’ll want to make absolutely sure you’re worth the cost and upheaval.
Those involved in buying decisions — which could be several different people on various rungs of the ladder — stake their reputations, and sometimes their jobs, on buying your products and services. There can be major consequences for them if it doesn’t work out.
This is certainly not helped by the constant stream of bad news around businesses struggling in the economic downturn. Ground zero for this is the tech sector. While it may not matter to customers if Microsoft or Google cut people, when an early stage company does the same it can result in a big flashing warning light for customers.
Plus, audiences today are naturally skeptical. Bombarded with ads and content promising all manner of quick fixes, they are hardwired to mistrust bold claims about a bright new future. Especially if they can see that the company making the claims just happens to have a product to make them a reality.
Related Article: SaaS Is in Style: Here’s How to Collaborate With Confidence
Focus on Customer Pain Points
Turn the hype down (in fact, put it on mute). Focus on customers and their pain points — first, last, and always. Get real.
Feature customers prominently in your content. Co-host webinars with them and feature them on podcasts. Film customers talking about the challenges you helped them with (and don’t be afraid to talk specifically about the parts of the process that may have been tricky). Ultimately, show you understand what it’s like to be them and what really matters in their worlds.
There’s huge value in doing this. The brand that’s seen as closest to the customer generally wins. They are likely to see shorter sales cycles and convert at higher rates. And they find it easier to recruit customers to be references.
You’ll also learn from the experience. It’ll help you take an outside-in view of your brand and business. What words and phrases do they use when describing your product? What are the real problems you remedy? How are you different than your competitors?
These will inform how you position yourself and will sharpen your brand messaging.
Another good reason to collect views from others is because buyers today want, and expect, to see them. In a recent survey by Considered Content, some 28% of B2B buyers said they want to be able to view testimonials, case studies and reviews from named businesses — but only 9% of marketers offered this on their sites. Similarly, 27% of buyers want to be able to access references from existing users they can contact directly, but just 5% of marketers offer this.
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Truth is, no one likes a hard sell — and there’s nothing soft about overblown hype. Dial it down in your marketing, and you’re likely to dial up your effectiveness.
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