B2B Marketing: Both Easier and Harder Than Before
It is harder to do marketing and new business development these days.
You might be asking: “Where to start? My competitors are killing me. They are everywhere—Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, emails, blogs, YouTube, being constantly featured in media and trade publications, and are speaking at most industry events.”
You might even continue: “They have created a very dominant digital presence and have emerged as ‘the’ go-to player in the marketplace.’ As the market is tightening and revenue inflow is projected to decline due to the economic uncertainty, I don’t have enough marketing resources to earmark for gaining back my foothold.”
…But marketing has also become easier than ever. You might say: “It is easier to do marketing these days. New technologies and tools are virtually free and allow us to work from anywhere and anytime. The cost of software, email tools and social media channels are all either free or available at little cost. I have tons of information, research, databases and access to executives and companies at my fingertips.
So much information, data and research are now available to me and my team, but the overwhelming flow of data, however, is distracting me and is not allowing me to focus. I feel I don’t have time to digest all this information.”
How Do We Go Forward?
If you’re facing these twin challenges, you’re not alone. We’re living in a new, rapidly-evolving business environment. Technology and changing marketplace are bringing new challenges and uncertainty in the marketplace—no matter what industry you are in.
It is always a good time to be thinking about marketing and business development plans. I am sure you have noticed that your customers have also changed in some fundamental ways. They are less able and less willing to spend money than before, according to a report in Harvard Business School’s Working Knowledge. Companies need to re-engage with their customers more than ever now. Times have changed, and so have our business and our Business-to-Business (B2B) customers.
These times also call for a new thinking in marketing and business development, where we need to focus on four fundamental strategies:
- Ruling our technology
- Managing our decisions
- Managing our focus
- Managing our energy and resources wisely
“Extraordinary productivity is not just about time management, it is about managing your decisions, attention, and energy,” says Leigh Stevens, author of “The 5 Choices: Achieving Extraordinary Productivity Without Getting Buried Alive.”
At the Precise Marketing, we help our clients with how to re-engage their customers, expand their digital footprint and connect with customers one-by-one effectively, using an integrated marketing platform that integrates PR, marketing, social media, digital engagement/advertising and meaningful events both online and offline.
Technology and automation make our marketing and business development for clients fun, cost-effective and efficient.
(Upendra Mishra is the founder of Precise Marketing, an integrated marketing and business development company, whose four-step process—(1) Customer Identification and database creation, (2) Direct Engagement with prospects, (3) Multimedia Content creation, and (4) Targeted Media placement—has become a proven and revenue-driven marketing strategy. He writes about marketing, business development, mythology and gardening. You can reach him at Marketing@MishraGroup.com or visit our contact page.)
