This is my list of new marketing and selling truisms for B2B selling organizations. They provide context for most of our services and writing.
I post them prominently here so as to not have to repeat them in any conversation or material I create. If you agree with these truisms, please join the conversation. If you have additional, please help me grow a comprehensive list. Thanks to those who have provided suggestions, some of which I’ve added.
- Buyers are more in control of the B2B buying process than ever before.
- For buyers, all sellers look and sound alike. Products and services appear undifferentiated. Therefore, the way we sell is a critical area of differentiation and value add.
- The Internet changes everything, by providing instant access to virtually unlimited information.
- This requires new ways of thinking about marketing and sales, as well as new processes, skills, resources and investments.
- “It’s not about the bike!” It takes more than technology to achieve outcomes, especially strategy, skills, process and content.
- Content is the new currency for marketing and sales.
- The goal of content marketing is to provide the right person with the right content in the right media at the right moment in time. That requires a new approach to content.
- Content must help customers with their buying process by addressing their questions and issues, which are not addressed by vendor product features and functions.
- Content must be relevant, remarkable, timely and convenient to be appreciated by buyers who are inundated with information and have limited time and attention.
- Content must meet and optimize 10 new criteria:
Quality — Useful, insight based
Speed — Time to create, timely, NOW, real-time, constant stream, people time
Cost – Time effort dollars, resource skill level required, lower costs, manage costs, efficiency, impact of scale on
Relevance: Context, personal, situational, versions
Availability – Coverage based on use case requirements
Channels and Formats — Channels, consumer preferences, multimedia content
Foreign languages – Localization
Scale – Volume; critical mass (for relevance, versions, formats, purposes and use cases)
Share & Re-use – Re-purpose, edit, configure, package
Maintain – Update, extend useful life of assets, design to
This 3 minute video will further explain these new marketing and selling truisms: