Sell Solutions Not Products
Originally published in Credit Union Business
B2B Advertising
When it comes to marketing to the small business market, credit unions are faced with a new dilemma. The traditional marketing-to-the-masses approach they typically employ is often lost in the B2B sphere. Gaining brand awareness and preference is a whole new ballgame in the small business market. Learn how your CU can throw the right pitch.
By Lin Grensing-Pophal
Credit unions reaching out to small business market are entering new territory in a number of respects, not least of which is: “How do we advertise to this market segment?” Consumers are different—they literally represent “all of us.” We are all consumers and credit unions can simply market to the masses, to a certain degree, to gain brand awareness and preference.
The business market is different. While some consumers are also small business owners, it can be challenging to ferret oat those segments. In addition, small businesses do not represent a homogeneous group that has the same needs, interests, avocations and “hot buttons.” This distinction can represent challenges to credit unions that are used to doing things a certain way, especially when it comes to advertising. Before getting into the specifics and looking at some advertising best practices in the B2B arena, it’s important to make a critical distinction. Advertising is not marketing. That mantra bears repeating; Advertising is NOT marketing. What’s the difference? The easiest way to think of it is that marketing is the “big bucket” and advertising is an element of marketing that is in the bucket–along with pricing, product development and PR, among other things.
In short, advertising is a very specific subset of marketing that is defined by the American Marketing Association as: “The placement of announcements and persuasive messages in time or space purchased in any of the mass media by business firms, nonprofit organizations, government agencies, and individuals who seek to inform and/or persuade members of a particular target market or audience about their products, services, organizations, or ideas.” Advertising has changed dramatically over the past several years, offering advertisers more options, including virtual options like Websites, banner ads on Websites, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, etc. This drastic transformation can be a very good thing because it offers advertisers many more means of targeting specific market segments. It can also, though, be very confusing and overwhelming. More choices mean more opportunity to make the wrong choice. The key to being most effective with any advertising effort lies more with strategy than with the creation of specific tactics. A compellingly written and beautifully designed advertisement will have little, if any, impact if it is delivered to the wrong audience or conveys the wrong message.
Strategy First
Ray Baird is president of RiechesBaird, a firm that focuses on business-to-business (B2B) marketing strategies. ‘The major difference between B2B and B2C is really the strategic orientation,” says Baird. “When you’re going after the B2B market, the buying decision is considerably different,” he says. The primary difference, of course, is that instead of addressing, typically, one decision maker in a B2C environment, the B2B advertiser involves multiple decision makers. “It’s this joint decision-making process that they have to really develop different strategies for,” says Baird.
This segmentation may also be viewed as a benefit. Curtis Bingham, president of Predictive Consulting Group in Littleton, Mass., says, “The beauty of advertising to B2B is that the market is much more easily segmented and the value that B2B clients demand is significantly more easily discovered.” Focusing on that target audience is key, he says.
“In the consumer market, you can often still guess and find someone with whom your marketing resonates,” says Bingham. “However, with B2B, you have fewer opportunities with a much more discerning audience,” he says. “You need to take the time to ensure that you know who you’re dealing with, what issues they have and how you can help solve their problems,” he says. There are typically four categories of value drivers—or reasons for buying in this arena—he says:
- To increase revenue
- To decrease cost
- To mitigate risk
- To assuage some emotional need
Understanding the B2B audience they’re targeting is critical, he notes, pointing out, “Just like B2C, not all customers are alike, and if you treat them all the same, they ignore you.” Bingham recommends that credit unions segment their audience according to three criteria:
- The value with which they provide you
- The value you provide to them
- Their need for your services
Strategy also involved clearly targeting specific market segments, says Baird. “Are they dealing with start-ups? Is it around size? Around geography? Around individual segments? They need to pick the markets that they want to go after because the language and the messages they use will be different, “ he says.
The Media—and the Message
Messaging is different in B2B than B2C, agrees Scot Kerr, president of Mediaspace Solutions in Norwalk, Conn. That tendency holds true whether the media is print, broadcast or online. “Regardless of the environment in which their ad appears, they have to make sure the headlines and the copy and the images to who they want to reach,” he says.
Successful B2B advertisers, says Kerr, “need to get that advertising message in front of the right people.” Kerr is a big proponent of newspaper advertising, particularly for the B2B market and even more particularly for credit unions.
Companies, in general, should watch where their competition is in terms of its advertising messages, and they should be there too, says Ken. There are other types of vertical business publications that could also have value, he notes. He points our, however, that newspaper is highly utilized by the banking industry - not so much by credit unions. He references a report by TNS Media Intelligence he saw recently that indicated there are more than 5,000 financial institutions that have run ads in newspapers over the last two years. Based on a quick count, he says he found 26 credit unions on the list.
“Credit unions need to work to increase what we call the ’share of voice’ in their competitive area. That will be a huge opportunity for them,” says Ken, particularly if they’re just beginning to advertise to the B2B market.
Banks that have been running the same ads for some time are likely experiencing rmder fatigue with their target prospects simply glossing over those ads, says Kerr. “If a credit union runs an ad, their ad is going to stand out and get attention because people aren’t used to seeing it,” he sap. “We get used to the ads we see month after month and day after day, but when you come into a market with a new message, it’s going to get attention,” he points out.
In addition to print advertising, the opportunities in online communication are huge, says Kerr. “The percentage of people that are using the Internet while they’re at work is growing rapidly and that’s when they’re going to be more susceptible to business messages,” he says.
Baird agrees. “They (CUs) should be developing digital strategies that allow their customers to have really good dialogues with the credit union,” he says.
Patience! Long Sales Cycles
Dealing with small business is not the same as dealing with consumers when it comes to buying decision, Baird stresses. “You’re no longer just selling products. You need to be selling solutions to these business owners because you’re no longer dealing with individual customers; you’re dealing with enterprises.
“They (CUs) need to be patient in terms of their expectations because these business are not going to change their financial services overnight,” he adds.
Baird’s firm uses a process he calls “touch point mapping” to identify the many and varied ways that messages from the advertiser reach the intended targets. “Unlike consumer advertising where you’re trying to develop awareness and perception when dealing in the B2B 9segment0, there can be tends, if not hundreds, of points of communication that need to happen over a period of time to really convince business people to make a major switch in their service providers,” says Baird.
“You may have a direct mail piece, a Website, a seminar, a sales presentation, a proposal—and you need a really developed plan to manage all of those different touch points,” he says. “Communication needs to be constant.”
It may be assumed, but shouldn’t go without saying, that selling credit union services to the small business market required a long sales cycle and careful coordination of all of the individual elements. That way, they come together to create a unified, compelling and ever present message that becomes impossible to ignore.
That synthesis can be a challenge and can place significant burden on in-house staff. While acknowledging that many small credit unions may turn to in-house staff to produce their B2B advertising, those that are able to work with agencies or other creative professionals should look for marketing partners with specific B2B experience, says Kerr.
Baird recommends that credit unions conduct an audit of their advertising communications and devise “a path for their marketing department, probably for the next 24 to 36 months.” What is the growth plan? How many people are needed to serve that plan? “When going after the B2B market, the marketing department needs to look a little different, he says.
Ling Grensing-Pophal, SPHR, has more than 15 years of experience in employee relations and organizational communications. She is the author of several books, including “The HR Book”
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buying solutions » Blog Archive » Sell Solutions Not Products | The B2B Brand Debate on 10 Mar 2009 at 2:17 pm #
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