Category Archives: Business to Business Marketing Strategies

Tips for improving your business to business marketing strategies and campaigns.  Learn how to find a market niche, and why having a niche is so important.  There are also posts about finding your ideal client (and why you need that too).  Trying to market to everyone only leaves you “spraying and praying” without actually hitting anything.

These pages also cover common business to business marketing mistakes (made by companies both large and small). If you’ve made one of these, you’ll learn how you can fix the errors you’ve made (and avoid future gaffes).

Need more clients? Or better clients? Check out the posts on lead generation, how to set and negotiate higher fees, and what red flags to look for when prospecting for new work.

Finally, there are posts on creating your brand and your company’s “story.” What you are selling isn’t necessarily what you think.  The way you present your products and services can make a big difference in your results.

What Your Business Marketing Can Learn From The Hope Diamond

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Hope Diamond

Hope Diamond. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Hope Diamond is the most famous diamond in the world.  Its large size (over 45 carats) and deep blue color make it instantly recognizable.

The purported curse doesn’t hurt either.

But what does this have to do with creating a remarkable marketing strategy for your small business?  After all, you’re likely not selling diamonds.

Why this matters for your small business

It’s an only.

It’s the only diamond like it.  And that makes it remarkable, and worth talking about.

Being an  “only” can make you much more successful.  It’s one way of eliminating your competition.

What is an “only” business?

An “only” business is a company that does something unique; a company that offers a product or a service that your competitors can’t easily copy, or copy at all.

It gives your business an edge and helps spread the word about your products and services.  The more unique (or hard to copy) it is, the better.

Only Ivory Soap is “99 3/4% pure.”

Only Zappos lets you return your shoes at any time for any reason, even if they know you’re cheating, and even if you do it repeatedly.

How to be an “only”

Let’s say your firm specializes in ghostwriting guest blog posts.  You’ve got a team of writers standing by to write posts for people who don’t have the time or the skill to do it themselves.

And,  you offer really fast turnaround — you’re the FedEx of blog post ghostwriting. You can tell your customers, and potential customers, that “only Supersonic Ghostwriting offers an overnight blog post service.  Your posts go from our keyboards to your inbox in 24 hours.”

Or, take my friend Phil.  He owns a toy store in Michigan.  Toy stores aren’t all that unusual, but Phil’s is.  For one thing, he offers a toy lending service to local schools.  Teachers can come in and choose from a selection of toys — for free.

His staff carries lists of favorite toys in their pockets, so they can help confused customers make the right selection.  They don’t push the newest toy or the most expensive, instead they recommend the toys that are most appropriate.  His customers know this, and trust him even more for it. (Sometimes, he even sends free toys to his friends; my nephew loves the Matchbox trucks Phil sent me, and guess who’s his favorite aunt).

Be the hope diamond of your industry

It’s what we marketing types call a “unique selling proposition.”  That’s just a fancy way of saying you offer something remarkable that your competition doesn’t (or can’t).

Suddenly, instead of being one of a crowd of writers or toy store owners offering interchangeable products and services, you’re unique.

Now, some homework.  Go think about what makes you unique, and how you can be an ‘only.”  If you need help, email me.

Diamonds are optional.

Get More Clients Without Selling

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No Cold Calling Zone

No Cold Calling Zone (Photo credit: markhillary)

Self-promotion sends shudders down the spines of many small business owners and freelancers.

You have to do it.  However, the thought of making cold calls or yet another round of bad coffee and stale bagels at some networking event makes you just want to go back to bed and hide under the covers.

You think, maybe I’ll just go take the dog for a walk instead.  Or go get a latte.

The problem is, that without promoting yourself, in some way, you’re unlikely to get work (making it hard to feed the dog or pay for that latte).

Wouldn’t it be great if you could get more clients without selling? Or irritating people?

Cold calls are annoying

Calling people and interrupting them is irritating.  They’re busy.  They don’t want a sales pitch while they’re trying to get Bob from accounting to pay the invoice for the new company website.

You tend to freeze up, and get nervous.  You wonder what you were thinking.

Networking is not working

We’ve all been to networking events with speakers who drone on and on and tell jokes so bad you want to run screaming out of the room.

Or, everyone sits around a table.  Each person introduces themselves and gives a short “pitch.” Inevitably, these are duller than watching paint dry.  You start dreaming of that latte again.

You leave with a few business cards, almost inevitably tossed in the trash.

You wonder, “Why do I keep going to these things?” You want to give up.

 Skip the prospecting entirely

That’s right. Skip it.  There’s a better way to do this. You don’t really have to “sell” at all. The secret is something else entirely. No selling, no phone calls, no boring events.

Be helpful

Instead of trying to push something on people, be helpful. When someone has a question in a forum, track down a useful link or video that will help them. If a LinkedIn member is looking for a coder (and you know a good one), refer that person.

Both people will thank you for it. Show that you care about your clients. Go out of your way to help them build their own businesses (send them referrals, for example).

I’ve gotten several clients from an online forum where “selling” or even linking to your own site is discouraged. I took a few minutes to rewrite or comment (when asked) on marketing ideas or copy. I pitched in on a few group projects, and answered newbie questions, building up trust.  No pitch, just clients.

Build relationships

The online world gives us much greater reach than we had 20 years ago, but people are still people — and the human touch makes a difference. Being connected to 50,000 people on LinkedIn (or an “open” connector), doesn’t mean much. Neither does having 10,000 likes on Facebook. Neither one is particularly meaningful.

Find complementary businesses, and really connect with them (a real estate broker and a bank loan officer for example).

If you link to someone, follow up and offer to help them with a problem they have, regardless of whether it earns you anything right away (aside: of all the people who have linked to me on LinkedIn only one has bothered to follow up – who do you think I’ll contact if I need the service she provides).

Build your own network

Bring together those complementary businesses, and help them help each other. Hold a Google Plus hangout, bring everyone in for lunch (if practical), and have a real conversation. You can even make up a website or directory and send potential clients directly there (pretty easy to do with a wordpress blog).

None of this is selling in the traditional sense. There are no cold calls, no objections to overcome, and much less competition. You may never cold call again.

A Secular Marketing Tip from the Matzo Business

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Matzoh-0851

Matzo, if you’re lucky enough to be ignorant of it, is unleavened bread — a plain, flat, fairly tasteless cracker, often referred to as “hemstitched cardboard.”

Every year, Jews must give up bread, noodles, cakes, and many other foods made with leavening and eat matzo for a week instead.

Nothing much changes with matzo.  It’s been made the same way for thousands of years.  Mix the flour and water, watch it carefully, roll it, and bake it.

Built-in sales

Since everyone observing Passover has to eat matzo, the matzo makers have a loyal customer base that must buy their products every year.

According to a recent article in the NY Times, the Streit’s Matzos factory has been making matzo on New York’s Lower East Side pretty much the same way since 1916. They haven’t really changed their equipment since World War II.  The founder’s great-grandson says,  “As long as they don’t change Passover, we have built-in sales.”

Even with built-in customers, how can they succeed year after year when so many other businesses fail?  Couldn’t someone come up with a new way to make matzo?  Cheaper? Or faster? It’s just hard crackers, right?

The matzo principle

The mixing, rolling, and baking sounds very simple.  But the truth is much more complicated.  Making matzo is hard.

There are all sorts of kosher laws governing the ingredients and the preparation.  You can’t use commercial dough softeners and additives (they’re not kosher).  The equipment gets clogged regularly, and you may have to toss out batches of dough that sit too long.

The staff (most of whom are not Jewish) require special training.  As the article says, one jar of bacon bits tossed in the line and it’s all over.

However, the best way to succeed when faced with global competition may be by following “the matzo principle.”

“The matzo business offers a lesson for how companies can succeed in an increasingly competitive, global marketplace: do something that’s really, really hard. ”

If your business is easy to replicate, then someone, somewhere (probably China) is going to undercut you.”

On the other hand, a luthier who makes guitars entirely by hand, a graphic designer who offers 48 hour express logo turnaround (at an appropriate price), or a trucking business that transforms itself into an express medical delivery service (with refrigerated trucks) are all difficult for your competition to copy.

They can’t easily recreate what you’re doing, and they can’t outsource your service.  Voila, you have no competition.

How to Flatten Your Competition

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flatten your competition

Every business, big and small, has competitors, and we all want to beat them.  But what if you didn’t have to?  What if you could learn how to flatten your competition; to even make them irrelevant? That way, it wouldn’t matter what they did.

Here’s how competition usually works.  Each year, the big TV networks compete with each other to get higher ratings during “sweep” periods. They use “stunt-hosting” to pull in more viewers to their respective morning news shows.  They’re fighting over the claim to “most popular” show.

Does any of this really matter to their viewers?  Is the show more interesting? Has all that effort, and money spent really gained them anything (other than bragging rights)?

Carmakers spend millions of dollars each year on ads, trying to outsell each other.

Do the cars and trucks last longer?  Or get better mileage? Do their customers (and non-customers who are bombarded with all these ads), feel better about the companies?  It’s old-fashioned interruption marketing — lots of money spent, plenty of annoyed viewers, and not much human connection.

How to Flatten Your Competition

Instead of trying to beat the competition, why not ignore them entirely.  Do something they can’t (or won’t do). Offering something unique, or a solution that solves a tough problem can help you stand out from everyone else.  If you’re known for a speciality, clients will seek you out.

For example, circus attendance is declining, but Cirque de Soleil is thriving. Why? Because they ignored the traditional circus audience of children and went after adults and corporate clients instead.  Their shows are definitely not for children, and they charge much higher prices than traditional circuses.  Since there is no other “adult” circus, they have no competitors to worry about.

Make a You-Shaped Hole

Remember watching Bugs Bunny cartoons?  Every time Bugs went through a wall or a solid object, he left a Bugs-shaped hole.  Take a tip from Bugs (and Cirque de Soleil) and create something that’s unique to you.

Be the writer who creates annual reports that look like infographics.  They’re easier to read, more fun, and remarkable.

Or, be the photographer who travels the world solely on airline mileage points, and then teach other people how to do the same thing.

Do something unique, over the top, or simply remarkable (how about late-night fresh chocolate chip cookie delivery?), and your competition won’t matter.  They’ll simply be irrelevant.

Master One Thing

Develop expert knowledge on a particular subject that people will pay to learn or have done.  Pick something that you care about, that you could talk about all day.  Gary Vaynerchuk loves wine, and found a way to talk about it that was obvious (in retrospect) but unique.  He never mentions “nose” or “finish” or other technical wine terms, he talks about wine in ordinary language that consumers use (not the language of wine experts).

There is a woman who has a coaching practice focused solely on helping pet sitters to grow their businesses.  She helps pets sitters only, not babysitters, not plumbers, not web developers, just pet sitters.  She has mastered that one service for a particular group of people.

Become a Partner, Not a Vendor

Another way to do this is to become an essential partner with your clients, rather than just a vendor.

If you help them with their business strategy, listen carefully when they talk to you, and above all, be helpful, they will start to regard you as a key part of their business success, rather than another expense.

If you think they’re making a mistake, tell them, even if it costs you money.  For instance, I had a client who wanted to do a large mailing from a list he had accumulated over time.  I would have made money writing the sales letters, but it was a mistake.  The list was no good and the mailing would have wasted his money.

I talked him out of it. Yes, I lost that particular project, but I gained more trust from my client.  And, it was worth it to both of us.

The competition didn’t matter much after that.  I was his trusted advisor.

 

 

 

 

Get More Clients With This Simple Trick

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a small business edge

Cliff Edge(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Did you know that there’s a simple trick that can help you get more clients?

It’s something that many small and medium size businesses ignore, or don’t even know about.

It isn’t more years of experience or knowing more software. It isn’t your location either.

It’s something that can help you stand out from your competition and make it easier for you to get more clients.

I call it having “an edge.”

What’s an edge?

What do I mean by an “edge” anyway? Lower prices? A sack of razors in the back?

Nope.

An edge is a term that Seth Godin uses to define something that makes your company different.

Something that other businesses would have a great deal of trouble duplicating.

For instance, any restaurant can lower prices, but not every restaurant could (or would) offer a 15-course meal that takes three hours to serve and consume. And not every patron could afford the time or the money to eat such a meal.

Does an edge mean complicated and expensive?

Not necessarily. Your edge could be a meal that lasts three hours. Or, one that’s served in 12 seconds.

You could treat everyone really, really well (like Zappos). Or treat them badly. Ratner’s (a restaurant in New York City), was famous for its grumpy waiters. They told you what to eat, steered you away from the fish and toward the blintzes, and generally treated their customers poorly. Customers ate it up (sorry), because it was something to talk about to their friends.

Your edge could be adding something (a free web site favicon, a free soup strategy, or a font of the month).

You could over-engineer your products (like Patagonia does).  Most of its customers don’t really need clothing that can withstand -80F temperatures, or keep them comfortable three miles up on a mountain, but they like to think they do.

Or, you could offer super-fast turnaround (at an appropriate rush price), for clients with big, hairy deadlines breathing down their necks. Think of what FedEx did for packages for people in a hurry.

The key is to create something that’s impressive, noteworthy, and well remarkable.

This is the last in a series of posts about competing against outsourcing.  The other posts are: