A good B2B Marketer goes beyond the brochure, the website, the direct mail and into every interaction that their business has with a customer. Every interaction is important because every interaction has the potential to be a moment of truth that could acquire, retain, or lose a customer. So B2B marketers need to ensure that their businesses are prepared.

Preparation is about ensuring your firm has involved the right people from your business, your partners, and your suppliers in helping to plan the customer interaction.

Find out who the customer interaction is with. Understand the customer’s role, needs, and behavioural type. Consider what the organisation’s decision-making process is and who else might be involved. Find out how the customer perceives your business. Think about lessons you can learn from your competitors.

Consider how your business’s offering is appropriate to the customer. How can your business offer to fulfil their needs? What are your business’s benefits that will appeal to the customer? What is the story that the customer will take away from the interaction with your business?

Practice the interaction in advance. Get an audience to test it out. Think about the appropriate pace, eye contact, body language, syntax. What questions might you be asked?

After the interaction, get some feedback from your customer. Agree the next steps and who within your business is responsible for them. And ensure that your messaging remains consistent into those next steps.

Preparation is the key theme running through all of this.

Categories: b2b b2b marketing customer

Tagged as: b2b b2b marketing customer customer focus customer orientation

DaveStevensNow

Dave is an experienced global B2B Chief Marketing Officer / Marketing Director with an established reputation for delivering commercial results in start-up, mid-tier, and blue-chip businesses across technology, and business services and professional services sectors.

Dave has worked for major brands such as Telefonica O2, EY, and Barclays and held posts from Chief Marketing Officer to Director of Online, has run his own business, and managed a P&L for a major corporate. He is chair and co-founder of the Business Marketing Club (www.businessmarketingclub.org.uk) - a network of B2B marketers. In 2019, he was named one of the top 100 B2B European marketing leaders (https://www.hottopics.ht/34199/top-100-b2b-european-marketing-leaders-2019/). He is a graduate of Cambridge University, a Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) Chartered Marketer and holds a MBA with Imperial College, London. Dave is a keen cyclist and adventure traveller, is married, and lives in Buckinghamshire. You can read his blogs at www.DaveStevensNow.com.