Where’s the Passion in B2B?
By Jeffrey L. Cohen
Thu, Nov 12, 2009
Every so often, B2B communicators look at others in social media and sigh. Big consumer brands get all the press. Social media directors are featured in top blogs and the mainstream media. They headline conferences. And their tweets are constantly re-tweeted, which according to Guy Kawasaki is a sign of a successful tweet.
Many old school, industrial B2B firms are struggling to promote their products and services using traditional methods of direct mail, print ads, trade shows and sales calls. Each one of those tactics can be enhanced with the addition of social media platforms and tools. But social media is more than a set of tools or another channel to push out your company’s message. Social media is way to engage with your customers that is authentic and transparent, but it really succeeds when those attributes are combined with passion.
In Gary Vaynerchuk’s new book, Crush It, he tells readers why now is the time to cash in on their passion and build their personal brand using that passion. I completely agree with Gary’s approach, however, I would argue that another path to success is to live your work life with as much passion as if your livelihood depended on it. Because it does. And in the video below from New Media Minute, Gary talks about the passion required to sell social media up the corporate ladder. He also talks about the importance of the building your own personal brand, even while working in a corporate environment.
The first step in any social media engagement strategy is to convince someone that it is the right thing to do. This is much easier with passion that demonstrates your conviction. This may help you get a bit of budget to try something. Maybe even some help to manage projects. This level of passion is contagious, and if you are working so hard at something, others can’t help joining you.
Direct Mail with Passion
Create these mail pieces with a simple, clear message and easy to find call to action. This is nothing new, but you can add you social platform logos to the piece. Give your customers and prospects an extra benefit for connecting on social networks, but think about enhanced customer service options rather than additional discounts. This will show your company’s passion to the customers.
Print Ads with Passion
The best creative ad does not succeed if a stale company is behind it. The passion that is generated when you truly engage with your customers comes through after following up the leads from the ads. The reputation of a top brand is built with what is behind the ad, not what’s in the ad.
Trade Shows with Passion
There is nothing worse than walking into a trade show booth to find company reps moping around. It is much easier to connect with happy people who are knowledgeable and passionate about their products. You can even use the opportunity to show a quick video interview with the prospects at the booth. They can share their passion with you about what they are looking for in a supplier or partner.
Sales Calls with Passion
Can you convince the sales guys that the sales funnel will be overflowing with leads by connecting with customers and prospects using social media? That will take a lot of passion. And by starting small and showing them that it works.
PR with Passion
And finally, there is no such thing as a press release with passion, but you can connect with editors, bloggers and journalists with passion that will make them listen to you and want to help spread your ideas.
What have you done today, and what will you do tomorrow to demonstrate your passion within your company?
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B2B Marketers don’t have to sigh. They don’t have to listen to Gary Vee’s rehashing of marketing and sales common sense wrapped in a high energy monologue (com’on – have you never heard of “executive buy-in” before?? (although I personally am very happy for Gary and his American storybook success)
Many B2B (or “industrial” for you old-timers) products must meet a combination of three requirements: will they be delivered on time; will they work to spec; and will they come within budget. All the passion in the world can’t fool a buying center of several individuals whose performance is judged on weighing those three criteria.
Nevertheless, there *is* passion in many B2B marketers; I’ve seen it over the years. And I do agree that B2C gets all the loving attention of the media. That’s why I started the B2B Twitterer of the Year Awards – to recognize B2B companies who have used Twitter with success. While it takes passion to maintain a steady flow of tweets, the messages themselves don’t have to sound like a ranting “Crazy Eddie” commercial.
So check out http://www.b2btoty.com and show your passion by nominating a B2B company that you believe deserves recognition for hard work that resulted in a good story.
My 2 cents.
Joe:
Thanks for your two cents. Something that we don’t talk about much on this site is a large underlying assumption. If you don’t have great products that solve customers problems and get delivered on time, social media will not help you. It will actually expose you faster than was ever possible before. So most of our posts begin with the understanding that you are trying to get the word out on great products. We are also writing at a variety of levels with ideas that spark discussions, both here and within organizations.
And thanks for promoting B2B Tweeters who are doing right. They deserve more recognition than their B2C counterparts.
Jeffrey – Agree 100%. My energy and passion comes from our customers, and I reflect it back on them. I love our passionate customers and I hope they can tell it. I stop myself from babbling about love on Twitter every day, but there’s no place I’d rather be than be hanging out with our customers. I’ve got the best job in the world.
It’s truly a blessing to have great products that inspire great customers. If you have that, then you’ve already won.
For those of you that don’t have that luxury of passionate fan base, or you’re starting from scratch with a startup, you have to be able to find that hook in the product that excites you, or you can’t expect to excite anyone else.
John:
Great addition to the conversation. Living the passion makes that daily grind much easier. Can you let us know what industry you are in, and what your function is? Most marketing and PR folks don’t have easy access to customers, which does not create the feedback loop you are talking about.
Jeffrey,
I think that the challenge is not lack of passion, but looking for that creative link between a fun story and a not-overly-fun product. Great marketers (with passion) are doing just that in B2B, it’s just that it takes an extra step to tie the product to the story.
Look at Concur with their “True Tales of Business Travel” campaign (http://www.concur.com/stories) or Roche Pharmaceuticals with their “Cell Death Tour” (https://www.roche-applied-science.com/usa/celldeathtour/) for passionate marketers in B2B who found a great way to get their products talked about in creative ways.
Steven: Thanks for the comments and the examples of B2B campaigns. I wish they were better integrated into the corporate websites. The Cell Death Tour has a link from the product page, but feels out of the place. The True Tales is nowhere to be found on the Concur site. The comments need to be moderated, as they are filled with spam.