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B2B people: encourage direct, data and digital marketing | ||||
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Business-to-business marketing is as much about direct channels, data and digital marketing as it is about successful people: the practitioners that make their companies effective and profitable. The Institute of Direct Marketing is ‘Encouraging business performance through individual attainment’; particularly since the formation of the B2B Council, which represents some of the most significant B2B marketers in the United Kingdom. The forthcoming annual business-to-business conference, an emerging B2B community and now a new B2B qualification support this approach. So far more than 60,000 people have been trained by the IDM, of which 5,000 practitioners hold its coveted diploma. Now 2007 will see the first graduates of the new B2B focused certificate and diploma. Value your people assets People are the key resource and asset of any company, because there is no company without staff, shareholders and especially customers. Training programmes must be taught, as in the case of the Institute, by drawing on the practical experience of leading industry experts from today’s marketing community. Their knowledge is power and so by sharing their acumen and skills the B2B professional marketers of the present and the future will become more effective at their chosen disciplines. Let’s face facts - there aren’t many training and academic courses out there that teach much to do with B2B marketing, which is too often ignored despite its huge importance to industry growth. If you are a B2B marketer, what you may have learnt at college or university might not be so relevant to your current job today. The B2B Council has been created in order to direct the filling of this gap, and this is also why the Institute has decided to work with The Marketing Leaders in this topic area. The expertise of top practitioners will help us all to achieve our goals, and there is good reason for all of those interested in B2B to work together as part of an overall campaign to raise the profile of the discipline, as well as its importance to the UK economy. Remember, there’s often no B2C without B2B! Customer-centric, data-driven B2B marketing education includes learning about the importance of being a buyer-centric and data-driven business. Data is like gold dust; it can help you gain insight into buyer behaviour, and predictive data modelling techniques can be employed to better segment, retain and gain the loyalty of your most profitable customers, understand the potential scenarios of buying habits, expectations and preferences to constantly adapt your proposition to changing customer needs. Now there’s plenty out there about B2C Customer Relationship Management, but how does this key discipline – which is as much about supporting technology as it is people and processes – apply in the business-to-business world of marketing?
The expansion of the digital, electronic channels – which are much favoured by the business-to-business community – articulate an unmissable opportunity to understand customers through collating data from an expanding range of potential touchpoints. Note that while the Internet and email are integral to the e-channel preference, direct mail still plays a vital role within an integrated communications approach. This integration includes direct and indirect online channels working in parallel with the more traditional offline ones including face to face or personal telephone contact, enabling communication choice to the customer and sales team. This multi-channel environment also poses a number of data capture and consolidation challenges; particularly as data volumes are constantly on the increase. Marketers therefore need to gain expertise by life-long learning and knowledge sharing to create effective and practical deployment strategies. B2B Database: a disjointed relationship B2B marketers often have a disjointed relationship with their databases. This is because IT department usually creates them. As a result the majority of B2B marketers have little idea of what their whole database looks like, the number of duplicates it contains or the amount of incomplete records, never mind using it to inform targeted data selections and communication choices. Training and a higher level of responsibility for and ownership of their databases would make them more aware, accountable and concerned about them. Why? Without due attention a neglected database, just like an unattended garden, will go awry. Sadly, databases are designed to focus on individual files and marketers often view their database on a record-by-record basis. No good for someone wanting to pick out incomplete records or spot duplications. For many it is a case of the ‘X Files’, they know the duplicates and incomplete entries are out there but just can't pin them down. Cumbersome databases alone are not the cause of the B2B industry's muted approach to data. Much of the industry has yet to adopt even basic data analysis and targeting techniques. The sophisticated methods we frequently discuss are not yet relevant for many B2B marketers. Jargon and technical details shroud data analysis and targeting in mystery, which deters many from making the steps towards better understanding their databases. How then can they effectively use them to understand and ‘manage’ their B2B customers? So professional bodies need to help to remove these shrouds. B2B marketers: no dark ages B2B marketers are not stuck in the data dark ages entirely. Many large organisations actively analyse their customer data and use the resultant insight to lead the strategic direction of their sales and marketing. Unfortunately, such analysis often requires technical knowledge and they often confine it to the IT division’s realm. As a result, it is not designed to be readily available to marketers wishing to get closer to their data. Marketers need to be in control of their marketing activities, whether they target businesses or consumers. To do so they have to understand their databases. But this cannot be solved by external provision. As long as someone else does the analysis, a marketer will remain distanced. It is much like being a passenger in a car, even though you've been there before you couldn't drive there yourself. A well-built database used by well-trained marketers with a good understanding of its structure are the essential foundations on which all marketing activities should be built, but still before technology comes your people. B2B marketers until recently did not have the community knowledge and the tools to take control. They haven’t also had access to focused and relevant training programmes in order to excel, and yet many have done so. New B2B knowledge, solutions and tools will enable the practitioner to grab hold of the steering wheel once again. So, let us put the bells and whistles to one side and get back to marketing basics - together.
By Derek Holder F IDM and Steve Cook F IDM Steve Cook F IDM,
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Full
list of articles for
B2B edition of the magazine sponsored by Market Location and the Institute of Direct Marketing
 
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