The Marketing Leaders - Are you really doing the B2B Business?



		Are you really doing the B2B Business?
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The recruitment requirement for a sports journalist seems to be knowledge of football, neglecting all other sports. Is the same happening in marketing?

Take a look at the marketing magazines. Not for them talk of lead generation programmes, case studies, newsletters or ROI – the mainstays of B2B, Britain’s most popular form of marketing. Instead they worship at the feet of the great god, FMCG.

“You might ask what experience Bob Geldof can draw on to tell marketers how to do their jobs better anyway! Can he tell us how to reach finance directors in Enterprise companies?”

Shake these magazines and out fall invitations to seminars on “marketing to youth”, “reaching the women’s sector” and “ethical marketing to children”. How exciting that top B2C marketers will share their expertise with you for only £1,000 a seat! Though you might ask what experience Bob Geldof can draw on to tell marketers how to do their jobs better anyway! Can he tell us how to reach finance directors in Enterprise companies?

Take a look at our supposedly representative trade bodies. The CIM Knowledge Hub offers Mintel research “covering finance, travel, retailing as well as the standard FMCG sectors”. I searched in vain for anything on B2B. I recently experienced the delights of the CIM Postgraduate Diploma – lots on how global corporations can beat each other up over market share – practically nothing to advance the knowledge of a B2B marketer. Where are the “How to market to senior managers”, “creating a value proposition for major corporations” or “lead generation in high-tech markets” CIM courses? Where is the CIM B2B Diploma?

Where are the white papers and the seminars?

Where are the white papers on finding the decision makers and influencers in technological sales, case studies on “marketing to supply chain managers” or the seminars on “how to get businessmen to breakfast seminars”? As for the DMA – if you aren’t sending out a million leaflets a year forget it.

In spite of the lip service given to targeting, data marketing is as bad. Ask an agency for 100 tightly targeted names of decision makers likely to buy your professional service and they will treat you like something they just stepped in – with a few exceptions anything under 10,000 names doesn’t float their boat. Precise targeting? No - we’d rather just sell you lots of names!

While it seems advertising to consumers is a recognised skill, targeting key decision makers in companies with compelling arguments is not.

Which is cleverer?…

• Finding the right people in a large company, creating a compelling argument for your product and following through a two year long, decision making process or creating a 3 month advertising campaign.
• The skill of delivering to each decision influencer in a major sale material they find compelling at exactly the right moment in the sales process or producing a poster campaign.
• The data profiling required to ensure full attendance at a product launch event or sending out millions of mailing pieces to every household in the country.

Trick questions - the answer is neither. Creating ad campaigns, posters and mailing pieces are definite marketing skills and recognised as such. The B2B skills are equally valid but go unrecognised.

Every item marketed by a major retailer or B2C company has been through at least one Business to Business marketing process, often a lot more as components come together to create a finished product. There are more senior marketers working in Business to Business than in B2C. Isn’t it time we received some recognition?

Agree with me? Let us do something about it…

1. Don’t make do with fringe magazines like B2B, no matter how good a job they do. Raise the issue as to why Business Marketing is never covered in national newspapers with the journalists who run the business pages. Talk to the Financial Section Editors to have B2B stories covered there. And let’s have a go at the magazines which claim to speak for our whole industry such as Marketing and Marketing Week to give equal space and status to B2B marketing. Demand more articles on Business Marketing, and ideally a high profile section on it.

2. Ask CIM and IDM (see the article from the IDM on B2BM in this issue - Editor) to recognise publicly that there is a world of marketing beyond FMCG. Lobby them to enshrine it in their constitution and create a Business Marketing Division within their membership. Ask them to create professional courses on topics of value to Business Marketers, and with top speakers. Persuade them to create a professional Business to Business Marketing Qualification, preferably with a series of levels and National or even International accreditation. Agitate for high level B2B marketers to be invited to hold key roles in these organisations.

3. Set up local and national networking associations to share B2B marketing information and allow us to meet our peers and share information.

Last but not least, respond to me.

1. We intend to lobby the publications and associations above and the more of you respond, the better the answer we can achieve for you.
2. THE Marketing Leaders wishes to tackle the knowledge gap with regular articles to business marketers. Your suggestions and contributions would be gratefully received.
3. I would like to create a regular Business Marketing Group for London and the South East, with regular monthly meetings, talks from top people and an interesting schedule of events. Sound like fun? THE Marketing Leaders' editor thinks so! I look forward to hearing from you…

By Peter Johnston,
Marketing Manager, FMI Limited

Email: johnstonph@gmail.com
Web: http://www.fmi.co.uk

N.B. This article expresses the views of Peter Johnston, and does not necessarily reflect those of THE Marketing Leaders ^TM.

Peter Johnston,
Marketing Manager, FMI Limited

Email: johnstonph@gmail.com
Web: http://www.fmi.co.uk

Full list of articles for
November 2006