It strikes me as odd that I even have to say this, but I do:
“ATTENTION B2B MARKETERS –
Accompany your sales force on sales calls regularly!”
It boggles my mind that we have marketing managers (and higher) who spend most of their time in their offices. Or they venture out only for trade shows or the occasional big-client meeting.
How do you truly understand the people you wish to serve if you don’t interact with them?
It’s pretty darn difficult to develop customer-centric marketing strategies when you don’t get out to meet and listen to customers and prospects. Remember, the best marketing comes from focusing on the clients’ interests, worries, needs, passions, and pain points.
Here’s a quick list of some of the marketing benefits of firsthand client “listening” –
- Learn what matters to the prospect, in his own words
- Pick up on product shortcomings, or opportunities for new features and functionality
- Ability to ask questions about prospect/client comments immediately for full understanding
- Chance for impromptu conversations with others on their team that come into contact with your solution (vital to getting a complete picture of the customer’s view of your product’s full benefits, strengths, and opportunities for improvement)
- Get their uncensored opinions of the strengths and weaknesses of the competition
- Collect potential testimonials, case study volunteers, and white paper topics
In a way, this exercise is a sort of market research effort. It’s a series of one-to-one interviews, except the interviewing is more observational rather than direct.
Besides the boon to customer-centric thinking, when marketers ride along on sales calls, they realize another series of powerful benefits. We’ll talk about those in my next post.