Peering through the fog: How to be more precise in B2B marketing
Posted: Sat Dec 28, 2024 6:43 am
Marketing has become more scientific and data-driven in recent years. But the language of marketing is another matter: a lot of the vocabulary is vague and means different things to different people.
Here are seven of the most unclear terms I come across in my work on B2B content, and why you might want to avoid them.
White space
If only you could find an idea that no one has ever thought of, then its uniqueness and newness will be enough for your audience to respect your expertise and, ultimately, to buy from you. Right?
Wrong. Finding this so-called white space might make your business look clever, but that is not enough to create the associations you need to drive future buying behaviour. Your fresh ideas might not be relevant to the conversations your audience wants to have with you, so pursuing white space as a goal in thought leadership is misguided.
Most of the time, audiences want your take on a theme that is already out there: AI, net zero and hybrid working, for example. Companies tend to cluster around a small number of hot business themes, and you need to be there too — because those are the issues that your audience cares about. It’s not white space that interests your audience; it’s the topics that are most crowded and contested. So don’t be different just for the sake of it.
There’s a wider debate in marketing circles about uruguay mobile phone numbers database differentiation and distinctiveness that’s relevant here. Conventional wisdom dictates that brands should differentiate and find a USP, but customers don’t buy from you because you are completely different from your competitors. They buy from you because you stand out, get their attention and solve their problems — that’s how you will come to mind when they are purchasing.
The C-suite
Many marketing briefs still say that the audience for the campaign is “the C-suite”. But the C-suite is a collection of diverse individuals with different perspectives, priorities and needs. There is no point trying to lump them all together.
Instead of trying to create content that addresses this eclectic group of people as if it’s a single entity, we should be focusing on individual needs: the specific personas and roles who can relate to your point of view and are most influential in the purchasing decisions that matter to your business.
Here are seven of the most unclear terms I come across in my work on B2B content, and why you might want to avoid them.
White space
If only you could find an idea that no one has ever thought of, then its uniqueness and newness will be enough for your audience to respect your expertise and, ultimately, to buy from you. Right?
Wrong. Finding this so-called white space might make your business look clever, but that is not enough to create the associations you need to drive future buying behaviour. Your fresh ideas might not be relevant to the conversations your audience wants to have with you, so pursuing white space as a goal in thought leadership is misguided.
Most of the time, audiences want your take on a theme that is already out there: AI, net zero and hybrid working, for example. Companies tend to cluster around a small number of hot business themes, and you need to be there too — because those are the issues that your audience cares about. It’s not white space that interests your audience; it’s the topics that are most crowded and contested. So don’t be different just for the sake of it.
There’s a wider debate in marketing circles about uruguay mobile phone numbers database differentiation and distinctiveness that’s relevant here. Conventional wisdom dictates that brands should differentiate and find a USP, but customers don’t buy from you because you are completely different from your competitors. They buy from you because you stand out, get their attention and solve their problems — that’s how you will come to mind when they are purchasing.
The C-suite
Many marketing briefs still say that the audience for the campaign is “the C-suite”. But the C-suite is a collection of diverse individuals with different perspectives, priorities and needs. There is no point trying to lump them all together.
Instead of trying to create content that addresses this eclectic group of people as if it’s a single entity, we should be focusing on individual needs: the specific personas and roles who can relate to your point of view and are most influential in the purchasing decisions that matter to your business.