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A friend of mine is a HUGE fan, of many things, but mostly movies and music – especially the stars and musicians. And he always has a knack for bumping into famous people on the street – I love when he shares pictures of his latest impromptu meet-and-greet. We jokingly call him ‘Superfan Graham’ – and it is the PERFECT nickname for him!

I’ve compared B2B customers and leads to fans before, and I’m doing it again today… because ultimately, I believe that’s what they are!

Give this song by the Band (RIP Robbie Robertson) a listen as we see what the experts are saying this week.

Finding Your B2B Fans

Would you consider your largest customer a ‘fan’? Do you even understand who your biggest fans are?

One challenge remains common for businesses of any size, sector, or location: building a successful sales strategy. If your sales team is struggling to connect with your customers, an ideal customer profile (ICP) just might be the missing ingredient. Our friends from breadcrumbs.io show how having an ICP is crucial for businesses and provide a guide to building one, if you haven’t already.

If you do it right, you’ll reap the benefits:

1. Shortened sales cycle
2. Personalized marketing
3. Increased customer lifetime value (CLV)
4. Improved account-based marketing

Maybe you already have an established ICP. But things change fast! If you’re not seeing these benefits, use this guide to revisit it (spoiler: ‘Review and Revise’ is the last step). You may find something you missed!

Connecting with Your Superfans

I recently read about ‘superfans’ and have seen data from the likes of Luminate and Goldman Sachs looking at the percentage of fans who qualify for that specific term. Something grates on me about institutions attempting to quantify the term, as if to identify a new market segment and tell everyone we need to focus on that now.

The reality, of course, is that these fans have always been there! If you’re only now learning about superfans and why you should focus on them more, well, you’re really, really late to the party. The best fan relationship is one in which an artist/brand is making serious money and the fans themselves are absolutely happy to be spending their money on that artist or brand.

People spending money on you and your work is not inherently a gouge. It can be (Taylor Swift’s eight Folklore album covers???), but the best practitioners effectively see fans throwing money at them and loving every second of it. This, to me anyway, is just entrepreneurialism, or good business, and might be something we’re not seeing enough of in music.

Some 14 years later, I’d argue Mike Masnick’s equation about the fan relationship and monetizing it still rings true:

connect with fans + reason to buy = $$$

Wow – sounds a lot like B2B, doesn’t it?

As always, don’t hesitate to call me to brainstorm or just say hello!

Looking forward,
Rick

Rick Endrulat, President | ricke@v-causeway.com | www.linkedin.com/in/rickendrulat

The post Who Are Your B2B Superfans? appeared first on Virtual Causeway.

What Do B2B Marketers Do Now? is an ongoing email. Join the mailing list to be the first to receive these weekly insights!

I started WDBMD back in March of 2020. The plan was to share how sales and marketing leaders were dealing with our new and adjusted reality, and help us get through it by providing inspiration and tactical strategies.

As we approach the end of 2021, some of us feel like we’re living again, and others are still looking to feel like themselves again… So give this song from fellow Canadian icons Blue Rodeo a listen with me as we see what the experts are saying this week…

Tips for Pivoting B2B Businesses

Every company going through a period of upheaval is likely to require a swift, effective marketing strategy overhaul. But how will that affect your customer base? Will they appreciate the change? Or perhaps they’re not ready yet? According to Demand Gen Report, all of us fall into one of these four categories:

1. Sameness
2. Sameness with Exception
3. Sameness with Exception and Difference
4. Difference

Ultimately, the key is to match your marketing to your pivot, ensuring you give your newly refreshed business the best chance to deliver messaging that sticks. Marketing personas and ICPs are important, as they can help guide your marketing team in their communications.

Most pivots will have some element that endures the upheaval. As YOU pivot, will you maintain your traditional and current customer base? If you know what’s passing you by, then perhaps by maintaining a key element, you can use traditional customers to drive change in other areas where the pivot is needed!

Boy Bands and Tech Breakthroughs

You may have heard that Mike Nesmith of the Monkees died this past week. (If you’ve never seen an episode of the show, I suggest you check it out to see how early boy bands compare to today’s outfits!) There have been many articles about him since his death, and Alan Cross does a great job of outlining some of the contributions this man made to music and technology… and some might surprise you!

• He was the ‘real’ musician in the band, writing many of their songs
• He was instrumental in the rise of the music video, being one of the first to create experimental video clips for his songs
• He was the heir to his mother’s Liquid Paper fortune – if you don’t know what that is, google it!
• He was responsible for The Tragically Hip’s name (read the article for the full story!)

Why does this matter? Other than the coolness of the story, Mike’s life and accomplishments show how music, technology, and business can intersect. Perhaps your business has some legacy lines of business that can help fund other new technology initiatives?

I firmly believe there are lessons from music that apply to business and technology. The moments of magic are short, but if you keep an eye out, you may find ways to apply them to B2B!

That’s why I’ve been writing these weekly communications, and why I hope you’ll continue to read, enjoy, and share your own thoughts and ideas!

As always, don’t hesitate to call me to brainstorm or just say hello.

Looking forward,
Rick

Rick Endrulat, President | ricke@v-causeway.com | www.linkedin.com/in/rickendrulat

The post The B2B Pivot and… Boy Bands? appeared first on Virtual Causeway.

What Do B2B Marketers Do Now? is an ongoing email. Join the mailing list to be the first to receive these weekly insights!

Last week was Leo Fender’s birthday (he would have been 112!). He’s known for bringing the first solid body electric guitars to the world way back in the 1950s! The guitar he is most famous for, the Fender Stratocaster, became the favourite for many rock musicians including Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, and Deep Purple’s Ritchie Blackmore. Would they have written the same music with different instruments? Who knows.

Give this song a listen with me as we see what the experts are saying this week. Every once in a while we just need to listen to a tune about space travel and groovy music, right? Not to mention some smokin’ riffs and vocals!

Fluke or Genius?

Is your product or solution’s success a fluke or a result of genius? Leo Fender is hailed by many to be a genius. However, is it possible that his successes were merely a fluke?

Sure, he was an off-the-wall inventor, but he was neither an engineer nor a guitar player. Some might say that the success of his two most iconic guitars (Telecaster and Stratocaster) was a mere fluke – a lot of luck on Venus.

Others were working on solid body electric guitars when Fender started. Many of his design concepts came from his employees’ feedback or suggestions from working musicians. And initial response to his guitar design was lacklustre.

But he was an obsessive thinker/worker – and he listened to what people wanted and took customer feedback very seriously. He trusted the input of people with talent (he met all the groovy people!), so he surrounded himself with them. Sure, he got a lot wrong at first, but failure is usually found on the path to success. So he made adjustments – and the fact that he had many ‘hits’ (guitars, basses, amplifiers) indicates that he had repeatable success – and that’s no fluke!

Regardless of whether you subscribe to methodologies like The Lean Startup, the importance of customer feedback and building something people want is paramount to success. And when the products we’re bringing to market are needed, it sure is easier for sales and marketing to ensure some Fender-style repeatable success.

The Art of the Mixtape

As a kid, I would pretend to be a DJ. I would listen to my trusty radio/cassette player, wait for those new songs I loved and hit record (sometimes missing the intro)… then I would create tapes of these songs and mix them together. It was so much work! The analog world was painstaking compared to today’s digital.

How about you? Do you remember the mixtape? They weren’t just a collection of songs – they were a statement. You’d make them for your own enjoyment, or to give to others. And great mixtapes had a life of their own – endlessly copied and shared among your friends!

There’s a new documentary on mixtapes coming out this week that you might appreciate, called Analog Love. Watching the trailer made me think about how things have changed in the B2B world. As vendors, we used to provide content to buyers. We’d provide sales collateral, whitepapers, etc. and the buyer relied on the vendor to provide information for their decision. But now the buyer is in control. Before even speaking to a vendor the buyer has already consumed a ton of content and seen reviews of the vendor’s product.

As B2B marketers – is it our job to create the mixtape for our buyers and provide the right mix of content for them? Or do we simply provide the ‘tracks’ and let them create their own mixtape? Perhaps it depends on your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and your solution – but in today’s digital world, it’s so easy to consume content, let’s keep on (space) truckin’, and not rely on our own fluke to achieve success!

As always, don’t hesitate to call me to brainstorm or just say hello.

Looking forward,
Rick

Rick Endrulat, President | ricke@v-causeway.com | www.linkedin.com/in/rickendrulat

The post The Mixtape Path to Success appeared first on Virtual Causeway.

What Do B2B Marketers Do Now? is an ongoing email. Join the mailing list to be the first to receive these weekly insights!

When you think of sales, what do you think of: Herb Tarlek from WKRP (RIP Frank Bonner)? The Wolf of Wall Street? That person that sold you your last car? What do your customers think when they interact with YOUR sales team? As we know, it’s all about the experience…

Give this classic Jimi Hendrix track a listen with me, and let’s see what the experts are saying this week…

Driving ABM Success in 2021 – Are You Experienced?

We saw some great ABM content from #B2BMX last week. What will drive ABM success in 2021? Here are some highlights:

Experiential marketing and customization – We’ve mentioned ABX (Account-Based Experience) before, and Demandbase outlines how to use the F.I.R.E. methodology to streamline the target selection process:

• An account’s Fit into the organization’s ICP;
• The level of Intent a prospect is demonstrating;
• A review of the account Relationship; and
• An analysis of an account’s Engagement.

Research-backed content & personalized outreach – According to Orbit, the boundaries of the personal and the professional have eroded due to the pandemic. Marketing to an account without engaging each individual within that account in a genuine human way falls short. They also shared some tactical examples using digital marketing and account research:

• Customizing Content for Individuals – Research reports, surveys, e-books;
• Recalling First-Person Experiences – Speak to your own personal experiences 1:1; and
• Leveraging Social Media Data – Determine buying interest through social media activity.

Marketing teams must generate unique research that positions them as thought leaders while demonstrating the value of their solutions. Being human is no longer an option, it’s essential. Team members must be creative in finding ways to quickly connect – get your mind together, then come on across to your prospects.

Disco – Still Sucks?

I feel like I’ve given Dave Grohl a lot of airtime in these newsletters lately; he certainly knows how to stay top of mind. This story is a fun one – and definitely worth sharing! Foo Fighters are going to release a disco album as ‘The Dee Gees’ – what a great name. And the name of the album? “Hail Satin” (no, that’s not a typo… it’s Satin).

A lot of what I originally learned about disco was from my Sesame Street Fever album, American Bandstand, and watching WKRP episodes where disco was consistently insulted. This album, however, will be something I’ll check out – and it will include four Bee Gees covers.

Dave Grohl and the Foos consistently crack me up. Their sense of humour and general attitude of fun are awesome, and I think a lot of fans appreciate it. It reinforces how YOUR brand voice is important – and infusing personality and a sense of humour into your B2B sales and marketing can be a great way to get noticed. Because really, it’s all about the experience!

As always, don’t hesitate to call me to brainstorm or just say hello.

Looking forward,
Rick

Rick Endrulat, President | ricke@v-causeway.com | www.linkedin.com/in/rickendrulat

The post Building a Memorable Experience appeared first on Virtual Causeway.