What Do B2B Marketers Do Now? is an ongoing email. Join the mailing list to be the first to receive these weekly insights!
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:
- Shortened sales cycle
- Personalized marketing
- Increased customer lifetime value (CLV)
- 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