No one wants to buy your product, and in B2B you can’t convince potential customers to just do so. The majority of sales is demand driven, and customers are seldom looking for products. They are looking for a solution to their needs.
Or like Peter Torstensson, former VP Brand and Communication for Alfa Laval, expressed it during one of our joint presentations: Do you think anyone wakes up with the feeling “Today I’m going to buy a heat exchanger”? No one does. But they might be interested in a very compact and efficient heat exchanger when they plan their upcoming expansion. Or when they get a directive from the board to become more energy efficient.
This is two examples of trigger points, ie when potential customers start to search for a solution to their problem. Others could be that a processing machine broke down, regulations put new restrictions on water use or a service contract expired. Or for us as a B2B marketing agency, when a customer appoints a new CMO.
This does not happen every week, and in most cases we can not force it. This is why B2B markets often is referred to as 95-5. This means that 95% of the potential customers are not interested in what we are offering today, but they will be tomorrow. And when that day arrives we must be mentally available to buy from. According to a study by Google and Bain, 86% of B2B buyers starts with a “Day one” list of potential vendors in mind – and 92% of all business goes to one of the companies from the Day one list.
Based on this, the key roles for marketing becomes:
- You need to get into your potential customers mind, long before the buying process starts, based on challenges you solve rather than your products
- And when you are mentally available, you need to be Buyable. This means that you are an alternative that all of the buying group can accept. This often means that vendors who win are the safest choice in the room.
Then the deal is probably yours.
But it is tough and demands hard and consistent work. We all dream of the demand explosion where it seems like all potential customers are in the market at the same time and line up outside our door. We can basically pick the deals we want and price suddenly is not a main concern. This rarely happens in B2B, and when it does it’s often triggered by a mental-breaking event – like when Russia attacked Ukraine. Or less scary, when AI became mature and the market for data centers exploded and today often is defined as “a tsunami growth business”.
It might happen once or twice in your lifetime. But more often success comes from clever and consistent marketing strategy where you work with all 4 Ps in your toolbox to create value and win customers.
Good luck! And if you want to discuss how to win new customers, your are always welcome to contact ulf@sfinxagency.se
