For years and years and years marketers have set their watches by their in-market campaigns. Two, three, four times a year we back the train into the station and chug through another campaign. While that’s going on, we start briefing the agency for the next round — sometimes not even bothering to change the dates on the old briefs. The only new thing seems to be the product or service we’re flogging. And heaven help the product manager who doesn’t deliver the product-du-jour in time for the campaign launch.
While consumer marketers follow events like back-to-school, Mother’s Day, Christmas and graduation, B2B types observe more seasonal schedules which involve nap time during the summer and a prolonged happy hour over Christmas.
But here’s the dumb part: businesses don’t buy just because we have a campaign; they buy because they need stuff. They don’t just pay attention to our offering because we’re shouting at them in a magazine or banner ad; they pay attention all year. Unlike consumers, they aren’t waiting for us to panic about our quota and start dropping our pants at the end of the quarter or the year.
So if businesses think three to six months out or longer, for larger purchases, why do so many B2B marketers and their agencies slavishly follow a B2C campaign-centric model instead of marketing all year long? And for the more routine purchases that don’t require any planning, why are we doing our best to train the market either to wait for our next price cut or resent us for dropping the price after they’ve bought it?
This is why most B2B marketers suck at social media, I think. They and their agencies just can’t fathom an activity that isn’t driven by a campaign. How many abandoned Facebook pages, Twitter accounts and LinkedIn groups litter the landscape because we are breaking the year down into bite-sized chunks? When are we going to figure out that relationships aren’t Mini Wheats and we don’t get to engage our markets on our terms but on theirs? Let’s stop the sieges and start some conversations.
On a side note, does anyone have data that show business people actually buy less during the summer and December because they are on vacation, and not because nobody can be bothered to sell them stuff?
BizMarketer is written by Elizabeth Williams
I help companies have better conversations
Drop me a line at ewilliams@candlerchase.com
Or follow me @bizmkter
Well stated and I agree completely!