B2B Growth Marketing: New BtoB Revenue & Profit

As 2007 swings into high gear, I like to remember those holiday moments when I reconnected with an old friend. You know: haven't heard from them for 2 years and a card or email shows up. Even better, I run into them at a party and the conversation picks up like it was yesterday.

Why aren't more B2B customers old friends?

How many of your B2B customers are "old friends"? They've been around for years. But when do we think about them? Have a conversation? I don't mean day-to-day transactional stuff. We know about that. And they show up on our revenue and billing reports. I'm thinking about the relationship: have we cultivated it to "friend" status?

Marketing role in B2B customer relationships

Business customer relationships are more complex than personal ones. So the first step: a clear, complete, and up-to-date roadmap of all the players. Sales people may call it a positioning matrix. Each of the customer's individuals, their role, and our person(s) assigned to work with them. Add contact information and we have the beginning of a roadmap. Marketing overlays targeted email campaigns, newsletters, webinars, events, product launches, executive meetings, etc. Where does the "friend" part come in? 

If we tailor our messages to accurately reflect how the two companies perceive each other and how we actually work together, we can build (over time) a sense of mutual respect--making for a more and more "friendly" relationship. Sales has a role, but I believe marketing also has a leadership role. For example, messages cannot be "one size fits all".

–       If customer B has been with us for 2 years steadily expanding their purchases, we want to reinforce the value and applications for their purchases and promote (in a low key way) future possibilities.

–       Customer C, who made their first purchase 3 months ago needs lots of reinforcement about why they made a good purchase decision.

–       Customer A, who has been with us for 5 years requires a third set of messages.

I believe it is marketing's role to identify and execute against these customer "segments". After all, who doesn't like to count their customers as friends?