Ideas for growing high tech BtoB businesses
Welcome to my blog. I’m dedicated to creating growth in high
tech businesses through:
· Lifecycle product management discipline
· Smart new product development
· Clear customer segments and niches
· Prioritized project/product portfolios
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Entries in Brand (2)
Innovation with Services and Products
I attended a very interesting PDMA-sponsored seminar
Wednesday night: Hard Services, Soft Products – Today’s Product Development
Reality. The guys
at Group 1066
in
Adding value to products with services
A classic example is IBM. Everyone knows IBM has moved from hardware / software to services. Quicken added bank downloads and other service features to QuickBooks. Partnering with MasterCard enabled this service and potentially leveraged two brands. In a different space, GAF provides website information about roof shingles for consumers even though they sell to distributors. By linking the type of warranty to the certification level of the installer, they incent consumers to look for a highly-trained distributor. And provide the installer incentives to use GAF.
Adding value to services with products
“Make the service tangible” is a mantra we’ve all heard. Services are typically invisible, so adding “hard” deliverables adds value. My favorite example cited by Mike Megalli is Salesforce.com. Software on users’ screens can feel impersonal (as a former user, that was my impression). With “networking” sessions for users in major locations, they make the experience personal—and add value. Salesforce.com benefits from product feedback and the “free training” users provide to each other.
Do product companies know services? And visa versa?
Group discussion highlighted the execution risks associated with these good ideas. Panasonic’s Concierge service intended to differentiate their flat screens fell flat for one person when it took 20 minutes to reach a person—who wasn’t qualified to solve the problem. In my experience, product companies frequently under-estimate the effort required to deliver good service. They may not treat it like an integral part of the product. The solution: full-blown new product development attention, even though we are launching a service, not a product.
Of course, the reverse is true. Service companies aren’t
used to delivering tangible goods. The early days of the wireless business
found telco’s struggling to deliver and service cell
phones. In today’s world, telco’s and cable companies
must deliver ever-smarter devices with software downloads, accessories, etc.
These
are the technology-enabled challenges many of us face in 2007.
Thanks PDMA and Group 1066!
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Bill Gilbert
in Marketing, Business Marketing, B2B, BtoB, Product Development, New Product Development, Brand, Innovation, Value Proposition, Business Customers
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Old B2B friends for a new year?
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?
Bill Gilbert
in Marketing, Business Marketing, B2B, BtoB, Sales, Product Management, Brand, Innovation, Value Proposition, Business Customers
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