The B2B Marketing Leaders Forum APAC 2019 is currently being held in Sydney. B2B marketing leaders from all over the world have come together to share their insights and discuss what they believe lend to a successful marketing strategy.
In case you and your team were unable to attend, we’ve noted some key takeaways from the day.
Mim Haysom
CMO / EGM
Suncorp Group
“Our customers are loyal right up to the second someone offers them a better service” – Jeff Bezos, Amazon
There are 3 key customer pain points:
- time (customers want things quickly)
- value (customers want products and services that will support them and educate them)
- anxiety (customers want to feel a sense of security with a company and industry)
“Trust comes in on tortoise and leaves on a galloping horse” – Anna Bligh
To create strategies that counteract your customer pain points, create a culture to empower and inspire your team. Provide a very clear purpose and strategy. Create a 3-year road map and revisit it every 6 months to ensure you’re still on track.
Murray Howe
Head of Industry Strategy
Adobe
Digitally enabled customers drive disruptive change. They want information that is:
- personalised
- relevent
- in real-time
This is forcing businesses to rethink their view of success.
The thought has changed from, “How well do we sell what we make?” to “How well do we serve the customer’s experience?”
Experience is the new brand. Customer journey is the new product. Great experiences matter more than ever – people expect more but tolerate less.
“The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer” – Peter Drucker
Eva Ross
SMO
Sendle
What are the elements of your product that have been designed to build customer trust?
Ask your customers what their current pain points are and design a product that addresses these points and simplifies the process.
Natalie Truong
CMO Asia and Head of B2B Marketing Pacific
Mercer
“It’s really simple until you make it complicated” – Jason Fried, C.E.O of Basecamp
The marketing process is really simple- create a campaign, ensure your prospect falls in love with the campaign, they exchange their contact information for more information, close the sale. Don’t overcomplicate it.
Ensure your marketing and sales team work together to create the strategy. Define what a lead is, what it looks like, who it ideally comes from and who is accountable for it. At the end of the day, it shouldn’t be about quantity, but about quality.
Brona Banville
Head of Content and Social
Salesforce
And
Bobbi Mahlab
Managing Director
Mahlab
Adapt your content marketing strategy from product-focused content to a customer-first approach. Align your content with an audience need. Create a new way of thinking within your industry. Find the sweet spot in the middle of:
- What your business has the authority to talk about
- What your business wants to say
- What your audience care about
- What no one else is doing well
Mark Renshaw
CMO
SiteMinder
How to work with an agency:
- Instead of a brief, have a creative inspiration session to brainstorm and have healthy discussions.
- What is the actual problem you are trying to solve? What opportunity are you trying to create? Create or describe a problem that they can help solve for you with creativity.
- Constraints create, not infuriate. If you give a creative team an open brief, chances are they won’t know where to begin. Giving constraints will force them to be creative.
- Create a company standard by which to review your work.
Thomas Barta
World leading expert on marketing leadership
Feed your firm forward.
Your customer is the most important person in your company. Always find ways to get customer feedback into the company. Have a culture of ‘feedforward’; instead of asking how everything WAS ask what you can do better in the FUTURE.