Competitions

CAT Prep

Upskill

Placements

MBA Co'26

RTI Response

Rankings

Score Vs. %ile

Salaries

Campus Tour

Making Your Own Marketing Luck

Mar 24, 2016 | 4 minutes |

Join InsideIIM GOLD

Webinars & Workshops

Compare B-Schools

Free CAT Course

Take Free Mock Tests

Upskill With AltUni

CAT Study Planner

Final 18 Days to CAT 2024 Test-28

Participants: 18

Final 19 Days to CAT 2024 Test-26

Participants: 157

Final 20 Days to CAT 2024 Test-26

Participants: 183

Final 21 Days to CAT 2024 Test-25

Participants: 148

Final 22 Days to CAT 2024 Test-24

Participants: 167

Final 23 Days to CAT 2024 Test-23

Participants: 105

Final 24 Days to CAT 2024 Test-22

Participants: 157

Final 25 Days to CAT 2024 Test-21

Participants: 146

Final 26 Days to CAT 2024 Test-20

Participants: 197

Final 27 Days to CAT 2024 Test-19

Participants: 171

Final 28 Days to CAT 2024 Test-18

Participants: 169

Final 29 Days to CAT 2024 Test-17

Participants: 176

Final 30 Days to CAT 2024 Test-16

Participants: 195

Final 31 Days to CAT 2024 Test-15

Participants: 185

Final 32 Days to CAT 2024 Test-14

Participants: 195

Final 33 Days to CAT 2024 Test-13

Participants: 196

Final 34 Days to CAT 2024 Test-12

Participants: 228

CAT 2017 VARC SLOT- 2

Participants: 313

CAT 2017 DILR SLOT- 2

Participants: 157

CAT 2017 VARC SLOT- 1

Participants: 301

CAT 2017 DILR SLOT- 1

Participants: 106

CAT 2017 QUANT SLOT 1

Participants: 152

CAT 2017 QUANT SLOT 2

Participants: 69

CAT 2018 QUANT SLOT 2

Participants: 67

CAT 2018 QUANT SLOT 1

Participants: 109

CAT 2018 DILR SLOT- 2

Participants: 58

CAT 2018 DILR SLOT- 1

Participants: 84

CAT 2018 VARC SLOT- 2

Participants: 203

CAT 2018 VARC SLOT- 1

Participants: 298

Final 35 Days to CAT 2024 Test-11

Participants: 157

The science of marketing allows a company to carefully match the qualities of their product and the ability of their organization with the problems, needs and wants of the market. The art of marketing is to carefully listen to the way in which the market you wish to serve wants to do business and to describe what you offer in the most compelling way you possibly can for that particular audience. Below the science and the art of marketing is the dirty truth that there is a significant element of luck involved in getting prospects to move towards a sale. Every gambler knows that not every bet is going to pay off, and you have to play the odds. In business marketing, the game is to ensure that you touch enough of the right people, enough times, such that you are going to be thought of when someone actually wants to solve a problem that you are able to solve. Marketers refer to this as the “funnel.” The idea is that you reach out to a very broad range of people through a wide range of media and techniques in the hope that some will pick up your scent, learn your name, and follow your ideas. It’s a funnel with a relatively large number of contact names at the top who barely know you, which winnows down to smaller numbers of more engaged, interested and qualified prospect names, and so on. The pressure on marketing departments to create a large-enough top-of-the-funnel can sometimes warp the process. It's very easy to obtain a massive list of names to put into the top of the funnel, but it's very hard to obtain a list of the most viable names for your particular need. Consider for example that if there are a thousand companies in the world that actually could want to purchase the widget you market and sell, then it really doesn’t matter if you reach out to a million companies, as 99% percent of that million cannot possibly be interested.  Marketing fulfills their ‘funnel metric’ and is extremely busy but the ultimate goal isn’t achieved. Now consider the scenario where you know which thousand companies are the right ones to be at the top of your funnel and then marketing and sales bombard them daily with emails and even calls; this isn’t going to help either as the response to being annoying is to be ignored and often to be black-listed. The real answer is to deeply understand exactly how those thousand companies will go through the process of researching and solving the problem you are able to solve, meaning you need to be: -Validating (and being able to verbalize) the problem from their perspective. -Identifying exactly who are the decision makers. -Identifying exactly who influences the decision makers. -Understanding their budget cycle and the ‘approvers’ Involved. -Understanding their current level of satisfaction with how they are currently dealing with the problem or issue. -Understanding how their needs will change over time. -Understanding the competition. -Finding out about the people they (your prospects, customer and competitors) work with. -Know about their lifestyles (including what they read). -Understand how they like to learn and network (including associations and groups and their events). The more you can know about the market you are looking to dominate, the more chance you have of being in the right place at the right time, with the right message. ------

About the Author

David Liff is a thirty-year veteran of global technology B2B, B2C marketing is the founding partner of the B2B Marketing agency B2B³ (www.b2b3.org). B2B3 is focused on helping companies dramatically improve their marketing efficiency and effectiveness, driving down costs and driving up the volume and value of closed won business through tried and tested methods and execution discipline.