In “B.S.
Detector”,a :60 spot for the Adobe
Marketing Cloud suite of online measurement tools (Goodby Silverstein), an assortment
of young execs are asked how their firm measures the results of its digital
marketing efforts. Each marketer
responds by tossing out such jibberish as ripple effects, key influencers,
cross segment synergies, and 360 views of the customer. As they do so, they receive a shock from a
machine that’s calibrated to penalize the usage of marketing-speak that sounds
intelligent, but means absolutely nothing.
While the spot’s humor is
based on its exaggeration of reality, I think that it actually reveals a
troubling truth: too many marketing pros
are steeped in the argot of their discipline, and unable to explain how their
work can deliver the results that their clients need in order to thrive in the
marketplace.
According to author and corporate
sales trainer Lee Boyan, there are three ways in which sales reps can close B2B
sales: they need to be able to explain
how their product or service can make their clients money, save their clients
money, or improve a client’s image in the marketplace. These are the essential “big three” achievement
areas in which all companies must gain traction, and the “big three” results
(revenue generation, cost savings, image improvement) that business owners and C-suite
executives are focused upon.
Unfortunately, while many
marketing pros can effortlessly sprinkle dazzling (and dizzying) buzzwords into
their pitches and presentations, many are at a loss when it comes to concisely
delineating how their offerings can deliver one or more of the three key
results that will keep their clients operating in the black.
I think that the reason
for this disconnect is because most agency marketers have never owned or
operated their own businesses. If they
did, they’d realize that their clients need tools that will help them make money,
save money, or improve their image in the marketplace. If a marketer can’t plainly explain how a
particular tool can help a client meet those needs, then it’s worthless to the
client – irrespective of how successfully the tool can stimulate ripple
effects, key influencers, cross segment synergies, and 360 views of the
customer.
To help marketers
communicate more effectively, they need to first realize that their primary
function is to support their company’s sales team. Marketers must strategically identify the
target buyers for their products or services, create the multimedia collateral
that succinctly explains their offerings, and enunciate crystal clear value
propositions that capture the deliverable benefits which would be most appealing
to potential customers (and helpful to their company’s sales pros). If five different marketers working for the
same company give five different answers about why their customers should buy
their product or service - and they do so using the same kind of inane yang
that’s featured in the Adobe spot - then those marketers are failing their
department, their sales force, and their company overall.
To remedy this situation,
marketers should spend more time learning about the unique needs, goals, and
challenges of their customers and less time inhaling the sweet smoke of their
own overcooked, overdone marketing slang.
By putting themselves into a buyer’s mindset, they’d realize that a
simply stated description of the specific “big three” benefits that a product
or service can deliver is much more convincing than a string of moist,
meaningless marketing mush that’s so devoid of substance, it could be used to
describe just about anything.
Another option would be
for all agency and in-house marketing directors to borrow Adobe’s B.S. detector
and hook up each member of his/her team to it.
After a few rounds of responding to the question “what are the benefits
that our product/service delivers to our customers?”, staffers would
painfully get the point of how to provide the correct answer. The result would be a reduction in the cliché
quotient, an increase in brevity and clarity, and a much more effective – and
profitable - way of communicating.
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