By Harry Mackin

When you were getting started in B2B marketing or selling, did you suspect you’d be selling your product more or less the same way for years at a time, or maybe for even longer?

What a sweet dream that was. But a few years in B2B shook you awake.

The truth is, the B2B consumer doesn’t just change as quickly as the B2C consumer; they actually change considerably faster. Your B2B customer’s needs are constantly morphing and evolving just as fast as their industry develops, their competition stiffens, and new technologies enter the fore.

The B2B brand that keeps its existing customers and brings in new ones has to evolve even faster than its customers. As a B2B marketer or B2B salesperson, your job is to understand what your customer’s need just as quickly (or even faster than) they realize they need it and demonstrate that you can provide it.

While there’s not exactly a foolproof, one-size-fits-all model for prognosticating your customer’s needs and speaking to them (wouldn’t that be nice), there is a generalized five step process savvy B2B marketers like you can follow to double and triple check that you understand your customer’s needs and that you’re speaking to them as directly and effectively as possible.

Let’s follow the data and break down that process:

Step 1: Reassess & prioritize your Category Entry Points

Your Category Entry Points, or CEPs, are the main, recurring pain points and motivations your buyers experience that cause them to seek out a product or service like yours in the first place. CEPs create your buyer’s initial need to find your product.

First, ask yourself if your primary CEPs are still relevant. Are customers still experiencing the pain points and motivations that cause them to seek out your category of products and services? Just as importantly, do they perceive those pain points and motivations in a way that’s still causing them to seek out products like yours, or has something shifted?

If your CEPs have shifted, why is that? Is there a new product or technology that is solving your original CEP concerns in a different way? Have your customer’s businesses changed such that their motivations and pain points aren’t what they once were? Most importantly: what is motivating your customers to seek out new products now?

Broaden your CEPs to include the new ways your customers are thinking about and approaching their pain points, then focus on addressing these newly broadened topics of concern across your marketing initiatives. As vice president of marketing at LinkedIn Marketing Solutions* Jim Habig recently shared when speaking about B2B marketing in 2023, “The key to making your promise valuable is in understanding your customer. Essentially you need to understand what they need to do, when they need to do it, why it will help them, and who needs to be on board to move forward.”

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Source:: Top Rank Blog

Author: Aaron