9 pm and the last rays of the sun still continue to spread their glow in the sky. The magic of this season. The time for grilling and chilling. Perfect weather to enjoy outdoor sports, adventure or simply just get outside. And there’s nothing like a tall, cool, refreshing drink that has been masterfully created to deliver sheer delight. I found some nice ones, non-alcoholic as well as these exciting summer cocktails—take your pick!
Now how about some ideas to please your customers? Not just please, but delight them when they are all hot and bothered. Here’s how you can shake, stir and blend your B2B lead generation and marketing activities to deliver a truly refreshing customer experience.
- Blend traditional and new. Green smoothies are all the rage this summer, but you don’t have to stick to the traditional favorites like kiwi, mint and spinach. Try some kale, avocado, celery, green mango, cilantro, lime; you can make it really exciting! Start thinking outside the box with your lead generation too. Review your organizational history to determine what always works and then give it a new, creative spin. Take advantage of technology to support your study of customer behaviour. Use predictive analytics to decide on the future course of activity.
- Focus on the subtle. In contrast with the full-bodied drinks and classic brews of winter, summer drinks are best when the taste, aroma and flavour is distinct, yet subtle, not overwhelming. Customers too are looking for non-pushy, high quality content that pulls them towards your brand rather than pushes them to consume more noise. An educational, insightful whitepaper embedded as a downloadable link in your email newsletter can work wonders. It does not have to be aggressively promoted as a stand-alone content piece that your customers may choose to ignore simply because it is too “in-your-face”.
- Add colour and variety. Even looking at pictures of colourful, artfully created summer drinks makes one feel refreshed and rejuvenated. They appeal to us aesthetically and we desire more. Your B2B content marketing calendar can take a useful tip from this. Make sure you have a good mix of content items ready for distribution to your audiences. Invest in good presentation and achieve a balance of visuals and text-based content. An Infographic is a great example of this.
- Create a tasting menu. Some of the best restaurants offer patrons their chef’s tasting menu. It includes the best-selling dishes to wow the customer first time. Similarly, a good bartender too will recommend the top drinks to win you over. You can do the same with your lead generation. Ensure that the preliminary experience your customer has with your brand, a.k.a. your tasting menu, is absolutely extraordinary. Then keep at it to make every subsequent experience just as satisfying, if not better. Read my earlier piece on How to Create a B2B Lead Generation Tasting Menu.
- Mixing and Pairing. While some of us may have a very adventurous palate, there are some ingredients that just don’t go together in a drink. I was once offered a mango smoothie that looked really appetizing but the mint chocolate chips in it were completely out of place! What was my host thinking? Mango, mint and chocolate are all wonderful, but on their own, not together. You have a deep chest of lead generation tools but you need to be clever about how to combine them for the best results. An email campaign to promote a webinar is logical and likely to be effective if executed well. Do you need an email campaign to promote your latest news release to your customers? That’s overkill! A ‘news’ release must be found and delivered like news, not promoted through an email blast.
What is your B2B organization doing to make the customer experience unique? What B2B lead generation ideas can you bring in from the refreshing lineup of summer drinks? Feel free to share on my blog. You can also email or call me, Louis Foong, at (905) 709-3827.
Image credit: Shutterstock
