When I work with clients to help them create a marketing dialogue, it's amazing how many of them dig in their heels about what they think is most important focus. Often times, I absolutely agree that the outcome they're adamant that they help their customers achieve is indeed correct. The point of contention arises when we talk about how they'll create a marketing dialogue that gets them in more conversations that result in qualified sales opportunities that field sales can close.
It's all in how you go about framing the marketing dialogue.
Choice 1: You can take the same stance as everyone else and hope that people choose to talk to you, despite the plethora of choices available to them. Yes, you can stand firm and lead with those words and ideas you've invested in so heavily.
Or…
Choice 2: You can re-frame the dialogue in a unique way – one that leads to the same desirable outcome prospects want via a differentiated path that encourages prospects to engage. You see, once there's a new choice amidst a sea of sameness, people want to know what it is and why it's different.
It's all in the spin.
A few ideas to help you spin your marketing dialogue:
Take a look at what others are not saying. Where are the gaps in their marketing dialogues?
Assess companies who are promising similar results that may not be in the same classification as your product. In other words, which kind of companies own the conversation you want? Quite often this may surprise you.
I wrote a post about The Fallacy of No Competition recently that gets at this issue. The gist for this post is that the companies who own the conversation may not even be on your radar if you aren't broadening your scope to assess by conversational focus, not just product/solution classification.
I guarantee you that there are multiple ways to solve whatever problem your product solves. And the solution doesn't have to look like yours to be a valid choice.
Ask yourself what could cause those solutions to fail for customers? What does your solution do differently?
How is your approach to the problem different?
Consider this scenario as an example:
Is everyone talking about speed when what produces the best results is actually quality in execution? Does achieving that quality of execution result in the speed improvement?
What would happen if you spun your marketing dialogue to lead with a process that supports quality in execution that, once achieved, results in speed? Will the freshness of the approach inspire conversation with your prospects that you have difficulty achieving with your current messaging?
What if the extended story is the repeatability and continuous improvement your customers get because they established the process for quality in execution as the foundation?
Marketing is about getting into conversation with people who can/will buy from you. It's not about closing the deal from the starting gate. Not in a B2B complex sale. It's definitely not about saying the same things everyone else says.
How does your marketing dialogue make you different, more interesting than everyone else? How can you put more spin on it to catch and keep your prospects' attention?
