Secrets of powerful B2B communications

Enterprise Ireland eBusiness WorkshopGalway, 15th June 2016

Consider your ideal customers.The ones who are a perfect fit for your offering. For whom you really make a difference. The profitable ones. The ones you love.

Now, would you like 2, 4 or 6 times more of those wonderful sweet spot customers?OMG The joy! The growth! The satisfaction! The profit!

Well now you can.

Today’s buyer behaviour and technology means you can now cut through the clutter, reach anyone, anywhere and immediately engage them.

Your sweet spot prospects are waiting to hear from you.

Are you going to get your image and communications

in order?Build impressive, clear, engaging, persuasive, comprehensive communications. Foundation &

ongoing.

+Are you going to let those sweet spot prospects know

you exist?Build a proven, sustainable set of activities to

reach and engage.

Done right your return will be…

Retain and up-sell existing clients. Protect and increase margins. Increase lead-to-sale conversion rates. Reduce effort required. Increase flow of high quality warm leads.

Improve recruitment and increase motivation. Make easier work of business.

Open up to realise the full potential of the business.

More sweet spot customers.

Greater profitability.

Our purpose is to help smart, ambitious, internationally focused, B2B companies realise their potential.

We do that by ensuring they have everything they need in terms of positioning, branding, communications and sustained marketing activities to realise their ambitions.

Since 2005. Team of 13.Deep digital expertise.

Maverick Consultancy Positioning, Value Prop Development, Communications and Marketing Planning.

Maverick Brand & CommsBrand development, copywriting, photography, graphics, websites, sales materials.

Maverick Lead Gen Semi and fully outsourced marketing programmes. Deep expertise in content and search engine marketing.

Before & After

Raise your expectations

Expect your communications and marketing to reach, engage and move peopleI feel excited; you are exactly what we need.

I feel I can trust you; clear, competent, specialist, established.

Communications +

Marketing activities

3phases of work to create communications which can move people

3Clear, comprehensive, engaging content

Clearly defined position & plans

All fully and consistently brought to life across all touch points

//

//

//

phases

Purpose

Value proposition

Personality & visual style

#1 Clearly defined position & plans

//

//

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// Communications development plan

Purpose:

Why?Why does the company exist?

How do you help? What difference do you make?

Today and for the next 20 years.

Our purpose is to help make telecom networks stronger, smarter and faster. We do this by driving innovation in telecoms connectivity.

Our purpose is:

To enable large organisations who use ERP solutions to better automate and manage high volume financial transactions.We do this by focusing our expertise and technology on supporting ERP platforms which need more advanced AP, AR and Bank Rec automation, functionality and control. We help create more intelligent, more automated, more feature rich financial operations and thereby increase efficiency, increase effectiveness and reduce costs.

Our purpose is:

Our purpose is to help smart, ambitious, internationally focused, B2B companies realise their potential.

We do that by ensuring they have everything they need in terms of positioning, branding, communications and sustained marketing activities to realise their ambitions.

Our purpose is:

Value Proposition:

What? How? Who? Outcome?

Value proposition development

1. Challenge/need/pain for your sweet spot

customers?

2. Ideal solution for them? (regardless of provider)

3. Your unique solution? (directly reflecting what’s

above)a) The need you fill spectacularly well?b) For who exactly?c) What you’ve got that makes this possible? d) Key outcomes/value and proof of that?

Prove everything! Your capability, your uniqueness, your results. With numbers, facts, testimonials, stories – and ideally video testimonials.

Value proposition:

Personality & Visual Style

PersonalityWhat personality is true to your company and will resonate with your prospects? How should you look and sound? Define it.

Visual styleThen develop a distinctive, fully developed visual style which reflects your defined personality - logo, fonts, colours, graphical styling, images, tone of voice.

Personality – Aubren – how should they look and sound?

- Trustworthy, heart in the right place, integrity

- Creative, innovative & progressive

- Open, approachable

- Collaborative

- Precise

- Capable - people & facility

- Specialists, experts

Visual Style

Purpose

Value Proposition

Personality & visual style

#1 Clearly defined position & plans

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//

//

// Communications development plan

P’s DocThe table of content’s from this typical P’s document gives some sense of the scope of work in our first phase ‘Research, positioning & planning’.

#2 Clear, comprehensive, engaging content Elements What you’re

doinge.g. Your unique solution(s)

Your success stories Your story

Your capabilities Your ideas/thinking

PitchingStory tellingAnswering

questions/concerns Sharing/educating

Always:Selling, persuading & moving

to next step.

Using

WordsPhotographsExplainer graphicsVideo

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication

“Leonardo da Vinci

Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean, to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.

“

Steve Jobs

Copy Before & After //

Moving to more precise, engaging, persuasive copy.

In all materials With the teamWebsite

Print materials PDFs

Sales presentationProposal documents

Social media presence Trade show stand

Signage in your premisesVehicles

Packaging

All singing from the same hymn sheet.

Especially:- Management - Sales - Service

#3 Fully and consistently brought to life across all touch points

3phases

Clear, comprehensive, engaging content

Clearly defined position & plans

All 3 consistently and fully brought to life across all touch points

//

//

//

Are you going to get your image and communications

in order?Build impressive, clear, engaging, persuasive, comprehensive communications. Foundation &

ongoing.

+Are you going to let those sweet spot prospects know

you exist?Build a proven, sustainable set of activities to

reach and engage.

Content marketing

Search marketing 2most successful B2B marketing tactics

//

//

Search Marketing // “Chemical Stores” (UK)

Search Marketing // “IBC Storage” (UK)

Content Marketing // Solgari

Content Marketing // Solgari

Done right your return will be…

Retain and up-sell existing clients. Protect and increase margins. Increase lead-to-sale conversion rates. Reduce effort required. Increase flow of high quality warm leads.

Improve recruitment and increase motivation. Make easier work of business.

Open up to realise the full potential of the business.

More sweet spot customers.

Greater profitability.

Why do so few tap this power? Few small and medium sized companies seizing today’s opportunity to harness the full power of branding, communications and marketing to win more sweet spot customers and power growth and profitability.

Why?

Don’t value itMD doesn’t understand that branding, communications and marketing is as important as product/service.

We’re okMD doesn’t see that their comms and marketing is weak, thinks it’s much better than it is. Not seeing that comms and marketing weaknesses are the source of many of their problems.

Don’t know the wayAnd go the wrong way. Let’s just get a new website!

A website is just a container. It’s the ingredients that matter; value proposition, stories, facts & stats, explainer graphics, diagrams, bank of images, brand identity, visual style.

Lacking purpose, focus & clarityPurpose not clear = all is weakened.

Unclear value proposition = everything unclear.

Lack of providersFor end-to-end solutions, with B2B expertise.

1.Defining P’s 2.Branding, copywriting, graphics, photography, website, print etc. 3.Developing marketing activities

What does it take?

MD’s sees the need & leads the way.

Leadership

Investment depends on many factors including:

• standard of current brand, comms and marketing • complexity of offering • level of detail required • number and scale of outputs • level of internal expertise & resources

Branding and comms best viewed as a capital investment. Marketing activities operational spend.

Investment

Marketing Director +Researchers, planners, copywriters, photographers, graphic designers, print designers, web designers, website builders, marketing specialists.

Talent

Find the talent and trust them to deliver.Insufficient and weak trust is the most common factor in compromising the work.

Trust

There is a wayA programme to follow and rules for each step.Many ducks, and hard to get them all in a row.

Principles

For MD & senior team.- Workshops - Reviewing & discussing internally, providing feedback- Gather content, creating new content - And ongoing

Work

No quick fix.5 months+ for complete positioning, image and comms re-vamp.

Then sustained marketing activities, keep planting seeds.

Time

Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds you plant.

“

Robert Louis Stevenson

We’d suggest ABC allow 21 weeks to complete these 6 phases.

•Research, positioning & planning, approx. 5 weeks•Develop visual style, approx. 3 weeks (with 1 week overlap with above)•Develop copy & image bank, approx. 4 weeks•Plan & design website, approx. 5 weeks•Build, test and go live with new website, approx. 5 weeks•Plan, design and roll out all other branding and sales materials, done while site is being built

Timeline for ABC

Your Opportunity.Today’s buyer behaviour and technology means you can now cut through the clutter, reach anyone, anywhere and immediately engage them.

Your sweet spot prospects are waiting to hear from you!

They are the key to a growing, sustainable, profitable business.

Ed Field // 087 699 7068 // +353 61 620 147 ext 203edfield@maverick-intl.com // maverick-intl.com

Secrets of powerful B2B communications

The art of communication is the language of leadership.James Humes

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