Christopher Ryan

Let’s start today’s post by acknowledging one important fact. It is usually much, much (did I say “much”) easier to up-sell an existing customer than it is to find a new customer. Yet, our marketing efforts are often focused on selling the whole enchilada to the customer on their first experience with us. This is often counterproductive, and why you may need to adopt the “land and expand” marketing strategy.

This is where the “D-Day” analogy comes in. In World War II the objective of the Allied powers to re-take the European continent was not to capture it all at once, but rather to land in a small area, establish a beachhead and expand from that point. Your beachhead is a group of customers in a particular market that can be leveraged and expanded.

The land and expand strategy in marketing is based on the premise that it is easier to get a minor commitment first and then work your way...

One of General George Patton’s guiding principles was, “When in doubt, attack.” This sentiment was also expressed by many other famous military commanders. Their point was that although conditions are not always right and the outcome can be uncertain, you are usually better off going on the offensive and generate leads instead of sitting back and waiting for perfect conditions. This is equally true with your B2B marketing efforts.

So why do we hesitate instead of acting? Here are five common reasons:

Timing is an extremely important element in B2B marketing and sales.  The degree of prospect receptivity can range from zero percent (there is no chance I will buy your product) to 100 percent (where do I sign?).  Most prospects are somewhere in between these extremes.  The trick is to sell the ones who are ready to be sold, nurture those who are in-between, and keep in touch with those who have no interest now but may in the future.

This is where the pull marketing model can be so effective.  It can be a good vehicle to keep your company top of mind, so that when the prospect has a need for your product or service, you are high on their consideration list. One of our Fusion Marketing Partners’ clients refers to this as “being invited to the dance.”  The prospect chooses the time for the dance but you get to be a dance partner – a pretty good tradeoff.

Pull marketing allows prospects...

Get a bunch of B2B marketing professionals together and ask them: What are your most important criteria for benchmarking performance and how do you define marketing success? You’ll probably get some blank stares and muddled answers. “Well, we find that in this world of Web 2.0, commitment to advertising synergy…” blah blah blah. But the fact is that good marketing is both an art and a science.

Unless you can explain concisely how your department measures and reports on work output, you will not be recognized as a good marketer, let alone be viewed as indispensible in a tough economic climate. Start the thinking-through process by asking yourself these six questions.  Note that some of these are soft/qualitative measurements while others are hard/quantitative measurements – both are important.