B2B marketers should be scared about doing the wrong things.

The neighborhood I live in does not have any young children in it. Although a few houses have put up a ghost or pumpkin here and there, I am not immersed in the celebration of Halloween, nor do I have a house full of candy (which is a good thing).

Unlike my colleague Casey Hibbard, of “Stories That Sell,” an expert on the creation and use of case studies, I didn’t think about writing a blog post related to this ancient holiday. Her article, “5 Ways Case Studies Can SCARE off Prospects” not only presents the major “no-nos” of case studies but her advice perfectly parallels what could scare off prospects in ANY lead generation message. Here are her points that I have translated into how a marketing approach can scare prospects off before they even get to the case study.

DO NOT:

1. Make it all about you.
   Prospects don’t care about the company offering the product until they are ready to evaluate it and make a buying decision. Until then what prospects want to know is “what’s in it for me.”
2. Be ugly.
   Ugly is in the eye of the beholder, but in marketing the message should be presented (online or offline) with a look that reflects the company’s quality and positioning. If the company’s unique selling proposition (USP) is low cost, then the design should be clean and basic. Copy should not say “low cost” and appear high-end.
3. Target the wrong audience.
   As my other blog entry — entitled “Content by any other name would smell as sweet” — explains, the accuracy of reaching the target market can affect marketing results by 200%. Targeting is everything. Marketers should actually focus the majority of their efforts on this critical element.
4. Ramble.
   This is true in all communication. If prospects can’t quickly and easily fly through the message, most of them won’t take the time to struggle through it.
5. Make it impossible to skim.
   One of the most important rules in presenting marketing messages is to assume that your prospect will not read one word of body copy. If the core of the message cannot be gleaned from reading the headlines and subheads, it will affect response no matter what the content says.

Marketers should read Casey’s article to see how these important points apply to case studies. Then put these rules to work in EVERYTHING they do.

In B2B marketing it’s no pain, no gain.

I’m on a diet. No, it’s not one of the official diets like the South Beach Diet® or Nutrisystem®. It’s not Jenny Craig® and it’s not even Weight Watchers®, though I’ll admit I have the Weight Watchers cookbook and it has wonderful recipes in it. No, I’m on the “Duh Diet.” How does that work? The “Duh Diet” requires that I eat less and exercise more. Duh! It’s a bit painful to have to forego desserts, but the exercise isn’t painful at all. So who started the “no pain, no gain” exercise mantra?

According to Wikipedia, “No pain, no gain (or “No gain without pain”) is an exercise motto that came into prominence after 1982 when actress Jane Fonda began to produce a series of aerobics workout videos.”  She was wrong, of course. Walking daily makes a huge difference, and it’s not painful at all.

What does require pain is B2B marketing.
It’s not the pain of the strategizing, the cost, or the effort I’m referring to, but the message. That is, if your message doesn’t immediately identify with your target market’s biggest pain, or a promise to solve that pain, your qualified prospects won’t read your message.

It’s simple, really, as these email or direct mail opening lines illustrate:

“Like many manufacturers, today’s rapidly changing markets and customer demands may be challenging your ability to react and stay competitive.”

“You know how costly it is for your company’s telecom system to go down unexpectedly — productivity stops, customers get frustrated and angry, sales virtually come to a halt.”

“Your school is now under added pressure to please policy makers, demanding parents, and even the media. Part of that pressure includes the Americans with Disability Act (ADA) regulations.”

“Your SalesForce.com is a powerful tool for sales and customer relationship management. But is the data in it telling you all you need to know about the real health of your pipeline?”

“Keeping your cardiac medicine practice successful requires a focus on two critical areas: making the right patient treatment decisions and keeping your practice profitable.”

Whether you’re using email or direct mail or other channels, if you don’t leverage your buyer’s pains in the message, there will be no gains.

What motivates business buyers to buy?

Geoffrey James on BNET writes about the “The 7 ‘Emotional Hooks’ for B2B Selling.” It’s a great reminder that human nature plays a role in all decisions. He asks if he missed any in his article. The answer is actually “yes.” His list of emotions that influence buying decisions is not quite complete.

For instance, as a B2B copywriter, I often use the “hero” approach (which always works by the way). There’s nothing more emotional than wanting to be the hero. I first used it for FirsTel, an early US WEST company (now Qwest), back when people wore ties to the office. It’s an emotional approach that even works on IT Executives.

So where did I learn that the underlying motivation for all decisions is emotional, even B2B decisions? By reading Successful Direct Marketing Methods, originally by Bob Stone, now by Ron Jacobs.

In it are listed all the emotional drivers for a decision. They fall into two categories: 1) the desire to gain and 2) the desire to avoid loss. Here is what is listed in the book:

The Desire to Gain
To make money
To save time
To avoid effort
To achieve comfort
To have health
To be popular
To experience pleasure
To be clean
To be praised
To be in style
To gratify curiosity
To satisfy an appetite
To have beautiful possessions
To attract romantic partners
To be an individual
To emulate others
To take advantage of opportunities

The Desire to Avoid Loss
To avoid criticism
To keep possessions
To avoid physical pain
To avoid loss of reputation
To avoid loss of money
To avoid trouble

Because this is such an important topic to B2B marketers, you’ll see more about it here in the future. But I’m glad others like Geoffrey are spreading the word.