B2B Emotional Engagement: 2014 Conference Crunched

EMOTIONAL ENGAGEMENT

#b2bconf

B2BCRUNCHED

The B2B Emotional Engagement Conference

www.earnest-agency.com

• November 5th 2014• http://www.b2bmarketingconference.co

m/

• #b2bconf• “Designed to help you put the emotion

back into your marketing”• Over 200 attendees • 4 keynotes• 20 expert speakers• 1 unmissable day

www.earnest-agency.com

We came, we saw, we crunched…

“Emotion has always been on the radar – but marketers haven’t understood how to leverage its importance in B2B.”

Here’s the problem

Joel Harrison, B2B Marketing

“We've lost the art of grabbing attention.

So now it's about getting people excited and interested in what we do.”

Darren Bolton, OgilvyOne DNX

“We all know about product parity but we're now in a situation where there's marketing parity - we're all campaigning on the same issues.”

Chris Wilson, Earnest

“In advertising, not to be different is virtually suicidal”

Bill Bernbach

But remember

“There’s never been a more important time to build deeper connections and really engage with your audiences.”

Joel Harrison, B2B Marketing

“Marketing needs to break out of its silo and do things that are quite remarkable.”

Paul Everett, The Marketing Practice

So what are you going to do about it?

“Be interesting and engaging with customers, so that they’ll call you in and be the supplier they want to hear from.”

Simon Carter, Fujitsu UK&I

“Stop sitting on the fence. Be brave. Find an interesting angle or a unique tone of voice. You need to be heard amongst the noise.” “Otherwise you

just face indifference like most other b2b brands.”

Darren Bolton, OgilvyOne DNX

“We've got to get a deeper understanding of our audience if we're going to engage them emotionally.

That's about understanding how they think and how they feel.”

Darren Bolton, OgilvyOne DNX

“We need to bring some of the same personality and humanity to B2B marketing as we do our everyday lives.”

Stuart Maister, BroadView

“85% of the decisions we make are made by the unconscious part of the brain.”

Chris Wilson, Earnest

And tune into the science of how buyers really think:

“When making a business purchase, it's often not about one decision it's about hundreds or even thousands of micro-yesses and each micro yes is highly emotive.”

Chris Wilson, Earnest

“When what you do isn't sexy you need to approach the market differently and engage with your audience differently.”

Kate Jones, Miele Professional

So the question is how?

“Do something that’s worth marketing rather than creating empty marketing.”

Paul Everett, The Marketing Practice

“The way to connect with your audience is through content.

Content is the connective thread of all marketing.”

Mark Addis, NewsCreds

“It's about content with a cause relevant to them and their roles - not about selling but becoming a trusted adviser.”

Kirsty Dawe, Really B2B

“We call it ‘Youtility’ - providing free information and resources that delivers value without selling to a customer.”

Kirsty Dawe, Really B2B

“Helping has become the new selling. If we help them we've got a customer for life rather than a one off sale.”

Kirsty Dawe, Really B2B

“Doing nothing won’t always cost you nothing. Having a lack of intelligent content will benefit your competitors”

Catherine Toole, Sticky Content

“Content is a hygiene factor. Just like you don’t need to be reminded to wash your hands after going to the loo, we don’t need to be reminded we need good quality content.”

Paul Everett, The Marketing Practice

However, bear in mind…

“By 2015 the average person will be exposed to 15.5 hours of content per day, that’s 9 DVDs of data. You need to stand out.”

Katie Canton, Birddog

6 rules of content sharing

1 Be selfish2 Be focused3 Be accommodating4 Be shockingly creative5 Be storytellers6 Make it easy to share Katie Canton, Birddog

“How do you get people to share your content? They need to care about it first.”

Katie Canton, Birddog

And the big one:

“If the experience of being a customer of ours doesn’t live up to what we’re promising, there’s only so far our marketing can take us.”

Paul Everett, The Marketing Practice

The experience matters

“Ask yourself is marketing here to be a support function or strategic asset to the business – a partner to Sales, the voice of the customer and the owner of the customer experience?”

Paul Everett, The Marketing Practice

“You have to get emotional engagement from your sales force too. If you can appeal to their hearts and minds, then you’re half way there.”

Simon Carter, Fujitsu UK&I

Engage internally too

“Encourage your sales force not to go armed with the long presentations, but go with pen and paper, listen to customers and build an emotional connection.”

Laura Bishop, Accenture

“Those companies with a highly engaged workforce improved operating income by 19.2% over a period of 12 months.”

Fran Brosan, Omobono

Why?

“You are 50% more likely to get on a tender if you lead with an emotional proposition.”

Paul Cash, Rooster Punk

“You can command an 8 times premium if you can connect with someone emotionally.”

Paul Cash, Rooster Punk

“Companies who focus on connecting with the audience have a growth rate triple that of their competitors.”

Mark Addis, NewsCreds

“Personal value messages impact B2B buyers more than twice as much as business value messages (42.6% versus 21.4%).”

Chris Wilson, Earnest

Where do you go from here?

“Gather up insights. Carve out 5% of your budget. And go for it. Adopt an iterative process”

Jon Moger, Juniper Networks

“Pick something that won't get you fired and give it a go.”

.Laura Bishop, Accenture

“Dare to be different. If you don’t you won’t be remembered on a long buyer journey. Every now and then messaging needs to push you out of your comfort zone and make you feel a bit sick.”

Jade Tambini, DS Smith

“Don't be afraid of fast failure - you don't know what you don't know until you've tried it.”

Jon Moger, Juniper Networks

 “B2B is far more emotional in its decision making than B2C because you can get fired for it.”

Jon Moger, Juniper Networks

“CEB and Google found that business brands had greater emotional connections to their customers than most consumer ones.”

Chris Wilson, Earnest

“There is no longer an era of change in b2b marketing, but the change of an era.”

Paul Cash, Rooster Punk

“Business people are people too – they just happen to be at work”

Chris Wilson, Earnest

And never forget:

That was Emotional Engagement 2014 crunched by:

www.earnest-agency.com

earnest-agency.com @earnestagency

And a big thank you to:@marketingb2b

“It’s been emotional.”

Images: Creative Commons Unsplash.com / Flickr