12 New Rules of B2B Product Launch

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12 New Rules of B2B Product Launch © Advanced Industrial Marketing www.b2bproductlaunch.com

customer finds the supplier—not the other way around If

someone deep inside a prospect company can’t find you,

your new product just lost to a competitor’s

Second, B2B marketers have been following the rules of

B2C marketers for way too long Compared to their

consumers, our business customers are more insightful,

rational, interested and fewer in number Advantage

B2B… but only if we follow new rules Our rules

Third, much more rigor is needed by most B2B suppliers

Products are “released” casually, budgets are spent

inefficiently, and prospects respond "underwhelmingly."

1 Be easy to find… when your prospect is ready 1

2 Link “early-stage” to “late-stage” marketing 3

3 Get inside their minds with positioning 5

4 Help prospects advance along the buying cycle 7

5 Use engagement—not interruption—marketing 9

6 Customize for industry concentration & position 11

7 Use online articles to boost “findability” 13

8 Use word of mouth to build buzz 15

9 Use powerful new online marketing tools 17

10 Integrate traditional media in your strategy 19

11 Make your sales pros look like geniuses 21

12 Pull it all together in a launch plan 23

Appendix : Training & Software from AIM 25

Rule

I worked inside large corporations for 29 years, mostly in marketing positions It was great fun, but I believe the best is yet to come for B2B marketers I hope you’ll find some new rules here that ignite your

next product launch Meet me at the end of this e-book for more ideas

Dan Adams AIM, Inc.

12 New Rules of B2B Product Launch

This e-book—in its entirety—may be posted to your corporate intranet or blog

www.b2bproductlaunch.com dan.adams@aimtolead.com

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You’re about to launch a great new product and your job

is to hunt down prospects and close some sales, right?

Well, partly… but that’s so 20th century

In 80% of B2B transactions today, the customer finds the

supplier—not the other way around.1 What does this mean

to you? For starters, you must answer new questions:

 What will prompt a Google search by prospects, and

what search terms will they use?

 How can you hold their interest? It’s hard to avoid a sales

rep, but “good-bye” now sounds like a mouse-click

 Who are your real targets… among the many job

functions typically involved in B2B buying decisions?

 How do you meet prospects where they are? Some just

starting to explore… others comparing specifications

The 12 new rules in this e-book will help you answer these

questions and more So happy hunting And being hunted

20%

80%

B2B transactions today…

1 For business decision makers B2B Lead Generation Handbook, MarketingSherpa, 2008, p 99.

Supplier finds Customer Customer finds Supplier

Rule

prospect is ready

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When I’m asked to explain marketing, I break it down

into early-stage marketing—when you find out what

customers want—and late-stage marketing, when you

promote your new product to them

The latter is more glamorous, but without solid work in

the “fuzzy front end,” you’re headed for a new product

belly flop You really must do both stages well to win big

In fact, you need to link your early-stage and late-stage

marketing… by intentionally gathering customer information in

the front end for later use in your launch To do this well,

replace the 4 Ps you borrowed from consumer marketing

(product, price, place, promotion) with a new B2B model:

Design Product

Develop Product

Deliver Product

Front-End Work

Heavy Spending

Product Launch

Early-Stage Marketing Late-Stage Marketing

Deliver the Right Product to the Right Market using the Right Message through the Right Media :

To get the Right Message, data-mine your front-end interviews to uncover customers’ hot-button language For

the Right Media and Right Market, add two questions to customer interviews and surveys:

1) How does your company learn about new ideas?

2) Who decides which ideas to pursue?

The first question tells you their preferred media use The second helps you target key prospects in the company

Of course, there’s more you can do, but these simple steps will do wonders for your next product launch

Rule

“late-stage” marketing

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Over 30 years ago, Ries and Trout brought us Positioning:

The Battle for Your Mind.1 Much of their thinking still

applies today Consider these principles adapted for B2B:

In B2C, advertising is too weak a force to overcome

Principle #1 You can be more persuasive in B2B, but a

direct frontal assault on a competitor’s position is costly

This makes “news” a great form of promotion Think

news releases, presentations on new technology, webinars

with new info, or (ahem) e-books with new rules

Hertz

is #1 is #1 Avis

Principle #1

Once a prospect’s mind

is made up, it is very difficult to change it

A ?

B C

Principle #2

However, prospects’

minds are usually open

to new information

D

IBM WSJ McKinsey

Principle #3

Your goal is to be the first

to occupy mind-space for your category

If you “plant your flag” first in the customer’s mind, it’s easy turf to defend Don’t abandon your position by letting clever ad agencies stray from your core message

If you don’t already own a category, look for an unoccupied category you can claim Webex, for example,

claimed web-conference-based business collaboration

Create a simple message and keep beating the same drum… in every medium you use Think FedEx speed, Cisco connectivity or DuPont miracles of science

1 Al Ries and Jack Trout, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1981)

Principle #4

If you can’t be first, create a new category where you can be

Your Brand

Principle #5

In an over-communicated society, use an over-simplified message

Simple

Rule

with positioning

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In the good old days—when suppliers found prospects

instead of the other way around—you knew how to pitch

your product There was a time to cultivate, a time to

compare, a time to close You knew which time it was if

you knew how to listen to your prospect

But what if your prospect finds you on the internet, and

you have no idea where her head is? She could be at any of

these stages…

1 Oblivious to the problem you’d like to solve

2 Thinking about the above problem

3 Aware of your product

4 Considering buying your product

5 Ready to negotiate for your product

A one-size-fits-all marketing message won’t work, so

what do you do? Let the prospect decide when to move to the

next stage Provide a stream of “offers” that prospects can

accept when they are ready Here are some examples…

Price Estimator Calculator Technical Paper

In-Depth Brochure Webinar

Technical Consultation Case Study

White Paper Product Sample

Purchase Negotiation

Consideration

Product Awareness

Need Awareness Oblivious Prospect isn’t thinking about the problem you’d like to help solve

Prospect recognizes a problem

or opportunity worth addressing

Prospect is aware of your

solution to his problem

Prospect actively evaluates best way to address need

Prospect wants your solution

… under the right conditions

Prospect agrees to buy your solution

Time

1

2

3

4

5

6

Buying Cycle Stages

2

3

Make it easy for prospects to move to the next stage by providing “offers”… such as white papers & webinars

Rule

along the buying cycle

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Got an exciting product? Can’t wait to tell prospects how

amazing it is? Steady now: If your prospect is at an early

stage in the buying cycle, patiently employ engagement

marketing Don’t rush in with interruption marketing

Interruption marketing occurs when the supplier barges

into the prospect’s world It’s an ad unrelated to the

magazine article the prospect is reading… an e-mail during

the prospect’s busy day ranting about a new product

In engagement marketing, the supplier is invited into the

prospect’s world More than anything else, engagement

marketing is useful content from the prospect’s perspective

Think how this works for you You don’t appreciate

commercial hype But how about a free white paper or

webinar concerning your problems, your interests, your

industry? And if the sponsor drops a slide or page in at

the end suggesting how they might “help you more,”

you’re OK with that, right? (Ever eager to be helpful,

we’ve provided an example at the end of this e-book.)

That’s engagement marketing You’ll have time later in

the buying cycle to tell prospects about the wonders of

your new product For now, it’s all about them

Case study on how a company used a product New research on some aspect of your industry How-to guide for using a

product better Top-10 list of ways to improve business Interview with top analyst on

state of industry Interview with top executive

on state of industry

# Prospect Responses

Prospects are interested in their

problems & industry… not you

1 Source: B2B Lead Generation Handbook, MarketingSherpa, 2008, p 315.

Rule

interruption—marketing

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So which media will you use? How will you spread your

limited budget between 9 traditional and 9 online media?

Four factors should influence your decision:

1) Prospects’ media preferences 2) Your resources

3) Industry concentration 4) Your industry position

#1 can be easily determined in your front-end work (See

2-Question Survey in Rule 2) #2 is about your budget

and existing capabilities (e.g., sales force vs distributors)

Industry concentration considers the number of potential

buyers Your industry position is determined by whether

you are currently a key supplier to this market or not

While this oversimplifies the matter, think of four quadrants:1

Quad 1: Your sales force can easily reach prospects Invest

in sales training & tools; reinforce them with online media

Quad 2: To build credibility with a few prospects, use media such as customer seminars & helpful white papers

Quad 3: Too many to reach with direct sales Use news releases & search marketing to drive them to your website

Quad 4: Use your database—and others’—to build a

“community of users” via e-mail and other online methods

1 We use 20 scenarios—not 4—in our LaunchStar ® software (shown on last page of e-book).

Rule

concentration & position

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Many people think the reason to write a press release is

so the press will write a story about them But that’s

following the old rules The main reason today is to

attract prospects to your website Here’s how it works…

1) You write a news release loaded with valuable

content editors believe their online readers will love

2) Your article is published on the web… and includes

your embedded keywords and links to your website

3) The prospect Googles using one of your keywords,

and your article appears in his Google results page

4) The prospect reads your article, thinks you’re clever,

and hits the embedded link to your website Ta-dah

The key is to write content that online magazine and

trade journal editors believe their readers will love That’s

your real audience—not “the press.”

Here’s when this “clicked” for me: I wanted to use the term “B2B

Organic Growth” for my newsletter, and figured I’d better Google to

see if someone else was using it Every single hit on the 1 st Google

results page belonged to me! Why? Most of the articles my publicist

and I had written used this keyword phrase I called her and said,

“OK… I think we can start using some other keywords now!”

Article

Keyword

Link

Article

Keyword

Link

Article

Keyword

Link

You issue news releases

Articles are published

…with your embedded keywords & links

1

2

How to boost your internet “findability”

Prospect Googles using keyword and finds your article

3

Link takes prospect to your website

4

Bonus: Links from popular sites boost the everyday ranking of your website

Rule

boost “findability”

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Research by MarketingSherpa reveals that more business

executives are impacted by word of mouth than anything

else.1 Here are six tips for building buzz:

1) Identify and promote to industry thought leaders

Use communications to VIP editors & bloggers

2) Promote to people already in groups—e.g., trade shows

& conferences—so they can discuss your product

3) Seek opinions from industry experts: Commission

lab tests… seek evaluations… create advisory panels

4) Gain testimonials from respected early adopters

Get advance samples in the hands of willing customers

5) Use front-end interviews to find decision influencers at

prospect companies Build relations with key contacts

6) Make it easy for these decision influencers to tell

their colleagues about your product, with…

• Leave-behind presentations & sales aids

• E-mails with links to interesting videos, etc

• Newsletters and literature rich in content

Let your prospects work for you:

• Be easy to recommend (Rule 8)

• Be easy to find (Rule 7)

1 B2B Lead Generation Handbook, MarketingSherpa, 2008, p 73.

Rule

build buzz

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Online marketing has exploded in the last 15 years… in

both B2C and B2B (especially IT, e.g web-conferencing

& data backup) Online marketing offers strong benefits:

We can’t do them proper justice here, but let’s take a

quick tour of these 9 online media…

 Online Advertising: You pay per click, with search engine

ads or contextual ads (displayed next to related articles)

 News Release: Used to be called a press release Great

for leading prospects to your website (see Rule 7)

 White Paper: Rich in non-commercial, useful content

Often used to develop leads early in the buying cycle

 E-mail Marketing: 21st century version of direct mail

There’s a science to this: Seek professional help

 Online Presentation: Slideshow & video embedded in a

website for online consumption Very persuasive

 Social Media: Interactive dialogues using web-based and

mobile technologies Linked-In is especially good for B2B

 Webinar: Good for connecting with hard-to-reach prospects,

e.g executives and marketing Efficient way to relay info.

 Web Microsite: A part of your corporate website focused

on the needs of one audience, e.g., your target market

 Search Marketing: Everything you do to rank high in

Google searches (aka Search Engine Optimization)

Online Advertising News Release White Paper Email Marketing Online Presentation Social Media Webinar Web Microsite Search Marketing

9 Online Media

Rule

marketing tools

Benefits of Online Marketing

Lower cost per lead generated

Easier to measure effectiveness

Helps prospects find supplier

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