Are business-to-business marketing and consumer marketing basically the same?
Or are there fundamental differences that make selling to executives – engineers -- IT professionals -- HR departments – architects – doctors – scientists -- and small business owners a uniquely difficult challenge?
You already know the answer ...
- Hype-filled copy that sells nutritional supplements to consumers by the truckload would be viewed as promotional baloney by doctors making important clinical decisions about medications, instruments, and equipment.
- The language, tone, and outrageous promises you use to sell stock market newsletters to individual investors is a total turn-off to – and won’t work on – a conservative bank president or portfolio manager.
- Marketing campaigns that sell technology to consumers have to be simple. “Forget features; only talk about benefits,” we are told. But engineers, IT professionals, and other techies want to know the features and specs. And if you leave out the important technical content they need to make a decision ... or talk down to them in any way ... you won’t get the sale.
No. Business-to-business and consumer marketing definitely are NOT the same. There are differences ... important differences.
And unless you know what motivates – and how to sell to – business buyers, your marketing campaigns will generate mediocre results, at best, whenever you run them.
My name is Bob Bly, and I know the truth of what I am saying first-hand….
I started my career as a chemical engineer, and saw how most business-to-business marketing was too glossy and superficial to sell anything to any of my fellow engineers.
Then I made the switch from engineering to marketing. And for nearly 3 decades, I’ve specialized in business-to-business marketing: selling equipment, materials, and services to other businesses rather than consumers.
As my bio and testimonials in the column at left prove, my credentials in B2B are unduplicated by any other copywriter.
I’ve been a member of the Business Marketing Association for over 2 decades, and taught B2B copywriting at New York University.
Recently, I was one of the nominees for the “B2B Marketer of the Year” award from the Direct Marketing Association.
More importantly, my B2B marketing campaigns have beat controls – and set sales records – for dozens of business-to-business marketers worldwide:
- A direct mail campaign I helped write for a major telecommunications company generated an unheard-of 50% response … and an immediate $5.6 million in sales for the company’s disaster recovery services.
- An ad for a major IT training firm pulled double the number of sales leads of all previous ads, after I made a simple change to the offer.
- For a Fortune 500 computer company mailing an expensive color brochure with a 1-page cover letter, my rewrite of their sales letter pulled 6X greater response than the old letter, with no changes to the costly brochure or envelope.
Now, I want to share my best B2B marketing secrets with you in an audio learning program: Bob Bly’s B2B Marketing University.
This course is shipped to you risk-free as 6 professionally recorded, hour-long audio CDs, each covering a vital aspect of successful business-to-business marketing.
We begin with ...
B2B Strategy Session #1: Fundamentals of Business-to-Business Marketing
On this CD, master copywriter Clayton Makepeace interviews me about the key principles of effective business-to-business direct marketing.
Just pop the CD into your player, hit the PLAY button, and listen to our wide-ranging interview to discover:
- 7 key differences between B2B and B2C marketing. Leave out even one, and your B2B campaign is doomed to failure.
- How to create marcom campaigns that help your company’s sales force close more and bigger contracts, more often.
- Does the business buyer always put his company’s interests above his own personal preferences when making purchase decisions? The answer may surprise you.
- Determining copy length based on the role of your promotion in the B2B buying cycle.
- Who is the most important decision-maker in B2B marketing: the end user ... the purchasing agent ... the technical buyer ... the owner ... the CEO ... or someone else entirely?
- How to drive business prospects to your B2B Web site with SEO and PPC.
- How much money can you make as a copywriter or consultant specializing in B2B marketing? Plus: how to set and get your fees.
- What to sell in your B2B copy. Hint: it is NOT the product. It’s something else entirely. Can you name it?
- Is marketing less important to B2B companies than it is to consumer products companies?
- And more ...
B2B Strategy Session #2: Marketing with White Papers
Next, Mark Amtower interviews me about using white papers and other “free content” offers to create B2B marketing campaigns that generate more qualified sales leads in greater quantity.
During the call, we discuss:
- A sure-fire way to DOUBLE response rates to virtually any B2B marketing campaign.
- Why you need to offer a “bait piece” – some sort of free content – to get qualified prospects to express interest in your product or service.
- How to determine the best topics for your white papers and other bait pieces.
- Easy-to-use formulas for quickly and easily creating an engaging and compelling title for your bait piece.
- How to use white papers and other bait pieces to generate sales leads and build your mailing list online.
- World’s biggest white paper syndicator explains how much “selling” you can do in a white paper ... and why prospects are willing to put up with it.
- How to generate clicks and leads online by driving traffic to a landing page offering a free white paper.
- Do white papers work when selling big ticket items only? Or can they be effective with low-priced offers?
- And many other ways to establish yourself as a thought leader – and generate more leads and sales – with free content offers.
B2B Strategy Session #3:Software Marketing Secrets
My colleague Ivan Levison is one of the top freelance copywriters working in the software industry today.
In this session, I interview Ivan and get him to share some of his most powerful techniques for generating sales leads for technology products.
Including:
- The unique “brawny blocker” mailing format for generating sales appointments with high-level prospects.
- How to use “free guide” offers to double and triple response to lead-generating promotions for software and other high-tech products.
- Should your company’s name and logo appear on the outer envelope -- or anywhere on the letterhead?
- What works best in B2B lead-generation e-mail marketing – text or html?
- How to write an e-mail invitation that fills your Webinar attendance to overflowing.
- Generating leads for technology products with a “free needs assessment” offer. Plus: marketing with demos and downloads.
- The “bearded programmer” and other odd software marketing techniques that work.
- And more ...
B2B Strategy Session #4: Selling to OEMs
An “OEM” is an “original equipment manufacture.”
The OEM manufactures a product, component, or sub-assembly that is bought by another company and integrated into their product.
Example: if you make cooling fans used to cool circuit boards in PCs and sell them to IBM, you are an OEM. IBM buys your fans, build it into their PC, and sell the PC with the fan to a user.
If I make small motors, and I sell them to you – and other fan makers -- to use in your fans, then I am marketing my motor to OEMs.
Mark Bohrer is one of the top copywriters writing marketing materials to sell technology products to OEMs.
In this session, I interview Mark and he shares his OEM marketing secrets, including:
- How to write copy for highly technical products that is meaningful to the prospect and not superficial.
- What do OEMs looks for first when selecting components and parts to incorporate into the products they build?
- Creating marketing materials to sell subassemblies … circuit boards … chips … and other electronic components.
- Why product brochures have become “old hat” – and how to write for the one communications medium that OEMs are much more receptive to.
- The #1 emotion driving engineers in their purchase decisions. It has nothing to do with specifications or features. But tap into it and you vastly increase your chances of getting an order.
- The most effective offer for marketing low-priced (under $100) parts and components to OEMs.
- Tips for writing technical articles … white papers … application notes … and other common OEM marketing documents.
- Must you be an engineer to write for the OEM marketplace? Once again, the answer may surprise you.
- And more ...
B2B Strategy Session #5: Marketing with Case Studies
On this CD, I interview David Leland and Mike Knowles on how to market with case studies.
A case study, also known as a case history, is a product success story.
It recounts, in a customer’s own words, how that customer used the marketer’s product to solve an important problem or otherwise improve business performance.
In our discussion, we reveal:
- Why most B2B marketers don’t take advantage of case studies … and why more should.
- The 5-part outline virtually every good case study must follow – and which elements are the most important.
- How to get the sales force to identify potential case study opportunities for your marketing department … and even make them eager to do so.
- Interviewing techniques that get customers to “open up” and give you a great story on your product’s success in their operation.
- How to spin a single case study into testimonials … ads … press releases … Web promotions … direct mail … sales collateral … and many other applications.
- Why case studies are so much more credible than ordinary sales brochures.
- Simple trick helps you get great testimonials for your copy from companies using your client’s product.
- Ideal word length for case history articles, sales sheets, and Web pages. Plus: how much can you charge to write them?
- And more ...
B2B Strategy Session #6: Integrated Marcom
In our closing segment, I interviewed Joan Damico, former marketing communications (marcom) manager for Gretag Macbeth, on the topic of “integrated marcom.”
Integrated marcom is an approach to B2B marketing that looks at the entire marketing program as a whole, rather than just focus on one particular ad, letter, case study, white paper, or letter.
When you listen to this CD, you will learn why integrated marcom is the “next big thing” in B2B marketing ...
- The most common mistake B2B marketers make online – and how to avoid it.
- How B2B buyers today gather product information for making purchase decisions. Hint: it’s NOT by reading sales brochures.
- Finding the right “voice” and tone when writing B2B copy aimed at techies.
- Using free content to position your company as the leading supplier in your niche, application, or market.
- Simple trick gets mobile users to read your e-mail subject lines.
- The 2 most effective ways to organize information on your Web site.
- What every B2B marketer should know about branding.
- Using “fragmentation” techniques to reach the maximum number of prospects with your content, product information, and sales messages.
- And much, much more.
“Tuition” at B2B Marketing University is surprisingly affordable. Enroll now!
How much does it cost to have me help you improve your B2B marketing results?
Well, you could hire me as a consultant. But the billing starts at $500 an hour, with a 10-hour minimum – and the $5,000 is payable in advance.
A number of companies each year fly me to their headquarters – all expenses paid – to spend a day teaching B2B direct marketing to their employees.
For a one-day on-site training session for up to 25 trainees, the fee is $5,500.
But with Bob Bly’s B2B Marketing University, you won’t pay $5,500 or $5,000 or even $500 to get my marketing advice – or learn the B2B techniques, tips, and principles it took me decades to master.
You can get my most powerful – and effective – business-to-business marketing secrets in this program for only $77. That’s a $20 savings off the normal price of $97, and less than I charge for just 15 minutes of my time!
And that’s what it costs you ONLY if you enjoy – and profit handsomely from – my program.
If you don’t, the cost is zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada ...
Try it risk-free for 90 days
That’s right.
If, after reviewing Bob Bly’s B2B Marketing University, you don’t agree that the marketing ideas on it are worth at least $1,000 – more than 10 times the purchase price ...
Or you are dissatisfied for any reason ... or for no reason at all ... just return the CDs to me within 90 days.
You’ll get a full product refund – no questions asked. That way, you risk nothing.
B2B marketers praise Bob Bly
Andrew Frothingham, former ad manager of Timeplex, comments: "When I was the ad manager at Timeplex, I used Bob Bly a lot, because he has the best understanding of any writer I found of the issues in the world of high technology."
"For over 25 years, Bob Bly has set the gold standard in results-oriented business-to-business writing," writes Roger C. Parker, author of Looking Good in Print. Steve Roberts, President of Edith Roman Associates, calls me “The Mozart of direct marketing.”
Business-to-business marketers who have hired me to write copy for them … consult with them … attended my seminars … or read my publications have been telling me for years:
“Bob, your business-to-business marketing methods work like gangbusters … we have doubled or triples our inquiries, lead flow, and sales.”
Why not let my B2B Marketing University double or triple your leads and sales, too?
I guarantee it will – or your money back.
So what are you waiting for?
To order B2B Marketing University on a 90-day risk-free trial basis, click below now:
Sincerely,
Bob Bly
P.S. Order B2B Marketing University today and you get a FREE 50-page Special Report, Secrets of Successful Business-to-Business Direct Marketing (list price: $29).
In it, you will discover
- 23 tips for creating business-to-business mailings that work – page 12.
- 10 ways to stretch your advertising budget – page 44.
- How to write more effective product brochures – page 35.
- 6 things I know for more about marketing to engineers – page 24.
- 29 great story ideas for your company newsletter or e-zine – page 41.
- 50 techniques for generating more sales leads – page 20.
- And more ...
Best of all, Secrets of Successful Business-to-Business Direct Marketing is yours to keep free, even if you return Bob Bly’s B2B Marketing University for refund.
To Order B2B Marketing University ... and get your FREE Bonus Report ... just click below now: