The traditional view in the Animal Health and Nutrition industry is that a sale is a sale, and the only measure of a customer’s value is the size of their order. For this reason, some salespeople resist the idea of narrowing the focus and defining a target segment or an ideal customer profile.
It’s only when your company starts measuring customer value throughout the entire length of the relationship life cycle that you realize the importance of finding the perfect match. Customers who believe your brand is the best are the most profitable for your company. Those customers tend to be loyal to you and are not “shopping around” for better deals. Not only that, but your best customers will also be your strongest advocates and will recommend your brand to their peers.
Finding the right customer for your brand is a strategic decision
You can’t be everything to everyone. You may believe that your product or service is the best in the world, but what is “best” for one group of customers may be so-so for a different group. Defining, finding, and attracting those customers most likely to agree that your brand is “the best” for them is a critical marketing task that goes well beyond the traditional role of designing brochures, organizing events, or placing ads.
Besides identifying the ideal match for your brand, marketing should also ensure that they see the unique value that your brand brings to them. After all, it’s only a “match” if both sides choose each other and agree to initiate a productive and long-lasting business relationship. Done well, marketing matchmaking results in happy and loyal customers who actively recommend your brand to their peers, both inside and outside their own company. This kind of match is akin to a symbiotic relationship in which all parties involved thrive together, reinforcing and protecting each other in the process.
People-powered brands
In a B2B environment such as the Animal Health and Nutrition sector, the strength and promise of your brand are carried out by people: the sales reps, technical services advisors, and marketing professionals. This is why a good integration between marketing and sales is so important. Both groups are responsible for finding the right customers for your brand and in a truly collaborative manner, finding out if your brand is the best solution for the prospective customer’s problem. If it is, great, you’ve made a match. You and your new customer are on your way to a successful business relationship that can last for a long, long time. If it isn’t, then you’ll be better off walking away from the deal. This is a critical move, and a very hard one. But it pays to walk away from an imperfect business match, just as it does in a personal relationship. An imperfect business match is like an unhappy marriage, and nobody wants that.
In summary, marketing matchmaking is a set of strategic choices that help identify your ideal customers, match what they need with what you offer in a unique way, and guide them throughout their journey from the time they first hear about your brand until the point when they become your brand’s most loyal users and strongest advocates. This is a new way of understanding the marketing function, and you can prevail over your competition by adopting it before they do.
If you are ready to transform your marketing from “sales support” to “matchmakers,” contact us.
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