If I told you that such a list existed – you’d have every right to call me a charlatan.  You’d have every right to question my integrity and honesty.

However, when I have discussions with business owners, sometimes I get the sense that’s what they want to hear from me.  There is a desire to be one or two email blasts away from meeting revenue goals.

Based on the number of television ads I see, there is no shortage of people willing to buy pills or shakes that melt the pounds off with no change in exercise or diet required.  Maybe, just maybe, science has finally made a break through and I can indulge on cheeseburgers and cheesecake and, just by taking this pill, look like a model.

Maybe, just maybe technology has found a way to collect a list of people who are ready to buy…  It’s magical thinking.  There is no such list.

It takes hard work to develop a database of leads, nurture them, and be top of mind when they are ready to buy.  It means valuable, memorable, and frequent marketing.  It means research.  It means developing relationships.

If you are selling products and services that start at a five-digit price tag, casual marketing simply won’t result in much interest.  By casual marketing, I mean campaigns that are written for the lowest common denominator and do little more than list what you sell and ask if the recipient is ready to buy.

First, identify your ideal customer.  What are the characters the ideal customer would have?  What challenges do they face that your products and services solve?  Once those problems are solved, what kind of benefits do they enjoy?

Would your ideal customer have a great experience on your website?  Is there information on your website that answers the questions they typically have?  Are there case studies on customers who faced the same problems or served the same market that they can read about?  If they explored your website, would they find a regularly updated news section and frequent posting on the blog?  Or would they find dated materials that suggest nothing has changed on the site in years?

Try to commit to writing one new blog post a week.  Think of your ideal customer as you write.  If you can’t keep up with the writing commitment, assign or hire someone to help you.  Nothing is more crucial than a strong online presence.

Next, begin to build your prospect list.  It doesn’t have to be a large list.  In fact, I prefer to work with smaller lists.  The reason I prefer to work with smaller lists is that by keeping long shots off the list, I can spend more per campaign on the truly ideal prospect.  Having a little bit more money for each contact allows for a more valuable, memorable and frequent deployment.  While your list may start small, set a goal for adding to the list each month.  It might be 5 names a month or 20 names a month; what’s important is that you commit to growing the list and methodically attend to it.

Plan out your marketing calendar.  Don’t go too heavy on email. It’s good to have a variety of different vehicles for your marketing messages.  Statistics show that your email has a much better chance of being opened if the recipient knows you or recognizes your name or brand.  A good way to increase the likelihood of success with your email campaigns is to first launch a direct mail to your contacts (send a lumpy or 3-dimensional mailing to the contact).  That lumpy could be a promotional item with your logo on it.

Your email campaign should have a strong subject line (compelling but written to avoid junk mail filters) and multiple, valuable calls to action.  A call to action could be:  fill out this form in order to download a white paper; click here to register for a webcast; or sign up for our newsletter.

Most importantly, have fun and take pride in what you send out.  It will help you keep with the program; remember, you’re in this for the long haul.

Marketing GENIUS from Anheuser Busch. Brilliant.

But I’ve also seen the other end of the spectrum.  A business owner realizes the problem with not having marketing activity in place, makes the commitment to move forward with a marketing calendar and then crams that calendar with so much activity that it’s doomed to failure from the start.

Dangerous path #1 – do nothing.

Dangerous path #2 – attempt too much, fail, and return to dangerous path #1.

Here are some examples of the common milestones on dangerous path #2:

• The email is executed but the phone follow up never happens.
• The website is overhauled but the recorded webcasts planned for the website never get recorded and posted.
• A press release is written, distributed and then the second press release never gets identified and what was supposed to be a 6 – 9 release effort dies after one release.

Typically the reason for the collapse is that the business owner becomes overwhelmed – too much is coming at him, and with the other demands of the business, marketing falls further and further down the list of priority To Dos.

B2B Marketing Path 3 – Goals, Measurement, Mastery 

Path #3 takes the walk before you run approach. Set a reasonable goal with a single focus.  The goal should be something you believe it, you know that by achieving this goal, you will be contributing to the future success of the business.

Let’s say that your first goal is to commit to weekly blog posts to increase your online presence, attract the right visitors to your website, and provide online visitors with content that allows them to better understand you, your products and your services.  You decide that each month you will post a longer, thought leadership-type article and three shorter posts focused on products or services or events.

If you get to the end of the month and you’ve done less than your goal.  Ask yourself why.  Busy is not an acceptable answer.  Now, ask yourself what you could have done that would have allowed you to accomplish your goal.  If you need to get up an hour earlier three mornings a week – do that.  If you need to outsource the writing – do that.  If you need to dictate your thoughts to someone who will then write your article – do that.

But do not entertain thoughts like I had better things to do this month.  Remember, when you set the goal – it was something you believed in, something that will contribute to the success of the business.

3 Cheers!

If you reached your goal – congratulations!  You are accountable.  You have taken a step in the right direction.  You’ve done what most people aren’t willing to do.  Pat yourself on the back and reward yourself with something special.

Begin month 2 with the same goal.  Is it getting easier or more difficult?  Continue to be accountable to accomplishing your goal.  You did it before; you can do it again!  If at the end of month 2, you are feeling like you’re getting the hang of this, and you’re actually getting excited about future articles that you want to write, it may be a good time to add a second element to the monthly routine.

Master One, Add One

Now that you are in the habit of blogging and the practice is easier for you, add something new to your marketing mix.  It might be developing your proficiency on Twitter, building your following, and using your tweets as a means of driving traffic back to your blog.

After a couple of months of managing your Twitter account, and four months of blogging – you might be ready to add recording videos to your website.

Brick by Brick You Are Building A Strong Marketing Calendar

I like this approach because it allows B2B business owners a chance to build their portfolio one tactic at a time and with a lot less frustration.  Good marketing is habitual – not a one-time event.

Make a list of the types of marketing activities you’d like to execute.  Prioritize them.  Schedule them.  Be accountable to your goals.  Master one approach, or at least achieve a level of comfort, before moving on to the next activity on your list.  Soon you’ll begin to see results and that will serve to boost your enthusiasm and eagerness to move onto the next goal.

When the conversation changed to what he was doing in his own business, the changes he had made and how those changes were making a difference – his voice changed, his energy changed, his patience with my questions changed.

And it hit me.  The reason why the second conversation was more rich and instructive and positive than the first – he was speaking to an audience he believed was interested in learning.  And the natural, compelling teacher in him began to emerge.  He knew his audience (me) cared about what he was saying.

In the Duct Tape Marketing process, a lot of emphasis is placed on defining your ideal customer/prospect.  From a pragmatic standpoint, it’s critical.  The better defined your target it, the better steps you can take to reach the target.  But it’s also critical from an emotional standpoint.  The ideal customer is interested in what you have to say and values your advice.

When creating the strategy, message and plan for your marketing efforts, think of the ideal customer, not the difficult and stubborn customer that chewed up half your day with some petty complaint.  The former will inspire you.  The latter will dull you.

By visualizing the ideal customer it’s easier to write.  By visualizing the ideal customer it’s easier to make the commitment of time and money to create and send out your message.  When your output is targeted to the few who “get it” you will attract more of those kinds of people.

Trying to justify an approach or the value of products and services will drain you if you’re trying to convince a difficult, cynical bunch.  You might be fresh and compelling your first couple of attempts, but ultimately the audience will wear you down.  Conversely, when you are sharing and contributing value to an eager and positive audience, your own energy and enthusiasm grows.

It sounds painfully obvious, but narrowing our audience is an uncomfortable move.  We’ve been conditioned to believe in the safety of numbers, bigger is better.  But that’s always been a false premise.  There would be no 80/20 Rule if that were true.

My challenge to you is to banish the mediocre customers from your mind when thinking about your marketing.  Take the time to picture the ideal customer.  Give that customer a face and a voice and a personality.  Think about them when you turn to your marketing activities.

On a personal note, I am in the midst of one of my own marketing campaigns.  It involves handwriting a personal note to every one on my lists.  If a name comes up, and I can’t think of anything to say to them, I’ve been taking them off the list.  The fact that I cannot find common ground means that we’re not a good fit.

I want more of the ideal.  I want that for you as well.  Let’s find those ideal customers that we can fall in love with.

Just as financial planning deals with mathematical realities and unforeseen economic changes, marketing deals with human behavior realities and market changes.  Strategy, discipline and perseverance are required in both cases.  So I cringe when I hear the claims that some marketers make – because they give the profession and practice a bad name.

The claims fall into three categories:

1. The Quick Fix
2. The Guaranteed Result
3. No Heavy Lifting (the excused absence)

The Quick Fix 

The Quick Fix promises results in a certain time frame with a numbers formula.  It goes a little like this, “we see a 1% response rate in our marketing campaigns so if you apply those campaigns to a list of 1000 you’ll get 10 leads.  If you apply those campaigns to a list of 3000 you’ll get 30 leads.”

Rarely does the Quick Fix explore how warm or qualified the list is, that is, how long you have been developing and communicating and updating the list.  Rarely does the Quick Fix require a thorough analysis of who your ideal prospect is and what triggers cause them to go to market for your B2B products and services.

The Quick Fix ignores what we all know, people buy from people they Know, Like, and Trust.  A flurry of email blasts, postcards, and telemarketing without any strategy or consideration for the needs of the recipient is more likely to result in Know, Dislike, and Ignore.

The Quick Fix in no way resembles how we’ve earned business in the past – developing a relationship, understanding the prospect’s pain points and presenting our expertise in a way that is tailored for the prospect’s business.

The Guaranteed Result

The Guaranteed Result is the Quick Fix drawn out over a slightly longer time frame.  “Use and pay for our program, and we will guarantee you 30 qualified leads or your money back.”  No strategy and minimal ideal prospect definition was required.  Simply the claim “We’ve done it before, we’ll do it again – or your money back.”

Get ready to spend not only money, but also significant time, policing the activity of the Guaranteed Result marketer.  What does qualified mean?  How long do they have to deliver the 30 qualified leads?  How much time do you have to contest the qualification of any given lead?  Do you have the time and desire to fight to get your money back?

I recently spoke with a business owner who had invested 9 months and close to $15,000 dollars working with a Guaranteed Results company.  In that nine months, they did not see a single lead, did not see a single call list, did not see a single report or metric that demonstrated what work the company had done on their behalf.

A good marketing person will want to share the volume of outreach, responses, and an evaluation of whether things are ahead of schedule, on schedule, or behind schedule.  A good marketing person will share with you if they believe the campaign or messaging or targeting needs to be adjusted or overhauled.

No Heavy Lifting 

The No Heavy Lifting red flag is any program that let’s you off the hook.  It’s the business world equivalent of granting an excused absence to activity that you should always be involved in.  This approach appeals to people who want to write a check and make the problem go away.

B2B Marketing requires heavy lifting.  We’re building awareness for complicated and expensive products and services.  No one knows more about the product or service than the B2B business owner.  You can’t walk away from participating in the marketing of the business and ever hope to have a marketing system that works.

You understand the customer.  You understand the industry, market, and challenges your customers face.  You understand the products and services as well as the impact the delivery, implementation, and ongoing benefits the customer will experience.

Before any marketing campaign is launched, a strategy should be developed; the characteristics of your ideal prospect should be discussed, and the triggers that send them to market to buy your products and services should be clearly defined.  Only then should marketing tactics be discussed for delivering your marketing message to your ideal prospects.

Be smart about your B2B marketing.  Be committed about participating in your B2B Marketing.  And, beware of those who try to sell you the empty promise of the Quick Fix, the Guarantee and the No Heavy Lifting Involved.

Being proactive about your customer relationships is not only beneficial for cultivating referrals, it’s preventative medicine when it comes to customer defection.

Most customers defect to a competitor due to perceived indifference on the part of their current solution provider or vendor.  I’ve heard statistics as high as over 70 percent.  Defection due to price or finding superior product generally occurs at a much lower rate.

So the critical question is what are you doing to show your customers that you care?  What do you do proactively to show that you care about them and the success of their business?

Here’s another measure – think back over the last 30 days.  How much of your customer interaction has been reactive?  How much of your customer interaction has been proactive?  If reactive outweighs the proactive, you’ve got a problem.

That holiday card you sent is not enough.  That monthly e-newsletter is not enough.  They are part of the overall mix of things that serve to communicate with customers.  But it’s a good idea to add another level of communication that acknowledges the individual.  Your outreach must be genuine and personal.

Genuine and personal efforts take time.  However, genuine and personal communication has tremendous impact.  Think about an instance when someone took the time to write you a personal note, or took the time to thank you for your business in a very specific way.  It’s not a blur.  You recall exactly the person who took the time to communicate solely with you.

Here are some things that you could begin doing immediately to be more proactive, genuine and personal with your customers.

Commit to one call a day

Print out a list and commit to calling 5 customers a week just to check in and find out if what you implemented for them is working well for them.   Chances are you will get voice mail, that’s OK.  Leave a concise message telling them that you want to know how they are doing, how the products and services they’ve purchased from you are working, and how thankful you are for their business.

Strive to have lunch once a week with a customer

Once a week, take a customer out for lunch.  This allows for quality face to face time.  Find out what their experience with your products and services has been.  Find out if there are new challenges that they are facing.  Find out more about them as a person – are they passionate about a charity (in the future you might consider making a donation in their honor), do they belong to any professional groups or associations that they have found valuable (it might make sense for you to join these groups), the point is focus on getting to know them better.

Segment your customers

Prioritize your list of customers based on how profitable, delightful, reference-able they are and every other week send one person on the list a business book that you’ve found particularly helpful.  Include a note with the book that shares what you found interesting about the topic and slip a business card between the pages.

Send a handwritten note

Keep a stack of postcards or note cards (preferably with your logo on it) by your computer and drop a personalized note to a customer every day.  Thank them for their business.  Congratulate them on some accomplishment (new certification, recent publicity, etc.)

Get started! 

All of these activities are steps you can take immediately. Not only will you cultivate a better relationship – less susceptible to defection and more conducive to referrals – you’ll probably uncover a number of projects that you can do for them.

Businesses that provide customers with the information they need to qualify themselves and allow them to see that the products and services are a fit are, and will continue to be, the businesses that prosper.

And yet, business owners look for reasons not to add content to their websites and blogs.  You should view your website and blog as the sun of your marketing universe.

Here are some examples of content that will address the flow of inbound marketing:

• Blog posts
• Customer Case Studies
• White Papers
• E-Books
• Email Newsletters
• Webinars
• Industry Research and Surveys
• Visuals:  Photos, Graphs, etc.
• YouTube (other audio, visual)

When you do your annual strategic planning, you should plan for developing the tools mentioned above.  The starting point for all of these deliverables is the problems, frustrations, and aspirations of your ideal customer.  It’s not about what you do or what you sell – but rather what’s in it for the buyer.  How does the customer’s life improve when they use your products and services?  What are the unspoken questions and concerns your customers had when they were evaluating your products and services?

Put yourself in their position before you ever put pen to paper or fire up a word document.  Write from the customer’s point of view.

Action item:  Conducts some searches the way a customer would.  See which businesses appear in the results.  Visit their website and see what they are offering their online visitors.  How does your website compare?

Action item:  Begin to compile a list of questions that you are asked by customers and prospect.  Don’t dismiss any with the thought that most people wouldn’t ask this – just compile the list uncensored.  Ask your front line employees to do the same.  That list of questions will serve to give you a great starting point for online content.

As I peel each stamp from the roll it will mark my progress.

You see relationships are the lifeblood of any business.  Relationships take time, nurturing and effort.  They trump any razzle-dazzle one-time campaign.  They triumph over any desperation measure such as discounting, trashing the competition, and hard sell.

As a professional, nothing works me up more than those claiming to be able to fill a pipeline in 90 days.  They give marketing a bad name.  And it saddens me that business owners want to believe their claims.  Time has proven it simply doesn’t work that way.  What made you successful in the first place?  Relationships.

Cultivate your relationships. 

Beyond relationships the two most important marketing assets your business has is your mailing list and your content.

Success will come when you adhere to strategy before tactics.

Building a pipeline isn’t a one-tactic endeavor.  It’s an ongoing, systematic process that involves work, not magic.