We’re back! I am glad to report that ATC has the first in-person event in 16 months under our belts. This morning we met with founders, CEOs, and marketers for our Marketing Roundtable facilitated by Workhorse Marketing Founder & CEO, Grant Chambers.
Marketing leaders have the important task of shaping and driving brands, demand for products, services and customer experiences. They have persevered through creativity, efficiency, and hard work.
As we all look forward, here are some topics that are on marketer’s minds in the Austin tech scene:
Building trust and credibility in a digital-first era is of paramount importance. Professionals have or are in the process of reestablishing the customer-centric messaging that has created brand evangelists again and again.
Back to website basics
The “website as a resume” format of digital presence is long gone but 2020 compounded the impact of the digital journey on B2B buyers’ decisions. Your website continues to be the anchor your buyers will lean on. How do you keep it relevant? Build it as a mirror of who they are and what their pain points are. Only then will you capture their attention to discuss what solutions your tech company offers.
Solutions vs Cutting Corners
Executives are leveraging their marketing leaders to not only generate product demand, but as the listening mechanism to inform their decisions about which products should be launched at all. That positions marketers in a way we hadn’t seen in the “Mad Men” era of advertising and marketing.
Q: How do marketers then help the buyer identify their root challenge, inform, and then choose a product that isn’t just cutting corners when they don’t speak with a person until the end of their buying journey?
A: With humanity and personalization, of course.
More than a few of our attendees used 2020 as a time to build their relationships deeply. Rather than cast a wide net, they invested more of their time to get to know their clients on multiple levels and it paid off. In order to scale that, marketers are looking for a new level of personalization in their communications. The data at our fingertips is massive and we can garner even more in order to know buyers intimately even before our sales team has a phone call with them – if we’re willing to offer transparency on the upfront.
Data security & Personalization
Be clear about what you’re asking for, why you need it, and how you’ll use it. In the same breath, your company should describe how their data is being protected. I, for one, am comfortable giving my email address to every Tom, Dick, and Harry who own a business (my 4,000+ personal inbox is proof). But
seeing a disclaimer stating something to the effect of, “We will never sell your data or share it with anyone without your permission,” buys that much more confidence and brand loyalty.
Receiving personalized and thoughtful communications from businesses will set any company apart from the crowd. There is only one way to do that and that’s data collection. Put your buyers at ease by going the extra mile to explain your policies and make them easily accessible.
A common thread
Our facilitator Grant put it succinctly – “The common thread in this conversation was very much about getting back to people.”
How have you have you navigated the past 15 months and what learnings are you taking into the next era of your marketing strategy?