By Ed Pierce, President of ITA Communications. Fleet
According to HubSpot’s OrgChartHub, there are an average of 8.2 key stakeholders involved in business’ decision-making process – up from 6.8 in 2016. It’s clear that more complex decision-making makes it harder than ever for sales and marketing to contact all of these key stakeholders and communicate with them in an effective manner.
Different Stakeholders, Messaging
Decision-makers involved in a particular process come to your product or solution from different points of view. Yet, advertising and public relations must be targeted to deliver results. In fact, all marketing communications need to engage a target market based on detailed and accurate buyer personas that ensure that a message is received on a personal level.
Communications Throughout the Buying Cycle
In a B2B setting like fleet, where a sale typically takes months or years, messaging campaigns also must traverse the entire buying cycle. Sales and marketing are in the communications business for the long haul if they are to differentiate their brand and services and to show value.
Questions to Ask, Answers to Research
So how can companies accomplish the formidable task of engaging multiple stakeholders over the course of the buying cycle? Start by researching the answers to these questions:
- What are the channels that customers are spending the most time on?
- What common conversations are customers having?
- What are the latest trends in fleet?
- What are the pain points customers are sharing?
- What are the available solutions available for solve these problems?
Once a company understands where their customers are and what they need, engagement alternatives can be strategized and implemented on the right platforms and tailored to the sales and marketing plan.
Next month, we will look at prospect engagement, stakeholder reach, market differentiation, marketing measurement, and more.
I invite you to contact me with topic suggestions or comments at 215-839-1306, or email me at [email protected]
