Advocate amplification will always have a place in the B2B marketer’s toolbox, especially as the trend toward consensus-buying strengthens. However, shortcomings of the strategy in today’s environment are causing marketers to scrutinize the investment. Three factors seem to be sapping the power of advocate strategies.
#1 Ever More Customer Stakeholders Are Involved in Deals
This key change in customer buying behavior (noted in this Sales Executive Council post) makes an advocate’s job much more challenging. Coming out of the downturn, businesses are keeping a tight fist on the moneybags by increasing the number of folks needed to sign off on a purchase or bringing in outside consultants to audit deals. These moves severely limit an advocate’s capacity to influence broadly and deeply enough.
#2 Insight-Led Sales Require More Work from Advocates
We’ve found in previous years of research that customer loyalty is built by delivering insight. In an increasingly commoditized world, insight-led marketing and sales (reframing the way the customer assigns value to things you excel in) is critical in driving an understanding of differentiators. So an insight-based conversation is the best… but also requires the most peripheral knowledge from the advocate. Convincing advocates to invest the time to understand insights to a point where they can teach others inside their organization is a tall order.
#3 Even Enthusiastic Advocates May Not Be Up To the Challenge
Insight-led sales and marketing engagement are very different from old world product/feature selling. A marketing insight approach requires broad conversation and a willingness to challenge customer beliefs and assumptions. Many sales reps struggle with this style. Even loyal advocates may not be able to have this kind of challenge-oriented dialogue with internal counterparts.
So what’s next?
As the returns on investing in advocates become more questionable, we see an increased need for the value of a company’s solution to speak for itself. This means that marketing content should be:
#1 Self-Evident
Simplicity and brevity have never been more important. Whether it’s a value calculator, diagnostic questionnaire or customer reference video, it should only take 30-seconds for a prospect to grasp the salience of an idea.
#2 Highly Credible
Content that embeds social proof or incorporates the customer’s own information and data is the best way to go.
#3 Memorable
As the length of many purchase cycles extends, the value you provide needs to stay fresh in the customer’s mind. One way to increase recall is by providing concrete solution steps. Another is with (appropriately self-evident) case examples that bring underappreciated customer problems to light in a tangible way.
Interested in learning more? Register to attend one of our upcoming executive meetings about reshaping customer decision criteria to your advantage.
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