Emotion, relationships, and a strong foundation. Yes, we are talking about selling a brand. These three things are vital to successful B2C brands, and they can help B2B brands as well.

In the past, there has been a clear separation between marketing for B2B and B2C brands. B2B selling was framed by facts and statistics. Products and commodities were being sold, which meant selling the aspects of those products. Buyers needed to know why one product was built better than its three competitors. In addition, companies had grown accustomed to marketing for a very limited audience. There were only so many people who need a particular product, so marketing to that group was often simplified down to one main message.

The difference is there.

B2C brands do things differently. They are often appealing to their audience’s emotions toward a brand. While there is always a product or service at the core of B2C brands, it is the overall feeling that they give customers that keeps them as a go-to brand. Their image is vital. Maybe they believe in sustainability, or perhaps they have a foundation committed to furthering education. People care about what the brand stands for and what it means. B2C brands also tend to have a wider audience. They have many personas to appeal to, which means creating deeper and varied marketing to appeal to all groups.

But the similarity is growing.

Today, where B2B and B2C strategy meet has a lot to do with how brands talk to their audiences. Reaching potential buyers before a sale is made can be the difference between making that sale or not. Social media, blogs, white papers, and traditional advertising are ways that B2B brands can consistently touch customers, creating an important emotional link. Much like B2C brands that use social media and commercial advertising, B2B brands can help tip the scales in a product-driven market by conveying their overall brand value, beyond the product they provide.

Emotional Selling

B2B marketing has frequently overlooked the emotional aspect of selling. But in a market where competitors often look the same, businesses need a good reason to buy from one over another. This is done by giving value to the company over the product. In other words, its brand. More and more studies are beginning to support this new way of thinking. “We see a need for the rational and emotional. You are communicating key core values about what you do and you can cut through the noise in that way, but it has to inspire people to transform or do something different in the way they run their business,” explains Xabier Ormazabal, head of UK marketing at salesforce.com. The emotional aspect can make a company stand out as the most reliable, trustworthy choice.

Relationships

When a company has a strong brand, one that builds upon personal communication, its voice, and its core values, it can establish relationships with potential customers. B2B customers are more than twice as likely to consider a brand that shows personal value over business value. Buyers perceive little difference in the business value that the different suppliers can offer. Only 14% of buyers perceive enough differentiation in this area to be willing to pay extra for it. The people responsible for buying need more assurance than just the product itself. They need to know the company is reliable and has their best interest at heart. They need to have the same concerns as the buyer.

Foundation

Brand foundation is established through a combination of emotional selling, relationship building, and consistency. This establishes the base for strong, ongoing relationships. A business needs to become a consistent source of understanding, support, and knowledge in the market. Just as B2C brands are aware of their customers’ needs and consistently address them, B2B brands need to be aware of their buyers’ needs and concerns, and personalize their marketing accordingly. Used by 85% of B2B marketers, trade magazines and journals remain the most popular channel for conveying a strong brand message. This is followed by trade shows and conferences (81%), LinkedIn (77%), industry-specific online communities (75%) and supplier websites (74%). Reaching B2B audiences through these channels not only shows a business understands a buyer’s needs, but that they understand how they like to be approached.

Welcome to the opportunity.

B2B brands have a great opportunity to take a leap forward through carefully developed relationships. As B2C brands have proven, the emotional pull can be all it takes to tip the scales in their favor.

Attributions

B2B branding: where is the love?

B2B brands shift focus to customer experience

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2015/04/06/how-do-content-strategies-for-b2b-and-b2c-businesses-differ/3/#1da89713fe83

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Like tectonic plates pushing against each other, there are two disruptive forces now grinding at the centuries-old B2B world and they are about to change B2B marketing forever. Their names are Demography and Technology.

And their nickname is millennials.

As the largest generation in history, millennials are now 50 percent of America’s workforce. By 2030, millennials will makeup 75% of your employees. And they are already changing the way B2B companies buy and sell.

Born between 1982 and 2004, the 80 million millennials are digital natives. They grew up in a world where they had instant access to the world. With the Internet and smartphones in hand, their perceptions, beliefs and behaviors were shaped by this new socially connected and always-on world.

B2B marketing is on the fault line.

Now reaching their peak employment years, millennials represent not only an influential market force, but they are also forcing businesses to reassess the way they conduct business now and in the future.

Already, 42% of B2B buyers are millennials. They are quickly becoming decision makers and they have a fundamentally different approach to how they research, recommend and buy. They are not only bringing their consumer attitudes and digital behaviors to work, they are also acting more like consumers. As technology and demography combine to make millennial’s business-buying habits closely follow in the footsteps of their B2C counterparts, B2B companies will need to adopt more of the B2C mindset and character and communication channels.

The Earthquake Victim: The B2B Sales Funnel

For B2B companies, the traditional sales process has been linear: qualify, educate, create interest and close. But today’s convergence of shifted demography and increased digital technology, has not just dented the sales funnel, it’s flattened it.

Key to understanding this dramatic change is to remember millennial B2B buyers are people – procurement now has a heartbeat and a brain wave. The millennials who are now influencing and selecting the B2B vendor choice expect the same high quality B2B client experience as they get as consumers, from their consumer brands.

Recent studies show millennial buyers are more than halfway through the buying process before they will ever actually engage with a seller. Reflective of their consumer behavior, their ethos is “Don’t call me. I’ll call you.” As digital natives, millennials are used to instant access to price comparisons, product information and peer reviews. They want to (and can) do their own research. No longer dependent on meeting with sales reps and collecting collateral, their research starts online to consume valuable content, videos, blog posts, how-tos, testimonials – and they consult with social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter.

Their trust in social communities is a key insight: millennials are more prone to value the information they find in social communities since they believe it is more authentic, more accurate and more revealing of a company’s real behavior before, during and after the sale. A recent study by EliteDaily found 62% of millennials believe that if a brand engages with them through social networks, they are more likely to become a loyal customer. This means millennials are not just looking at your company’s value proposition, they are seeking to understand what you would be like to work with.

How human of them.

The New B2B Landscape

A recent study by IBM on how millennials are reshaping B2B marketing reveals how significant the change is today.

More than Gen X or Baby Boomers, millennials value a hassle-free, omni-channel client experience that is personalized to their specific needs.

More interested in convenience, collaboration and expertise, millennials want data, speed and trusted advisors, and since collaboration is critical for this audience, seamless and holistic experiences should allow them to engage with vendors at all touch points.

Millennials want trusted advisors—experts who enjoy rolling up their sleeves and working together to find the best solution. They want easy processes, tools and policies designed for their convenience. More proof of how their consumer behaviors are bleeding into their B2B buying behaviors, they expect every interaction to be specific to them, their interests and their needs. This is CXB2B on steroids.

The need for analytics capabilities and speed will only increase as more millennials enter roles where they have sway over key business decisions.

There is one way for this audience, and that is digital. They want anytime, anywhere data and they will have little patience with organizations that can’t immediately provide the information they need, whether it’s pricing, timing, specifications or anything else.

Vendors need to re-examine if the information they are providing their clients is relevant and easy to access. While that most often means mobile, millennials typically access two to three devices during their day so vendors have to be literally up to speed on all fronts.

During the sales cycle the majority of millennials still prefer email, but face-to-face, it’s a surprisingly different story.

Since 69% of millennials cite email as their preferred form of vendor communication, it’s easy to extrapolate that this is an audience of digital hermits. But nothing could be further from the truth.

When meeting face-to-face, millennials are focused on you – the human you.

They come to the meeting already armed with knowledge about you-the-vendor. They know your brand, your company’s reputation and your products. These meetings are focused on getting to know you – this is the time to develop trust – not to present a sales pitch. They want to know if you’re easy to work with and if you’ll collaborate with them to develop specific solutions for their specific needs. This is not a time for chin-chucking or back-slapping. They are looking for authentic and personalized interactions to explore possibilities with vendors who personally care about their success.

36% of millennial B2B buyers weigh the opinions of friends and family before deciding to buy B2B products and services.

So you may be asking yourself, what’s family got to do with this?

Millennials are a highly collaborative group at heart, and while they are more eager than Baby Boomers to value the opinions and input of their team throughout the research cycle, when it comes time to pull the trigger, millennials are taking the decision home to family and friends.

The perfect blend of logic and emotion: millennials are fact-based and use data to inform their decision. However, when it’s time to act, they are not immune to their emotions. They want the peace of mind that they are making the best decision, and for this they turn to the people who know them best: family and friends.

As if the complexity of the B2B sale was not already sufficiently complex, vendors will now have to consider how to influence these influencers who are well outside their standard target audiences.

Millennials are more likely to praise vendors on social channels, but they will not damn you to the world.

If you’ve made your Millennial buyer happy, nearly 70% will generously post a positive comment on social media. And while they will glowingly praise a vendor online when they are thrilled with the relationship, product or service, it seems complaining about a vendor online is unconscionable to them.

Here again, the millennials consumer behaviors are on display in their B2B behaviors. These digital natives take the power of negative posts seriously and they are unwilling to risk the ramifications of venting publically about business-related matters. This is a B2B boon. Do well and millennials will share and publically laud your success. Do poorly and you will only hear about it in private.

When change is coming, preparedness counts.

While no one can change the changing demography or decrease the increasing technology, there are specific needs your business can address now in order to lessen the shock and win in the new B2B marketing landscape.

1. Think consumer marketing.

   More B2B companies are quickly adapting to this “consumerized” and flatter sales funnel. Look to where and how you can best create awareness, educate and influence consideration across a much wider funnel and deliver truly engaging experiences that are on par with what millennials experience from their consumer brands.

2. Look outside first.

   According to a recent Gallup report, 71% of B2B customers are at risk and most companies don’t know it. Shore up your customer knowledge with key account reviews and then leverage meaningful insights to gain true understandings of what your customers really think and want.

3. Then inside.

   Given the coming B2B earthquake, it’s clearly time to re-assess your marketing channels and align them to your customers’ go-to channels. If you’re still relying only on the old B2B marketing standbys, the shift will be severe. Or are you using videos, testimonials, content marketing, social media and public relations?

4. Reconsider your sales presentations.

   If they are the standard linear format, you are off the mark for millennials. Today, sellers need to ask more questions, listen actively and be ready to fully collaborate on solutions in order to move the sales process forward. Very few solutions can be pre-packaged today. Millennials are looking not only for your expertise, they want solutions that are customized for their specific needs.

5. Personalize the client experience.

   Determine the complete customer lifecycle in order to define and adapt to what will resonate most with millennials. Remember this is about being authentic, transparent and human, so be sure the client experience is seamless and engaging across all channels, especially social and content marketing.

6. Use a sales engagement platform.

   The overwhelming use of digital technology means you’ll have less and less face-to-face time with your customers. So make it count. Using a sales engagement platform will put you ahead by notifying and tracking what and when specific content is resonating. This helps your sales rep know what is successfully engaging and where the buyer is in the sales process, so when they are face-to-face, the time can be focused on building a valued and trusted relationship.

7. Mobile always.

   Sales mobility is no longer an option. With millennials, it’s foundational. Throughout the sales process, information and engagement will most likely occur on their smartphones. Remember, the first priority for millennials is ease of doing business.

8. The New B2B Brand is very visible.

   With millennials relying on influencers outside the normal B2B audiences, it’s past time for the typically invisible B2B brand to come out of hiding and become confidently visible for millennial buyers. More than any other generation, millennials value B2B brands: your purpose, mission, vision and core values all matter intensely to this socially conscious audience who values transparency, reputation and a company’s ethics. If you expect to build sales, start by building trust in your B2B brand. In short, get it out of the closet and get your brand working for you.

On the magnitude of the coming change.

This is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that enormous changes shake the B2B world. If you’re the CEO or CMO of a successful B2B brand, take heart in that you have already managed an enormous of amount of change – and while this coming earthquake requires skills, talents and a point of view that may be contrary to what you’ve always believed, you’re not alone. Here’s to everyone with the courage to act now and the wisdom to thrive.

Attributions:
http://www.gallup.com/services/187877/b2b-report-2016.aspx
http://socialmediab2b.com/2015/06/b2b-millennial-buyer-social-selling/
http://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-bin/ssialias?htmlfid=GBE03658USEN&appname=skmwww;
https://www.pwc.com/m1/en/services/consulting/documents/millennials-at-work.pdf
https://thesocietypages.org/graphicsociology/2011/10/04/who-is-the-millennial-generation-pew-research/
http://www.goldmansachs.com/our-thinking/pages/millennials/

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Digital is More

While everyone talks about the impact of digital on our lives, most brands are nowhere close to taking advantage of it. The potential of digital is similar to how electricity revolutionized the world. It changes how we produce, consume, and share. Digital impacts everything we see, touch, and hear. It changes how we process all that input. Digital enables more connections, shortens time and distance. This is how customers, suppliers, and employees experience digital. It is all encompassing. Then why do brands treat digital as simply another sales channel or cost-savings mechanism?

At the core, what made companies successful in the past – processes, structures, the silos – make it difficult for organizations to move from thinking about digital as a component of an overarching strategy to transforming the business to where digital is the lifeblood.

How does one even start down this path of transformation? It requires both an outside-in and inside-out perspective. Most companies only provide a small portion of the value to their buyers. A brand sells a widget that customers take and put into a bigger widget. The problem with focusing on a widget is your competitors are working furiously to figure out how they can produce the same widget faster, cheaper, and better. It is a tough spot for any brand.

Reframe the Question

The question begins with asking, “What business are you really in?” In a digital-first world, you are no longer a widget manufacturer or service provider. There is more value that you can provide to your customers.

Let’s take John Deere as an example. Is it a 200-year old company that manufacturers equipment? No. How about a company that enables farmers to produce more? John Deere produces tractors, sprinkler systems, and many pieces of farming related hardware, but integrates all the data from those products and external streams to create more value. From providing preventative maintenance to equipment that automatically reports their statuses, to optimizing sprinkler systems synchronized with real data collected from the National Weather system, John Deere is no longer an equipment manufacturer: it is a platform for farming.

In 2011, Marc Andreessen, a co-founder of Netscape, said that software is eating the world*. He was right and still is. Widgets, plus connections help create new value chains. Re-thinking business on these terms requires rebuilding companies. Does product pricing move to a subscription model? How do you attract the necessary software talent to a culture who has not been exposed to it? How can marketing leverage the data for better segmentation, better positioning and better communications at the external touch points? The transformation may seem overwhelming, but it is necessary. Digital being the thread that integrates all parts of a company will soon be table stakes.

What would your brand look like if digital was its lifeblood?

*Mobile is now eating the world, but that’s a different post.

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In the Age of the Internet of Things (IoT), ordinarily dumb things will get smarter, data will get noisier and Customer Experience will get even more chaotic. Happily, for prescient brands, out of chaos comes brilliance.

Most brands think of the value chain linearly:

Supplier —> Manufacturer —> Distributor —> Retailer —> Consumer.

Every company fits in some version of that flow. Digitization has caused an explosion of channels to touch potential customers to the right. And there is no end in sight.

Think of the number of channels on your smartphone alone. Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, on and on. And new ones are popping up everyday. The cost of creating new channels has been reduced to a small team of talented developers, supported by a cloud infrastructure cheap enough to put on a credit card. Word gets out about these apps (via existing channels) and they are adopted at hyper speed.

The thing is… it’s about to get a whole lot messier.

This chaos has left brands scrambling. Brands have started to focus on the channels to reach customers, since the potential and possibilities “seem” infinite. But Customers end up in notification hell. Coupled with the need to react real-time, brands are in a content war, causing customers to be overloaded and blind to brand messages. Unfortunately, the focus on channels has created broken promises and miserable experiences for the customer.

The Internet of Things is going to make the current digital transformation seem puny. What happens when every physical object has embedded network connectivity? This is where brands must make the choice between adding to the chaos, or providing the responsive connection. Here is the real opportunity to provide smart targeted experiences, either in the micro-moment or on-demand.

Suddenly, life is better.

Experiences can be tied directly to what is happening right now, reinforced with context provided by previous activities and interactions. Having trouble hooking up your new, fancy Blu-Ray player? After 5 random button presses, the Blu-Ray device displays a How-To tutorial on your phone or opens up a real-time chat with support. No more social media complaints, fewer store returns.

Imagine how grocery shopping could be changed with IoT. Buy Sunbeam Bread and put it by the toaster. The bread wrapping has a NFC tag which let’s the toaster know it has 10 slices. After 5 days, the toaster automatically adds bread to your grocery list on the phone. As you walk down the bread aisle at the store, a competitor like Wonder Bread pops up with a coupon on the shopping cart digital display. IoT not only provides utility to the buyer, but impacts everyone in the value chain, from the manufacturer knowing demand, to the retailer knowing what to stock.

Unlike physical products of yesterday, a networked object can gain new functionality. Think of your mobile devices, phones get regular updates, being improved and constantly made more productive. Why can’t the toaster get smarter?

The New Customer Experience Foundation

The skills to identify and take advantage of these opportunities will need to permeate more thoroughly inside of brands. The ability to understand the cloud, how a brand’s products will interface with 3rd parties, how the products will be able to provide more functionality over time, how to analyze the massive influx of data (if you think Big Data is big now, wait until there are a trillion devices connected), and finding more ways to engage customers will be the foundation of Customer Experience.

Today, it is no longer a set of individual activities that drives perception. It is not simply a campaign; it is not a call to the contact center only. It includes products and services working tirelessly in the background, trying to figure out how to be useful and relevant at the right time and place for the specific customer. That is Customer Experience personalized, valued and in the moment.

What is your strategy for the Internet of Things?

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The simple truth is that the scope of customer experience is misunderstood. Customer experience involves all the activities of a brand. There is no magic elixir because there is no separation between any part of a brand and its customer experience.

Forrester defines customer experience as “How customers perceive their interactions with your company.” CXPA defines it as the “Perception that customers have of their interactions with an organization.” Looking at either of those definitions, what part of customer interactions and perception is not influenced by all activities of a company? How a company hires talent to build services and products? How a company works with vendors to source components for its products and services? How a company advertises its products and services? There is not a sub-set of activities that can be defined as customer experience. All activities directly or indirectly impact the customer’s experience.

External? Internal?

It is easier for brands to think of customer experience as external touch points, but that drives us back to the internal. Does a company have (or at least communicate) the right purpose, right mission and values, to hire the right talent, who will create fantastic products and great external touch points? If not, how is a brand supposed to magically create better touch points?

Without considering how the external and internal are tied together, we abandon external and internal to evolve independently. If we leave customer experience in the external domain, we have separated what the customer is doing, thinking, and feeling from understanding how the front, mid, and back offices deliver at those touch points.

This isn’t to dismiss the buzz around customer experience.

Change is happening faster and faster. Between globalization and technology, every industry is in the process of being democratized, disrupted, or disinter-mediated. Competition is increasing from new brands that have no legacy infrastructure to overhaul or business models to protect. These new brands grew up with the Apple stores and Starbucks experience. They understand customers expect every product usage and service experience to make them feel extraordinary. All other brands are expected to meet these same expectations.

Everyone loves to talk about breaking down silos.

In theory, it sounds great. Break down the silos, everyone will talk to each other, everyone will be on the same page, everyone will row in the same direction. Except the silos are there for a reason. Maybe the business model required it. Maybe the regulatory environment required it. Or maybe it’s just human nature to protect our territory. Whatever the assumptions, the reality is that breaking down silos requires the reorganization of a company.

Complex changes run into two significant challenges.

First, any mature company has (correctly) focused on gaining as much expertise as possible in their respective industry, and optimizing processes, products, and technology for a certain segment of the market (and possibly create silos). Shifting to a more customer-centric point of view is a challenge when everything has to be re-evaluated. Even though the current landscape (or a look into the future) shows clear threats, any significant change transformation looks risky. And scary.

This leads us to our second issue. People. Companies are made of people. And people don’t like change. Any change that threatens their job, bonus, or power. Even employees that have nothing to protect have a difficult time understanding why they might have to change when they are several layers away from touching the customer. External stakeholders will not like the change either. Analysts would prefer predictable growth year over year. Regulatory constraints may slow down change.

This brings us to purpose.

While most brands have written down mission statements, they are usually uninspiring. Without a clearly stated purpose, a meaningful purpose, a purpose greater than selling more of XYZ, a more customer-centric purpose, it is difficult to motivate and inspire the need to change direction. Once we can define that purpose, then we can update the corporate strategy to align with the new direction, a filter that impacts how we make choices about hiring and talent development, products and services to provide, and the processes and technologies needed to execute.

In no way can this type of change be seen as a project or initiative. It is the evolution of a brand. It is a big, hairy, and ugly journey.

Start anyway.

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Customers want what they want. And when they find it, they do not think in terms of the business vertical. If one company delights me, I expect all companies to delight me – after all, this is what I want.

The Horizontal has been set.

Unhappily, businesses think in terms of verticals. Just because a coffee shop or shoe shop can deliver an extraordinary experience should in no way mean that a customer should expect that same great customer experience from their insurance company – or their B2B supplier. After all, life just doesn’t work like that!

Wake up. It does now. The Horizontal is here.

A connected world does more than rapidly transform communications from the one-to-one into the one-to-many. It also connects the dots faster and patterns become visible at lightning speed. As evolution’s best pattern-recognition creatures, humans quickly see patterns and extrapolate them into predictions then ultimately into expectations. In short, the Horizontal: if x happens here, I expect x to happen in similar “heres.” If it doesn’t, us pattern-recognition creatures are wildly, not mildly, disappointed.

Horizontals raise the bar.

Let’s go ahead and honor the Amazon’s, the Apples, the Starbucks and the Zappos. They were among the first to give us what we want – acknowledgement, caring, understanding, respect and yes, free shipping. We immediately not only loved this experience, we identified the pattern, predicted our next experience and shortcut our thinking to expect this high level of excellence everywhere.

We jump over it.

The logic is simple, although the emotions can be scarring for brands. If customers can be treated to an excellent customer experience at Starbucks, etc. they expect the same great experience from their car dealer, home appliance store, cable provider – well, you can take it from there. And you can feel the shock, the outrage and the disgust when the expected great experience isn’t delivered consistently. So we leave one brand and seek out the better others. After all, there are always other brands, other providers and other options.

In an instant.

Options are instantaneously available through friends: Text and done. No friends? No problem. There are a million “friends” online to provide all the social proof anyone needs. So we hunt and gather our options. Then we validate by reading reviews. And, when we’ve had our customer experience, we share. We spread the word. We tell stories. Again, The Horizontal is actively influencing the next expectation.

But there’s hope.

Customers’ demand for a great experience is a wonderful, brand-driving opportunity. All brands have to do is:

• Pay attention.

  The new owners of The Horizontal are not secret, hidden or inaccessible. And these customers are telling stories – to all your current and potential customers.

• Listen.

  Do it with a determined empathy for your customers, your shareholders and your employees. The unalterable fact is that if you ask, everyone will tell you. Then confirm whatever you’ve heard. Be sure to weed out the “emperor’s sycophants” and listen hardest to the bruising, tell-it-like-it-is talk.

• Identify.

  Understanding what needs to change is not as easy as it sounds. Inside a large corporation, there are many perspectives and many voices – and even more agendas. The hardest step is once you have found all the pieces, putting the puzzle together in order to truly identify what needs fixing first.

• Prioritize.

  Change is tough. Transformation is even tougher. You have to know not only what needs to change, but also what can change now and then next – despite the challenges. Perhaps all you can change now is the existing attitude. If so, do it. All the way up and down the ladder. After all, the first change begins in the mind.

• Re-imagine.

  However your brand is behaving with its customers now, envision its higher Horizontal. Then adapt, test, refine and ask again.

• CX Works On Your Company Horizontal too.

  While companies think – and therefore function – in verticals, creating a greater Customer Experience only works if it is applied across all functions of your business – and all the top decision makers are involved, including the C-suite, marketing, product groups, operations, sales and the front-line people. Without adopting The Horizontal into your company’s CX practice, CX leaders will have all the responsibility, but none of the authority or funds to create real change.

And remember

When you look at Customer Experience through the lens of The Horizontal, you not only step into the customer’s shoes, you take a walk through the marketplace knowing it isn’t just your competitors who are consistently raising the CX bar – it’s every great and delightful experience customers have with every company.

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If considered-purchase brands could take a few tips from golfing great Arnold Palmer, I’m convinced they could slash marketing budgets, cut sales cycles to mere days and get buyers to say YES in record time.

I recently met the legendary golfer at the Harbor Shores Champions for Change charity event and I was struck by how truly nice he is. That day I watched as thousands fell under his fabled spell and, being a marketer not a golfer, I looked for what marketing secrets we could learn from one of golf’s most beloved champions.

10 Marketing Tips for Considered Purchase Brands: 5 personal observations and 5 observations inspired by Palmer’s famous sports agent Mark McCormack. Apply even one and you’ll see sales improve.

1. Be likeable.

   The supremely human quality of being likeable is perhaps the one thing that requires so little investment, but is often the most difficult attribute to achieve for the complex, multi-faceted marketing of considered-purchase brands. Yet in today’s unedited world of consumer-generated content and ubiquitous thumbs-up/down LIKE buttons, simply being Likeable could be your brand’s greatest asset.

2. Branding is an endurance sport. Be consistent.

   With a career spanning over 60 years, Arnold Palmer is the epitome of consistency. Nicknamed The King early on, he is always a passionate player. His fans know what to expect from him. For brands with long sales cycles, consistency is an essential virtue.

3. Engage everyone: Everyone is your New Recruit.

   Long before social media, Arnold Palmer had his own version of Facebook – a fan base so strong they were called Arnie’s Army. If you want your own army of brand fans, use social media to reach new recruits, strengthen engagement, build movements and generate passionate communities around your brand.

4. A Brand’s character versus its celebrity.

   Celebrity without character is just curiosity – and curiosity fades. Your brand’s character is paramount. As Arnold’s fame grew, he didn’t change. Even today he is close to his fans, isn’t afraid to take risks and still wears his emotions on his sleeve. His celebrity never betrays his character. Does your brand’s actions stand true to its character?

5. Bolster your brand’s charisma.

   Arnold Palmer has charisma – tons of it. Many believe Palmer’s magnetism and personal charm is what helped established golf as a television event in the 1950s and 1960s – on through today. What is your brand’s charisma? Does your brand have the emotional power to influence without the use of logic? Remember, a brand’s charisma is still the best way to get buyers to Yes faster.

6. Good Looks Matter.

   First on Mark McCormack’s list of 5 attributes that made Arnold Palmer so marketable was Arnold’s good looks. For brands, good looks are evident in the designs of our products, packaging, marketing, storefronts, livery – everywhere we touch our customers. And while visual appeal is easy to sacrifice amid budget, it would be a serious mistake. Good design is profound in its ability to influence.

7. Tell a Great Story.

   While Palmer came from only “modest” beginnings, his story still has enough underdog pathos to connect people emotionally and set the storyline for Palmer’s historic rise. The longer your sales cycle, the more your brand needs a great story and great storytelling skills. A well-told story will not only be shared, but it will educate, entertain, engage and even inspire your customers.

8. Play to win. But play nice.

   With today’s expectations of transparency, it’s how your brand wins that really matters. So play like Arnie. Play with passion. Take risks. Be exciting. Let your brand wear its emotions on its sleeves. Care. Double-dare care. But let everyone know that when you win, all your customers win with you.

9. Steal the show.

   Arnold’s legend was confirmed early on when he had a string of exciting finishes in the early, televised tournaments. Can your brand do that? Regardless of the size of the screen it’s on, from television to theater to laptop to mobile phone to iPad – does your brand steal the show? Or does your audience run out when the popcorn does?

10. Stay accessible.

    One of Arnold Palmer’s most admired traits is his easy and generous accessibility. When I met Arnold, it was in the café of the hotel we were staying at. He could have had room service – but he didn’t.

Later that day, I saw that whenever he walked into a room, people broke into a slow, nearly reverential applause. Do people applaud your brand? Imagine what greatness you’ll achieve when they do.

The post Arnold Palmer’s 10 Best Marketing Tips appeared first on DENMARK The Agency.

With the first wave of Baby Boomers turning 70 in 2016, considered-purchase brands can’t afford to neglect Boomers in their marketing efforts.

While Boomers may have dropped their age-inappropriate first name, they have not dropped their booming influence on business one iota.

In fact, over the next 15 years their influence will grow exponentially greater as the Boomer market grows to 29 million, and 1 out of 4 people you are likely to be marketing to will be 65 and older.

As more and more Boomers hit 65 and keep going, they will be entering an even more powerful and influential phase of their resilient, you-can’t-take-it-with-you spending lives. For considered purchase brands that can stay relevant, authentic and still deliver on Boomers new priorities, here are 9 reasons why your bottom-line will keep on booming:

1. Now Spending

   For all the ups and downs of today’s economy, Boomers are still the wealthiest segment of our population, holding $13 trillion in assets, which represents over 50% of America’s entire asset base.

2. Future Spending

   Despite the lagging economy and a fair share of naysayers, Boomers are expected to inherit somewhere between $10 trillion to $40 trillion. Ignoring the large spread, the economy and the “Doomers”, any trillion is still a huge amount of money.

3. Small Business Bigness

   Boomers will continue to have a heavy influence on American business. According to the Labor Department 2006 report, Boomers (ages 42 to 60) and older entrepreneurs (60+) account for 54 percent of self-employed workers–up from 48.5 percent in 2000.
   By all accounts, the number of entrepreneurial Boomers will grow even bigger.

4. Automotive and Travel

   The 65+ consumers are buying – driving 22% of all new car purchases, and booking travel at inspiring levels – over $26 billion last year.

5. Insurance and Home Healthcare

   Unlike their parents, Boomers are loading up on long-term healthcare insurance. And because so many Boomers are dual-income households, rather than personally caring for their elderly parents, they are outsourcing that care to the burgeoning home-healthcare industry.

6. Education

   True, the graying of America will present some challenges to education, however there are significant pluses as Boomer Grandparents already the largest population in the country, are picking up the tuition tabs for everything from day-care to prep-schools to universities. Universities will see another boom from America’s most highly educated workforce – as Boomers retire, they will be returning to universities to continue their quest for knowledge – and perhaps their glory days.

7. Housing

   Since nearly 70% of Boomers are homeowners, we can expect a startling range of change. A recent Boomer survey estimated 22% are planning to remodel (and age in place with home-care?); others will shift to assisted-living or some other version of continuing-care and still others will move to master-planned resort communities before seeking an end-of-life care facility. And remember, this IS still the rebel Boomer market, so you can expect there will be a fair share that elect to sell their home, grab their Harley and travel the globe.

8. Plastic Surgery and Pharmaceutical CosmeticsS

   For Boomers, the process of aging is going to be as beautiful as their money can buy. And it’s not just Boomer women. The Boomer men are getting their fair share of assistance in looking younger too.

9. Charities

   As the wealthy segment of America’s wealthiest generation ages, the good news is that charities (a huge considered-purchase, if pearly gates count) can expect to receive more.

The ultimate Boomer Bill Gates has joined forces with the ultimate Senior Warren Buffet to create the Giving Pledge – and they have invited the very, very top % of the world to join them in leaving the majority of their money to help the world’s poor, sick and hungry. Expect this Giving Trend to spread.

In 2015, Millennials surpassed the outsized Baby Boomer generation as the nation’s largest living generation, but don’t confuse size with spending power. For many considered purchases, Boomers still win with their wallets.

The post 9 Reasons why Boomers will Keep Booming appeared first on DENMARK The Agency.

With special guests, Dr. Welyne Thomas and Michele Dock.

Joined by the incomparable team of Dr. Welyne Thomas and Michele Dock, our Strategic Advisor Donna Peeples discusses the critical value of employee engagement as it relates to promoting a CX program within your company.

Dr. Welyne Thomas is a Behaviorist and Principal of Integrated Performance Consulting. She has overseen and executed every aspect of talent management including talent strategy, program and process development, and individual assessment for such companies as Delta Airlines, AIG and Georgia Pacific. The cornerstone of this work is the use of competencies and/or job-content analysis to plan and institute selection and development programs for all levels of management.

Michele Dock has been a practitioner of individual and organizational performance for over 30 years. She founded Integrated Performance Consulting with the commitment to create productive, successful businesses by helping them value and attend to people and the business context equally.

The post Employee Experience: The Forgotten Element of CX appeared first on DENMARK The Agency.

Based on the findings from “The Survey of Affluence and Wealth in America 2010″, the recently completed study by American Express Publishing and the Harrison Group, America’s affluent are projected to generate a splurge-surge of $56 billion in discretionary spending and an estimated $28 billion net impact on the luxury market.

Here are the 4 biggest trends to act on now:

1. It Is Good To Be Rich

   Tired of feeling bad about their wealth when the country stood at the precipice of economic collapse, the ultra-wealthy are once again basking in their bank accounts and reclaiming their bragging rights. Whether this new attitude is because they think their personal economy has improved or they simply can’t stay camouflaged as middle-class any longer, they are exhibiting an increased desire to let others know they are indeed supremely wealthy. If this follows the traditional Show & Tell behavior, it should predict showy things will be showing up again. Good news for uber-expensive cars, jewelry, vacation homes, couturier clothing, private jets and yachts. (Admit it. It just feels good to say uber again without talking about Uber.)

2. Persuasion Immunity

   As the affluent consumer re-enters the discretionary spending arena:

   • They have a renewed sense of themselves and what they value.
   • They are feeling immune to the typical persuasion language they’ve heard for eons from the luxury brands.
   • They feel they have become smarter and more resourceful through this period of restraint.
   • They are more independent and they have re-prioritized what they take pleasure in and what they value.

   This is not the time to take for granted what you know about your luxury customer. They’ve changed. They now do what they call “precision shopping” – do you even know what that is? Start by looking at your luxury customer in a new light. Whether you need to re-engage or simply reinforce your customers, don’t say a flattering word until you are seeing them the way they now see themselves.

3. Sale On

   The wealthiest Americans have a new perception of value – and they are looking for the sale. Even for high-end products, they are willing to wait for sales. The most luxurious of brands are no longer fearful of losing brand status by offering carefully presented sales. So go ahead and put your cherished big-ticket luxuries on sale.

   Remember, your sale can help the ultra-wealthy spend big while feeling good about saving a little.

4. Undying Brand Loyalty

   There are some brands so close to the hearts and self-worth of the wealthy that this period of shopping restraint has generated a renewed passion for and dedication to their most beloved brands. Rather than spread the wealth around and try new brands, they are hunkering down and buying only the ones they love.

   Smart luxury brands will find ways to return that love a thousand fold. Click here for more information on the survey.

The post 4 New Affluent Consumer Trends to Benefit Considered-Purchase Brands appeared first on DENMARK The Agency.