How do you reach the guy with the wallet?

When you market in the B2B space through social channels, a large part of your audience can often times be non-decision makers.  I had a client who works in the production/post-production technology industry for the film, advertising and broadcast verticals – straight B2B transaction-  ask me what the benefits were of using tools like Twitter were for selling a product that’s tens of thousands of dollars directly to a production house or film team.

My answer, simply put? Finding the users of that product/service, highlighting the pain point and our solution, creating a buzz and a demand from the bottom up.

FIND THE PRODUCT/SERVICE USERS

Using this example, when an extensive piece of technology is implemented across a large enterprise, the decision to do so doesn’t usually involve all the users, but a handful of decision-makers that head IT, Finance and maybe a few other departments. In other words, most of the users of the product/service have little say in the purchase of the product/service, but they’re the ones most affected by the implementation.

These users are the ones who’s daily processes will be changed and improved by said technology implementation.

HIGHLIGHT THE PAIN POINT AND YOUR SOLUTION

Because these users are the ones who’s lives you’ll be ideally improving, you’ll want to make them directly feel their existing pain point, and communicate to them that you have the solution.

CREATE BUZZ AND DEMAND FROM THE BOTTOM UP

Now that they know you have the solution, part of the process of you reaching the decision-makers comes from upward pressure from the users.  In part, the decision-makers pain point becomes the users – their employees – clamoring for a solution to their own pain point (which they’ve found from you).  If you’re top-of-mind for the users, it’s likely this will reach the decision-makers.

It’s a simplified model, and only part of the sales and marketing process that goes into the equation, but something to think about as you’re contemplating the ways social media can help your B2B marketing.