That glittering object in the distance…
I’ve been at the B2B tech marketing game a long time, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned (and re-learned, and re-re-learned) is that one of the most difficult things to figure out is what market to go after.
Actually, strike that thought.
It’s not all that difficult figuring out what market to go after. What’s difficult is sticking to it.
I’m learning this lesson over yet again, this time through the lens of a client struggling with the challenge.
The company has been around for a while, but with respect to the product offering I’m working with them on, it’s an entirely new space and story, and the mode they’re in is pretty much pure start-up.
They have a complex offering set, well suited - at different levels - to small, mid-sized, and household-name behemoth companies. At the highest level, it’s a multi-million dollar, intensively customized software implementation.
Having one of those household-name behemoths on their client list would, they believe, make the company. Others in the industry - small, mid-sized, and fellow behemoths - would be lining up to buy. If only we could get that first behemoth through the door.
The problem - acknowledged by my client - is that the behemoths view the company as too small (a.k.a., too risky) even if the product were offered for free.
So I’ve talking to my client about forgetting about the biggies - at least for now -and focusing on the lower-end market, for which they have a simpler, less costly, non-customized offering at an attractive price. I’ve even been suggesting that we change our message to let the little guys know that they, too, can have a de luxe, enterprise-class system (almost the same as what the big guys get), for short money. Every time we get near to this decision, though, it seems as if we’ve just gotten on the radar of one of those behemoths. Forget that we’re just column fodder, or something interesting to look at. Once one of those make-or-break household names is anywhere around, well, we just seem to fall into a swoon.
I have assured my client that they can still think big by starting small. That a client list at one level will give them permission to climb up a rung or two. That they may even be able to find small nodes in the behemoths where a decentralized decision can be made to go with them. But I haven’t had much luck in convincing them to place their stake, unabashedly, with the little guys.
What if, they ask, someone from a behemoth comes to their home page and gets turned off?
So, I counter, they weren’t going to buy anyway, right?
That’s true,they agree.
Still…
Hey, I know the attraction of the Big Name Company on your client list. I’ve felt the tug myself. We all want to say that we work with a company that your cousin Susie and the guy next door have heard of. It’s a short cut to telling people what you do - and to legitimizing the work you do. Let’s face it, most of us suffer from the bias that says big = successful, small = loser/wannabe.
But sometimes that glittering object in the distance is nothing more than fool’s gold with the sun glinting off of it. You struggle to get to it, only to realize it isn’t worth the cost. Worse, you look back and see the real nuggets you ignored along the way in hopes of striking it rich.
My client has said that they’re open to considering tabling the idea of marketing to the big guys, which is a positive sign.
We’ll see where we are when the moment of truth arrives and we’re willing to go public with a message that counts the big guys out.
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Ah, a classic problem, Maureen. But as you well know, positioning is all about excluding people to attract people. If you try to be something to everyone, you’re soon nothing to anyone.
Those big companies usually prove costly to pursue in dollars and time, and especially in lost opportunity. And…just for the record, it works in reverse, too: too many of those “big names’ on your client list tells every smaller company “they’re too expensive for me.” So even that “success” has a price, unless you can make the big ones multiply.
Here’s another thing about the big names. I know, in my many years as creative director, that writers come in all the time claiming to have worked on McDonald’s, Coke, Budweiser, etc. A little investigation often reveals that it was a tiny, tangential “special market” connection, often even through a subsidiary. A little project. A one-time promotion. Wise prospects know that it could be true with YOUR “big names” too.
This is no rap on big companies. They’ve earned their stature. But for many pursuer’s, “fool’s gold” is the perfect imagery. Aiming high is noble. But so is helping a smaller company get bigger. And helping your employees feed their families!