Using KUALLA for B2B Marketing Prowess
B2B marketing is harder than B2C marketing. Feel free to argue the point below, perhaps one day I’ll do a post on the topic, but not today. Today I’m thinking about how B2B marketing is really B2C2C2C2C2C marketing. And this is why it is so difficult.
Marketing business-to-business sounds fairly mundane. One business communicates with another about goods and or services they can supply the other business for a nice big fat check. The problem is, and this may shock some of you, I have never in all of my years in this job seen companies talk to one another. No, never.
Companies are made up of people. People represent the company and different facets of its business. People talk to people, helping business talk to business.
B2B marketing is finding the right way, time and place in which the right people within your business can talk to the right people within their business.
All facets of this conversation are important and it is why, when undergoing B2B marketing you need to employ KUALLA:
- Know the people on the other end of the line (or Tweet to be completely current);
- Understand their pain point by making it your own;
- Ask where they congregate and communicate, offline and on;
- Listen to the stories of the people that make up the company your are trying to reach, versus simply understanding the company;
- Learn about the processes it takes for these people to get their job done within the company each day;
- Act on your knowledge to provide these people with the information they need to understand you and thus your company;
KUALLA helps you focus on the fact that you are talking with people, even when performing B2B marketing. Ultimately by the time you reach the end of KUALLA you have established a relationship with the right person in the right way. Marketing it may have been, but marketing it certainly did not seem.
UPDATE: And yes, this is poking fun at all the “marketing experts” who use inane acronyms to describe their methods…although if you are a book publisher I’m more than willing to write a few hundred pages on the “Power of KUALLA” 
June 14th, 2009 at 2:14 am
KUALLA is a great way to think about B2B which as you say has always been hard in dealing with channels and partners and such. What really jumps from KUALLA for me, which I guess is what you intended, is the power of social media in this context as KUALLA is like a social media plan.
January 28th, 2010 at 10:29 pm
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by whatsinthelab: B2B Marketing Success: Try this new KUALLA technique now! http://bit.ly/9nlUCa #B2B #marketing…
January 29th, 2010 at 7:40 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Andrew Spoeth, Brandi Heinz, Cristina Gaia, Alan Graner, Sam Wee and others. Sam Wee said: B2B = B2C2C2C2C… Using KUALLA for B2B Marketing Prowess http://bit.ly/9nlUCa #B2B #marketing RT @whatsinthelab [...]
January 30th, 2010 at 4:09 pm
Great points, Kyle. Truly effective marketing does not feel like marketing to those who are on the receiving ends of it.
Get started on “The Power of KUALLA”!
February 7th, 2010 at 12:45 pm
Well written article Kyle.
However, bearing in mind that, personnel selling tends to be the main promotional tool, which by B2B operations target their key audience. Your blog and KUALLA proposition is what any good sales and KAM representative should be doing as a matter of best practice.
Common issues facing B2B organisations tend to pivot around sales and marketing alignment, and their respective communications. I always say, “Sell like a marketer, market like a salesman”
That said; I do like the way you define B2B marketing. I would like to quote it in some of my upcoming articles.
“B2B marketing is finding the right way, time and place in which the right people (sales) within your business can talk to the right people within their business (DMU)”.
Rupak
February 7th, 2010 at 1:24 pm
Thanks Rupak, I wrote this piece several months ago, almost a bit tongue in cheek, based on a lot I was learning at the time. I agree with your take on sales/marketing alignment, this is particularly important in a fast moving and rapidly evolving space (which I’m currently in).
Please feel free to quote anything or if you want to discuss something else I’m always here.
Thanks again,
/kff