Effective Strategies for Corporate Business Marketing

Is there a difference between corporate business marketing and SMEs or entrepreneurs? To understand this, we must address three core questions: How to generate more interest in my business from larger organizations, how to adapt copy if your targets are senior executives, and how to find out who makes all the purchasing decisions in a large organization.

Understanding the Corporate Audience

Most of what I read about copywriting proposes big, bold headlines with “huge” specific benefits. Yet I know from over a decade working with senior executives in major companies that this sort of hyperbolic language and copy tends to go straight in the bin – it’s just not credible for corporate business marketing.

Corporate executives (in my experience) tend to react better to more conservative approaches. Obviously, these people are human too – and have the same underlying psychology. However, their experience and background means they don’t react well to over-strong selling messages.

Strategic Selection and Research

Don’t expect to do a bulk mailing to corporate businesses and get a great response. It’s unlikely to happen. You have to work a little harder for those lucrative contracts. I advise selecting 10 companies to target and work on, adding others as a rolling prospect line when you can to deal with them properly.

Decide and research which companies you want to do business with. For corporate business marketing, define exactly what you are offering and which companies benefit most from your solutions. When you contact them, talk about a specific ‘niche’ area. Don’t give a smorgasbord of products and services that confuse your prospect and – in their eyes – dilutes your perceived level of expertise and ability to deliver a focused result.

Do your research. Research the company; the department or division your product or service applies to; discover the challenges the company or that division are currently facing. Check news releases (they are often shown on the company website); is something they have announced likely to give them logistic or ‘knock-on’ effect problems you can resolve?

Identifying and Reaching the Target Buyer

Find your target buyer. Don’t go to the HR or purchasing department (unless your offer is for them); aim for the person who heads up the area you are targeting. Read the corporate website; some do give contact names in their ‘about us’ section. Use the phone; call and ask “who takes care of …. in the company?”

Careful! You are in information-gathering mode NOT selling mode. One whiff of a sales pitch and the person you are speaking to is likely to clam up.

A Refined Outreach Approach

Write individual letters. When writing corporate business marketing letters I’d advise against using extremely large, bold headlines – it doesn’t give the right impression for corporate correspondence. You are still writing to an individual who has challenges within his/her work life and wants a solution. So you do have to grab attention immediately.

• Start your first paragraph with a compelling statement of what you discovered about the company or department’s challenges.
• Ask a question that is geared towards the problem he has – the one you identified in your research.
• Explain the value your offer could bring to his company; quoting case studies from other organizations rather than a general self-serving statement.

For example, instead of writing “our QR2 system saves production costs” say “Xyz company discovered that 3 months after implementing the QR2 system, production costs had reduced by 2.8% which gave them a projected annual savings of $4.37million.”

Establishing Professional Equality

Be wary of creating a general ‘sales pitch’ – it’s unlikely to work unless you are extremely lucky. All of your contact (whether letter, email or phone call) should be from a position of equality and strength. Talk as a peer-to-peer. Treat your prospect with respect but expect respect from him too. In your communication, strongly avoid subservient language such as ‘delighted’, ‘pleased’ or ‘honoured’.