It's a shame really that in many of the company’s conversations with enterprise clients, there’s still a “reluctance to get emotional”. They are missing a huge opportunity to connect. Even if they are B2B, they are still PEOPLE! Those who do it well, thrive and will generate revenue for the long term.

Personalisation will become the hallmark of marketing in B2B. To achieve personalisation, you need to create differentiated experiences for each customer and that requires consistent messaging accompanied by great, engaging content, captivating visual expressions and campaign assets plus integrated engagement techniques.

When you have differentiated experiences, the market starts bonding with your brand. The 3 major dependencies to achieve personalisation and differentiated experiences are -

(1) Research and Analytics to help you understand your market, your audience, your campaigns so that you can make marketing decisions to fine tune those engagement techniques

(2) this is only possible when you leverage technology. Accenture says 54% of high performing organisations are experimenting with social, mobile, analytics and cloud. The new marketer has to understand these marketing technologies in order to maximise its potential - to employ interactive and social technology as a brand-building platform to create an enhanced level of immersion, and that seems hard.

(3) at the same time you would need the messaging, the content, the engagement techniques to come together to draw the emotions of the audience and have that personal connection, positively influencing collaboration leveraging social media tools and technology to get your audience involved. Your brand personality now arises, shaped by the market, with you enabling it.

Now this is important, from creation to promotion because you can have the nicest car and the best content for that car, but if no one knows about it, you won’t be able to sell it.

To achieve this, your B2B marketing strategy has to be brand-led. So your brand message has to come first, then the content, then the tools. You have a choice, manage and maximise your brand value or leave it to chance.

We have created a 5-strategic step framework that is brand-led, guiding you to create a strategy for effective, personalised customer engagement in their entire lifecycle with your brand, using the right marketing tools, focusing on WHAT the customer wants and HOW best to deliver it to the customer.

Download this infographic that summarises the 5 strategic steps to a valuable and long term commitment resulting in revenue generation.