4 reasons your B2B prospects would ditch you on a date

You have 10 seconds to impress prospects with your marketing material before they lose attention. What are you going to do?

For over 40 years… Nope.
We… Definitely not.
Digital transformation began… Ok, just stop.

To win over your audience, you need to say something that matters to every individual who reads it. Sounds impossible, right? But it’s actually very simple.

The best way to think of it, is like a date. You’re meeting someone for the first time, you don’t know much about them and they have a limited time to impress you before you get creeped out, leave and make a pact with yourself to never date another B2B organisation again.

And there are 4 worst case scenarios that can happen when you first meet them.

1. They don’t stop talking about themselves

Hello? We literally just met. I don’t want to hear your life story. The way to win me over is to ask me about me, or talk to me about something I care about. Reel in your audience with questions or statements that are relevant and intriguing.

There’s something you should know about your data protection

Instantly, you’ve got their attention.

2. They don’t match their profile picture

Awkward. Expectation vs reality often sucks. If I’ve seen great things from you before, but if I see a bad campaign, a boring line or a crappy image, I’m going to be disappointed. Don’t ruin all of the good work you do with one bad campaign… because you won’t get a second chance. Make sure everything you send out is copywritten and designed specifically for your audience.

3. They’re too provocative

Get this wrong and it’s a sure-fire way to make your audience cringe. Don’t try too hard, don’t overpromise and don’t try to be creative for the sake of it. Meaningful content is what delivers.

Apple have a great balance of writing lines that are smart, packed with benefits and the perfect level of provocative-ness.

4. They’re boring

Nothing in the world makes you want to run and hide like meeting a boring date. So, you have to keep the conversation relevant. You’ve got an advantage here because you’ll have a target audience – IT decision makers, C-suite, admins, whoever they are, think like them and use their language, and you’ll be onto a winner.

So, if you have 10 seconds to impress prospects with your marketing material before they lose attention. What should you do?

Pair a relevant image with a strong statement or question about themselves that links to a product benefit. And bam! You’ve got their attention.

Tell them what’s in it for them. If they read your eBook IT managers will have 5 key security tips that they’d never thought of before. Or if they contact you right away, they’ll get a 20% discount.

Trust is a big part of any relationship, whether you’re in the office or on a date. You won’t earn it without a reason, so share a great stat from a case study – client x saved 50% when they moved to our hybrid cloud. Or – we know what you need because we work with clients x, y and z who have managed to deliver omni-channel experiences with 95% customer satisfaction rates.

So, the next time you start a campaign, write an email, view an image or even speak to a customer, remember that you’re on a date… and you won’t get ditched.