Communities of Practice Aid B2B Sales
Marketing is difficult and becoming more so. Mounting campaigns that can be heard above the noise and actually work takes thought, research and resources. Especially in the enterprise a successful campaign can take so long to yield results that the people originally associated with it are no longer in their positions. And marketing always has difficulty proving ROI.
B2B marketing is especially difficult, because the technology involved is usually complicated, and mass market techniques like renting an Instagram influencer aren’t applicable. Typically, enterprise software is a big ticket item for the buyer, and with the possible exception of Slack, isn’t bought on impulse.
One of the biggest obstacles faced by enterprise marketers is their disconnect from sales. As companies grow, they separate the marketing department from the sales department, and communication often falls off to nothing.
Worse, because technology began its life as a business to business industry, it meant the focus was always on sales, rather than marketing. Twenty years ago, when I worked at Intel, it was considered an amazing departure to begin to build the brand “Intel inside.” Before that, the party line was that Intel chips were a building block technology that no one needed to know about. What they did need to know were very technical engineering specifications, because they were bought by engineers. The “marketing” people were all engineers.
That’s no longer entirely true now that technology is such a huge industry, and there are some very strong B2B brands. Salesforce, whose Dreamforce 18 takes place this week, is one of them. Medtronic is another.
Although no one remembers this, Dreamforce began as a user group, and then as a user conference. Adobe, another B2B product, also began with user groups. Microsoft, too.
Why are user groups successful? Largely because they create advocates and brand ambassadors. Advocates and brand ambassadors help with the on boarding of new customers, and can help solve customer problems. They can also serve as focus groups or inspiration for new products. And the best of them function as experts outside the company. More important, they become communities that aid professional development for all involved and mitigate the “loneliness” that often accompanies work. In John Troyer’s words, these groups grow into communities of practice.
While Dreamforce is no longer thought of as just a user conference, because this year the company expects 180,000 people to attend, smaller Salesforce user communities still exist, and it’s doubtful Mark Benioff forgets where his success came from. In a way, Dreamforce is little more than a gigantic aggregation of communities of practice.
The IMC itself is such a community of practice. We are all engaged in examining how to make our companies successful by establishing relationships with customers, influencers, and analysts. And we need each other to share problems and insights.
That was the best part of last week’s call: we learned how we can work better together to help each other and our companies.
