The B2B B2C divide is dead.

It is now B2P: Business to Purchaser.


Another day, another holiday shopping survey

  • 38% of Americans plan to start their shopping before Halloween
  • 44% before Thanksgiving
  • 81% will use reward apps and coupons
  • 73% have noticed price increases on target items

What can marketers learn from the Burning Man floods?

Public perception doesn’t matter (to an extent).

Dedicated consumers will keep coming back if you service them, not the masses.

Consumer perception does.

Focus on your consumer’s perception and you’ll actually move the line.


Don't Say Content on Sales vs. Marketing

I thought I was going to be done talking about sales vs. marketing last week, but podcasts keep dropping about the same topic. Better yet, they're agreeing with me! (They don't know this, of course, but let's pretend I'm a #influencer.)

First up, Don't Say Content. (YouTube link)

They talk about past experiences with the sales vs. marketing divide and where they think the issues lie. Of more interest, they share some great nuggets to get the two teams working together. Remember: same goal, different path.

Let's start with an ask for marketing people everywhere:

Marketing, give salespeople carrots that they can use in their sales process (and I guarantee you it’s not a white paper)

Next, a grail goal for marketing teams:

💡
Connect with humans, introduce them to sales

The meat for me is in the second half, paraphrased bits below.

Marketing is harder than sales. In sales, you get to talk to one person and understand their situation and tailor the pitch to them. Marketing is doing that at scale, trying to resonate with more than one person with a message that doesn’t get diluted to nothingness.

Marketing’s job is to abstract a little bit,

💡
to name those repeating challenges that people in your community are facing.

The sales team’s job is to identify which problems apply to that company and in what ways.

Sales gets super specific, where marketing is more like a diagnosis.

How sales and marketing teams can work together to win:


Cage Match: Sales vs. Marketing
Some rivalries have reached legendary status. Lakers-Celtics. Tom & Jerry. The Hatfields & the McCoys. Sales & Marketing. Everyone knows they don’t get along. But why is that? I have a guess. It’s because they’re the same thing. I know, I know. I know what you’re thinking…blasphemy! But hear

According to Google, the Cyber 5 shopping period is now Cyber 12.

A line graph showing the Cyber 12 period starting 2 days before Thanksgiving, continuing through Black Friday, and ending 5 days after Cyber Monday. With the note “Average consumer spend / day was 20% higher on shoulder days than rest of Q4 overall.”