Usable Words

Emotional benefits? Business clients? If that combination sounds strange to you, keep reading.

If you’re nodding your head, on the other hand, you probably already know about using emotional benefits as a way of persuading potential customers they need you.

This idea has become pretty well-accepted in consumer product marketing circles (which doesn’t mean it’s always applied well of course!). But when it comes to business to business (B2B) marketing, there’s still an assumption out there that the only relevant benefit of any product or service is the “bottom line” or return on investment.

That’s a mistake. A big one. When you’re talking to a business, you’re talking to a person within that business. And business people are just as emotion-driven as anyone else.

Yes, business people need to justify their expenses. But the key word there is “justify”. By all means, follow through with some convincing-sounding numbers. Flatter business customers into thinking their buying decision is 100% rational. But start by appealing to their emotions, because emotion is what actually drives their behaviour.

To get you started, here are some emotional benefits you might think about offering potential customers if you’re in a B2B industry:

1. Be less busy.
2. Stop spending time on routine tasks.
3. Spend more time doing what you like.
4. Spend less time doing what you hate.
5. Make your workplace fun.
6. Make your workplace healthy.
7. Make your workplace relaxing.
8. Make your workplace green.
9. Look more professional.
10. Look less boring.
11. Look bigger than you are.
12. Find out what your customers think about you.
13. Understand what drives your customers.
14. Help your customers understand what drives you.
15. Make your customers love you.
16. Make your customers want to spend more time with you.
17. Make your customers want to tell their friends about you.
18. Get wonderful staff.
19. Keep the wonderful staff you’ve got.
20. Cope with change.
21. Cope with stasis.
22. Learn to recognise opportunity.
23. Don’t be left behind.
24. Beat the recession.
25. Get talked about.
26. Get talked about in better terms.
27. Impress strangers.
28. Learn stuff you don’t know about your staff.
29. Learn stuff you don’t know about yourself.
30. Help people learn about the great things you’ve done.
31. Persuade people to forgive your mistakes.
32. Get on better with other departments/branches.
33. Look like a hero in front of your boss/board/shareholders.
34. Convince your boss/board/shareholders you’ve earnt your salary (or your bonus!).
35. Get a promotion.
36. Be more powerful
37. Become the boss.
38. Help your community.
39. Make history.
40. Change the world.

What do you think? Which ones have I missed?

(I know a popular one is “Work on your business, not in your business”, but I kind of hate that one. Remind me to talk about why some time.)

Photo: Diabolic Preacher

This recent post from Social Media Guru Chris Brogan echoes something I’ve recently been banging on about to anyone who’ll listen:

For every “we” site, you now need a “me” person on the site. Why? Because we do business with PEOPLE, not with corporations. The corporations give us branding and other legal constructs, but we buy from humans.

Nowhere is this message more direly needed than in the so-called “business to business” (B2B) sector. People seem to think that if you’re “talking to businesses” your communication needs are different – because unlike human beings, businesses have (supposedly) completely rational and transparent motivations. They exist to make profits. Show them a good bottom line impact and you’ve got ‘em; anything else is pointless.

But of course you can’t talk to a business, only to a person within a business. And you’re not necessarily talking to the person who owns the business either, so the bottom line might in fact be pretty low on their list of motivations, compared to pleasing the boss, making themselves look useful, having fun while they’re at work, avoiding tedium, and so on. Emotions, people. Your accountant has just as many of them as your grandmother.

Image: fabbio