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 * * 6 min read




DISRUPTIVE MARKETING AT A TIME OF PURE DISRUPTION

This is an article that’s fundamentally positive. It talks about opportunities,
and the practical things that marketers can be doing now and in the immediate
future to weather a particularly nasty and unexpected storm. It also talks about
disruptive marketing as a concept, and what businesses can be doing to grab the
attention of even the most ‘hunkered down’ prospect or customer.



Go beyond the conventional, solution-selling approach


However – and it’s a big however – this is a story that needs to start (as
briefly as possible) with a negative: the current difficulties of selling to
business customers. Generating sales opportunities and closing leads are never
simple tasks at the best of times, and these are far from the best of times:







 * The discretionary spend of most buyers is fast disappearing as budgets are
   cut across the board

 * Mindsets have become (at least for now) defensive in the main, with companies
   looking to survive the uncertainty with a commitment to lean and tidy

 * Combined, the above two factors lead to even greater levels of scrutiny for
   proposals – by a raft of new decision-makers you may not have had the time to
   build relationships with to date






TO BATTEN DOWN OR ENGAGE



That’s quite enough of the negatives. As promised, let’s focus more on the
positives. To start with there’s the indisputable fact that businesses have
survived downturns before, and made decisions at the time that led to future
success with no idea how long or severe the ‘drought’ would be.







What were these decisions? Well, at the highest level there are but two:







 * Batten down the hatches and protect marketing budget as very little business
   is happening, even if that means a standing start once things improve

 * Look for new ways to engage and motivate the key movers and shakers, knowing
   that such a task has increased in complexity by a factor of ten!





Go for option two and you’ll also be swimming in very crowded waters. With
face-to-face currently out of the question, marketers of all shapes and sizes
are dialling up their online activity – making it harder than ever to get
noticed. Many great products and offers are thereby lost in the noise. But how
to stand out? How to grab the reader’s attention? How to generate both an
emotional and intellectual reaction?







The answer: it’s time to get disruptive!










DISRUPTING THE NORM



So what is disruptive marketing? To answer that, let’s first touch on what it
isn’t – and how the approach goes way beyond the conventional, solution-selling
approach:







 * It’s not about traditional sales engagement that’s centred on a Q&A of
   current pain points with prospects/customers

 * And it’s most certainly not about product-based selling, and pushing features
   and benefits in a highly generic fashion





Instead, disruptive marketing is just that: disrupting existing mindsets and
investment strategies at a time when discretionary spending is on the wane.







So instead of trying to understand what’s keeping buyers ‘up at night’,
disruptive marketing aims to show a vision of where companies need to be heading
– a destination that once reached offers a dynamic new operating landscape free
from traditional limitations. It’s a marketing approach that positions the brand
involved as a true thought leader in their sector, achieved through two basic
activities:







 1. Building out the vision, and showing how the world looks different once a
    business has achieved it – across different strategic, tactical, and
    emotional levels

 2. Articulating the key steps that need to be taken to get there, and the
    incremental benefits achieved along the way








PUTTING DISRUPTION TO WORK



Disruptive marketing can also be applied to a range of demand generation
scenarios, including:







Owning disruption: for vendors with an offering based around generic
capabilities, disruptive marketing enables them to promote and ‘own’ the very
word disruption. We all hear the ‘d-word’ used in industry, and how companies
need to pay constant attention to it to avoid becoming the next ‘Kodak’. With
disruptive marketing brands can paint a bold vision for embracing change – by
having a clear view of how to lead the market. This last point is essential as
few brands are comfortable playing catch-up. The market knows the value of being
a leader rather than a follower, and that a true competitive advantage is only
available to the early adopters – with the rest just playing catch-up.







Providing a disruptive ‘take’ on the immediate: disruptive marketing can also be
applied to existing challenges. Again a vision for what the solution looks like
is imperative, and one that offers a compelling point of view (POV) that
challenges ‘same old’ thinking. Ideally this will be done to address a problem
that the customer is experiencing but has yet to put a name to. The result
should be a disruptive ‘solution’ aligned to issues the prospect or customer has
hinted at from previous engagements or the intelligence gathered from marketing
interactions to date.







TAKING A DIFFERENT ROUTE



The basis of disruptive marketing is having an original POV to promote a vision
of a brave new world. Doing this requires method:







 * The first step is speaking with existing customers and partners to scope out
   challenges and aspirations

 * Second is the factoring in of views from experts, analysts etc. to begin the
   process of shaping a destination you want to take businesses

 * Third sees internal resources engaged to flesh this vision out, and to build
   the story of why it matters and what it can deliver

 * Fourth, the final preparation stage, is where the vision is cut into various
   disruptive messages that help readers recognise the issue – and to buy into
   its urgency and overall value





Creating an original POV also requires an original TOV (tone of voice). The
emphasis here should be on maintaining a bold, confident voice. Equally, it’s
about sounding different too. Whereas talk in the past was often based on
measures such as ROI and TCO, disruptive marketing take a different route with a
fresh new message (it helps here that many buyers are increasingly suspicious of
any suggested ROI figures anyhow).







Yes you can still talk about the audience’s ‘pain’ and the damage thus caused.
The problem here however is that they know all this, and typically better than
you. What they don’t necessarily know however is where they need to be heading,
a concern that can be summed up by the request: “don’t just try selling me
another point solution or capability – instead help me catch up with a problem,
jump ahead of it, and let me disrupt the problem/reaction/solution narrative.







That’s disruptive marketing in a nutshell.







EMBRACING CHANGE



Disruptive marketing will obviously require a change of tact when it comes to
marketing and sales assets. Alongside more provocative messaging, you’ll also
require material that can back up any claims: no decision-maker wants to join a
cult, so you’ll need the hard data to support any vision.







We also advise different types of assets that help build out the ‘target state’,
including articles and commentary on what it feels like to exist there – as well
as more functional-level analysis. Throughout the process, the task is to remain
original, credible, and challenging. Disruption by its very nature requires
customers to embrace ‘new’, and doing that demands complete confidence in the
validity of your message.








EXPERIENCE THE DIFFERENCE



In summary, we can point to the fact that disruptive marketing is an approach
increasingly valued by executives wanting to move beyond the ‘feature rich’,
bombastic, claims-driven marketing that still proliferates. As a result it has
greater audience cut-through. These are people who know they need to address
problems and challenges, but they’re also individuals frustrated from previous
projects – and hardened to vendor promises that rarely deliver in their
totality.







That’s why talk of ROI and solution benefits can often fall on deaf ears.
Instead the task now is to build a credible vision of what the future holds, and
ask customers to journey with you to experience it – while also being among the
first to get there. It’s an approach that helps businesses see their challenges
in a new light, and one that makes finding a long-term solution unmistakably
urgent.







What’s more, it’s a strategy that works. Disruptive marketing has been 20+ years
in the making, as it spans the time Quantum Marketing has been working with
leading B2B tech vendors. During this period we’ve run many a demand generation
campaign, and spoken to countless executives and IT decision-makers. That’s why
we can confidently claim to have monitored changes to buying behaviours for over
two decades and maintained a clear, market-tested view of what works and why.







Disruptive marketing might not be right for every situation you’ll face during
this downturn, nor does it apply only under challenging trading conditions. But
for many companies that are seeing their current marketing strategies losing
their power, its time is now.







To start the disruption, Get in touch.



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