This article was actually written a few years ago however I stumbled across it as I was researching effective ways for professionals to execute account based marketing.
It appears Annabel Rake, CMO of Deloitte, was ahead of her time in 2015 when she claimed that B2B digital marketing was becoming 1-2-1 (P2P).
So how can you achieve this, particularly if you are an enterprise?
- Authenticity (for long term relationships this is key)
- Third person explanations and explain the benefits (not just your functionality)
- Be emotional (or empathetic)
- Be credible (industry peer examples and testimonials)
- Do more events (listening to your targets is priceless and events are the best place to do it, this doesn't just mean more stands!)
- Back it up (have a 'homepage' of what you know for targets to verify their conversation with you)
- Bespoke marketing automation (once you have acquired the lead through a download or event, start to get 1-2-1)
In summary this firmly relates to account based marketing and all of the above relies on you knowing and understanding your targets.
Put simply, when you meet someone in person you tailor your conversation on their appearance, words, items in their possession etc. Naturally this is difficult online but once you have a few insights begin to use them to your advantage and make your digital conversation just like a physical person to personal conversation.