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The role of social networks for business-to-business marketing in the running and endurance sports sector

It is often said that the running and endurance sports sector is inherently ‘people’ based. That business decisions are often based as much on trust and personal chemistry as anything else. That it is not always what you know, but who you know that counts.

Evidence for this came recently in some informal research that we carried out at freestak, looking into the ways in which race directors – from those organising a very small fundraising event for a charity or a running club to highly specilised race organsing businesses putting on events every week and engaging with thousands of runners at a time – sourced the services that they require for their events. The unanimous answer was: by asking other race directors and friends/contacts in the running industry for recommendations. Personal networks are key to our sector and the emergence of online social platforms simply helps to amplify that trend.

So why do most businesses consider that social networks are only for business-to-consumer interactions? And what should businesses whose customers are other companies, be thinking about when it comes to social?

The first thing to say is that social media networks are not just for reaching potential participants for events. All sorts of people are on social networks now and the idea that when a race director is on Facebook, the part of his brain that is dealing with work is utterly shut off, is preposterous. Certainly there are social networks that are more or less appropriate for B2B messages, but even those distinctions are becoming blurred.

The analogy that we use is this: if you were at a social event – say the launch of a new running magazine – and you were introduced to someone who works in the endurance sports industry, and who may have a need for the services that your business offers, you would probably chat to them about what they do. You probably wouldn’t immediately launch into a hard sales pitch or whip a 1200 word white paper out of your bag and ask them to start reading it, would you?

Well social networks are the online equivalent of that real-world social event. They present an opportunity for you to have a conversation with people who may well be interested in what your company does. They might not buy it there and then, but you will have made a connection that might pay dividends down the line.

This is why the model that B2B marketers need to adopt is a more ‘always on’ approach rather than a purely campaign based model. At a recent marketing seminar one of the speakers said that businesses need to understand the buying cycle of their customers and tailor their campaign length to that cycle. The example given was the procurement process for a new aircraft carrier. The buying cycle is 15-20 years. So a six month long marketing campaign will only be effective if the person making the decision, that could happen at any time during a 240 month period, sees your six month campaign at the time they make the final decision. Instead what B2B marketers in the aircraft carrier sector need to do is run a 15-20 year marketing campaign.

For us in the running and endurance sport sector, the buying cycle is not likely to be 15-20 years. But do you really know when your customers are making the decision about buying the products or services your company supplies? If not, then short marketing campaigns run the risk of missing the window of opportunity when a prospect is making a decision.

What should you do?

The first thing is that you can affect the buying cycle. A well timed campaign can convince a prospect that now is the right time to buy their timing system or organise the hire of their security team. But the prospect needs to be engaging with your brand at the time you launch the campaign. So engaging with your prospects all the time is crucial, if you want to have a receptive audience when you do decide to launch a campaign to boost sales.

What you will also find is that by being ‘always on’ with your marketing through engaging constantly with your prospects and clients, they will simply tell you when they are ready to buy your services or products. This is especially true if you have become a trusted source of information and resources. Dell recently conducted a study where they found that B2B customers were 57% of the way down the buying process before they even contacted the brand because they had already engaged so much with them online. Going back to our magazine launch party analogy, this is the same as you meeting people in the running and endurance sports sector at social events time and time again, chatting about business in a casual way and then, when they decide that they want to buy whatever it is that you do or make, calling you up and inviting you into the pitch process. Trying to create that sort of inbound marketing has to be part of your strategy, especially now – thanks to social networks – you have the tools to do it.

Obviously there are issues of knowing ‘how, where and when’ which we will look at in future posts. But for now, if you are interested to know more, please get in touch: info@freestak.com and we’ll tell you what we know.

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