Small Business Tips: Marketing to CFOs

As a small business do you market some or all of your products and services to larger corporations? Today's Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) require concise and clear information to aid them in making timely, informed decisions about their needs.
These individuals, on a daily basis, digest significant volumes of information and data in their roles as finance professionals. Your goal, in marketing to CFOs, is to stand above the "chatter" with a consistent message across all channels that speak to their needs.
Your primary goal is to connect with CFOs and other senior management decision-makers. A focus on "getting the sale", without establishing mutually beneficial relationships is a waste of valuable time - both theirs and yours. As a marketer, you must add value to everything you present to your target market. Therefore, customer needs must drive your copywriting & marketing strategies.
Two words should be at the heart of your multi-channel campaigns: Trust and Credibility. You cannot dialog productively with finance professionals and other senior management if you are not deemed trustworthy and credible in your role as a corporate marketer.
Gain Trust
You gain trust by offering more than a product to decision makers. You must offer ideas and solutions that solve problems - problems that CFOs face every day in their roles as custodians of the monetary resources of their corporations. You must educate them on how your products and services can meet their needs in a cost-effective way.
Moreover, you must offer relevant advice particular to their situation. Gaining trust means being seen as a partner in the CFOs initiatives for the betterment of their enterprise. In your copywriting you must stress benefits.
Establish Credibility
In tandem with gaining trust is establishing your credibility with CFOs. You do this by working with them, not working for yourself. Vital to establishing credibility is providing cost-saving and operational advice to senior managers. In addition, provide written reports/case studies that highlight success stories and how your wish is to help the CFO achieve successful outcomes as well.
Upon establishing trust and credibility, those you market to see you as someone committed to their needs and success. This is when the productive work really moves forward as you and they both strive to develop the aforementioned mutually beneficial relationship.
What's Next?
What's your next step as a corporate marketer marketing to CFOs? Your next step is to present your message consistently across all channels - always focusing on the needs of the CFO. You are assisting them and providing solutions that make operating their company easier and more efficient.
Any communication from your marketing department (and from any level of your company ) must always be a message of helping, through offering solutions. A sale is the result of truly helping the CFO and other senior decision-makers.
Support, Support, Support
Total support, from first contact, through to after sales service, is the key to gaining repeat business from corporate clients. This support involves training, educational materials, product updates, troubleshooting if necessary, and trained experts ready to assist as needed. Your company presents a message that you're in it for the long haul with the client - you're not abandoning them upon consummation of a sale.
In the end, it's all about personal relationships when it comes to marketing to CFOs. Respect their difficult positions as decision-makers in a very competitive environment. Understand precisely what they need to move their company forward. Provide them the products, service, advice, and dedication to quality they require, knowing you're helping people, not just selling a product.
Consider all the above as you create your various copywriting pieces to promote your products and services.


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/9550768

Subscribe to receive free email updates:

0 Response to "Small Business Tips: Marketing to CFOs"

Post a Comment