Choosing a segment
I chose to interview individuals from the B2B category.
Within this segment I focused on two groups, Marketing and Sales. The two sales
people I interviewed travel frequently for business and the Marketing
individual travels approximately once per quarter, however, she does interface
with a lot of other business people from other industries.
What I learned
I learned that the distribution of information is not the
real problem with this segment. All of them receive business cards on a regular
schedule and supplemented by their companies so paying for something that doesn’t
really cost that much to begin with is not a big deal for them. The sales
individuals have learned over the years what they refer to as the “shotgun”
effect. This involves distributing their cards to as many people as possible in
hopes that 1 or 2 will result in a sale. Wow! To me that just spells waste
waste waste. Waste of paper, time, and money. The Marketing VP
that I spoke to is a light distributor of business information and often
forgets to bring enough cards on her trips but generally follows up with email.
All of them would welcome a solution that provided value from the people they
meet and share information with. Too often this is not the case.
The Segment
This segment is going to be hard to sell a solution to
unless you can really prove value and ROI. However, once you do it will be a
steady stream of income. All three individuals have worked for their companies
for 5-12yrs and each continue to order from the same company without really
blinking an eye at possibly saving a few dollars here and there.
First, I agree with your segment choice since larger businesses are more likely to have a social and environmental responsibility. As you have stated, it will be very hard to break that cycle of “ordering the same product without blinking an eye”, but I am curious to see how you approach that obstacle and how you can showcase your product’s utility and cost effectiveness to change their minds.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it is an issue that a generally B2B-focused individual like a marketing VP has so few business cards, highlighting how general useless they are. If you were able to provide a more valuable and interactive, engaging business card, then you likely have a large market that is looking for more effective options.
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