I have mentioned before, I am a fan of Malcolm Gladwell and his podcast, Revisionist History. His last book The Bomber Mafia was about the race to use strategic bombing to end World War II. This was before the Manhattan Project which yielded the first atomic bomb that was built and used to change the course of history.

The book discusses the desire to, “Drop a bomb in a pickle barrel” with precision targeting. The problem was its theory was not practical with weather, and other factors. The only thing that worked was using napalm to firebomb Tokyo at low altitudes, and then drop the two BIG ones!

In order to drop bombs on the right target, it takes a recognizance mission to take pictures of targets. It demanded clear skies and some ground intelligence on where the manufacturing plants were located. Even with that, the technology was not advanced enough to be certain that collateral damage did not include civilians.

Laser Guided Bombs

Back in the 1990s, I worked at an agency called Peak Image. One of the clients was Northrup Grumman. We worked on a marketing CD-Rom that touted a laser system that would sit below an airplane.

It was used to guide smart bombs via a laser to their target. I am sure technology has advanced way beyond that, but that was a huge leap from dropping a basic bomb from a Boeing B-29 Superfortress during World War II.

The main concept of the Bomber Mafia was to strategically target manufacturing and infrastructure to cripple the war machine creation capabilities of the enemy, with minimal civilian casualties.

In the end, the military just gave up and firebombed, then nuked Japan. It achieved the goal of surrender but unleashed a technology that has to be controlled and maintained.

To this day, it's only fear that contains weapons of mass destruction, while technology continues to evolve with highly targeted munitions that can truly drop a bomb on a pickle barrel.

Weapons of Mass Distraction

You may or may not view business marketing as a war, but it does have a lot in common. It takes strategy, research, and recognizance missions to identify targets. It demands clear vision and boots-on-the-ground intelligence to get to the right person, with the right message, at the right time.

We have weapons that act like laser-guided knowledge bombs or weapons of mass distraction.

Social Media, especially advertising is best when it has a broad reach in order to hit its target. That can have collateral damage to your business and its sales or reputation.

When you use a lead company to call or email leads, you could be blowing up a possible business relationship because it may be the right message at the wrong time.

Spending the time to do personal recognizance means developing relationships first. Not every target will have a strategic value all the time. When it's ready, you have the ability to laser target knowledge bombs that help you be in the right place at the right time.

Personal Recognizance

This requires you to invest time into relationships. The process includes taking active measures to reach out, asking how someone is doing, and gathering information. This information could be personal, business-related, or some combination of both.

That information could and should be stored in your CRM or ERP. Trust comes with consistency and repetition. Not every relationship bends through the same arch. Some may happen quickly, and some will take time and nurturing. Some may just be false flags or a waste of time, but you won't know until you know.

Getting information like where they hang out (which social media platform they use), how they value (or hate) email, text, or phone calls, and even if they are more of an auditory, visual, or kinesthetic learner can become valuable in your guiding the right content to them when the time is right.

Keeping solid notes is important. Setting a cadence of outreach is also important. That intelligence helps you know what content ammunition you may need.

Building Knowledge Bombs

Your marketing content is the ammunition you need to convert business intelligence into sales.

You can actively create content that targets the wants, needs, and desires of your budding relationships.

Your old content can be freshened up with a new coat of paint (intros, and conclusions) that speak to the current business climate.

All that content can be packaged in different containers. Imagine one piece of content being served up as a webinar. That webinar could be converted to snackable video clips. The concepts could be rewritten into an eBook. That eBook could be broken up into a blog series. All of that can be distributed via email and on multiple social media channels.

Laser Guided Content

Rather than a Spray and Pray methodology, you can use those personal relationships to identify and laser-guide the right information, to the right person, at the right time.

Having content in sharable forms such as PDFs, eBooks, blog posts, videos, and more will help you to share information with each person in a way that they want to consume it.

So asking questions like, “Do you prefer to read or watch videos?”, will help you increase the chances that people will actually consume and possibly act on your knowledge bombs.

All of that could and should be driven by the research, conversations, and interactions with your targets as the key source of interest and timeliness.

Finally, you can still globally distribute content via email and social media to your audiences and lists. This can add awareness and repetition that may just spark action.

Final Thoughts

Social media is forever changing. It gets noisy out there. B2b marketing is different from business-to-consumer marketing. Relationships and data should be at the forefront of your efforts.

Using advertising and cold calling can be a deflating and costly method while building lasting business relationships can simply take time.

The saying goes, “All's fair in love and war”, but I think building quality business relationships is a mix of mostly the best parts of both love and war.

It helps to think about how you like to be engaged when it comes to making business purchase decisions.

 

“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
– Sun Tzu

Comment below and share your thoughts, ideas, or questions about your love-hate relationship with content creation and distribution! Do you feel your system is working for you? What tips or techniques can you share that have worked for you and your business?

To learn more about this and other topics on B2b Sales & Marketing, visit our podcast website at The Bacon Podcast.