Michael Hoffmann, Vice President of Field Operations, RELEX Solutions (Germany)
“Successful marketers make the effort to show thecustomer that they have a specific solution for his or her requirement.”
“[People live in their own world and perceive reality
differently. Being aware of this individuality and
trying to understand what the other person’s world looks like are the first steps in a common direction.”
I differentiate between central marketing and field marketing because we operate worldwide as well as across German-speaking countries and regions. Central marketing produces all the great stuff, such as white papers, press releases, blog posts, and product and solutions content. In field marketing, we ensure that the messaging is appropriate for regional and local markets. We in field marketing go one step further and tailor the marketing messaging to a customer. The pandemic has eliminated travel times, giving us additional time to make such customizations, and the outcomes reflect that. Before COVID-19, we typically divided our time between creating events and strengthening customer relationships through a more standard follow-up.
In our work, we must understand customer bottlenecks and pain points. People live in their own world and perceive reality differently. Being aware of this individuality and trying to understand what the other person’s world looks like are the first steps in a common direction. To gather this information, we talk to our customers; we concentrate on listening and understanding. We strive to find the right tone, the right level of sharing, to ask the right questions and listen rather than focusing on our own offers. Sometimes, customers do not know what their problems are, so we take the time to find out together. This approach has been key to our success, but it has become even more important in the “new normal.” Moving these meetings online has resulted in more but shorter meetings. We feel that this new setup brings greater focus and discipline to the meetings. The interest and concentration the topics require are more intense, and the discussions go deeper. Everything needs to be understood and explained better. What a great improvement for us and the whole economy!
This is an excerpt from 15 Experts on Reimagining Field Marketing. The eBook was generously sponsored by Mighty Guides.
