The steady drizzle is when the job is not to sell
Translated from the original Spanish article.
At any given moment, only 5% of your potential customers are looking to buy, or are in a position to do so. The other 95% are not.
We're talking about B2B in particular. Where, in fact, that 95% may stay out of the market for months or years. Because buying cycles are long.
This brings me to a concept passed on to me by the marketing director of a specialized professional services firm: the steady drizzle.
Because, even though our legitimate goal is to capture the 5% that's ready to buy, it's in the remaining 95% that the future lies. Marketing that only chases those who are buying right now faces a situation with two readings worth considering.
- It's competing for the most contested segment of the market. Where every other competitor is pushing too. It's the most expensive, and also the most aggressive.
- Without a long-term perspective, it misses the chance to accumulate aggregate results. The ones that, little by little, set in motion a continuous “organic” demand dynamic that makes acquiring customers cheaper and—this is important—more predictable.
The steady drizzle is when the job is not to sell. It's earning credibility without fanfare, in the right forums, building trust, and positioning yourself in your category for your potential market.
The logic is simple: when your potential customers enter the market, they already know you and trust your brand.
Of course, in a landscape as rushed as today's, thinking long term can feel risky, even counterintuitive. It takes understanding the game and a certain patience to lay the foundations properly, both technical and strategic, and to put in place a dynamic of constant, considered actions.
The beauty of this side of the board, free from the shackles of the clock's hands, is that it lets us work with more pleasure, and with better judgment.
Time will tell: no short-term strategy can compete with what that steady drizzle leaves behind in soil cultivated for years.