Peter Weinberg wrote an article titled Quantum Marketing for B2B Institute.
« For centuries, scientists believed that atoms worked like this: According to this model, the atom consists of a nucleus and a bunch of adorable little electrons, making neat, predictable circles around that nucleus. Scientists called this the planetary model. »
« And then came the strangest finding of all: sometimes an electron behaved as though it were in two different locations at the exact same time, in a so-called “quantum state.” A new model of the atom was born: the quantum model. »
« I find that many marketers seem to believe in what could be called a “planetary model” of B2B buying. According to this model, everything about B2B buying is totally predictable. »
« The problem is that the more I learn about B2B buying, the more I become convinced that it looks less like the planetary model and more like the quantum model. »
« For starters, there is no decision-maker. There is a distributed network of decision-makers and it’s hard to say who is calling the shots at any particular time. And new decision-makers are dipping in and out of the buying process, offering their opinions. Some of those opinions carry influence, some do not. And the needs of this network arise and disappear at random—sometimes it seems like a decision will be made tomorrow and then it’s pushed back a year. »
« If you choose the planetary model, you are managing a predictable buying process. »
« But what if you choose the quantum model and decide that the buying process is unpredictable? Well, then you need a very different approach. You manage predictability with precision. But you manage unpredictability with probabilities. You consider all potential scenarios and design for all eventualities. »
« Quantum marketing is all about broad, probabilistic thinking. In quantum marketing, you don’t reach exactly the right buyer. You reach anyone who could potentially buy, in either the short-term or in the long-term. You don’t design specific creative for specific buyers. You design creative that’s potentially relevant to a massive set of customers. And you don’t deliver that message at a specific moment in time. You deliver it all the time, so that you never miss a moment.
That’s quantum targeting, quantum creative, and quantum timing. »
« So those marketing directors you want to reach? Well, the marketing directors of tomorrow work somewhere else today—at an agency or in an ad sales role. That IT manager? Right now, he’s just a junior IT specialist. That CFO? She hasn’t gone in-house yet; she works at a bank. People change jobs over time. That’s a simple truth that matters in B2B. It’s why hyper-targeted B2B tactics, including some forms of account-based marketing, are, by definition, not capable of driving long-term growth. Hyper-targeting is short-term because it excludes future buyers. »
« personalized creative only makes sense if you understand people’s tastes on a personal level—if you know precisely what creative will resonate with a specific person. The problem is… nobody knows that! »
« Personalized creative can never go viral… Creative that will work for all potential buyers—that’s quantum creative. »
« Remember that just like 95% of the universe is dark matter, the vast majority of what buyers do is dark behavior that’s not trackable. So intent signals will never capture the full market opportunity. »
« Instead of timing your marketing to coincide with specific phases of the funnel, I think you’re better off just being “always on” with top-funnel brand and bottom-funnel demand. »
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