As 2012 B2B marketing planning should be in full-swing, I find myself internally rationalizing the necessity of early planning. A topical analogy seems evident as the 2012 Presidential Election is one year from today. There are currently 24 presidential candidates for the election so we should expect to be bombarded with information about each candidate for the next 365 days. However, I wonder, is the Republican front runner today going to be the chosen candidate a year from now? Only 4 out of 10 January leaders over the last half-century have won the nomination (Source: Gallup poll). So, why plan and promote this early in the race? Well, let’s think about it in terms of B2B marketing.

Election: Familiarity of the Candidate – B2B: Brand Awareness
In Seth Godin’s new book We Are All Weird, Godin references a quote from Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google. Schmidt “estimates that every two days, Earthlings produce as much information as was produced by all of mankind for the 20,000 years leading up to 2003. “ As Godin describes, “It’s not all good information, sure, but there’s a lot of it and it can’t help be not-so-normal.” He cites that there is “more choice, less mass.”

Candidates need to blanket their name, stance, vision and values in the market. Otherwise they will be lost. In the same way, B2B companies need to market their brand everywhere their target audience may view it. This includes ads in trade publications (print & digital), social media, web (landing pages & mobile), email newsletters, trade shows and sales/distributor functions. The audience will need to see your content in numerous locations for the message to resonate with the viewer.

Election: Voter Polling – B2B: Audience Insight & Testing
It’s essential to learn and test your audiences’ preferred method of communication. In 2008, Obama had 380% more Facebook & MySpace supporters, 905% more YouTube viewers and 240 times more followers on Twitter than McCain (Source). Did these social media numbers directly affect the outcome of the election? It’s possible McCain researched social media outlets and chose to campaign using a different medium. It’s also possible he was just slower to embrace technology and didn’t engage his audience where they were obtaining information. However, there is no denying Obama successfully embraced social media as a medium to communicate with his followers on a regular basis.

Content strategy for all markets cannot be targeted appropriately without extensive planning ahead of time. Adequate time, thought and budget needs to be valued to sufficiently plan for success. This is true for the candidates as well as in marketing. Test the audience reactions to the message and continually readjust.

Breaking the Norm
Seth Godin’s book We Are All Weird also discusses that it’s a lot easier to reach the “particular pocket of weird people with the stuff they are obsessed with.” In turn, it makes it easier to be obsessed and marketers go along with it since they can reach a particular consumer. People can now easily congregate in tribes so “weird is perversely becoming the new normal, at least in the small tribes…” As Godin reflects, "the community you choose mirrors you and further amplifies the unique interests you do have.”

Both candidates and B2B marketers need to find their niche and diligently build their audience in that space. The B2B market has a very particular target audience with proficient market/product knowledge. The content needs to be unique and “weird” to capture the interest of the audience.

So, is planning early in the “race” necessary? Yes, I believe it is.

As marketers we can’t just create a 2012 plan with a dictated budget number allotted for ads, collateral, web and PR without defining the preferred outcome goals for each. It isn’t an easy task and will always be changing, but the notable results obtained from any extra effort will be evident.

Remember, you have to participate to influence the outcome, so don’t forget to vote!