Your Horror Movie Questions

I don't think you can do good B2B marketing unless you know your horror movie questions.

It's an insight from big data and dating sites. You could ask two people a hundred questions and, over millions of people, get very good at predicting who's compatible and might last. But you get most of that benefit from one or two questions. The one that seems to work best is the horror movie question. On a scale of one to five, one is “I hate them” and five is “oh my god, I watch them all,” how do you feel about horror movies? In long-term couples, it's rare for the two to have wildly different opinions.

You can develop a set of core, very human questions about your own buyers. Questions so fundamental to their experience of buying from you that once you know the answers, you know (a) whether they're a good prospect, (b) what to say to them at every point in the funnel, and (c) some good insights to pass along to sales.

I have a questionnaire of about 18 that every client goes through. One of my horror movie questions is the one people know me for: how do I know it's safe for me to vouch for you to my boss?

The answers I want from the company are all the details, because in a world of bullshit marketing, details win. How many countries do you operate in? How many customers in total? What's your churn rate? How many customers recommend you? What's your net promoter score? How many projects a year? What's your head count? Where are you headquartered? What are your revenues, if you can say?

Somewhere in those details is something that conveys safety, and maybe hope and confidence. That if I invest time, attention and emotion in learning about these guys, I'm not the first one down this path. The path is well paved. They're reliable. They're not vaporware. They're going to get me to the positive future I'm looking for.