The Dragonfly Perspective: Seeing Your Marketing from Multiple Angles

The Power of Compound Vision in B2B Marketing

When we chose the dragonfly as our symbol at Shailes Consultancy, we were drawn to its remarkable visual capabilities. A dragonfly possesses compound eyes with up to 30,000 lenses, giving it nearly 360-degree vision and the ability to see in multiple directions simultaneously.

For B2B businesses, this dragonfly vision serves as a perfect metaphor for the comprehensive perspective needed to create truly effective marketing strategies. Too often, companies view their marketing through a single lens—their own—missing critical insights that could transform their approach.

Let’s explore how adopting a “dragonfly perspective” can revolutionise your B2B marketing efforts.

The Customer Perspective: Seeing Through Their Eyes

The most fundamental shift in perspective comes from truly seeing your marketing through your customers’ eyes. For B2B companies, this means understanding:

Decision-Making Complexity: Unlike consumer purchases, B2B buying decisions often involve multiple stakeholders with different priorities:

• Financial directors concerned with ROI and cost management
• Technical teams evaluating functionality and compatibility
• Operations managers considering implementation and disruption
• C-suite executives looking at strategic alignment

Questions to Ask:

• Does your marketing speak to each decision-maker in language that resonates with their specific concerns?
• Have you mapped the information needs at each stage of the buying journey?
• Are you presenting information in formats preferred by different stakeholders?

The Competitor Perspective: Understanding Your Position in the Market

B2B markets are often crowded, with competitors that may appear similar at first glance. The dragonfly perspective helps you:

Identify True Differentiators: Look beyond surface-level differences to find meaningful distinctions in:

• Specialisation within industry verticals
• Service delivery models
• Customer support approaches
• Implementation methodologies
• Value-added services or knowledge
• Remember ‘givens’ are not differentiators!

Map Competitive Positioning: Understand where you sit in the market landscape:

• Are you the premium specialist or the accessible generalist?
• The innovative disruptor or the reliable stalwart?
• The end-to-end solution provider or the focused expert?

Questions to Ask:

• How do customers actually perceive the differences between you and competitors?
• Are you competing on dimensions that truly matter to your target audience?
• Where are the gaps in the market that competitors are overlooking?

Competitive Advantage: The dragonfly vision helps identify opportunities in the market that others may not see—niches, underserved segments, or emerging needs that you can address before others recognise them.

The Internal Perspective: Aligning Marketing with Operational Capabilities

Marketing promises must align with what your business can actually deliver—a critical consideration for maintaining credibility and customer satisfaction:

Capability Assessment: Honestly evaluate:

• What you do exceptionally well
• Where you have capacity constraints
• Areas where you have unique expertise
• Processes that differentiate your delivery

Marketing-Operations Alignment: Ensure your marketing accurately reflects:

• Realistic delivery timelines
• Service level commitments
• Implementation requirements
• Support capabilities

Questions to Ask:

• Can we consistently deliver on the expectations our marketing creates?
• Are our most distinctive capabilities prominently featured in our marketing?
• Does our marketing create demand patterns that match our capacity?

The Future Perspective: Anticipating Market Changes and Trends

The dragonfly doesn’t just see in all directions—it also has exceptional motion detection, allowing it to anticipate changes. For B2B companies, developing this forward-looking perspective means:

Trend Analysis: Look beyond immediate market conditions to identify:

• Regulatory changes that might affect your industry
• Technological developments that could disrupt established practices
• Shifting customer expectations based on experiences in other sectors
• Emerging competitors from adjacent markets

Scenario Planning: Develop marketing approaches for different possible futures:

• How would your value proposition need to evolve?
• Which channels might become more or less effective?
• What new capabilities might you need to highlight?

Questions to Ask:

• Are we preparing for where our market will be in 12-24 months?
• How might our customers’ priorities shift in the near future?
• Are we building marketing assets that can adapt to changing conditions?

Strategic Advantage: Companies that anticipate changes can position themselves ahead of market shifts, establishing thought leadership and first-mover advantage.

Developing Your Dragonfly Vision: Practical Approaches for B2B Companies

Building this multifaceted perspective doesn’t require enormous resources. Here are practical approaches:

Customer Insight Gathering:

• Regular, structured conversations with existing clients (beyond basic satisfaction checks)
• Win/loss analysis for recent sales opportunities
• Advisory boards comprising key clients and industry experts
• Social listening across industry forums and discussion groups

Competitive Intelligence:

• Systematic review of competitor marketing materials
• Feedback from prospects who have evaluated alternatives
• Industry analyst reports and market studies
• Participation in industry events and trade shows

Internal Alignment:

• Cross-functional meetings between marketing, sales, operations, and customer service
• Capability mapping exercises
• Service delivery reviews focused on identifying distinctive strengths
• Customer journey mapping with input from all customer-facing teams

Future-Focused Intelligence:

• Industry publication monitoring
• Relationships with sector-specific educational institutions
• Technology vendor briefings
• Regulatory update subscriptions

Integrating Multiple Perspectives into Your Marketing Strategy

The true power of the dragonfly perspective comes when you integrate these different viewpoints into a coherent marketing approach:

Messaging Matrix: Develop core messages that address the needs of different stakeholders while remaining consistent with your capabilities and differentiators.

Channel Strategy: Select marketing channels based on where your specific target audience seeks information, not just general B2B best practices.

Content Development: Create content that demonstrates both your understanding of current challenges and your vision for future solutions.

Investment Prioritisation: Allocate resources to marketing activities that highlight your true differentiators rather than attempting to compete directly with larger competitors on their terms.

Conclusion: The Transformative Power of Multiple Perspectives

For B2B companies, developing this dragonfly-like ability to see your marketing from multiple angles isn’t just beneficial—it’s transformative. It allows you to:

• Speak directly to the complex needs of different stakeholders in the buying process
• Highlight meaningful differentiators that competitors may overlook
• Align marketing promises with operational realities
• Anticipate and prepare for market changes before they occur

By adopting this comprehensive perspective, you can create marketing that doesn’t just communicate—it connects, convinces, and converts.

At Shailes Consultancy, we help B2B businesses develop this multifaceted view and transform their marketing approach. If you’d like to explore how the dragonfly perspective could enhance your marketing effectiveness, contact us for a conversation.