B2B Marketing in the Digital Age
With online shopping taking the world by storm, buyers in the B2B space walk into their offices and wonder why their buying experiences at work have to be any different from how they purchased their latest copies of Murakami off Amazon — a quick online research, one click purchases and no interaction with salespeople. According to Forrestor Research, nearly 75% of B2B buyers find it more convenient to purchase from a website, rather than a sales representative. Is it that simple though?
B2B purchasing is often characterized by huge spends and negotiations, complicated requirements, customized products or services, and need for installations. Multiple people and levels of the business are involved in demos and decision-making, with the final decision lying in the hands of a different person than the initiator, and it would appear that the traditional marketing and sales techniques would still be the norm — cold calling and cold emailing prospects, advertising in print or at conventions. Yet there is a growing need for companies to update their marketing strategies and include major chunks of digital advertising, just as the traditional techniques are starting to get less traction than before.
What are some challenges that B2B marketers face as they embark into the era of digital interactions? Well, quite as few, as you can imagine.
Challenges for the B2B Marketer
With traditional marketing, it was hard to gather data — a lot of it was collected and manually filled into sheets — the number of phone calls made and emails sent, and the percentage that converted to successful sales were basic metrics captured. Modern marketing is wrought with tools that help capture and analyze data, and a lot of it! Data is created at the rate of several hundred gigabytes every second and databases are traded and purchased more often than we know. Marketers essentially have all the information they need to send targeted advertisements, thereby upping their conversion rates manifold. This is, however, a lot more challenging — the mounds of data need to be sieved and sifted to identify where opportunities lie, and this needs the ‘expert marketer’ — one who can cherry-pick patterns, or use algorithms and models that can.
Mobile usage has been on a continuous rise over the last few years — in India, a whopping 81% of all internet users used the mobile internet, while the US saw about 75.1% of internet users accessing via the mobile. With numbers like these, B2B marketers have a fresh set of roadblocks that they face- how do they market to a mobile-first audience? Their campaigns and websites need to be optimized for tiny screens, and calls-to-action cannot be complicated and time-intensive. The customer is browsing on a phone — it is less likely that they would watch a demo video and sign up for a convention, and a lot more likely they just follow the business for twitter updates.
The other big challenge kicks in because the customer is a lot more prepared about their purchase decisions. With competitors resorting to inbound marketing techniques and with demo videos and pricing options available online, marketers in the B2B space are finding that customers are more aware of their needs. A recent study by CEB shows that about 65% of the typical purchasing decision- researching solutions, ranking alternatives, setting requirements, benchmarking pricing etc. — was completed before they ever got in touch with a supplier. Marketers and salespersons have to start from a point way in the future — they are expected to have deeper knowledge of their products and richer analyses done to answer specific questions that the buyer now has — it is not simply about selling from scratch any more.
Turning it Around
With this massive switch of users to mobile and the rampant use of social media, there is enough pressure on B2B marketers to catch up with a digital marketing strategy, if they haven’t already. If built right, the power of digital can unlock a plethora of growth opportunities. An important set of elements that B2B marketers should include in their marketing plans to build strategic growth include:
1. Use Analytics Right: Conquer that mountain of big data — hire experts and specialists that can identify patterns in your big data, and help you find a new segment or fresh opportunities to market to. New marketing funnels provide answers to questions that, a decade ago, couldn’t be answered — what percentage of our website visitors convert to leads, and eventually to customers? What channel provides the most leads? What was the success rate of your last campaign? Finding all these answers and more helps the B2B marketer iterate over and zero in on the right strategies.
2. Create a Social Presence: Social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube have become mainstream marketing channels, and B2B marketers realize their importance in purchasing decisions. The buyer resorts to these websites for research and for feedback, and expect social representation to legitimize a business. Marketers not only get tremendous insight into preferences of these buyers, but can also leverage these frequented media to build brand awareness and reputation, broaden reach, and establish thought leadership.
3. Go Mobile First: There’s little else that gets a user out the door than a squashed website on their tiny screens. Most consumer websites have switched over to apps or responsive websites, but B2B is lagging far behind. As the buyer resorts to using their smartphones to research your product or service, we are robbing them of an optimized experience, and ourselves of a potential successful sale. Optimizing sites for mobile through responsive web design is a cost-effective method for capturing visitors and conversions, and one that must necessarily be a part of the B2B Marketer’s strategy.
4. Do not discount Inbound Marketing: Inbound marketing organically attracts target groups, without disrupting the lives of potential prospects, and has become widely popular in the last few years to build a reputation and become thought leaders in a space. According to Hubspot, inbound marketing tactics generate 54% more leads than traditional paid marketing, and cost 62% less. By the very definition of inbound marketing, buyers come to you, and this spells gold for businesses because it means cutting out a lot of false leads, and focusing on firms that want to get into business with you. These incoming leads are also of higher quality, provide better conversion rates and therefore, generate higher RoI.
This is the age of the customer. B2B buyers expect the same transparency, flexibility and product knowledge as the next consumer does. Without a planned approach to attacking the digital sphere, businesses risk losing out to competition by failing to leverage an effective media to communicate the products or services they offer, what differentiates them and how they could effectively meet another business’ needs. With the rise of predictive analytics, digital marketing will only evolve, and this is an opportune time for businesses to step into the shallow end of the waters, before they can go all in and reap the benefits of the ocean.