MAIN INSIGHT 48
Lucia Ruiz
HEAD OF MARKETING,
COMMERCIAL EVENTS DIVISION
How have B2B buying preferences changed in recent years?
B2B buying preferences are constantly evolving, so as a business you need to be constantly aware of how your customers want to engage with you. A great example of this is that in recent years, largely due to the COVID pandemic, there has been a shift towards remote and hybrid working. This means that the days where you could simply call a prospect’s desk phone for a quick chat are now long gone. Some prospects even consider it inappropriate to be called on their mobile phone without prior warning or scheduling! For sales teams, this makes it harder than ever to secure valuable face time with their customers and prospects.
To overcome this challenge, businesses need to ensure that they have researched and compiled information about the prospective customer ahead of their first contact. Consider how you can show the prospect that you understand their problems. And more importantly, consider how you can show the prospect that you have a proven solution for their problems. If you can’t demonstrate this information in an engaging way at the start of your conversation, then it is sadly likely that it will be a short conversation!
What role does digital marketing play in building B2B relationships?
We still trust human beings more than we trust machines. Digital marketing is a powerful machine to reach customers almost 24/7, but it can cause harm to your brand if not used correctly. If your digital marketing is serving content that is not relevant or engaging to your audience, then they will soon switch off and dismiss your brand. This is why human research and involvement is key to delivering a great digital marketing strategy. Make sure that your content is relevant and valuable to the humans you want to be consuming it. Coordinating your content across multiple touchpoints will then start to establish your brand as trustworthy and valuable, paving the way for your sales teams to have positive first contact with prospects and continue building trust.
Marketing teams can support their sales colleagues in having positive first contacts by using an automated digital marketing platform to assign a score to each lead that is currently being marketed to. This allows sales teams to prioritise which prospects they should speak to first, and also gives them valuable context about which content that particular prospect has engaged with. The content that a prospect engages with helps to show the sales teams which particular challenges the prospect might be facing, therefore allowing them to open up a far more relevant and meaningful conversation.
Coordinating your content across multiple touchpoints will then start to establish your brand as trustworthy and valuable, paving the way for your sales teams to have positive first contact with prospects and continue building trust.
Being able to give your customers a choice of ways to contact you is hugely important when it comes to building long standing relationships. To deliver an exceptional experience, there should be a human being at the heart of all your communication channels.
What recommendation do you have for businesses trying to build meaningful relationships with their existing customers?
Being able to give your customers a choice of ways to contact you is hugely important when it comes to building long standing relationships. To deliver an exceptional experience, there should be a human being at the heart of all your communication channels. We’ve seen a large rise in the use of automated chatbots recently, but customers are frustrated when they have to answer never ending questions that often don’t lead them to the information they require anyway. Having a human being at the other end of the online chat conversation will help customers gain access to the information or support they need far quicker, and ultimately leave them with a better impression of your brand - making them more likely to recommend your services to friends and colleagues in the future.
The Economist is one of the most widely recognised and well-read current affairs publications, with a growing global circulation and a reputation for incisive analysis and opinion on every aspect of world events.
