Behavioral changes in B2B Marketing
root_mila3z53 We all know the basics of LinkedIn as a business search engine either to connect with key decision makers, monitor the trends in the industry, keep an eye on competitors, increase sales, find new employees, or even to find a new job. And we all know how each process goes.
But when it comes to processes, the thing we know is they are continuously changing. Add the COVID -19 to these processes and you get why all customers’ behaviors have upended.
According to Mc Kinsey and Company Survey only 20–30% of B2B buyers want to ever interact with reps in person even in their ideal/post-COVID-19 model.
But what really changed? It’s not really the selling but rather the customers’ struggle to buy. So in order to ease these difficulties that the customers are facing, the B2B channel sales environment has really evolved and it’s only upgrading in order to meet customers’ behavior.
Here are ways buyer behavior is changing and how it is actually reshaping marketing:
Due to abundance of content, buyers are engaging in more research before actual purchase. That is why you as B2B marketer or seller should:
Create better content. This means you should create smart and relevant content. Too much B2B content may become poorly developed, too promotional, and irrelevant. Instead find the balance between educational, engaging, and entertaining content. Shape the content around both: who you are and where you are, and make sure you are telling the right story. Pay attention to the calls to action. Each call to action though, doesn’t make a product pitch, instead it is a version of content for each persona expanding on the problem, allowing the buyer to see that you understand their world. Ultimately, have specific content dedicated to the type of customers that you service and rewrite the content specifically for them.
Use Images and Video. Focus on visuals, have images on your website that are representative of your customer niche, industry or segment. You can also keep your buyers engaged by telling your story via Video. It is much easier for your customers or buyers to be able to watch videos from their desktop or mobile devices, no matter their location.
Introduce Chat-bots: Even when business buyers want to self-serve, sometimes they just could use a little helping hand. Chat-bots, when automated and programmed correctly, will have a dramatic effect on the business buyer’s experience.
Buyers will continue to buy remotely, and they will probably need more engagement from you as B2B marketer or seller. This means you should:
Establish a Co-creation. Get the buyer to trust their own decision-making. In this respect, you should consider establishing a collaborative network. Those networks are fostering a new environment for co-creating products, services, and for solving problems. Have your buyers tell their story in order to build their confidence. Help them discover that they can trust their judgment, even when a different point of view of others is present. Follow your buyer’s journey and remind them of a business decision they made that involved taking great risks but you still trusted your judgment with. For you as a B2B marketer, this means a broader view on how you deliver messaging.
Introduce Collaboration. Digital technologies have allowed for progress in the area of collaboration. This way influence and interaction not only has widened, but also increased. The era of collaborative buyer networks is already present. We now have to consider internal as well as external members of collaborative networks impacting decision-making. As a B2B seller you should consider interaction by creating your own group where you will discuss topics and encourage people to share their ideas and not just promote your product or service. So, if you are planning to have your LinkedIn group, now is the best moment to create one.
Create more than just an Insight. When I say this I really mean an Insight – more than just too many items classified as insight. So think how to create a contributing insight. You can get an accurate and deeper understanding if you combine problem identification, solution exploration, requirements building on what exactly the purchase should do. When you combine all that with proper validation when you are 100% sure, you got it right. For B2B marketing and sales this means that they will have to be more judicious in what they label insight in order to get it right.
In order to attract new customers / buyers and not to lose sight of your current ones you should adapt to their needs and newly developed behaviors.
Many companies fail because they cannot or will not meet their buyers’ evolving needs. That risk is a high price to pay. If you’re not adjusting your marketing strategy you will be seriously behind. And, it’s important to ask yourself, is your behavior changing as your buyers do?
This is where a few solutions come into play: you may choose to invest more resources in your marketing and sales teams and give more attention to research and development or you might hire external consultants or marketing agencies to feed you with fresh updates, ideas, and practices. Does all this sound like something that interests you? You can book a consultation with us and talk more details on the following link:
