Most shoppers are becoming used to personalization when they shop. While personalization is present more often in the B2C market, B2B companies are beginning to adopt personalization because customers like it. B2B buyers want to add the same personalization to their B2B shopping experience.
Other online trends are also becoming part of B2B marketing including reviews and recommendations on social media, and interactive websites. Customer experience when dealing with vendors is driving these trends. B2B companies want their customers to have a good experience while interacting with their marketing tools.
B2B marketers can improve user experience (UX) by offering compelling content and an engaging social media presence to attract future buyers to their unique brand. Customers want to hear about relevant offers, offers that meet their specific needs, instead of just generic marketing. They want to buy when they are ready, not when the sales team needs to meet quota.
Key Performance Indicators
Most B2B companies already use KPIs when gathering data from their website. These KPIs include:
- Site traffic
- Bounce rates
- Page views per visit
- Time spent on site
Yet there are key differences between B2C and B2B marketing. It’s important for B2B companies to look at solutions that will help their customers do their jobs better. How can your products and services offer assistance to your customer? Do they discover this during the marketing phase? Before they buy?
Ask yourself which free tools are available for customer use. Which content are they downloading? Do you have any multimedia content or testimonials they can view? By tracking KPIs, you can gain insight into your customers.
Which B2B KPIs Should You Focus On?
B2B KPIs are not the same as on B2C sites. These sites prioritize metrics such as product checkout, adds to cart, funnel fallout, reviews, and compare products all for the same product. They want to compare customers’ experience when buying a specific product.
B2B marketers can use a variety of case studies of industry verticals, for instance, to tell stories about how your product is valuable to them. You can build out your case studies to show how your product helps customers in a range of industries.
When prospects see content that allows them to visualize how your product can improve their jobs as well as how your company can customize your product for them, they will have a better understanding of how they will incorporate what you’re selling into their job or company. Using trackers to collect metrics on which content is the most useful to different industries will give sales people a more customized approach to prospects and customers, leading to increased sales. You will also improve your SEO with added whitepapers and other content that is narrowly focused.
SMBs vs. Enterprises: What Customers Experience
Examine your external marketing tools to see if they are in sync with on-site customer experience. Other variables will change results such as social media marketing, paid advertising, event sponsoring, and the size of your business. To get started:
- Optimize website SEO
- Set up Google or Adobe analytics
- Read the reports and look for patterns in the data
One of the advantages to being an SMB is that it is easier to change strategies and campaigns than an enterprise. In-depth assessment of data can reveal new ideas and markets for products. The big advantage for enterprises is more abundant resources.
However, some CX data is essential for all businesses such as who lands on your website, and connecting with customers easily. Using what you learn from CX, companies can improve their SEO, marketing, and advertising.
