Four Digital Strategies to Improve B2B Buying Experience

As the competition becomes fiercer in the enterprise world, brands should strive to develop strategies to improve their B2B buying experience.

The importance of customer experience has only increased as it has taken a central role across the B2B enterprise landscape. However, improving it has always been a challenge with highly technical solutions, large budgets at stake and various stakeholders, making the process historically difficult. Hence, today’s CMOs should embrace the digital buying processes in the customer journey, starting from the research phase to post-sales. This will help them to keep up with customers’ evolving needs. Below are five digital strategies CMOs should consider to enhance the B2B buyer experience:

Also Read: Marketing Leaders Are Highly Focused On Making CX a Top Priority in 2021

Creating a digital-first buying experience

The COVID-19 has increased the importance of digital channels in the enterprise world. As in-person meetings and trade shows are not an option anymore, brands have quickly adopted user-friendly digital experiences that removed barriers to speed up the sales cycle. In fact, according to a Gartner’s 2020 report, “B2B buyers spend only 17% of the total purchase journey with sales representatives.” It means salespeople can act as advisors by providing personalized information that their prospects unable to find online. Another research conducted by Google/IPSOS (via the Association of National Advertisers) showcases, 74% of marketers believe that virtual events are just as effective at delivering ROI as in-person ones. By prioritizing to enhance the digital-first buying experience, CMOs can ensure brands can improve their growth.

Leveraging aspects of B2C buying techniques

Most customers today expect a seamless shopping experience across all areas, including the B2B ones. Hence, B2B brands should incorporate techniques from the B2C playbook to develop more straightforward, more transparent buying processes to execute them effectively.

A few aspects that B2B brands can focus their efforts on include ensuring the website’s overall experience, length of ordering processing, technical glitches in the ordering process. Additionally, brands should revamp and simplify their pricing strategy and post it clearly on the website. They should include the ability to get instant quotes or review packages, users or licenses or amount of storage. By mirroring and incorporating such buying techniques, brands can ensure they make it easier for B2B customers to manage their purchases and improve their overall customer experience.

Creating high-quality content 

To get the most traffic to their platform, brands should create content strategies that include a mix of compelling thought leadership and up-to-date product information. CMOs should also add storytelling to their B2B marketing campaigns. It can help them create emotional connections and demonstrate their customers’ unique needs and pain points. Also, they can use the feelings of victory in the case studies that make their customers heroes.

Also Read: Three Digital Strategies to Enhance B2B Buying Experience

Creating a seamless self-service experience

Today’s customers want to solve their problems on their own. Therefore, brands should provide self-service options as it empowers the buyer to solve their issues. Additionally, McKinsey found that over three-quarters of their buyers and sellers prefer digital self-serve and remote human engagement to face-to-face interactions. Self-service options also increase customer satisfaction while simultaneously shortening sales cycles.

With the martech industry evolving rapidly, brands can develop robust digital experiences, which makes it easy for prospects to progress through each stage of the customer journey. They should focus on digital strategies that empower the buyers to make informed decisions.