As in-person experiences continue their revival, marketers charged with engaging customers through events are developing a new skill set: the ability to pivot a virtual event into a real-world physical experience. Event Marketer culled insights from B2B executives who are tackling the “reverse pivot,” a strategy that requires developing two separate events; mastering the right timing; nurturing qualified leads; preparing a bigger budget; and much more. Read how B2B marketers from Honeywell, Illumina, Hyland and MuleSoft are working on transforming virtual events into IRL experiences, according to a piece in Event Marketer.

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If your B2B organization hasn’t hired “hybrid” sales reps yet, it probably will be doing so soon—or risk falling behind the competition. That’s one of the key takeaways from McKinsey & Company’s report “Omnichannel in B2B Sales: The New Normal in a Year That Has Been Anything But.”

“Hybrid sellers are typically defined as reps that were previously ‘in-person by default’ but now sell with a fairly even mix of remote—mostly via video—and in-person, supplemented by phone or email as needed,” explains Rock Khanna, senior partner at McKinsey. Of the nearly 3,500 respondents to McKinsey’s February 2021 B2B Pulse survey, 28 percent said their organizations had hybrid reps in place, and 77 percent of those introduced this “specifically to address the surge in video/virtual selling due to COVID-19,” Khanna says. “The expectation is that this will be the number-one sales role very soon.”

That hybrid model extends to marketing as well. “Our previous research shows that the average B2B customer interacts with an organization through seven channels, and 20 percent use 10 or more,” says Liz Harrison, partner at McKinsey. “This means there is an even higher bar to craft, develop and activate effective marketing campaigns. This underscores the importance of properly harnessing your data assets in order to understand your audience across channels and drive more positive business outcomes.”

McKinsey found that just under one third of buyers prefer in-person meetings with sales reps—even now that the country is opening up again. That figure is consistent across all stages of the buying process: identifying and researching new suppliers, considering and evaluating new suppliers, ordering and reordering. Slightly more buyers favor what McKinsey calls “remote human interactions,” including video and phone calls, emails and texts. And digital self-serve was nearly as popular. In fact, when it came to reordering, it was the most popular option, with 36 percent of buyers preferring it, compared with 34 percent favoring remote human interactions and only 30 percent opting for in-person meetings.

B2B organizations are striving to give current and potential customers what they want. While 57 percent of such companies reported selling in person as of February 2021, only 15 percent expected traditional in-person meetings to be the rule going forward. “Essentially, what we’re looking at is the difference between in-person being an option versus it being the default,” Harrison says. “Even though the majority of companies are still selling in person, and will continue to do so as part of their omnichannel go-to-market, compared to their pre-COVID-19 model, they won’t choose for every interaction—be it with customers or internal—to be in-person.”

That’s one more reason that companies need to have a data-based 360-degree view of the customer. “A foundational customer data set must exist inside an organization, with the goal of having a unified view of the customer across channels,” Harrison says. “Investments in data and technology will ultimately augment personalized marketing in an omnichannel environment.”

Fortunately for B2B companies, the omnichannel approach works. Of those surveyed in February, 58 percent said the hybrid sales approach was somewhat or much more effective when reaching and serving existing customers than “in-person by default” selling. In comparison, only 17 percent judged it somewhat or less effective. Effectiveness ratings when it came to new customers were similar: 60 percent of the B2B organizations surveyed said omnichannel selling was somewhat or much more effective, with 16 percent citing it as somewhat or less effective.

Another way to look at this is by channel. Forty-one percent of the B2B survey respondents ranked ecommerce as effective, making it the most highly rated sales channel. In-person meetings came in second place, with 37 percent rating them effective, followed by videoconferences (31 percent considered them effective).

Transitioning a B2B sales organization from the traditional in-person model to a hybrid model has its challenges, of course. Two-thirds of the B2B respondents said their sales teams have experienced channel conflicts—for instance, sales reps losing commissions because customers are purchasing via the website.

“Organizations should consider a way to figure out a role for sales reps to play in advocating ecommerce and incentivize them for that role,” Harrison says. “One example could be to pay reps a percentage commission on ecommerce sales for customers in their territory, compared to a slightly higher commission they may earn for traditional sales. Also, organizations should work closely with reps to ensure they play a role in follow-up services—delivery, onboarding, service check-ins—as it is incredibly rare that 100 percent of B2B customer needs can be handled via digital alone. Finally, organizations should provide guidance to reps on where they can and should add value—for example, advising where reps should be involved in certain types of customer interactions and which types should go to self-serve.”

The post McKinsey & Company Report: Omnichannel Is the Way Forward for B2B appeared first on Chief Marketer.

Enter LG’s virtual alternative to the trade show floor, a new customizable 3D showroom that it intends to scale in the coming year. Called the DigiTour, the experience leverages real-time 3D environments that allow attendees to peruse commercial spaces and view different products. It includes four spaces, each aligned with the brand’s key focus areas: Corporate, Education, Control Room and Innovation.

Once on the platform, participants embark on a first-person journey guided by navigational markers. Along the journey attendees gain access to immersive views of products, downloadable case studies, spec sheets, live chats with sales executives, a bonus residential space discoverable through a portal and more.

For additional detail on LG’s virtual solution, plus three tips from the marketing team on developing a virtual environment, read more in Event Marketer.

The post LG’s B2B Arm Launches Virtual 3D Showroom for Hybrid Events appeared first on Chief Marketer.

360-Degree Views

The environment was created in 3D Studio and exported to Pano 2VR, allowing for 360-degree views. Attendees encountered a registration desk that included a welcome video and tutorial on how to navigate the space, an agenda, an event map that included various zones and a survey.

Multiple Zones

Attendees navigated through different areas using a drop-down menu or navigational arrows. The zones included a general session theater with a keynote, a real-time Xpert Bar where attendees could ask questions about products, instructor-led courses, a networking terrace and a BBQ pit that included a demo and downloadable recipe from celebrity pitmaster Aaron Franklin of Franklin Barbecue in Austin, Texas.

For additional details on how Nutanix engaged prospects virtually, including through gamification and on-demand content, read more in Event Marketer.

The post How Cloud Computing Brand Nutanix Created Virtual Engagement appeared first on Chief Marketer.

Our monthly profile of an outstanding marketer whose leadership and campaigns are moving the needle for their brand.

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Last December, SAP’s Global CMO Alicia Tillman wrote a column for Chief Marketer urging brands to be purpose-driven and for CMOs to be champions of their communities. Today, as the world grapples with an ongoing, global pandemic that’s threatened the livelihood of so many people and businesses, that call-to-action rings even more true.

Tillman took immediate steps as a result of the challenges brought on by COVID-19. In the face of global supply chain disruption and the shortage of personal protective equipment for healthcare workers, SAP opened up its Arriba Discovery network for free to help buyers and suppliers provide and gain access to critical goods. It also released a new free platform through its insights company Qualtrics, called Remote Work Pulse, to help organizations survey employee sentiment during this period of remote work.

The other major pivot related to SAP’s experiential business. With the need for communication, learning and insights at an all-time high, the brand converted its largest annual event, SAPPHIRE NOW, into a virtual one. The event garnered twice the number of registrations it hoped for, achieved five times the global reach compared to in-person events in years past, and localized SAPPHIRE NOW in 14 different markets and time zones. Following is a conversation with Tillman about how SAP has supported customers during the pandemic, her team’s approach to pivoting in-person events and the purpose-driven approach that guides her marketing strategy and vision.

Chief Marketer: What are some of the challenges SAP has faced due to the pandemic? And how has that affected the brand’s marketing?

Alicia Tillman: When we found ourselves in what was becoming a global pandemic at the end of February, immediately I began to think about how we needed to quickly prioritize the focus of the marketing team. In those immediate days, we turned our attention to understanding what was happening in the marketplace and its effect on business continuity. We found two things—and this has evolved week by week—that companies were beginning to restrict people from traveling and supply chains were starting to weaken. A very significant supply and demand issue started to escalate. SAP has technology that works in support of business travel. We also have technology that works in support of supply chain efficiency and effectiveness.

So, as marketers, we immediately began to look at our solutions and best understand what we could position and what could we open up and give access to, without charge, to help with the immediate effects this had on our customers in a short period of time. We took swift action, together with our executives and various product owners across the business, and offered free access to a lot of our travel applications, to our supply chain capabilities, to help people who needed to remain on the road and help businesses source the necessary supplies given the increasing demand.

Then, as things went on, and countries, states and companies started to shut down and in a lot of cases send people home, we realized that this work-from-home life was presenting a whole other set of challenges to companies. So, then we opened up free access to our insights applications delivered by our Qualtrics group to allow companies to get a pulse from employees and to be able to work from home productively. It was no question: We’re going to immediately stop everything that we are doing and focus primarily on getting into the hands of our customers the solutions that we offer in SAP to best help them during this period. It was all about helping and only giving them what they most needed from us at that moment.

CM: After the early days of the pandemic, how did your marketing strategy evolve?

AT: Then we began to broaden a bit, because we are a very heavily-driven company from an events perspective. We have hundreds of events that take place every month across the company from very small events to very large-scale, several-thousand-person events. We began to think about safety and health and wellness and make decisions to start canceling events. In some cases, we were canceling large-scale events that were set to happen within two weeks. With our marketers, you saw two things emerge in terms of needs during this period: You needed to get customers access—technology, certain services—and connect them to goods they needed to run their businesses. But they also needed insights. They need communication. They needed learning. [The question becomes,] how can I get closer to my employees to know how they’re feeling and my customers to know what they need? So, it was a certain level of access, but it’s information, it’s insights.

The events component of our strategy is really important because it allows for a lot of that information to be shared. We were canceling several-thousand-person events one day and completely standing up a digital platform two weeks later. Two of our lines of business, Arriba and Concur, had events with two, three, four or 5,000 people set to attend that they quickly pivoted and moved into a digital environment so that we could maintain communication with our customers. That became the other big focus of the team: How do we pivot what we’re doing into this digital environment? [Such as] our largest scale in-person event that takes place annually, SAPPHIRE NOW. That’s where the other half of the attention of the marketers went.

CM: SAPPHIRE NOW is typically a massive, in-person experiential event. What were your priorities when converting to digital? Any learnings there?

AT: The biggest opportunity that we’ve had is to deliver content that is locally relevant and locally accessible. We’ve been producing our SAPPHIRE NOW annual event for close to 15 years now. Even though we evolve a lot of the structure year after year, the reality is, it’s in a single place and it takes place over a three-day period. The majority of our attendees have come from North America because that’s where the event is hosted. We are a global company and this is our flagship event. And with digital capability, you have an opportunity to make your content more locally relevant and accessible.

If we think about how we’ve built the platform, we’re using SAP technology, but we’ve highly customized it for much of the learnings and experiences. My team has participated in dozens of online events from other companies to see what’s working, what’s not, and build an experience that we think is going to drive the levels of engagement that we expect. For example, we’ve built this platform based on 14 local instances and optimized for language and time zones. If you are based in the UK, then you will gain access to the event on a European-based platform. And if English is not your primary language, you will have access to nine different languages in which all of the content has been translated in. That is not possible with an in-person event. Sure, you can have headsets and simultaneous translation, but it’s not as seamless as we’ve been able to build it. You will watch the event in your respective time zones. We are publishing content based on convenient, accessible times and we’re delivering the content based in your local language. That’s what I get really excited about.

The other thing—and this is where you start to look at the fundamental differences—is that there is tremendous beauty in in-person interaction, and we know that it’s difficult to replace the power of conducting business face-to-face. So, one of the things that we’ve done with this platform is we have built and optimized what we believe is anything and everything that you can and should be able to access in a digital environment. We have an entire portion of our platform that is based on networking and the ability to set up meetings in a meeting room within the platform itself. You have an ability to reach out to an expert, to a pure customer in a particular industry, and request a meeting with them. And you have an ability through our live meeting platform to schedule that meeting, to go into a virtual room and have that meeting via video, peer-to-peer networking capabilities and chat with other attendees throughout the week. Does it replace our face to face? It does not. But it does still give you an ability to network and set meetings and build new connections.

CM: How has your marketing budget shifted as a result of these the challenges? How have marketing dollars moved around?

AT: There’s been two core priorities that I’ve set for the marketing team now for 2020. First, invest in capabilities and communications to make sure our customers are aware of what we can offer them related to the value proposition of SAP. How do we communicate, how do we stand up the various offers at a product level to best help them? There’s tremendous attention and prioritization being put there. Then the other half of the focus is around digitizing all of these event experiences for our customers, so that we can give them the insights and the ability to connect and network and learn through each other and with SAP, and how to help maintain continuity during this period.

The investment has gone to both of those. And then the other one, too, is a contribution at a company level. We’ve taken a decision as a company to have no layoffs. To preserve that, you need to cut in other parts of the company. So, prioritizing our focus around what truly matters the most to our customers and then focusing that for the marketing team has allowed me to reduce the overall marketing spend so that I can contribute savings to the company and not have loss of jobs.

But that means you can’t continue to do everything that you’re doing from a programmatic standpoint in marketing. It is making tough decisions, but, frankly, it’s about making the right decisions at a human level. If I can cut program spend in one area and I’m able to protect people’s jobs as a result, that’s the easiest decision in the world for me to make. The reality is that we are not working in business-as-usual times. This crisis has demanded us to focus on a few things versus multiple things throughout the year. And it’s required very swift decisioning that I took in the early part of March to re-prioritize the focus of the team and do it quickly.

CM: So, your advertising spend has decreased during this time.

AT: Absolutely. We are only focusing on those solutions that we have either changed, in terms of opening them up for free, or those that are focused on what customers need based on the challenge that the pandemic has brought. What are those most valuable solutions? That’s what we focused on from an advertising perspective.

CM: Talk about your personal approach to marketing at SAP.

AT: I lead through my values first and foremost. I place a significant importance around building and leading a marketing organization that is focused on telling the authentic story of SAP and showing how that gets delivered through the purpose orientation of how we deliver products to bring great value and benefit to our customers. I believe in people wanting to buy based on values and purpose and what can truly deliver a much higher contribution.

I’ll have been the Global CMO of SAP for nearly three years, come August 1st. When I first took the role, I did what a lot of people taking on a new senior role don’t do: I actually looked backwards. A lot of people look forward and at the journey ahead, but at the time, this was a 45-year-old brand. I spent the first few months looking back into, why SAP? What was our purpose? What did our founders set out to achieve? There were two very basic things that they set out to accomplish. The first was that they wanted to automate and integrate the way a company operates across all of its processes and systems to become more efficient and more effective.

And so that’s the technology end of it. But the theory was that if you automate the operations of a company and it enables them to run at their best, then they have a better ability to make a significant contribution to the world across economies, our society and the environment. When I read this and understood it, it had such a significant effect on me because it showed technology as an enabler to help the world become a better place. In fact, the vision of the company was, and still is today, to help the world run better and improve people’s lives. I found it to be such a powerful statement then, and an even more powerful statement today when people are looking for authenticity and truth and not to just buy from a company because of the product they sell, but partner with a company and become part of a community that’s responsible for many larger things in life. I’ve spent the last three years working to help connect what our technology helps to enable by showcasing stories of success through customers that use SAP technology.

A little fact: 77 percent of the world’s transactions are powered by SAP in some way. That’s an astonishing number when you think about the effect that we have as a brand. Nearly all of the fortune 2000 companies—98 percent of them—use SAP technology. SAP is embedded into the majority of the companies in the world on some level and that’s something I’m really proud of.

CM: How has your perspective and values guided you through this crisis?

AT: My leadership philosophy consists of a few things. Number one, I have to have a clear vision. My desire to make very swift decisions at the beginning of this pandemic is a responsibility that I take very seriously because nobody likes to operate in any period of ambiguity. And there’s not a lot of patience, even if you are working in a global pandemic. People need answers, they need direction, and they need them quickly. The other thing that I do, which I think is equally as important, is be transparent all the time.

The third point is, you have to be a very solid communicator. One of my commitments during this period, and it’s now been 14 weeks strong, is that every single week I send out a note to all of my global marketers. It’s either a written communication, a video communication, or a live communication. Even if I don’t have something new to report, I know that people want to see me. They want to hear me. They want to know what I am experiencing, so they can relate. They want direction, or they want to simply have a conversation because it’s a source of comfort for them. I’ve prided myself on being decisive, being transparent and being a very good communicator—especially during periods when people need it the most.

The post Marketers on Fire: SAP Global CMO Alicia Tillman appeared first on Chief Marketer.

Third-party Instagram tools, like Linktree and the Shop Grid feature on Buffer, allows brands to feature more than one link in an Instagram bio. The flexibility enables brands to balance marketing multiple initiatives at once.

LinkedIn has multiple features that can benefit B2B marketers. LinkedIn Live has changed the game for IT certification nonprofit CompTIA, for instance. The company’s engagement—all organic—has skyrocketed and conversions are way up. InMail has been a successful way to engage B2B prospects. And just this week, LinkedIn launched a new polls feature, a business tool that allows marketers to survey their networks and gather feedback. The duration of the poll ranges from 24 hours to two weeks, includes up to four questions and can be pushed out to specific LinkedIn Groups you’re a member of or across your network.

Lastly, Facebook analytics tools allow marketers to gauge audience behavior by using a customer email list or custom target audience to test reactions to different posts and calls to action. For CompTIA, it’s helped the company make business decisions based on data. Read about more social media features for marketers in PRNEWS.

Other articles you might enjoy:

• Social Media Listening and Platform Updates for Marketers
• Tips for Marketers Crafting Coronavirus Communications
• Optimal Social Media Engagement for Marketers Amid COVID-19

The post Social Media Marketers: LinkedIn Features to Consider for B2B Engagement appeared first on Chief Marketer.

The survey, done by B2B Marketing Zone and Webbiquity LLC, polled 456 B2B marketers from March 16-21. Not surprisingly, the majority—80 percent—plan to cancel at least some events that are scheduled within the next six months, with 58 percent saying they will cancel all live events scheduled in the next 60 days.

In terms of reallocating those event marketing dollars, 39 percent said they would be doing so mainly in the categories of content creation (43 percent), online events (40 percent) and search marketing (33 percent). The good news is that two thirds of marketers believe their marketing budget will stay the same or be cut by less than 20 percent.

The industry segments that expect to have stable—or even increased—marketing budgets are software and health care companies, the survey said. For more data points on how the pandemic is affecting marketers, read more in Event Marketer.

Other articles you might enjoy:

• INFOGRAPHIC: Five Insights from the 2020 Chief Marketer B2B Marketing Outlook
• CMO Roundtable: Visa, Personal Capital, AKT and Zoom Talk 2020 Marketing Trends
• How to Effectively Use Marketing Content in the Mid-Funnel

The post How B2B Marketers Are Adjusting Budgets During COVID-19 appeared first on Chief Marketer.

B2B buyers are waiting longer and longer to connect with vendors. This makes becoming part of the conversation as early as possible in their consideration process crucial.

Today, rather than immediately connecting with a sales rep, both B2B and B2C buyers prefer to do their own research online, or ask their peers for input.

Part of this is due to a lack of trust in vendors. In a recent report on B2B buyer disconnect, TrustRadius found that only 11 percent of buyers describe vendor reps as very trustworthy, and only 19 percent say reps have significant influence over their buying decisions. In contrast, 53 percent of vendors say they think their reps are very effective at moving the needle towards conversion.

How can you connect with prospects and get them talking? Here’s three ideas for driving engagement throughout the B2B buying cycle.

Make it fun. B2B doesn’t have to be boring. To build brand awareness and create engagement, with IT professionals, power management solution provider Eaton created a multichannel campaign centering around desk toys with very strong personalities.

But don’t think the toys are merely shills for the brand. Devil Duck, for example, is more likely to make a humorous dig rather than promote Eaton. Each toy has its own unique persona, and helps IT pros see that Eaton identifies with their pain points.

Every spring, the desktop campaign is refreshed to play on pop culture trends, with a new game for IT pros to play. This year’s outing, Ticket of Terror, plays on the “horror” of a massive amounts of help desk tickets. In the game, Zerg, an evil old retro computer comes to life, and a desktop detective helps the IT pro solve the crime.

The toys were chosen because the typical IT pro’s workspace isn’t the pristine environment seen in stock photos. Many decorate their areas with toys and pop culture memorabilia to liven up their day. And, they often have a touch of Sheldon Cooper-esque wit in their DNA, notes Molly Miller, digital demand and campaign manager at Eaton, and a featured speak at this fall’s LeadsCon Connect to Convert in Boston.

“Seven years ago, we didn’t understand how heavily marketed to they were, and how snarky they were,” says Miller. “We assumed that they cared about our product, and we know now that that is not the case. We see now that we need to talk to people how they want to be spoken to.” (For more on Eaton’s marketing strategy, check out our new special report, Masters of Measurement.)

Don’t be a robot. Automation is awesome, but don’t forget that your target customer is an actual living breathing person.

“How many times have you seen an email in your inbox address you with the good old fashioned ‘Hi [ENTER NAME]’? Or how many times did you get a follow-up email explaining that, oops, the previous email wasn’t meant for you,” says Mark Bornstein, VP of content marketing at ON24. “Automation can make marketing so easy that we literally forget about the human at the other end.”

When used in the right way, automation can become the engine behind engaging and genuine experiences, says Bornstein.

“The real way to harness the power of marketing automation is to pair it with interactive marketing tools, like webinars, that help you build experiences and give you the ability to capture every action a prospect takes, assess that activity, and share it with the sales team.”

To hear more from Mark Bornstein about ways to use webinars and other tools to drive engagement throughout the B2B buying cycle, join us for a free live webinar on Wednesday, July 19 at 2 pm ET.

Create an agile marketing environment. Enabling teams to move quickly and capitalize on timely marketing opportunities helped Wells Fargo realize a 79 percent increase in scheduled meetings between relationship managers and clients.

In Boston, to promote its wholesale banking services, Wells Fargo used its CRM system to identity customers to focus on, and then used digital retargeting to reach them across multiple platforms. Wholesale banking is a significant line of business for the company: 50 lines of business serve a variety of verticals, and it represents 33 percent of total Wells Fargo  revenue and 49 percent of its net income.

An outdoor messaging takeover in the city’s financial district coupled with a dimensional direct mail campaign right after the Red Sox’s last World Series helped get prospects’ attention. The mailing included a book on Boston’s “wicked awesome” reign of winning sports teams, and suggested that recipients needed to “count on the right team” to elevate their business.

The success of the initiative created a template for future B2B CRM initiatives for the bank, says Wells Fargo EVP and head of integrated marketing Michael Lacorazza.

The post Three Tips for Connecting with B2B Buyers appeared first on Chief Marketer.

But here’s the problem. You’re not alone. Every vendor wants the chance to schmooze with the people who hold the purse strings. And that three-day conference, which seems to offer a good amount of time to work a 15 minute meeting? Well, while you may be there for the entire conference, your customer might be zipping in to deliver a speech and taking off right after. Or their schedule might already be packed with meetings.

Scoring meetings with senior executives requires that you prove to them—well in advance—that you are worthy of their time. Here are some things you can do to increase the chances of winning their attention.

• Reach out way in advance—at least four to six weeks. Try to get to them before their calendars are filled.

• Turn their words into a compelling reason to give you their time. Study up on what they and their company are focused on. Examine earnings calls for relevant comments, along with articles and interviews, their own blog posts, and social media. 

For example, in March 2017 AT&T CFO John Stephens said, “we need to continue to do two things. One, on the product side continue to innovate with our bundling and bringing our unique assets together to the benefit of customers; and then two, continue our focus on modernization of our company for cost savings initiatives whether that’s soft verification of our network, whether that is virtualizing our network functions or just streamlining our customer and operational issues.”

If your company sells products and services that could help support Stephens’ initiatives, his own words could give you an in—either with him or with one of his many executive-level reports. It’s up to you to create a winning pitch that demonstrates you know what AT&T needs and how you can help—and that you’ll be in the same place at the same time, so wouldn’t it make sense to meet and talk?

• Leverage your own CXOs. This is critical and often makes the difference between getting a meeting and being ignored. If one of your CXOs is attending, have them reach out directly to their peer to propose a meeting. Getting an invitation from someone high up in your organization will better capture a CXO’s attention than someone on the account team or in sales. Just be sure you also follow the step above and brief your CXO so he or she can make that well-informed, compelling pitch.

• Create your own VIP event. Again, customer insight is necessary to learn what target CXOs might find appealing, even irresistible. Maybe it’s a golf or charity event. Maybe it’s a wine tasting or multi-course dinner. Secure participation and buy in from your own CXOs to support peer-to-peer networking, which CXOs consistently say is their number one priority when attending events. And best case, have the invitations come from your own CXOs.

With enough time, solid customer insight, and a relevant pitch that speaks to what they care about, you may just find that executives are willing to carve out some time for you at a big event. Now go out and get those meetings lined up!

Sharon Gillenwater is the founder and editor-in-chief of Boardroom Insiders.

Related Articles:

B2B Event Spending On Rise: Survey

Hey Sexy—Words B2B Marketers Don’t Often Hear 

The Differences Between Brand Experience, Experential and Events 

The post How to Secure CXO Meetings Before Your Event appeared first on Chief Marketer.

As marketers, we need to adjust to this new reality by giving B2B tech buyers better options for self-discovery and an interactive experience that feels customized to their needs. Here are three tips to build that experience, create authenticity, and improve consideration at every point along the B2B buyer journey.

1. Make your website fully transparent.

Your website is often the first place B2B buyers will go to investigate your offerings and see if they can fulfill a need. Instead of hitting them with a steady stream of pop-up email forms and login requests, provide a library of content that explains not only what your product is but who it’s for, why you made it, what the price is (assuming you sell an easily definable product), and what customers should expect to get when they buy it.

What practices should you avoid? Don’t act a cold caller. You probably been to sites that requires an email address, physical address, phone number and blood type to login before you can search for product information and pricing data. They’re prequalifying you and value gets delivered later, if there’s any to be had at all. This practice is guaranteed to scare off many potential customers.

2. Engage with communities of interest

Like any savvy business shopper, B2B buyers are often more risk averse than their B2C counterparts. Most are also time-constrained. Communities of professionals with similar job functions and backgrounds can help them focus by connecting them to successes and failures of your product and others like it.

If that sounds risky, it is. Developing and kicking-off a community engagement program only to have the community dislike your product or company can backfire. So make sure you’re ready for large-scale review before engaging with a professional community like HR.com, American Express’ OPEN Forum, Element 14 or Spiceworks.

3. Be responsive to ALL prospects

When your product is ready, jump in with both feet. Offer value such as free trials, review copies, and answer every question, no matter how trivial some may seem. Be as responsive to curious prospects as you are to those who are actively shopping—and do the same with print and online publications that are reviewing your product. Your willingness to engage before there’s a commitment to buy or publish a positive review says a lot about how you’ll serve customers after the check is in the bank.

Your VP of sales may protest this approach since not every contact is a short-term win and that’s to be expected. But here’s the reality of today’s B2B marketing and sales environment: brands no longer control the buying and sales process like they used to. Prospects are pre-qualifying themselves based on their business needs and it’s up to the brand to provide the resources prospects need, when they need them. We’ve all seen the stats about how more than 60 percent of the buyer’s journey is complete by the time a customer engages with a sales rep.

As marketers, our job is to influence and improve consideration at every point along that journey—on our website, in communities of interest, through owned and earned media—so when sales does engage they spend their time focused on making sure the prospect is receiving exactly what they need to purchase the right solution.

So what is the road ahead? Your sales and marketing teams should customize the buying experience to reflect the knowledge and insight B2B customers now bring to the table. In short: be transparent, engage with communities of interest, and give up control. Your growth strategy depends on it.

Sanjay Castelino is vice president of marketing at Spiceworks.

Related Articles:

Reshaping the B2B Buyer Experience

Building a B2B Loyalty Program With B2B Tactics

3 B2B Marketing Trends to Watch

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