Attract them with content…keep them with the experience

While the consumer marketing world is obsessed by mobile, B2B is focused on content.

When they evaluate their most exciting opportunities for marketing today, respondents see an audience attracted and nurtured by content that is matched to their interests and customer journey.

Once secured, these new customers will be kept by customer experience. Matching their B2C peers, roughly one-in-five marketers sees CX itself as the most exciting opportunity they’re pursing.

But customer experience is expansive; almost every area listed is an aspect of customer experience.

Q: Which one area is the single most exciting opportunity for your organization in 2015?

The emphasis on these two areas has implications for marketers setting strategy for 2016 and beyond.

Competition for attention will force quality and specificity in content. While competition in the technology sector has been fierce for years, no industry is immune. Marketers need to budget their time and money to anticipate this trend among their competitors.

Content strategy will increasingly have to look beyond internal resources, drawing on agency partners and content specialists to create, enhance and design content pieces that stand out.

The return on content is dictated by its long-term results, not a short-lived bump. Campaigns should be viewed as components of larger programs but in reality, many companies invest in content only to move on soon after launch.

Reuse, repurposing and re-campaigning strong content is a necessary skill that’s often lacking.

Can there be an overemphasis on product quality?

Historically B2B companies have relied on their products, partnerships and relationships at customer companies to keep accounts. That’s largely still true today, but external factors are forcing many companies to broaden their view.

Products are unquestionably at the heart of the B2B value proposition. Some companies still enjoy true competitive advantages in the depth or breadth of their product offerings. However globalization, digitization and innovation mean new arrivals, new business models and new approaches from long-time competitors.

This harsher environment is ultimately very healthy for B2B marketing organizations. As the voice of the customer in the enterprise, marketing is taking a more active role in advocating for and creating the change demanded by their markets.

As they look to the medium-term future B2B marketers increasingly see the experience and service they offer is the factor that will differentiate them from competitors.

Q: Over the next five years, what is the primary way your organization will seek to differentiate itself from competitors?

Those organizations that rely exclusively on their products to “do the selling for them” are in some danger of disruption. A platform that relies on one support is fragile.

If a comparable product arrives on the scene that advantage can be lost and lost quickly. If the experience is difficult in any way buyers can be induced away by a combination of superior experience and a viable alternative.

Companies that emphasize product quality have an advantage over their competitors that should be at the heart of their strategy, but not comprise all of it.

Instead of sitting on their laurels these companies should be aggressively pursuing the most fluid ecommerce experiences, the most responsive customer service processes and most aggressive customer research into what’s around the corner.

Remaking B2B starts with strategy

It’s easy for digital marketers to look at B2B as slow moving. Historically the share of revenue spent on marketing has been lower than in consumer marketing, leading to slower adoption of technology and less emphasis overall on the practice of marketing.

But the ratios are changing. The internet has democratized research even in heavy industrial sectors, leading to a very different customer journey. B2B buyers now move far down the cycle before ever speaking to a sales representative. This has changed the game for marketing, refocusing investment from sales processes to the customer.

Evolving B2B companies know that this means changes to the way they do business and to the way they think. Overwhelmingly when asked about the building blocks of customer experience, B2B respondents identify strategy as the most important with culture a strong second.

They understand that without a long-term view that is shared by executive leadership real change is difficult and slow in coming.

They also understand that strategy and even investment is only part of the solution. If an organization’s culture doesn’t shift to reflect the changing priorities of their market any changes will only be skin deep.

Q: Please rank the importance of these areas as building blocks for building a brilliant customer experience.

Transformation starts with culture and strategy, but it plays out through technology, skills and data. Those at organizations where the digital will is lacking can try to make incremental improvements that combine for larger effects.

Upgrades to data systems lead to a better understanding of the customer, for example, which can be used as leverage to make changes in the customer experience. Education and skills training adds capability of course, but it also injects teams with the desire and ambition to use those skills.

Similarly, technology is better used as a support for an existing initiative than as a mean to an end, but it’s not uncommon to see a new technology drive valuable process innovations.

By taking small steps, B2B marketers can start the conversations that ultimately move their teams, departments and even organizations.

B2B Digital Trends covers these and many other topics. Econsultancy subscribers can instantly access the full report here.