“The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.” I was reflecting on this quote by Peter Drucker as I was preparing to speak at a B2B marketing event. Today, this is more challenging then ever, especially for companies in the business-to-business space when it comes to creating a B2B marketing strategy.
According to CEB, 57% of the purchase decision is complete before a buyer ever contacts a supplier. With unprecedented access to information, options, and opinions, the buyer’s journey has been transformed into a self-guided experience conducted largely online.
Marketing, and the role of the marketer, has also been transformed. More responsibility for revenue has been shifted onto the shoulders of marketing. Successful demand creation means closing the gap between what customers expect from the brand and the experience that marketing delivers.
Riddle me this: Questions you must ask when creating a B2B marketing strategy
Rather than trying to deliver an experience that means all things to all customers, brands need to focus on two fundamental questions:
Which customers make the best customers?
How do we attract and keep more of those customers?
This is where B2B brands can take a cue from B2C. In the past, B2B has typically leveraged manpower to forge customer connections – better understanding their needs and wants and carrying the dialogue all the way to purchase.
In the digital economy, this model doesn’t work. B2B companies, like their B2C counterparts, need to look toward data and technology to find the right customers and engage with them in a personal way at scale – meeting customers on their terms and timing, across the channels and touchpoints that make up the modern buyer’s journey.
In the experience economy, it’s the personal connection that matters to customers
As the steward of this engagement, marketing has become the tip of the spear when it comes to engaging customers on their terms and endearing them to your products or service. Getting it “right” in the moment is critical because there is no later.
All marketers should be tasked with discovering your most valuable customers, understanding their emotional and rational drivers towards purchase, engaging authentically and on their terms for successful outcomes, and of course, understanding what aspects of that engagement are driving your business forward.
