The optimal buying experience: 4 Strategies for More Success in B2B Commerce

Creating an optimal shopping experience is essential for business success — even in the B2B sector. What good is the most innovative product and the most comprehensive service if the communication is not tailored to the needs of the target group? Current study results?from Forrester Research show: Truly customer-centric companies are almost three times more successful than their competitors in terms of revenue and profit growth as well as customer retention rates. They also enjoy nearly twice the employee engagement. The following strategies show how companies can improve their customers’ buying experience with a targeted approach and thus be more successful in the long term.

1. Personalization strategy (customer marketing)

According to Forrester, around 80% of the companies surveyed in Germany and Europe are aware that B2B customers always expect an individualized buying experience. Creating a personalized customer experience means being present across all relevant touchpoints and channels with individually tailored content (e.g., brand messages, context-based product information, and purchase offers) and the right communication (e.g., email, push notifications, newsletters, or videos). Only by conveying information in a convincing way across the board can companies achieve a positive recognition effect that sets them apart from the competition.?

Consistency and context are the key factors for lasting customer relationships. But for these to succeed, companies must know and understand the customer's needs down to the last detail and recognize the buying experience as a success factor. According to Forrester, improving the buying experience is the top priority for 51% of German and 36% of European companies in their marketing strategy for the next twelve months. It is just as clear to 59% of the German and 34% of the European companies surveyed that they must improve customer understanding to achieve this. This is a complex task, as the lack of understanding of customer needs is also seen as the greatest challenge.?

2. Data-driven strategy

If you want to understand B2B customers, you need one thing above all: data that provides information about the decision-makers and the company along the lengthy customer journey typical of B2B. In data-driven marketing, companies collect and analyze data from various sources to use it as a basis for marketing decisions and a personalized customer approach. These can be, for example, product recommendations in online stores or data-based content created or played out on websites that are tailored to the respective user. An important component of data-based marketing is the measurement of the success of activities and campaigns based on specific key performance indicators (KPIs) to continually improve targeting. Software systems and tools play a crucial role in enabling companies to generate and analyze data. To this end, information from various sources — internal systems and all sales channels in the omnichannel environment — must be linked and insights generated. These can be used specifically to develop so-called personas, i.e. detailed customer profiles, which can be used to further personalize the customer approach along the buyer journey.?

This is where an effective Product Information Management (PIM) system can help. Based on the persona, it can enrich existing product information, for example, with individualized content, variants of content, or suitable cross-selling and up-selling offers, and then make this information available to the customer in a personalized form at relevant touchpoints. The management of digital data is a key success factor here. It is no wonder that, according to Forrester reports, 83% of the German and 63% of the European companies surveyed regard marketing and IT as strategic partners. If companies manage to establish a data-based approach, they come a great deal closer to the goal of better customer understanding and thus the optimal buying experience.?

3. Post-sale customer marketing strategy

A positive buying experience does not end with the purchase, that much is clear. On the contrary: it is important to repeatedly justify the trust in the company that the customer has already built up by then. After all, the new customer made the initial purchase, or the existing customer made the repeat purchase precisely because they had previously made a conscious decision in favor of the product in question and felt well looked after from the decision-making process through to the purchase. In the B2B sector, impulse purchases are not the rule. This is why it is crucial to provide targeted, integrated marketing, sales, and customer service activities that engage buyers, both before and after the sale.

As Forrester's study results show, German companies would like to improve their post-sale customer marketing, especially in internal processes. This is a promising approach, because only if companies succeed in creating a consistently positive experience for a new customer will it be possible to develop this customer into a regular buyer and ultimately into a loyal brand ambassador. Customer loyalty programs can also contribute to this. The advantage: loyal customers open up cross-selling and upselling potential that contributes significantly to sales growth and business success. The clever use of the data and insights gained — for example, about the buying behavior of existing customers — is key to providing the prospective customer with a consistently positive buying experience long before the first contact with the company.

4. Integration strategy (without silo mentality and structures)

Even though powerful software systems are essential today, they are not a silver bullet. And the best data quality alone is of little use if the information required is not transparently available to all customer-relevant areas such as marketing, sales, and customer service. Even within departments, silo mentality and structures can exist, as the study results also show: This mentality is seen as the biggest challenge when implementing marketing campaigns, both in Germany and across Europe.?

It is crucial to address customers and prospects accurately, but also consistently at the respective touchpoints. Companies are aware of this, but there is clearly a need to catch up here: 75% of the portfolio marketers in German companies surveyed by Forrester state that they intend to focus primarily on sharing knowledge across departments in the next twelve months. This is the only way to gain a 360-degree view of the customers and then provide them with relevant content along their entire customer journey. Software alone cannot do this — it can only support change to the extent that team collaboration is put to the test. It is therefore essential to change ingrained thought patterns in teams or departments and to adapt internal processes in such a way that knowledge exchange becomes possible with the aim of a uniform customer approach.

Conclusion: the company must live and breathe the optimal buying experience

Each of the above strategies contributes to customer-centric thinking and action. Today’s customers expect an individual buying experience tailored to their needs and preferences. Companies can only succeed in providing this if they live and breathe customer focus and do not regard it as an empty catchphrase. Modern software and the integration of data and systems play a decisive role in this. But this involves more than just collecting and using data. The knowledge gained must be made available to all customer-relevant areas in the company. In this way, it is possible to win over prospective customers with a positive buying experience long before the first purchase — and to maintain this positive impression in the long term.

For more tips on how to improve the buying experience and best practices from TUI BLU and Contentserv, watch a free webinar with research experts from Forrester at https://go.contentserv.com/de/forrester-tui-webinar.

Author: Michael Pohl

Michael Pohl is Vice President of Product Experience Consulting at Contentserv GmbH. In his position, he has been responsible for the areas of Strategic Consulting, Application Consulting and the Contentserv Academy since March 2022. With his expertise from over 20 years of experience in the areas of strategic consulting, data management, and product management — at well-known software and consulting companies such as DATEV and Parsionate — he can effectively support customers in the implementation of strategic projects, in product information management as well as in buyer and customer experience around Contentserv solutions.

[1] The data and quotes in the text are based on the following studies by Forrester: Forrester's 2021 B2B Buying Survey, Forrester's Buyers' Journey Survey, 2022 and Forrester's Marketing Survey, 2022.