How the B2B Customer Journey is Changing

Consumers and buyers are expecting more and more. In addition to a great product or service; they want to be educated, impressed and a promotional offer or discount on their first purchase.

The traditional buyer journey is no more. Now, the buyer journey zigs and zags as much as the image below.

Source: Quora

Companies today are expected to offer up relevant, highly-useful content that helps the buyer succeed in their job. The buyer may engage with your company and content anywhere from 5 to 10 times before they are ready to buy from you.

If you are a wholesale distributor, a customer might test you out by ordering a sampling of items to see how you perform (order acceptance, delivery and shipping). They may want to see your customer portal helps you track their order and shipment online.

According to the experts at Accenture, “61% of B2B transactions occur online.” And:

Keep Awareness High at All Times

Whether your customer has already purchased from you or not, be sure to regularly remind your customers you are there when they are ready. There are multiple ways to do this, and a primary method is the use of email marketing to maintain a high level of awareness with your prospects and customers.

However, it’s not as simple as just sending a email reminder to your customer that you exist. Instead, do some digging and segment using customer data —such as an abandoned, but full shopping cart—and remind your customers via email that a one-time discount is available on those items in their cart.

A friendly reminder that they have a one-time discount or deal available is a great way to convert undecided customers.

Another way you can stay in front of your customers is to regularly produce strong, relevant content and share that on relevant social media.

Sharing content on social media will remind your customers and prospects that you’re a source of relevant industry information. This will help them trust you for advice and warm them up to buy from you when they are ready.

Another important thing to remember—to keep your customer coming back again and again to read your content— is to gate content once and after that, allow your prospects or customers to view all content after they’ve entered their information with you once.

Ask Your Customers What They Need from You

If you’re having trouble converting prospects into customers, ask them what they need from you to move them towards being ready to buy. Create a survey, email it to customers and prospects, and ask them what types of content they’d like to see more of. Simple as that.

If you’d like to learn how Systum can help you execute a plan that supports the modern customer journey, fill out the form below.