The existing digital environment today presents opportunities to convert the prospects into customers via a carefully crafted digital plan - listening, supporting and delivering along the customers purchase cycle. This in turn results in generating referrals and plentiful opportunities to deliver a positive return on marketing spend.
Even though more and more users are spending large amount of their time online, how many B2B businesses do we know who have a full-proof plan to market their products online? How many businesses are able to create an integrated offline and online customer experience for its prospects? How many businesses do you know who can confidently track their customer through his purchase cycle?
Today there are ample tools and technologies that will allow you to do this successfully.
However a strategic approach is required to understand how to apply, target and optimize the process of marketing across the various steps of customers purchase.
To understand the various tactical digital initiatives that one can pursue, we should first understand the general process. The Go-To–Market process for any B2B client can be broadly classified into a 7 step process:
1. Understanding Customer Needs
2. Communication Message
3. Fulfillment (information)
4. Generating and Qualifying Leads
5. Transaction (online or offline)
6. Relationship Management
7. Referrals
In order to drive a perfectly aligned marketing program across the various stages, the quintessential requirement is to have a tracking,measurement and reporting system in place.
Below are some of the tactics that can be utilized across the different stages.
Understanding Customer Needs:
A brief from a client is the first bit of information that can be used to prepare a basic strategic draft and define one’s approach to the problem
Other than the information derived from client brief , your website analytics and automated customer surveys can also play a part in defining a customer’s needs.
Communication Message:
You’re messaging in terms of creative and copy is equally important in closing the loop. By automatically serving a different message to your various target segments you can see visible increase in conversions and leads.Moreover, A/B testing of various creative messaging options or landing page scan help you successfully optimize your creative messaging and increase interest and engagement.
Fulfillment:
All users are searching for a certain set of information or content – it may be in form of a certain kind of whitepaper, or request for information or even a free trial. Fulfillment of any form of information draws the customer closer to eventual sale. An automated system that keeps track of user information consumption patterns will help you in re-targeting your customer and allow one to provide value to the prospect.
Generating and Qualifying Leads:
Lead generation and qualifying them as MQPs (marketing qualified) prospects is another process that can be carried out online or via a call-center. SEM or search engine marketing today is one of the most important lead generating tools out there. With more and more people dependent on Search Engines to acquire information, the search engines form a favorite hunting ground for such activity.
Webinars, Database driven marketing campaigns, Newsletters and online events they all form a powerful set of tactics to generate leads.
The other not so direct yet powerful ways of generating leads online can be Blogs, Social Media and Virals.
Transactions
As and when a transaction occurs,your prospect converts into a customer. To be able to track this transition and define the value of the transaction will allow you to tier your customer and know more about the various points of interception that he experienced. This in turn rolls back into the marketing campaign planning process and optimize future acquisitions.
Having a digital way of connecting leads to transactions and then data-mine to drill down on those transactions will provide you with powerful behavioral data of your customers.
Your messaging and treatment met to the customer at this point will make way for future referrals.
Relationship Management
Once a prospect is converted into a customer an equally important task of managing relationship with customer begins. Loyalty programs, rewards and recognition and a knowing more about your customer will allow you to build that relationship with your customer and provide value to them.
The emphasis on a relationship management is on one-on-one marketing – that knows your customer to an extent that you can tailor make your offering for him.
Referrals
Referrals are the greatest validation of a satisfied customer. Referrals can be in form of leveraging a testimonial of an expert who also happens to be a client or even someone who can pitch in with a good word for a Prospect.
In some products Referrals can also be used to generate a buzz or awareness and increase the interest levels of the prospects.
Even though the above describes the perfect set-up where one is tracking and end-to end customer behavior through his purchase cycle, a focused campaign aimed at any of the steps in a purchase cycle can be instrumental in generating leads and qualified marketing prospects and shortening the time it takes to convert a prospect into a customer. With more and more people seeking that information online, Direct Marketing is going all Digital in coming days , much sooner than we think.
by Aditi Kumar (aditi.kumar@eynamic.net)
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