How B2B Marketers are Preparing for a Cookieless World
With every new piece of privacy legislation, and as tech companies remove user identity trackers within their platforms, B2B brands need to lean into innovation.
Similar to B2C brands, consumers transition between personal and professional lives more fluidly as these are no longer distinct identities.
This dynamic shift makes reaching decision makers more difficult and requires us to build audience profiles with privacy-compliant data — particularly insights around people’s preferred personal media channels to maintain strong connections in the years to come. What will separate the high-performing marketers is the ability to accelerate your data collection and empower your customers as we can (and should) better understand their unique needs and expectations.
While agreement on the solutions remains in flux, here are some pragmatic tips to adapt your strategy:
Use this unprecedented time to rethink and divest in dated and underperforming tactics that no longer demonstrate value.
Pilot alternate ways of engaging buyers - in person events, digital engagement and always on content programs.
Prioritize B2B data collection as these signals empower marketers with actionable insights.
Consider leveraging first party behavioural intent data as an efficient way to target accounts that are getting ready to purchase - forms and pricing pages on your website are excellent sources.
Real-time visibility drives a more personalized experience - according to The Future of Commerce, 73% of B2B buyers say they want a personalized, B2C-like customer experience.
To address these new realities requires taking the necessary steps to automate CRM workflows and streamline your campaigns, saving your team time and ensuring that prospects are engaged at exactly the right moments in the buyer’s journey.
More Intuitive B2B Experiences Will Be in High Demand
Observing how the pandemic and economic uncertainty impacted every industry in a significant way, it forced more and more companies to fast track their digital transformations with spending on lead generation, content engagement and customer referrals seeing the biggest shifts in popularity, according to a Salesforce survey.
Today, given the state of your connected customers and rising expectations for personalization, now is your moment to think like a disruptor. With 71% agreeing that technology will drastically change how they work, companies embracing technologies that fundamentally enhance the customer experience, like machine learning, and natural language processing that mirror real, human interactions will reap outsized rewards for being early adopters. Leading in the digital age means cultivating long term customer loyalty through real-time, cross-channel, personalized, and effortless service. Put another way, 65% of business buyers say they’re likely to switch brands if vendors don’t make an effort to personalize communications.
What else is changing with the B2B buying process?
A survey by Demand Gen Report revealed sixty-one percent are involving more people in the purchase decision than they did in previous years, resulting in a significantly longer execution time, with content becoming more crucial to inform the final purchase.
When asked to share the top reasons for choosing the winning vendor, the most important factor (69%) was that the B2B vendor “demonstrated a strong knowledge of the solution and the business landscape”, often achieved via thought leadership articles and relevant content that made it easier to build a business case for the purchase.
Leveraging SEO and favourable reviews can boost your visibility and drive qualified leads for your sales team to convert. Our senior-level B2B strategists are well equipped to handle specific challenges. Our proven playbook unlocks significant value by pinpointing emerging digital opportunities to accelerate your growth and set your organization up for long term success.
Sources:
https://www.salesforce.com/form/conf/state-of-the-connected-customer/
https://www.demandgenreport.com/resources/reports/2018-b2b-buyers-survey-report