Global CEO of Merkle B2B.
getty
B2B marketers: Now is not the time to rest! I know it’s been a long and challenging couple of years—full of disruption, adaptation and rapid evolution. I am sure everyone is feeling the fatigue of the last few years, but we just cannot afford to take our foot off the gas. The pivots you make today are the ones that are going to set the stage for your success for years to come. And this is because we’ve never seen a B2B sea change quite like the one that’s underway in 2022.
This phase of fundamental transformation is being driven on two fronts: It’s being driven by rapidly growing customer expectations, and it’s being driven by a plethora of enhanced data and new technology capabilities. B2B organizations that are able to adapt to the former by embracing the latter will be the ones that emerge as tomorrow’s market leaders. Here’s why.
Rapidly Evolving Expectations
Whether B2B organizations are facilitating it or not, buyers are taking an increasingly self-directed approach to the B2B purchase process. They’re able to do this thanks to the overwhelming democratization of information that’s been happening over the past decade. And they’re eager to do it because of the convenience and empowerment stemming from enhanced brand experiences that they have enjoyed as consumers—and the growth of direct-to-consumer purchasing opportunities in their personal lives.
Then, of course, there’s the growing influence of Millennials and, increasingly, Gen Z within the B2B decision-making process. New research shows that 74% of Millennial B2B buyers have switched vendors because they found a new company that offered B2B experiences more like what they’ve come to expect on the consumer side, specifically as it relates to payments. For B2B marketers, that stat should be a huge wake-up call. These buyers aren’t just expressing a preference—they’re making real, tangible changes to their providers to get what they want.
MORE FOR YOU
B2B marketers can’t ignore these new dynamics. They have to commit to understanding their customers’ evolving expectations and benchmarking themselves—and their systems—against them. How far is the company from meeting new customer expectations for convenient and valuable experiences and transactions? What is the organizations’ current digital maturity and technology sophistication level when it comes to keeping pace with these customer demands? B2B marketers need to objectively interrogate their capabilities and internal systems and then chart their course according to a frank needs assessment.
Evolving Data And Technology
There was a brief moment in which B2B customer expectations seemed to have completely broken free of the B2B technology capabilities required to keep pace with them. That moment has passed. Over the past few years, we’ve seen a radical evolution of the B2B tech landscape—cloud-based, agile and increasingly intuitive solutions that help marketers anticipate customer needs. Solutions once focused on serving the B2C world have become more customized for the necessary scale and complexity required to meet B2B needs. Today’s major tech players are investing heavily in these underlying technologies needed to enable richer, connected customer experiences and drive deeper brand engagement among B2B audiences. These solutions are driving more immersive, intuitive and self-guided customer journeys that take buyers deeper into the purchase process under their own steam, which is precisely what customers want.
Customer data platforms (CDPs), honed for the needs of today’s B2B organizations, represent an exciting area where we’re seeing real innovation, enabling more integrated customer journeys. Today’s B2B marketing organizations need to develop a single source of truth on their customers, which, in turn, enables and enriches integrated, cross-channel customer data management. CDPs represent an important evolution, but until recently, many lacked the enterprise capabilities needed to successfully deliver on core B2B use cases—capabilities like account-level targeting and an understanding of complex buying team interactions and dynamics. CDPs are positioning themselves as the go-to platforms for future-focused B2B organizations. Strong central customer data management will become all the more important as more B2B organizations look to facilitate direct commerce transactions with their customers—another capability that B2B tech providers are pivoting to meet.
The Next Phase Of B2B
The evolution of technology to serve unique B2B needs is accelerating, and the marketplace is going to accelerate right alongside it. Increasingly, we’re going to see a greater application of artificial intelligence and machine learning to capture B2B first-party data, enabling organizations to open the aperture on customized offerings they bring to customers and prospects.
In line with familiar consumer-side experiences, B2B organizations will be able to better offer next-best-purchase suggestions to customers based on patterns demonstrated by other customers like them. These recommendations might not fit with the traditional sales cycle, but AI-driven data insights will unlock these new opportunities for not just sales, but deeper customer relationships and loyalty. The B2B organizations that build these emerging decision-making capabilities into their tech and marketing road maps today will be ahead of the curve.
This is a no-blink moment for B2B marketing organizations. It’s one thing to struggle with changing customer behaviors in an environment that is ill-equipped to meet them. But today, the technology landscape is ready to enable the solutions B2B marketers need to deliver. Customers are expecting you to deliver an evolved experience, and you’ve got to rise to meet them. The customer is going to keep moving—with or without you.
Forbes Agency Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. Do I qualify?
Go to Source
Author: Michael McLaren, Forbes Councils Member
