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2020 was full of glitches and quick twists across the marketing spectrum. For B2B marketers whose plans are often based on personal events, however, this time has changed the game book of how to reach key business decision makers. To learn more about how the business decision-making process has changed and how marketers are adapting accordingly, Twitter partnered with Bain on a new research study.
What we found surprised us: there is quite a gap between the way marketers believe they affect the buying process and the way they actually do it.
What B2B decision makers say about your brand is more important than anything you tell them yourself. But there’s a silver lining: they can influence the conversations they have about you.
What if we didn’t see B2B as anything more than just selling and marketing to people?
– domm (@domm) August 17, 2020
This is how it works in three simple steps:
Step 1: Create Opportunities That Foster Connection
In this new environment, marketing has not lost its importance.
What has changed, however, is that 50% of shoppers expect networking to be more difficult in a virtual environment. They fear that they will no longer have the opportunity to interact with providers as they used to.
Successful marketers invest their time and resources in creating online platforms for buyers and sellers to communicate and connect with. In fact, successful marketers are 25% more active in community building marketing activities than other marketers. You’ll get creative and participate in virtual events, webinars, and executive Q&A. Some, such as B. Salesforce, have geared their entire event strategy to delivering thought leaders in online forums streamed directly on social media platforms like Twitter.
To ensure these interactions lead to community conversations about their brands, marketers use social platforms as the central hubs. It’s a smart move: According to another study, one in three corporate decision-makers already uses Twitter to connect and network with buyers and sellers.
Step 2: Connect to the C-Suite’s secret weapon.
According to our study with Bain, nearly 90% of business decision-makers say middle management provides important inputs to the decision-making process – from referring vendors to testing demo products – but only 33% of B2B marketers in our study assumed that was the case.
Middle managers are also the audiences you can best reach on social media. They trust social media to discover new products and spend more time on these platforms during the work day than senior members. They are also more likely to attend virtual events and webinars.
Twitter is great in that you can start finding people in specific areas and their near real-time perspective. You can then interact with them directly and “network” with them. That’s just my experience and opinion
– Orchidee Bertelsen (@OrchidBertelsen) September 2, 2020
Step 3: Flip B2B to B2H.
Remember: you are not communicating with a company, but with people through business products and services.
Because of this, brands have shifted their focus to their relationships with their customers during this time. Brand management has used social media to connect person-to-person with consumers and give their brands recognizable voices. And successful marketers have resisted the temptation to redirect all of their marketing spend towards lead generation and instead focus energy on building brand awareness and affinity.
In fact, successful marketers were 31% more likely to increase brand awareness through digital channels than other marketers, especially programs that address the challenges their clients face at work and in their personal lives facing.
Let’s shed some light on the way organizations come together while creating opportunities for others. Share your remote work success story, tag #WhenRemoteWorks and @SlackHQ, and we’ll donate $ 5 (up to $ 200,000) to @YearUp. https://t.co/am6LoIPmKM
– Slack (@SlackHQ) August 24, 2020
Time to step it up
It’s not enough just to get your brand’s message across. By following these three steps you can influence the conversation and convince the people in the shopping community that you are worth the expense. And if you’re lucky, these buyers can even get the word out about you and act as your own spokesmen.
The article “How to Improve B2B Marketing in Three Steps” was first published on Marketing.Twitter.com
Swell:
- Bain Technology Purchasing Trends Survey (N = 279).
- Bain Technology Marketing Survey (N = 121); Winner marketers N = 33, other marketers N = 88.
- YouGov Profiles + USA, February 2, 2020, data accessed February 2020. Q2 For which of the following reasons do you describe what you use the following social networks for? Please select all that apply – Twitter. BDM definition: The job title is: Chairman, Board Member, Partner, Owner, President, CEO, COO, CFO, Controller, Treasurer, CIO, CTY, EVP, SVP, VP, General Manager, Director, Head of Department.
- Bain Technology Shopping Trends Survey, Phase II (N = 300); BQ7a: How did members of your team influence your purchase decision when you think back to a recent technology purchase decision?
- Bain Technology Purchasing Trends Survey (N = 279); N / A responses excluded.
- Bain Technology Purchasing Trends Survey (N = 279); Director N = 66, VPs-C-Level N = 184.
- Bain Technology Shopping Trends Survey, Phase II (N = 300); BQ8: When you think back to a recent technology purchase decision, what activities did you participate in?
- Bain Technology Marketing Survey Phase II (N = 100) MQ16: What are your executives – especially your CEO – doing to reach your customers and a wider community on social media?
- Bain Technology Marketing Survey Phase II (N = 100), MQ19: What action are you taking in response to the COVID crisis?