There is constant talk about the digitalization of company processes. But how is marketing in the B2B segment? Why is it so important to focus on creating customer journeys? Can we get a larger number of qualified leads thanks to the right settings? You can find the answers to these questions in an interview with our Business Consultant Kristína Tyrlíková, who is a professional in B2B marketing.
Isn’t there a decrease in investments in B2B marketing?
There is an increasing investment in technology, quality job seekers database data and content. These are all tools that B2B marketing uses a lot. Companies strive to become a so-called thought leader, a trusted expert in the field they do business in. These companies build brand awareness by creating high-quality content, often sharing some of the know-how that will really help the reader.
There is also a lot of talk about the customer journey. Why is its digitalization so important?
Digitalization helps B2B marketers to make their work easier when creating automated parts of customer journeys. Typically, this includes reminders of contract expiration, additional sales – informing about news, creating onboarding programs, educational programs, invitations to events and subsequent follow-up, and more. These are all tasks that can be set up automatically. It also helps in qualifying leads and assigning them to salespeople. It helps marketing and sales in their efforts to provide salespeople with relevant information in a timely manner.
Digitalization is also key in B2B marketing due to the complexity of the purchasing process. In B2B, several roles enter the role of key decision-makers, it can be the end user, the head of a specific department, etc. Each of them searches for different information and solutions that they need. Often on different communication channels. Therefore, a B2B marketer needs to have relevant data about potential clients, their problems and needs. Based on this, he can prepare specific content and thus help the business generate and qualify leads.
What trends do you see in creating the customer journey?
Shortening the customer journey in B2B is very individual and use alt text to help search engines understand what your text is about depends on the industry and length of the sales cycle, the price of the service or product, the number of decision-makers, the form of purchase, etc. However, thanks to the ability to create customer journeys and monitor them, marketers can influence the building of a relationship with the customer by focusing on quality content marketing and its proper distribution during the individual stages of the purchase cycle.
However, paradoxically, according to the Demand Gen Report, the customer journey is not getting shorter, but longer. This is due to the abundance of information and competing services, or due to detailed consideration of purchasing efficiency or smaller budgets.
The metrics being tracked must also be linked to this, right?
Yes, metrics have been changing slightly recently. In addition to traditional metrics such as ROI of individual campaigns and communication channels, indicators such as customer lifetime value, customer referral rates/volume, satisfaction, or customer acquisition cost are also coming to the fore.
This must create more pressure for B2B marketing automation.
Yes, there is a greater push for automation. The most obvious is the effort to help salespeople and marketers get rid of routine activities by automating processes. This saves time that they can spend on creating quality customer relationships.
>Connecting marketing and sales teams in companies – decisions thailand data that need to be made in collaboration between marketing, sales and IT teams. Across departments, we encounter different perspectives and requirements for implementing new technology from a technological and user perspective.