B2B marketing: definitions and core elements https://www.linkedin.

com/business/marketing/blog/content-
marketing/what-is-b2b-marketing-definition-strategy-and-trends
Buyer persona https://www.linkedin.com/business/marketing/blog/content-marketing/5-steps-to-get-inside-your-
ideal-customers-head?trk=lms-blog-b2b&src=bl-po
B2B buying journey https://www.gartner.com/en/sales/insights/b2b-buying-journey

Literature study (to complete 30 hours of literature study, including scrutiny of references for Assignment 2:

Customer experience https://www.lumoa.me/blog/b2b-customer-experience

Customer experience stats: https://www.lumoa.me/blog/customer-experience-stats
Personal CX examples https://www.lumoa.me//blog/personalized-customer-experience
Social selling: https://hbr.org/2016/11/84-of-b2b-sales-start-with-a-referral-not-a-salesperson
Shift of B2B communication and social selling: https://www.forbes.com/sites/sprinklr/2022/01/28/social-selling-the-
future-of-b2b-sales/?sh=310aec0a45d6
B2B vs B2C branding: https://www.score.org/resource/article/what%E2%80%99s-difference-between-b2b-and-b2c-
branding#:~:text=B2B%20branding%20is%20all%20about,someone%20to%20service%20the%20relationship).
Forester report (attached)

Assignment 2 (up to 1500 words, APA style, please send via email by Sep 3 rd 23:59 DXB time, at least 5 APA style
references):

You are managing the marketing of a freight forwarding company. How would you personalize your B2B marketing
strategy? Please identify buyer persona(s), their needs and pain points, identify online channels of B2B marketing
based on characteristics of the customers, and outline strategy and personalization measures.
What Is B2B Marketing: Definition, Strategy, and Trends

What Is B2B Marketing?

Business-to-business marketing refers to the marketing of products or services to other businesses and
organizations. It holds several key distinctions from B2C marketing, which is oriented toward consumers.
In a broad sense, B2B marketing content tends to be more informational and straightforward than B2C. This
is because business purchase decisions, in comparison to those of consumers, are based more on bottom-line
revenue impact. Return on investment (ROI) is rarely a consideration for the everyday person—at least in a
monetary sense—but it’s a primary focus for corporate decision-makers.
In the modern environment, B2B marketers often sell to buying committees with various key stakeholders.
This makes for a complex and sometimes challenging landscape, but as data sources become more robust
and accurate, B2B marketers’ ability to map out committees and reach buyers with relevant, personalized
information has greatly improved.

Who is B2B Marketing For?

Any company that sells to other companies. B2B can take many forms: software-as-a-service (SaaS)
subscriptions, security solutions, tools, accessories, office supplies, you name it. Many organizations fall
under both the B2B and B2C umbrellas.
B2B marketing campaigns are aimed at any individual(s) with control or influence on purchasing decisions.
This can encompass a wide variety of titles and functions, from entry-level end-users all the way up to the
C-suite.

Creating a B2B Marketing Strategy

Competition for customers, and their attention, is high. Building out a B2B strategy that delivers results
requires thoughtful planning, execution, and management. Here’s a high-level look at the process B2B
companies use to stand out in a crowded marketplace:

Step 1: Develop an Overarching Vision

Fail to plan, plan to fail. This truism remains eternally accurate. Before you start cranking out ads and
content, you’ll want to select specific and measurable business objectives. Then, establish or adopt a
framework for how your B2B marketing strategy will achieve them.

Step 2: Define Your Market and Buyer Persona

This is an especially vital step for B2B organizations. Whereas B2C goods often have a wider and more
general audience, B2B products and services are usually marketed to a distinct set of customers with
particular challenges and needs. The more narrowly you can define this audience, the better you’ll be able to
speak to them directly with relevant messaging. Research demographics, interview people in your industry,
and analyze your best customers to compile a set of attributes you can match against prospects to qualify
leads.

Step 3: Identify B2B Marketing Tactics and Channels

Once you’ve established solid intel around your target audience, you’ll need to determine how and where
you intend to reach them. The knowledge you’ve attained through the previous step should help guide this
one. You’ll want to answer questions like these about your ideal customers and prospects:
 Where do they spend their time online?
 What questions are they asking search engines?
 Which social media networks do they prefer?
 How can you fill opportunity gaps that your competitors are leaving open?
 What industry events do they attend?

Step 4: Create Assets and Run Campaigns

With a plan in place, it’s time to put it into motion. Follow best practices for each channel you incorporate
into your strategy. Critical ingredients in effective campaigns include a creative approach, useful insights,
sophisticated targeting, and strong calls to action.
Step 5: Measure and Improve
This is the ongoing process that keeps you moving in the right direction. In the simplest terms, you want to
figure out why your high-performing content performs and why your low-performing content doesn’t.
Understand this, and you’ll more wisely invest your effort and budget. The more vigilant you are about
consulting analytics and applying your learnings, the more likely you are to continually improve and surpass
your goals. Even with a well-researched foundation, the creation of content and campaigns inherently
requires a lot of guesswork until you have substantive engagement and conversion data to rely on.
Let your audience dictate your path. Consult metrics to pinpoint the channels, topics, and media that
resonate most, then double down. Meanwhile, cut or alter anything that isn’t performing.

B2B Marketing Tactics and Content Formats

Here are a few of the most common B2B marketing tactics and content formats to consider including in your
strategy:

Blogs: A mainstay for almost any content team. Regularly updated blogs provide organic visibility and drive
inbound traffic to your site. Your blog can house any number of different content types and formats.

Search: SEO best practices change as often as Google’s algorithm (a lot), making this a tricky space to
operate in, but any B2B marketing strategy needs to account for it. Lately, the focus has been shifting away
from keywords and metadata, and more toward searcher intent signals.

Social Media: Both organic and paid should be in the mix. Social networks allow you to reach and engage
prospects where they’re active. B2B buyers increasingly use these channels to research potential vendors for
purchase decisions.

Whitepapers, eBooks, and infographics: Standalone assets containing valuable information, these
downloadable documents can either be gated (meaning a user must provide contact information or perform
another action to access them) or ungated. Often used as a B2B lead generation tool.

Email: While its effectiveness is waning somewhat in the age of spam filters and inbox shock, email won’t
disappear anytime soon.

Video: This content type can be applied in several of the previous categories mentioned here (blogs, social
media, emails) but is worth singling out because it is the driving force behind many successful B2B
strategies.

Livestream events and webinars: LinkedIn Live videos get, on average, 7x more reactions and 24x more
comments than native videos produced by the same broadcasters. LinkedIn Live isn’t just great for
promoting an event. Take advantage of this feature to demonstrate expertise, showcase innovation, or give
LinkedIn members a behind-the-scenes view of your company’s culture.

Case studies and customer testimonials: Establishing credibility is a must for B2B marketing strategists.
Case studies and customer testimonials may not be the most creative ventures, but they’re crucial
nonetheless.

Podcasts: Podcasting is projected to become even more popular than it already is. Is a podcast geared
toward a professional audience?

B2B Marketing Best Practices

Be Human
Yes, you’re trying to acquire a company as your customer, but you aren’t marketing to a building or some
intangible entity. You are trying to reach actual people within the company, and like any other human being,
they are driven by emotional and cognitive motivations.
Don’t just learn about the companies and accounts you’re pursuing. Learn about the people within them, and
make sure your marketing speaks to them. Yes, business decisions tend to be more rational and logical in
nature, but that doesn’t mean your content and tone should be robotic.

Target with Both Precision and Volume in Mind

Most B2B buying decisions are influenced by multiple stakeholders. A common mistake when targeting is
trying to pinpoint the decision maker. But in nearly every case, that solo decision-maker doesn’t exist.
That’s why it’s essential to target all stakeholders who can potentially influence the buying decision.
B2B buying cycles are complex and stakeholders are constantly shifting jobs and roles. This is among the
many reasons why brand recognition matters. The following solutions can help B2B marketers reach
professionals who can both influence and authorize the buying decision. They allow you to get as granular
as you want, and when you need to expand your target audience, you can do so with sophisticated
automation.

Thought Leadership Makes an Impact

Research continues to show that senior-level decision-makers value thought leadership content, using it to
vet both vendors and solutions. Most read thought leadership content for at least an hour a week. What’s
more, B2B decision-makers will pay more if it means they’re working with a company that has used thought
leadership to establish a clear vision of the future.

Keep Context in Mind

Personalization and relevance are prerequisites for earning attention today. Yes, you want to speak the
language of your customers, but you also want to deliver content and ads that fit thematically with where
they’re viewed.
For instance, shorter videos with quick hooks perform better on social media feeds, whereas a longer format
is probably better suited for YouTube. It takes a different copy angle to catch someone scrolling through
LinkedIn than other networks. Put yourself in the end user’s shoes. Seek to understand their present-tense
situation when they’re viewing your content, including their “surroundings,” and try to align your message
with their mindset.

At a base level, we highly advise that every B2B organization develop an optimized LinkedIn Page, which
you can do for free on LinkedIn, as this is your brand’s hub on the platform and a frequent destination for
buyer research. Posting updates frequently will help you stay top-of-mind among your target audience, and
add followers.
For maximizing your business impact and B2B marketing ROI, there are a number of LinkedIn marketing
products and features you can take advantage of to reach and engage the right members.
Native Ads
On LinkedIn, native ads are known as Sponsored Content. These ads appear within LinkedIn feeds,
alongside the user-generated content members come to peruse. Very useful for thought leadership, brand
awareness, and driving strategic traffic. Learn more about LinkedIn Native Ads.

Lead Generation
Many B2B marketers are evaluated based on their ability to generate leads. Lead Gen Forms are extremely
effective for this purpose because they pre-populate the viewing member’s LinkedIn profile data and don’t
force the user to navigate from the site. It’s a win-win for members and marketers. Members get a seamless
experience when accessing offers and content. B2B marketers get high-quality lead data. Learn more about
LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms.

Retargeting
The LinkedIn Insight Tag enables you to track visitors coming to your website from LinkedIn and then
market to them while they’re on the platform. These individuals are more likely to be interested in your
company and product, improving your odds of conversion. Learn more about LinkedIn Website Retargeting.

Message Ads
As it grows harder to reach professional inboxes (and sometimes just to find email addresses to begin with)
LinkedIn Message Ads are growing more advantageous. You can use this tool to send tailored direct
messages to members on LinkedIn, even if you’re not yet connected. Learn more about Message Ads.

Dynamic Ads
These ads are customized to the members viewing them. They automatically populate with profile images
and relevant details to stand out and capture attention. Learn more about LinkedIn Dynamic Ads.

Breaking Down B2B Marketing

Summarizing the most important takeaways from our exploration of modern B2B marketing, here are some
key considerations to keep in mind:
 Although it’s business-to-business marketing, you’re still speaking to human beings. The most
effective B2B marketers pair logic with emotions.
 The foundational steps in creating a B2B marketing strategy are developing your vision, defining
your audience, identifying tactics and channels, putting content and campaigns into motion, and then
continually measuring for optimization.
 When targeting, balance precision with volume to ensure you’re reaching all of the most important
stakeholders who can potentially influence the decision.
 Truly effective B2B marketing is conversational, targeted, and contextually relevant.
  Thought leadership content can help you create a competitive advantage, but it can also have a
negative effect if it falls short of expectations.
 Context is crucial. A market where your audience is, so attempt to align your messaging with your
audience members’ mindset.

BUYER PERSONA - 5 Steps to Get Inside Your Ideal Customer’s Head

In every movie or TV show about telepathy, there’s a scene where the main character collapses in a heap,
unable to shut out a barrage of inner monologues. Imagine the torment of being able to hear people’s
thoughts, the director seems to say. Helpless against a litany of other people’s wants and needs! How
horrible!
Scenes like that don’t faze marketers, though. We spend most of our time deliberately trying to get in touch
with people’s thoughts. Through interviews, through algorithms, and even (too frequently) through
imagination, we try to understand the people we want to reach. The ability to literally read minds would be a
competitive advantage.
You might not be able to tune directly into your audience’s brains. But with the right kind of directed
research, you can get the next best thing. Follow these five steps to get started.

1. Research Your “Ideal Account”

To try and understand their customers, some marketers start at the beginning of the buyer’s journey. But
sometimes it’s better to start at the end and work backwards. Picture the kind of account everyone at your
company dreams about landing, and imagine they just signed the contract.
What attributes of that account made it so desirable to your company? What specifically about your
company led to winning the deal? Look to existing and potential customers to round out your thinking—
don’t rely on intuition. Be as specific as possible—the goal is to create a company-sized buyer persona.

2. Map the Buying Committee

Once you have created your “company persona,” you can zero in on the people who will contribute to a
purchase decision. Make a list of the roles that will influence the process. It’s important to include both the
people who sign checks and those who will use your product in their daily working life.
Strive for a complete list of potential decision-makers and influencers. As you start to flesh out individual
personas, you’ll want to have all the bases covered.
Remember the bottom-line criteria for a persona: It’s someone who needs their own unique messaging. If
you have personas that don’t require distinct marketing material, you can trim or consolidate them.

3. Get the Info First-Hand

Once you identified the personas you need to create, you’re ready to start gathering information. It’s best to
use first-hand sources if you can. Start by interviewing existing and potential customers, and even pull in
some lost opportunities if you can. It’s good to hear from those who already bought, those who might
buy, and those who went with another solution.
You can round out your first-hand information with insight from your sales team and customer service
department. Since they interact with customers every day, they should have valuable information for you.
Here’s an interview guide from Your Hands-On Content Marketing Workbook:
4. Listen before You Speak
In addition to conducting interviews, gather intelligence by frequenting the social media sites your
customers use. See what content gets shared most on LinkedIn, what potential customers are publishing to
the platform, and what industry news is being circulated. Monitor your brand and competitors’ brands for
mentions, too.
This information-gathering should result in a robust set of personas based on facts, rather than opinion. You
won’t just imagine you’re reading your audience’s minds—you’ll have the data to back it up.

5. Share the Wealth (of Information)

What to do with these amazing, insightful personas? Make sure everyone in your department and beyond
has access to them and knows them inside and out. And don’t keep it to just your team—make sure sales and
customer service are on the same page.
You don’t have to be a mind-reader to know what your potential customers are thinking. It takes planning,
research, and more research, but you can find out what’s top-of-mind and even delve into the layers
underneath. Impress your audience with your seemingly clairvoyant powers of empathy, and you can inspire
them to take action.

The B2B Buying Journey

Navigate the evolution of the B2B buying journey

Your sales reps have roughly 5% of a customer’s time during their B2B buying journey. Lack of time with
buyers coupled with rapidly shifting buying dynamics, fueled by digital buying behavior, is reshaping the
strategic focus of sales organizations.
Download the Gartner guide for CSOs to learn how to:
 Navigate the evolution of the B2B buying journey over the next five years
 Position your unique value-add to help guide customers to decision confidence while minimizing
uncertainty
 Accelerate beyond foundational analytics toward AI-powered insights
Sellers have little opportunity to influence customer decisions
The ready availability of quality information through digital channels has made it far easier for buyers to
gather information independently, meaning sellers have less access and fewer opportunities to influence
customer decisions.
In fact‚ Gartner research finds that when B2B buyers are considering a purchase‚ they spend only 17% of
that time meeting with potential suppliers. When buyers are comparing multiple suppliers‚ the amount of
time spent with anyone sales rep may be only 5% or 6%.
The customers buying journey is hard
The typical buying group for a complex B2B solution involves six to 10 decision makers‚ each armed with
four or five pieces of information they’ve gathered independently and must deconflict with the group. At the
same time, the set of options and solutions buying groups can consider is expanding as new technologies,
products, suppliers and services emerge.
These dynamics make it increasingly difficult for customers to make purchases. In fact, more than three-
quarters of the customers Gartner surveyed described their purchase as very complex or difficult.

B2B Buyers complete a set of jobs to make a purchase

To understand how to best help customers advance through a complex purchase, Gartner research identified
six B2B buying “jobs” that customers must complete to their satisfaction in order to successfully finalize a
purchase:
 Problem identification. “We need to do something.”
 Solution exploration. “What’s out there to solve our problem?”
 Requirements building. “What exactly do we need the purchase to do?”
 Supplier selection. “Does this do what we want it to do?”
 Validation. “We think we know the right answer, but we need to be sure.”
 Consensus creation. “We need to get everyone on board.”

The buying journey isn’t linear

B2B buying doesn’t play out in any kind of predictable, linear order. Instead, customers engage in what one
might call “looping” across a typical B2B purchase, revisiting each of those six buying jobs at least once.
Buying jobs don’t happen sequentially, but more or less simultaneously.
Information drives purchase ease and high-quality sales
All of this looping around and bouncing from one job to another means that buyers value suppliers that
make it easier for them to navigate the purchase process.
In fact, Gartner research found that customers who perceived the information they received from suppliers to
be helpful in advancing across their buying jobs were 2.8 times more likely to experience a high degree of
purchase ease, and three times more likely to buy a bigger deal with less regret.
How Gartner Helps CSOs with the New B2B Buying Journey
Sales reps are a channel to customers, not the channel
Customers are largely channel-agnostic when seeking the information they need to get a job done.
As a result, sales reps are not the only channel to customers, but simply a channel, and alignment across in-
person and digital channels is crucial for supporting customers in the way they actually buy.

Supplier pipelines can’t speak the truth

Most sales organizations organize activity around a linear pipeline, seeking to move opportunities from one
stage to the next. For customers, however, purchase progress is far better defined in terms of job completion
rather than stage progression.
As a result, while pipeline reviews might indicate a preponderance of opportunities stuck in sales Stage 5,
for example, there is no way of knowing through a linear, supplier-centric sales funnel where exactly
customers are truly struggling to make progress in any given deal.

Sales and marketing must operate in parallel, not serial, fashion

Most sales and marketing teams are organized in serial fashion: Marketing generates and nurtures demand
early through digital channels before handing off the most qualified of opportunities to sales for in-person
pursuit. Customers, however, don’t buy in a linear fashion. Rather, they use both digital and in-person
channels with near-equal frequency to complete each of the buying jobs more or less simultaneously.
As a result, in today’s world of B2B buying, there is no handoff from marketing to sales, or digital to in-
person. It’s a parallel process, not a serial one.

Suppliers must enable buyers to complete buying jobs

To win in this B2B buying environment, suppliers should focus on providing customers with information
that is specifically designed to help them complete their buying jobs.
We call this “buyer enablement” — the provisioning of information to customers in a way that enables them
to complete critical buying jobs.

5 Trends In B2B Customer Experience Management

“Customer experience” could be undoubtedly named one of the buzzword terms of this decade. And I am
absolutely certain that this trend will continue. Whether you’re working in a business-to-consumer (B2C) or
a business-to-business (B2B) company, you should start paying attention to the way you create B2C and
B2B customer experiences immediately if you haven’t done so already.

At least 80% of B2B buyers now expect the same buying experience as B2C customers. After all, the
business people you’re dealing with at work are the same who are ordering goods from Amazon in their free
time. B2C customer experiences have set the tone of CX transformation. All the people, who receive
advanced personalized customer treatment as individual consumers, come to work and… very often
experience the same old “traditional” system that has always been there. Instead of an online catalog, they
must download a pdf or order a paper brochure. Instead of an option to “order in three clicks”, they have to
call. Does this sound familiar?

What does that mean to you?

Customers expect digital services and self-service options to be available and be not just good, but super
slick. They want options that will help them to manage their own business. That leaves you no option but to
transform your business to address today’s upgraded customer expectations.

SO, WHAT IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING TO B2B CUSTOMER EXPERIENCES?

Previously, many B2B companies simply ignored customer experience management completely. In 2015,
only 3% of B2B companies prioritized customer experience as an integral part of company culture.
LUCKILY, THINGS HAVE CHANGED.
This year, Forrester predicts that B2B firms will move away from “just selling” and will instead focus on
customer experience management. For a growing number of B2B companies, the pathway to growth will be
through CEM.
Many B2C CX practices have become universal. “Digital” has become a standard not only for B2C
customer interactions but also for B2B customer experiences. As have omnichannel communications and
personalization.
Now, at least 89% of companies expect to compete mostly on the basis of customer experience, versus 36%
in 2012. Customer Experience is the new black!
So, what are the trends within B2B customer experience management in 2019?

1. Voice of the Customer (VoC)

Voice of the customer refers to customers’ feedback about their experiences with and expectations for your
products or services. Right now, businesses have more VoC data than ever – it comes in the form of user
behavior data, recorded phone conversations between your frontline staff and your customers, direct
customer feedback, discussions on social media, and even more, largely depending on your business.
To use Voice of the Customer to improve your business it is important to not only gather the customers’
feedback but also to analyze it and most importantly, act on the insights generated.
2. Make “customer-centric” your new business strategy
According to the customer experience statistics, 79% of employees in CX leading companies are engaged,
compared with 49% in the companies whose CX is below average. Who in your organization owns the
customer experience? It could be your customer experience team, it could be the top management… In fact,
all the departments should work together to influence the customer experience.
Many businesses are participating in a customer experience race to see whose cx is the latest and the
greatest. Not many of them understand that the customer experience race is not a sprint, but a marathon. It
requires thoroughly planned preparation, and a long-term view and needs everyone in the organization to be
on board. If you want to bring the voice of the customer into your organization, recruit a cross-functional
team and consistently work on understanding the needs of your customers.

Above, you can see the roles that all functions within an organization should play in customer experience
management. As you can see, everyone should be responsible for the customer experience!

3. Plan your communication

Good communication will attract new customers and improve the brand image and reputation of your
company, whereas bad communication could be the reason your customer moves away from you.
The difference with regards to B2B organizations is that you are communicating both “company-to-
company” and “individual-to-individual” all at once. It is worth noting that many B2B relationships are
strong due to their longevity and recurring sales and interactions.
Your communications should focus on:
 Conveying interest and a friendly and personal attitude
 Consistent follow-ups
 Understanding and listening to customer problems and needs
 The right amount of correspondence and status updates
 Thorough and clear explanations
 Responsiveness
 Conveying availability

4. Omnichannel
Omnichannel communication is definitely a megatrend in the customer experience sphere. Simply put, it’s
about being available to your customer across every channel. Omnichannel offers a consistent, personalized
experience for consumers across all channels and devices, with the main goal to make the customer journey
as easy as possible. That means consistent engagement no matter where or how they interact with you.
“In most cases, B2B buyers research online even if buying offline later. […] At the same time online
channels are beginning to overtake more traditional buying channels”
Currently, B2C experiences set the tone for B2B experiences. B2B customers want to have the ease and
functionality of online B2C purchases and when they find that, that’s where they will take their business. In
the recent study by Forrester, “Building The B2B Omni-Channel Commerce Platform Of The Future” it was
discovered that almost three-quarters of B2B buyers consider the ability to look up product information
across any channel to be important or very important when making work-related purchases online.
Talking about omnichannel communication, we don’t simply mean “to exist in all possible online channels”.
It’s much more than that. Digital is just another channel to the customer. A truly customer-centric approach
embraces the customer at all touchpoints in their journey.

5. Personalization
When creating the B2B customer experience, you need to target a personalized experience. In the
competitive B2B market, where the sales cycle is much longer and usually involves direct communication,
the customer experience should be personalized as much as possible. Gartner predicted that by 2018, B2B
companies with e-commerce personalization would outsell competitors, who were not providing a
personalized experience, by 30%.
“Personalization is a necessity to survive and thrive in the era of the empowered customer.”
Understand that each customer and each experience is going to be different and embrace it. We are entering
the era of hyper-personalization.
Get a bonus 6th trend together with new stats in this guide to B2B customer experience!

Conclusion
The era of doing B2B business “the old-fashioned” way is gone. Now customers expect a high level of
involvement and really high-quality digital services when making a B2B purchase. The differences between
B2C and B2B are blurred, as customers are eager to have the same smooth modern experience in all areas of
their lives, including their work lives.
In order to stay on top of the competition, companies need to deliver personalized omnichannel experiences
that are tailored to unique buyers.

5 Trends In B2B Customer Experience Management

“Customer experience” could be undoubtedly named one of the buzzword terms of this decade. And I am
absolutely certain that this trend will continue. Whether you’re working in a business-to-consumer (B2C) or
a business-to-business (B2B) company, you should start paying attention to the way you create B2C and
B2B customer experiences immediately, if you haven’t done so already.
At least 80% of B2B buyers now expect the same buying experience as B2C customers. After all, the
business people you’re dealing with at work are the same who are ordering goods from Amazon in their free
time. B2C customer experiences have set the tone of CX transformation. All the people, who receive
advanced personalized customer treatment as individual consumers, come to work and… very often
experience the same old “traditional” system that has always been there. Instead of an online catalog, they
have to download a pdf or even order a paper brochure. Instead of an option to “order in three clicks”, they
have to call. Does this sound familiar?

What does that mean to you?

Customers expect digital services and self-service options to be available and be not just good, but super
slick. They want options that will help them to manage their own business. That leaves you no option but to
transform your business to address today’s upgraded customer expectations.
SO, WHAT IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING TO B2B CUSTOMER EXPERIENCES?
Previously, many B2B companies simply ignored customer experience management completely. In 2015,
only 3% of B2B companies prioritized customer experience as an integral part of company culture.
LUCKILY, THINGS HAVE CHANGED.
This year, Forrester predicts that B2B firms will move away from “just selling” and will instead focus on
customer experience management. For a growing number of B2B companies, the pathway to growth will be
through CEM.
Many B2C CX practices have become universal. “Digital” has become a standard not only for B2C
customer interactions but also for B2B customer experiences. As have omnichannel communications and
personalization.
Now, at least 89% of companies expect to compete mostly on the basis of customer experience, versus 36%
in 2012. Customer Experience is the new black!
So, what are the trends within B2B customer experience management in 2019?

1. Voice of the Customer (VoC)

Voice of the customer refers to customers’ feedback about their experiences with and expectations for your
products or services. Right now, businesses have more VoC data than ever – it comes in the form of user
behavior data, recorded phone conversations between your frontline staff and your customers, direct
customer feedback, discussions on social media, and even more, largely depending on your business.
To use Voice of the Customer to improve your business it is important to not only gather the customers’
feedback but also to analyze it and most importantly, act on the insights generated.
2. Make “customer-centric” your new business strategy
According to the customer experience statistics, 79% of employees in CX leading companies are engaged,
compared with 49% in the companies whose CX is below average. Who in your organization owns the
customer experience? It could be your customer experience team, it could be the top management… In fact,
all the departments should work together to influence the customer experience.
Many businesses are participating in a customer experience race to see whose cx is the latest and the
greatest. Not many of them understand that the customer experience race is not a sprint, but a marathon. It
requires thoroughly planned preparation, and a long-term view and needs everyone in the organization to be
on board. If you want to bring the voice of the customer into your organization, recruit a cross-functional
team and consistently work on understanding the needs of your customers.

3. Plan your communication

Good communication will attract new customers and improve the brand image and reputation of your
company, whereas bad communication could be the reason your customer moves away from you.
The difference with regards to B2B organizations is that you are communicating both “company-to-
company” and “individual-to-individual” all at once. It is worth noting that many B2B relationships are
strong due to their longevity and recurring sales and interactions.
Your communications should focus on:
 Conveying interest and a friendly and personal attitude
 Consistent follow-ups
 Understanding and listening to customer problems and needs
 The right amount of correspondence and status updates
 Thorough and clear explanations
 Responsiveness
 Conveying availability

4. Omnichannel
Omnichannel communication is definitely a megatrend in the customer experience sphere. Simply put, it’s
about being available to your customer across every channel. Omnichannel offers a consistent, personalized
experience for consumers across all channels and devices, with the main goal to make the customer journey
as easy as possible. That means consistent engagement no matter where or how they interact with you.
“In most cases, B2B buyers research online even if buying offline later. […] At the same time online
channels are beginning to overtake more traditional buying channels”
Currently, B2C experiences set the tone for B2B experiences. B2B customers want to have the ease and
functionality of online B2C purchases and when they find that, that’s where they will take their business. In
the recent study by Forrester, “Building The B2B Omni-Channel Commerce Platform Of The Future” it was
discovered that almost three-quarters of B2B buyers consider the ability to look up product information
across any channel to be important or very important when making work-related purchases online.
Talking about omnichannel communication, we don’t simply mean “to exist in all possible online channels”.
It’s much more than that. Digital is just another channel to the customer. A truly customer-centric approach
embraces the customer at all touchpoints in their journey.

5. Personalization
When creating the B2B customer experience, you need to target a personalized experience. In the
competitive B2B market, where the sales cycle is much longer and usually involves direct communication,
the customer experience should be personalized as much as possible. Gartner predicted that by 2018, B2B
companies with e-commerce personalization would outsell competitors, who were not providing a
personalized experience, by 30%.
“Personalization is a necessity to survive and thrive in the era of the empowered customer.”
Understand that each customer and each experience is going to be different and embrace it. We are entering
the era of hyper-personalization.

Conclusion
The era of doing B2B business “the old-fashioned” way is gone. Now customers expect a high level of
involvement and really high-quality digital services when making a B2B purchase. The differences between
B2C and B2B are blurred, as customers are eager to have the same smooth modern experience in all areas of
their lives, including their work lives.
In order to stay on top of the competition, companies need to deliver personalized omnichannel experiences
that are tailored to unique buyers.

100+ Customer Experience Stats to Know in 2023

Customer Experience
Customer experience (CX) plays a crucial role in business success, with 99% of CX leaders acknowledging its
positive impact. However, only 3% of companies are truly customer-obsessed. Businesses that prioritize CX
are more likely to be relevant, profitable, and successful.
Unhappy customers can have significant consequences, as they are more likely to switch to competitors
and share their negative experiences. Consumer demand for better service continues to rise, and trust in
brands is influenced by quality, personal experiences, and consistency.
Customer feedback analytics are essential for understanding and improving CX, yet many companies fail to
regularly collect and analyze customer feedback. Metrics like Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Customer
Effort Score (CES) are commonly used to measure CX.
Organizations with a customer-centric approach outperform their competitors, but there is a need for
improved CX skills and cross-team collaboration. Customer service and support channels, such as email and
phone calls, are critical for delivering a seamless experience.
In summary, customer experience and feedback analytics are vital for businesses to thrive and retain
customers in today’s competitive landscape.
Find the latest stats on customer experience trends
 99% of Customer Experience and Success leaders believe CEM has a positive impact on their
business. (Lumoa, 2018)
 In 2019, customer experience will continue as a major factor in how companies do business.
(Forrester, 2018)
 Over 80% of organizations expect to compete mainly based on CX, meaning that the skill of realizing
benefits will be in high demand. (Gartner, 2018)
 According to customers, in 2022, only 3% of companies are customer-obsessed — putting
customers at the center of their leadership, strategy, and operations — a decrease of 7 percentage
points from the prior year. (Forrester, 2022)
 80% of CEOs believe they deliver superior customer experience. Only 8% of their customers agreed.
(Bain, 2005)
 87% of marketers say they are delivering engaging customer experiences. (Acquia, 2019)
 78.5% of CMOs agree or strongly agree that amazing customer experiences provide a powerful
competitive advantage. (Martech Alliance, 2021)
 Nearly half (48%) of survey respondents said the customer experience they deliver falls below or
significantly below their customers’ expectations. Just 31.5% believe they are exceeding
expectations. (Martech Alliance, 2021)
 Customer-obsessed businesses expect to be 7x more relevant to customers, 5x more likely a top
provider of products, and 4x more profitable. (Forrester, 2016)
 55% of CX professionals believe their companies will be too slow and face disruption from more
innovative, nimble, and customer-focused competitors. (Oracle, 2018)
 Optimizing customer experience is the most exciting opportunity for 19% of businesses, ahead of
data-driven marketing that focuses on individuals (16%) and content marketing (14%).
(Econsultancy, 2018)
 91% of senior executives agree/strongly agree that the C-suite recognizes the importance of the
digital experience for growth. (Adobe, 2022)
 75% of marketing & CX practitioners have observed a surge in existing customers using digital
channels (Adobe, 2022)
 74% of CX professionals say creating a seamless customer journey across assisted and self-service
channels is “important” or “very important.” (Gartner, 2021)
 8 in 10 consumers report that businesses are meeting or exceeding their expectations for service,
compared to 67 percent in 2014. In fact, 40% say businesses have increased their focus and
attention on service, a significant increase in just three years (up from 29% in 2014).
(AmericanExpress, 2017)
 Only 43% of CX executives are highly confident in their company’s CX proficiencies and
preparedness for the future. (Oracle, 2018)
 53% of organizations don’t believe they make it easy for customers to handle their issues/requests.
(Gartner, 2022)
 87% of organizations agree that traditional experiences no longer satisfy customers. (Accenture,
2018)
 By industry, supermarket chains provide the best customer experience, while TV and Internet
service providers provide the worst. (Temkin, 2018)
 Just 34% of respondents report they have three or more years of experience developing end-to-end
journey maps, and 83% report their organization struggles to use customer journey maps to identify
and prioritize CX efforts. (Gartner, 2022)
 CX programs that exceed management expectations are 2.3 times more likely to have CX efforts in
marketing not primarily focused on the path to purchase but on the journey after
acquisition. (Gartner, 2022)
 Customer experience is a ‘significant’ or ‘critical’ priority for 69% of organizations. 77% have a
centralized customer experience group, and 68% have a senior executive in charge of customer
experience across products and channels. (Qualtrics, 2022)
Happy vs. Unhappy Customers
Learn how promoters differ from detractors
 86% of consumers will pay more for a better customer experience. (Oracle, 2011)
 Businesses have a 60 to 70% chance of selling to an existing customer while the probability of
selling to a new prospect is only 5% to 20%. (Marketing Metrics, 2010)
 Increasing customer retention rates by 5% increases profits anywhere from 25% to 95%. (Bain,
2014)
 54% shared bad experiences with more than five people and 33% shared good experiences with
more than five people. (Zendesk, 2013)
 89% of consumers began doing business with a competitor following a poor customer experience.
(Oracle, 2011)
 Customers who had a very good experience are 3.5x more likely to repurchase and 5x more likely to
recommend the company to friends and relatives than if they had a very poor experience. (Temkin,
2018)
 After a bad experience, 22% cut their spending with the company and 19% stopped their
relationships with the company completely. (Temkin, 2017)
 After a bad experience, 30% of consumers tell the company, 50% tell their friends, and 15% provide
feedback online. (Temkin, 2017)
 48% of consumers expect specialized treatment for being good customers. (Accenture, 2017)

Consumer demand better service from companies

 More than 60% of customers say they now have higher customer service standards. (Zendesk, 2022)
 54% of customers who report positive emotions like feeling happy, valued, and appreciated are
willing to forgive brands that make mistakes. (Forrester, 2022)
 In 2022, an average of 59% of customers trust the brands they interact with, 2 percentage points
higher than the 57% of customers who trusted brands in 2020. (Forrester, 2022)
 Nearly half of consumers say brands don’t meet their expectations. (Acquia, 2019)
 78% of people believe brands can do more to deliver happiness to their customers and 91% said
they preferred brands to be funny; this number increased among Gen Z (94%) and Millennials
(94%). (Oracle, 2022)
 The top three reasons a consumer would trust a brand are the quality of the product (66%),
personal experience with the brand (53%), and consistency (32%). (Forbes Insights, 2020)
 Two-thirds of customers could not recall when a brand exceeded expectations. (Acquia, 2019)
 It’s a high-stakes game—61 percent of customers would now defect to a competitor after just one
bad experience. Make it two negative experiences, and 76 percent of customers are out the door.
(Zendesk, 2022)
 The large majority of consumers said they would switch to a competitor after three poor
experiences or fewer. UK consumers are slightly more likely to leave a brand (90%) than their US

Customer Feedback and Surveys

 39% of companies don’t regularly ask customers for feedback about their interactions — the most
basic form of CX measurement. (Forrester, 2016)
 The average email survey response rate is 24%. (Fluid Survey, 2014)
 75% of people complete surveys on their mobile. (IMImobile, 2018)
 77% of companies say that they don’t model the drivers of CX quality regularly, leaving them in the
dark about what matters most to their customers. (Forrester, 2016)
 60% don’t regularly track operational data that reveals what really happened during interactions to
help explain why customers felt the way that they did. (Forrester, 2016)
 63% of CX professionals use customer feedback to prioritize investment in better products, services,
and customer experiences. (Oracle, 2018)
 79% of consumers who shared complaints about poor customer experience online had their
complaints ignored. (Oracle, 2011)
  79% of consumers who complained are still not happy with the way their complaints are handled.
(CCMC, 2017)

Customer Experience Metrics and Data

 21% of companies have developed their own KPIs to track customer experience. (Lumoa, 2018)
 Only 11% of companies have strong CX metrics programs and 62% of companies cite the lack of
taking action based on CX metrics programs as the key problem. (Temkin, 2017)
 78% of companies expect customer interaction history to become an increasingly important source
of insights, and only 33% feel the same about multiple-choice survey questions. (Temkin, 2017)
 65% of companies measure NPS compared with 44% that measure CSAT and 14% that measure CES.
(Lumoa, 2018)
 Only 32% of CX professionals feel they have access to the information they need to understand
customers’ needs and previous interactions, and can apply it to improve their experience. (Oracle,
2018)
 Industry leaders reported that they improved their customer satisfaction KPI metric target by 47.1%
over the last two years, 2.4 times higher than lagging organizations, which improved their customer
satisfaction KPI metric target by 19.4%. (IDC, 2022)


Net Promoter Score

Utilize your NPS Better

 Net Promoter Score (NPS) is the most popular customer experience metric and is measured in two-
thirds of companies. (Lumoa, 2018)
 In 2022, that is still true as 69% of CX Leaders are using NPS as a core CX metric. (Qualtrics, 2022)
 32 is the Net Promoter Score of the Net Promoter System. (Lumoa, 2018)
 Compared with the detractors, promoters are 4.2x more likely to buy again, 5.6x more likely to
forgive a company after a mistake, and 7.2x more likely to try a new offering. (Temkin, 2017)
 83% of customers would trust recommendations from the people they know: colleagues, family,
friends, etc. and 66% would trust other consumer opinions posted online. (Nielsen, 2015)
 An average NPS increase by 7 points correlates with a 1% growth in revenue. (London School of
Economics, 2005)

Customer Effort Score

Is CES worth your attention? Short answer: YES!
 96% of customers with a high-effort service interaction are more disloyal, compared to only 9% with
low-effort interactions. (Gartner, 2018)
 94% of customers going through an effortless experience are likely to repurchase vs. only 4% of
those who went through a high level of effort. (Gartner, 2018)
 81% of customers going through a high level of effort are likely to share their bad experience with
friends vs. only 1% of those who went through an effortless experience. (Gartner, 2018)
 17% of CX Leaders are using CES as a core CX metric. (Qualtrics, 2022)
Business Impact of CX
Find out how customer experience can influence your business KPIs
 Organizations that lead in CX outperformed laggards on the S&P 500 index by nearly
80%. (Watermark Consulting, 2018)
 Only 14% of companies measure the ROI of Customer Experience. (Lumoa, 2018)
 61% of consumers would pay at least 5% more if they knew they would receive outstanding CX.
(Emplifi, 2021)
 Experience-driven businesses grew revenue 1.4 times faster and increased customer lifetime value
1.6x more than other companies in the past year. (Forrester, 2018)
 Companies embracing service as a value creator achieve 3.5 times more revenue growth than those
managing it as a cost center. (Accenture, 2021)
 Companies receive 10X+ higher revenue growth when they involve their service organization in the
development of new products. (Accenture, 2021)
 64% of business leaders say that customer service has a positive impact on their company’s growth.
(Zendesk, 2022)
 Almost 20% of consumers say they usually (if not always) abandon a purchase because of a single
poor customer experience. (Emplifi, 2021)
 Organizations with a cross-team approach with a customer at the heart of all initiatives are nearly
twice as likely to exceed their business goal by a significant margin. (Econsultancy, 2018)
 62% of CX leaders think that their organization needs to make major changes to the customer
experience to meet their customer strategy. (PwC, 2017)
 60% of CX leaders see larger returns from CX initiatives relative to other initiatives in their
organization. (PwC, 2017)

Customer Centricity

Are you obsessed with your customers?

 56% of CEOs and 66% of top managers are involved in Customer Experience activities according to
the employees. (Lumoa, 2018)
 26% of CX teams experience a lack of skills and are not sure how to deal with the new consumer
mindset and constantly changing market. (Lumoa, 2018)
 Only 13% of companies believe that HR has an impact on Customer Experience activities in the
company. (Lumoa, 2018)
 90% of experience decision-makers agree that the CMO should be the internal advocate for their
customers. (Accenture, 2018)
 Forty-five percent of businesses manage the customer experience through their customer care
organization, while 30% have marketing manage customer experience. (Genesys, 2017)
 Only 19% of businesses report that they have a dedicated customer experience team to manage the
experience. (Genesys, 2017)
 55% of companies suffer from organizational silos, incl. slow internal processes, and unwillingness
to change. (Lumoa, 2018)
 Getting buy-in from the executive team, knowing about available resources, and justifying the need
for those resources are among the main challenges for the customer support teams. (Support
Driven, 2018)
  72% of companies don’t review customer experience metrics or share them with all employees
regularly. (Forrester, 2016)
 39% of companies don’t keep a documented list of customer experience projects that are currently
underway. (Forrester, 2016)
 79% of employees in CX leading companies are engaged, compared with 49% in the companies with
CX below average. (Temkin, 2018)

Customer Service and Support

Customer experience can’t go without customer service.

Channels
 54% of customers used email customer service channels making it the most commonly used digital
customer service channel. (Forrester, 2018)
 9 in 10 consumers want absolute omnichannel service – they expect a seamless experience when
moving from one communication method to another, such as phone to text or chat to phone. (NICE
inContact, 2018)
 59% of customers had a conversation with a customer service representative or agent via
telephone, making phone calls the most commonly used customer service channel. (Forrester,
2018)
 87% of customers find it frustrating to repeat themselves in multiple channels, and 73% question
doing business with that brand as a result. (Precisely, 2020)
 93% of consumers will spend more with companies that offer their preferred option to reach
customer service (ex: chat) (Zendesk, 2022)
 89% of consumers will spend more with companies that allow them to find answers online without
having to contact anyone. (Zendesk, 2022)
 More than 70% of customers expect agents to have access to all information relevant to their
account and query. (Zendesk, 2022)
 63% of customers are happy to be served by a chatbot if there is an option to escalate the
conversation to a human. (Forrester, 2018)
 90% of customers prefer to talk to a live service agent over a chatbot. (NICE inContact, 2018)
 Contact center performance drives both loyalty and churn. 90% of consumers said they are likely to
stay loyal after a positive call center experience; 73.7% said they are likely to switch after a negative
call center experience. (CallMiner, 2020)
 Approximately 50% of consumers will use mobile messaging apps for customer service and support.
Another 28% are willing to give mobile messaging a chance. (Genesys, 2018)
 68% of customers worry their query gets lost or misunderstood by fully automated services.
(Forrester, 2018)
 76% of customers want human contact to remain part of customer service. (Forrester, 2018)

Speed
  Slow response time (37%) was rated as the leading contributor to a negative experience, followed
by a lack of 24/7 customer service support (23%). (Emplifi, 2021)
 52% of consumers said a fast response within one hour is expected. 1 in 10 consumers wants a
response in less than 5 minutes. (Emplifi, 2021)
 Earlier, 50% of consumers give a brand only one week to respond to a question before they stop
doing business with them. (Oracle, 2010)
 73% say that valuing their time is the most important thing a company can do to provide them with
good online customer service. (Forrester, 2016)
 77% of customers believe it takes too long to reach a live agent and consumers will wait on hold for
an average of 11 minutes before hanging up. (RightNow, 2010)
 69% attributed their good customer service experience to quick resolution of their problem.
(Zendesk, 2013)
 72% blamed their bad customer service interaction on having to explain their problem to multiple
people. (Zendesk, 2013)

Relationships and Emotions

 81% of consumers say that getting a satisfactory answer is a very important part of servicing
satisfaction, and 74% want a knowledgeable professional. But nearly half also say that personalized
service (47%) and appreciation for them as a customer (45%) are very important in providing
excellent care. (AmericanExpress, 2017)
 Nine out of 10 consumers value when a business knows their account history and current activities
with that company, and seven out of 10 value having the same representative or agent help them
each time they interact with the company. (Genesys, 2017)
 51% of consumers felt like they received nothing after a customer service interaction. (CCMC, 2017)
 56% of customers with a problem experienced rage. (CCMC, 2017)
 Commonly used practices in customer service, that consumers hate: misuse of automated phone
technology e.g. no live person option, outsourcing service abroad, upselling, having to repeat
information already given and talking too fast. (CCMC, 2017)

Personalization
 56% of customer experience professionals aim to improve and personalize the customer
experience. (Lumoa, 2018)
 83% of consumers are willing to share their data to enable a personalized experience. (Accenture,
2017)
 Personalization at scale can drive between 5 and 15% revenue growth for companies in the retail,
travel, entertainment, telecom, and financial services sectors. (McKinsey, 2017)
 33% of consumers who abandoned a business relationship in 2016 did so because personalization
was lacking. (Accenture, 2017)
 58% of consumers would switch half or more of their spending to a provider that excels at
personalizing experiences without compromising trust. (Accenture, 2017)
 64% of millennials value anticipation and customization of the experience using their transaction
data over privacy concerns. 46% value personalization using preferences and contact info over
privacy concerns. At the same time, 45% of baby boomers (age 55 and over) value privacy over
personalization. (Genesys, 2018)

Customer Experience Technologies

 By 2021, 15% of all customer service interactions will be completely handled by AI, an increase of
400% from 2017. (Gartner, 2017)
 By 2019, over 85% of new packaged customer service and support software will be delivered on a
cloud-based model. (Gartner, 2017)
 48% of CX professionals said that although their companies embrace digital, they don’t think they’ll
keep pace with the speed of technology change. (Oracle, 2018)
  79% of contact center leaders plan to invest in greater AI capabilities in the next two years.
(Deloitte, 2021)
 80.1% of leaders fully automate their data validation, data access policies, and data set
management processes, while only 3.2% of lagging organizations fully automate these processes.
(IDC, 2021)
 53% Of CMOs said a lack of skills/knowledge of the technology and/or data management was one
of the biggest barriers to realizing their CX vision. (Martech Alliance, 2021)
 Nearly 70% agreed that customer experience would be drastically improved by introducing a
customer data platform (or better managing an existing one). (Martech Alliance, 2021)
 70.5% of CMOs say data compliance, privacy, and ethics are vital to achieving customer experience
success. (Martech Alliance, 2021)
 More than 24% of companies report experiencing a lack of customer insights in
marketing/customer experience organizations. (Adobe, 2022)
 Technology spend is expected to have substantial expected growth throughout 2022, with notably
less spend expected for both facilities and T&E. (Gartner, 2022)
 Over 50% of CX professionals say their organization is planning to use predictive analytics and
artificial intelligence ‘somewhat’ or ‘significantly’ more than they were doing so last year. 44% of
respondents’ organizations plan to use journey analytics more, as well. (Qualtrics, 2022)
 31% of organizations have already invested in technology like AI to outpace the competition.
(Accenture, 2018)
 76% of collaboration leaders are investing or expanding their emerging technology investment.
(Accenture, 2018)
 26% of companies leading financially use CX technologies, compared to 7% of laggards. (Bain, 2018)
 Predictive analytics and Artificial Intelligence are in the most demand among CX professionals.
(Bain, 2018)

Personalized Customer Experience: What, How and Why

There’s only one thing that will make your customers want to come back to you more than the amazing
customer experience. It’s an amazing personalized customer experience.
According to our latest customer experience research, 56% of customer experience professionals aim to
improve and personalize the customer experience. No wonder why: personalization at scale can drive
between 5 and 15% revenue growth for companies in the retail, financial services, entertainment, telecom,
and travel industries.

What is personalization?
Personalization in customer experience means designing products or producing services and products to
meet customers’ individual requirements. You’re most likely already familiar with marketing
personalization. Personalization starts with “Hello, Susan” in your inbox and goes far beyond to
personalized offers and services.
Personalization is already a necessity to survive and thrive in the era of the empowered customer as 33% of
consumers who abandoned a business relationship in 2016 did so because personalization was lacking.
Given that the nature of personalization is to tailor the customers’ journeys based on what you know about
them, it can be difficult to scale this process to first-time visitors to your website, or people who interact
with your content on other platforms like social media. However, if you’re using a tool like Rebrandly URL
Shortener to create custom short links, you can gain in-depth insight into who’s clicking on your links—
regardless of where those links are posted or where they’re directed to. You can also use a
feature associated with custom short URLs called “dynamic linking”, which enables you to personalize the
destination of the link based on an individual user’s behavior. This is a quick and easy way to roll out
a personalized customer journey, which will inevitably result in happy future customers.
Examples of personalized customer experience
Amazon
No article on personalization goes without mentioning Amazon, the leading customer-centric company.
Customer focus is embedded in the DNA of the company. “Put the customer first. Invent. And be patient.” –
says Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.
Amazon knows a lot about their customers based on their purchase history, so they personalize and offer
their customers special offers based on the customers’ interests. This type of personalization not only
increases customer satisfaction but also drives loyalty and repetitive purchases.
Indeed, according to the research, more than half of online shoppers believe that retailers who personalize
their offers provide a valuable service. Even more, interestingly, 45% of consumers are more likely to shop
on a site with personalized offers.

Netflix
Another well-known customization leader is Netflix. Netflix has revolutionized the movie and online
entertainment industries. Netflix captures the intent of the users, constantly researching the interests of its
customers. Based on the user behavior, you might find an actor that you recognize, an exciting moment like
a car chase, or a dramatic scene that conveys the essence of a movie or TV show in your feed.
“This is yet another way Netflix differs from traditional media offerings: we don’t have one product but
over 100 million different products with one for each of our members with personalized
recommendations and personalized visuals.” – shares the tech team of Netflix.

Facebook
Despite recent privacy controversies with Facebook, the social media giant has mastered the art of
personalization up to perfection and has a lot to teach us. Facebook personalizes all the content that a user
gets: user feed and updates, local event suggestions, ads, marketplace offers, and so on. By personalizing
the whole user experience, Facebook catches our attention and develops a strong connection to the user.

Mojo Coffee
Often, to create a memorable service, you don’t have to collect all the customer data online, but to be
there with them. Talk to them, listen to them, and remember them. A great example of such a company is
Mojo Coffee, a chain of coffee shops in New Zealand. Despite having 30+ coffee shops, each of them has a
unique atmosphere and a close relationship with their visitors.
“What makes Mojo different from other coffee shops is it’s got the resources of a large company, but
definitely with the heart of a small company. We ask you how your day is going and we remember your
name and what you like to drink, how you like to drink it. So it’s those small touches, those fine details, that
make Mojo a special place.” – Christian Cook, Mojo’s barista, says in the interview.

Another example of personal relationships affecting the impression and experience of the customer by
Shep Hyken, customer experience expert, and keynote speaker.
Shep describes his experience when staying in a hotel in New York. He had a short chat with reception
workers and to his huge surprise, they remembered that he mentioned his wife is coming and prepared for
her visit by sending up a bottle of wine, some fruit, and chocolate, in addition to a framed picture of them
together, which totally amazed Shep. “Regardless of the type of business you are in, there is always an
opportunity to personalize the customer experience,” – concludes Shep.
Coca-Cola

Personalization can be a powerful marketing tool if combined together with the virality of social media. You
might remember the “Share a Coke”-campaign when Coca-Cola replaced its logo with personal names on
the bottles. Coca-Cola allowed its customers to self-express and stay connected with friends while
unknowingly promoting the brand. For example, when a consumer shares a name-branded Coke bottle
with their mother, they feel as if they are honoring their mother rather than promoting the Coke brand
itself.
The campaign went viral in Australia where it started, and the brand decided to spread it across the globe
in over 80 countries. The results have been astonishing. After almost a decade of declining Coca-Cola
consumption, Australia estimated that the campaign increased the consumption of Coke by young adults by
7% and in the US, the sales have increased by more than 2%.

Privacy concerns, or Privacy paradox

While personalization has been a hot trend in recent years, privacy concerns have also been on the rise.
Which one is more important: privacy or personalization? As customers we want businesses to know our
needs and suggest services and content, yet when companies appear to have all these insights we freak out
and are much less likely to engage with them.
That isn’t news. According to Accenture’s research done among the US population, 58% of consumers
would switch half or more of their spending to a provider that excels at personalizing experiences without
compromising trust.
There are differences between age groups. 64% of millennials value anticipation and customization of the
experience, which requires utilizing their transaction data, over privacy concerns. Among this group, 46%
value personalization, which requires also preferences and contact info, over privacy concerns. At the same
time, 45% of baby boomers (age 55 and over) value privacy over personalization.

What to do?
A large part of consumers highly values the personalized experiences they get. Look at the examples we
discussed: Netflix would not be as successful as it is, without the smart targeting it can do. But privacy
concerns do exist. Therefore both businesses and consumers need to evolve their ways of working.
Customers need to pay closer attention to what they’re agreeing to and take responsibility for sharing their
information. But this is only possible when businesses strive to be more transparent when it comes to the
use of customer data.

How B2B Sales Can Benefit from Social Selling

Outbound B2B sales are becoming less and less effective. In fact, a recent survey found that connecting
with a prospect now takes 18 or more phone calls, callback rates are below 1%, and only 24% of outbound
sales emails are ever opened. Meanwhile, 84% of B2B buyers are now starting the purchasing process with
a referral, and peer recommendations are influencing more than 90% of all B2B buying decisions.
Why are more and more buyers avoiding salespeople during the buying process? Sales reps, according
to Forrester, tend to prioritize a sales agenda over solving a customer’s problem. If organizations don’t
change their outdated thinking and create effective sales models for today’s digital era, Forrester warns
that 1 million B2B salespeople will lose their jobs to self-service e-commerce by 2020.
The answer to the shift away from reliance on outbound sales could reside in social selling, the strategy of
adding social media to the sales professional’s toolbox. With social selling, salespeople use social media
platforms to research, prospect, and network by sharing educational content and answering questions. As a
result, they’re able to build relationships until prospects are ready to buy.
This is different than social media marketing, where a brand engages many, aiming to increase overall
brand awareness or promote a specific product or service by producing content that users will share with
their network. Social selling concentrates on producing focused content and providing one-to-one
communication between the salesperson and the buyer. Both strategies create valuable content from the
consumer’s perspective and use similar social networks and social software tools. But with social selling,
the goal is for the rep to form a relationship with each prospect, providing suggestions and answering
questions rather than building an affinity for the organization’s brand.
Social selling makes sense for achieving quota and revenue objectives for multiple reasons. First, three out
of four B2B buyers rely on social media to engage with peers about buying decisions. In a recent B2B
buyers survey, 53% of the respondents reported that social media plays a role in assessing tools and
technologies, and when making a final selection.
In addition, more than three-quarters (82%) of the B2B buyers said the winning vendor’s social content had
a significant impact on their buying decision. A LinkedIn survey found that B2B buyers are five times more
likely to engage with a sales rep who provides new insights about their business or industry.
Another survey showed that 72% of the B2B salespeople who use social media report that they
outperformed their sales peers, and more than half of them indicated they closed deals as a direct result of
social media.
Social sales content also gets salespeople involved earlier in the sales cycle, which means they’re more
likely to define the criteria for an ideal solution or the “buying vision,” and thus, more likely to win the sale.
It doesn’t take a significant amount of time to get started in social selling. B2B salespeople only need to
invest 5% to 10% of their time to be successful with social. Salespeople should begin carving out a small
percentage of their daily time for social media. Regular interaction with a prospect may not lead to a direct
sale this week or quarter, but could result in a significant win within the year.
Salespeople should also collaborate with their social marketing counterparts to make the most of their
social efforts. Marketing can train salespeople in social media systems, processes, and best practices.
According to a survey, 75% of B2B salespeople indicated they were trained in the effective use of social
media. This training can encompass everything from working in specific social media channels to using
corporate social media software, understanding the business’s social media guidelines, and orienting social
media content around customer interests and needs, rather than on brand features, benefits, and prices.
What’s more, sales and marketing can collaborate on information to ensure that their efforts are aligned
and to identify common goals and metrics that both teams can support. Since sales pride themselves on
their one-on-one relationships with customers, they can discuss with marketing customer successes and
concerns, changing customer needs, customer questions, and industry updates.
Integrating systems and encouraging transparency will also go a long way. Salesforce, for example,
emphasizes the importance of improved communication between sales and marketing citing an App Data
Room and Marketo study that found sales and marketing alignment can improve sales efforts at closing
deals by 67% and help marketing generate 209% more value from their efforts.
One way to improve communication between sales and marketing is by creating a portal. BMC Software, a
B2B IT solutions company, took this approach when they created BMC BeSocial, a secure portal where
salespeople can find content created by marketing and other employees to share by posting immediately or
scheduling for later. The portal also provides guidelines, tips, and frequently asked questions on how to use
social media.
Carlos Gil, the Head of Global Social Media Marketing for BMC Software, and his team of content creators,
social media managers, socially engaged salespeople, and other employees developed a well-articulated
and tailored employee advocacy program. BMC then leverages LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to deliver a
mix of content — everything from eBooks, whitepapers, and blogs to videos, news, events, and updates.
For salespeople and other socially engaged employees to get started, they sign up to BeSocial with their
LinkedIn account and then select and share content curated by Gil’s business unit. The BeSocial portal
makes social easy and fun, offering badges to gamify the experience, which provides an incentive to share.
The portal and program are working. Social media is helping to raise awareness, increase percentage of
mentions or share of voice compared to competitors, and drive global demand for BMC products and
services.
After all, social media is too important to be left to marketing. In fact, a recent study found skilled social
media sales professionals are six times more likely to exceed quota over peers with basic or no social media
skills. It is time to get started with social selling and meet your prospects where they’re spending their
time. Your organization could be halfway there if marketing has already made the shift to integrating social
media into their strategies. When marketing combines their long-game with sales short game in social
selling, it can be a win-win for both teams — and for your overall business.

What’s the Difference Between B2B and B2C Branding?

While Business-to-Business (B2B) and Business-to-Customer (B2C) branding have some similarities, some
important differences are critical to understand when developing and promoting your small business
brand.
Customer motivation
 B2B purchases are motivated primarily by logic and reason. Decisions are made based on facts,
statistics, and numbers. Emotion enters in as a fear of making a poor decision; branding the
business as an expert helps overcome this fear.
 B2C purchases are motivated primarily by emotion, whether that emotion is fear, attraction, or the
desire for status. Branding succeeds by appealing to the target market’s emotions.
Customer needs or wants
 B2B customers are driven by need. Companies don't buy new software systems on impulse; they
seek out products and services in order to solve a problem or do something better.
 B2C customers may be driven by need, but just as often, they’re motivated by wants or impulses--
that's why supermarkets put candy in the checkout aisle.
Number of customers
 B2B products and services are sold to large groups of people; making a purchase involves many
levels of approval. Your brand needs to appeal to a wide range of stakeholders in different jobs who
all have different criteria for the purchase.
 B2C products and services are sold to individuals; while there may be times family members or
friends are involved in a decision, your brand generally only has to appeal to one person.
Range of customers
 B2B companies have a smaller range of prospective customers to target. The brand must be
carefully tailored to appeal to that niche and demonstrate an in-depth understanding of those
customers.
 B2C companies have a wide range of prospective customers to target. Their brand doesn't have to
appeal to all of them to succeed; the goal is to build brand awareness among the greatest number
of target customers.
Buyer persona
 The B2B "buyer persona" focuses on the prospect's job role, not on him or her as an individual.
 The B2C "buyer persona" focuses on the prospect’s individual characteristics and demographics,
such as marital status, spending habits, household income, age, and gender.
Customer relationship
 B2B branding is all about building a relationship with the customer. Products and services are
generally sold through direct interaction with a salesperson, and the brand must provide a complete
solution (not only a product or service but ongoing support and someone to service the
relationship). The brand focus is on creating a full experience and working with the customer for the
long term.
 B2C branding is transactional rather than relational. Even when products and services are sold
directly by a salesperson, the relationship is very short-term and often a one-time purchase.
Product information
 B2B branding must convey expertise. Prospective customers making big decisions seek information
to educate themselves about your solution. Your content marketing should provide lots of detail
and include longer-form content; the goal is to brand the business as a thought leader.
 B2C branding must convey benefits. Prospective customers don't necessarily need a lot of
information about a B2C brand. Even if you're selling a relatively complex service, such as
landscaping, home renovation, or personal training, the goal is to brand your business as providing
benefits that prospects care about.
Purchase price
 B2B purchases are expensive, often costing thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars. The
purchase is seen as a long-time investment, and the buyer has a set budget.
  B2C purchases range widely in costs but are much less expensive than B2B purchases. While cost is
often a factor and many consumers are motivated by discounts and deals, this is rarely the sole
motivation for a purchase.
Sales cycle
 B2B companies have a longer sales cycle because of the many stakeholders involved in the purchase
and the higher cost of the products and services. The goal of their branding is to build trust over the
duration of the sales cycle.
 B2C companies have a very short sales cycle — sometimes only seconds long. The goal of their
branding is to have an emotional impact on the prospect that spurs them to buy.
Conversions
 The goal of B2B branding and marketing is to convert prospects into customers; then the
salesperson takes over.
 The goal of B2C branding and marketing is to convert customers into buyers; buyers make their own
decisions without a lot of handholding.