What happened to the B2B customer experience? An inordinate amount of attention has been paid to the evolution of retail consumer marketing, the adoption of digital advertising, social media marketing, and other new media.

In many cases, B2B businesses have fallen behind in adoption of cutting-edge technologies and techniques. Websites have fallen into disrepair, even neglect. And no one notices, that is, except for the prospects and customers.

Even if the B2B business has just launched a new website, that site may not be designed with the customer experience in mind, optimized to facilitate discovery, planned to leverage content marketing initiatives, or infused with inbound marketing processes to nurture leads and convert to sales.

Considerations for Improving the Customer Experience

1. A Website is No Longer Just a Website

Congratulations on your shiny new site. But now what? The game has changed. the shift has happened. Today’s consumer arrives at your site already educated through web search and armed with remarkable intelligence. And regardless of your business sector your customer has expectations of how your business enables and responds to your community.

Are you engaging your prospects and customers across all platforms – not just the website? Are you creating valuable content that binds the website and the marketing messages together? Are your customers compelled to share this content in their respective networks?

2. Customer Engagement Begins with a Digital Strategy

A well-conceived and properly developed digital strategy is absolutely critical to most every successful B2B marketing plan. When executed, it will leverage all your internet, social, and content marketing initiatives in a way that will generate leads and result in new revenue incredibly fast.

A digital ecosystem schematic will illustrate how internet traffic (demand) will be generated and how it is commandeered and routed between web site, blog, audio, video, ebooks, eNewsletters, as well as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and other social sharing platforms.

3. Inbound Marketing Converts Leads Into Customers

Inbound marketing is based on the concept of earning the attention of prospects, making yourself easy to be found, and drawing customers to your website by producing content that customers value.

This process facilitates and hastens client discovery of your offerings, increases web traffic, generates leads, facilitates sales conversations, and builds loyalty with consumers.

1. Generate more traffic
2. Turn visitors into leads
3. Convert leads to sales
4. Turn customers into repeat higher margin customers
5. Analyze, refine, and repeat

Inbound marketing is especially effective for those businesses with long research cycles and knowledge-based products. In these areas prospects are more likely to get informed and hire those who demonstrate expertise.

Given that the average B2B purchase is often many multiples of those made by retail customers, the stakes are high. Investment in customer acquisition strategy and tactics are critical to long-term success.

Your digital marketing agency partner will help you create multiple paths to revenue and give you the technology and consultation that will positively impact your bottom line quickly, this quarter.

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In our work as a digital marketing agency, one of the most common declarations we hear from prospective clients is:

“I’m spending the same marketing dollars yet my brand equity is increasingly diluted.”

Every time we hear this phrase we hurt a little for the client. But we smile on the inside because before us is a client that we can help. We can help them overcome the cumulative effects of changing consumer behavior that are driven by technology, the resulting fracturing of the media marketplace, and the ages old issue of “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”

The brand message becomes diluted resulting in reduced brand equity – a widely suffered malady known as Fuzzy Brand.

Here’s why some brands are experiencing diminishing awareness and significance as well as some prescriptions to cure fuzzy brand and rebuild brand equity:

1. Media use has fractured. The same money spent in the same places is most likely producing diminishing results. Television used to be the de facto mass reach medium. First the networks, then cable television and the 1000-channel universe. Terrestrial radio was followed by satellite radio and then internet radio. Add online and mobile smart phones and there are infinite programming possibilities and platforms of distraction for consumers. Brand activity must now happen across the right mix of platforms and aggregate audiences that use each medium in a unique way.

2. Interruptive marketing is not an effective stand-alone strategy. Television is still relevant. But how it is used and extended in order to continue brand engagement off-platform is critical. For instance, a portion of each campaign could include an interruptive message that includes a clear call to action. The same campaign could include video content that the user is invited to view based on his or her preferences. This is usually facilitated through social media and inbound online discovery. A common faux pas would be to use paid interruptive techniques to deliver content marketing initiatives.

3. All media should be measurable. More than just ratings points, creative, where appropriate, should include calls to action that can be validated and lead to solid paths of monetization. Read: Impact the bottom line. Every channel can and should deliver measurable results.

4. Traditional should coordinate with Digital. Multi-platform campaigns should consider in-program and content initiatives that promote interaction of the audience with the brand, offer strong calls-to-action, collect data, and allow conversion to sale, and create traffic to bricks and mortar stores, where applicable.

5. Engagement for engagement sake is B.S. Engagement is a buzzword among coffee shop social media experts. But the truth is that engagement is only worthwhile if it’s leading somewhere. Furthering the brand conversation is nice, but how does this activity convert to a sale? The brand benefits from engagement, with a purpose.

6. The media mix is probably out of alignment. Every marketing strategy is different. However, if you are spending the same proportions of your budgets in the same places as five years ago, your media mix needs immediate assessment.

Avoid the effects of Fuzzy Brand.

If your customers are asking you where your brand went, it’s time to make some changes. Your strategy-driven digital marketing agency will help you understand the environmental changes that have challenged your product or service. They will help you coordinate all of your media activity. And they will work with you to realign your marketing strategy and tactics in a way that will dramatically improve your campaigns and rebuild your brand equity.

Suffering From Fuzzy Brand?

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