Recommended Revenue-Driving Measures from Your Onsite Data: B2B and Industry. by Christin Stefanov and Benjamin Sendlewski Webtrekk GmbH

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1 Recommended Revenue-Driving Measures from Your Onsite Data: B2B and Industry by Christin Stefanov and Benjamin Sendlewski

2 Increasing customer acquisition, retention and engagement as well as the optimization of services and supply chains are just a view of the benefits that online platforms offer business-to-business (B2B) and industrial companies. As the world s B2B and industrial companies increasingly tap into the power of e-commerce, they are facing brand new technical and social challenges related to digitalization. Even today, many companies see e-commerce as only partly suitable for B2B. After all, when it comes to complex requirements for machines, goods and services, the actual conversion is often not done with a click. What s more, a lot of the production is done on demand. Nevertheless, the digital world is more important than ever before for B2B companies. Pri-vate, B2C shopping habits are influencing what your shoppers expect from your B2B store. E-commerce standards are becoming B2B standards. The online presentation of your offers and services is only the first step, as individual cus-tomer care and personalization are becoming essential in today s business-to-business commerce. A base of data Today s users expect a unique and authentic website that will guide them to the right infor-mation at the right time. How can you make this happen? To personalize your B2B shop, you have to know your customer. To achieve this, you need to track user behavior online and offline. Especially in this industry, lead generation is often done independent of the webshop by phone or on paper. To know the needs of your users, you have to combine both online and offline data to view the customer journey in its entirety. For this purpose, a good analytics tool is as important as a data management platform (DMP) where all user and customer information is stored. On your website, you want to make sure to gather every event within the user journey. Where did the user come from and which campaign drew their attention? You can also import mar-keting costs for a better evaluation of the ROI. User paths and actions will give you more de-tailed information about interests and affinities. Track the internal search to know what the customer was looking for and optimize your website to that effect. B2B 2

3 Such information, as well as other user preferences, can be asked in forms or surveys on your website. By using form tracking, for example, you will be able to analyse the answers given by your customers or detect weaknesses that keep users from buying (and therefore could and should be optimized). This will not only help you to generate new leads but also increase the customer loyalty and shop revenue in the long run. Also, additional information like your CRM data, including offline orders and other external data, should be imported to enrich your online user profiles, combining all data silos to one data management platform (DMP). Only with a complete and up to date database it will be possible to successfully personalize your B2B shop. User segmentation Once a solid data foundation is created, user segments can be built based on certain historic or real-time behaviors. Let s say, for example, that you want to address only customers from a specific industry, or large customers who already spent a certain order value on your web-site. By tracking the live behavior of the user, you can also determine whether he or she is looking for general industry information, is interested in certain brands or special offers for his regular orders, etc. Subsequently, dynamic content can be displayed. This will not only help you to generate new leads but also increase the customer loyalty and shop revenue in the long run. Use the information you already know about the customer to provide a branded customer section after the login. A clear overview of the industry they are interested in, as well as con-tent that matches historical behavior, will help the user quickly navigate and find what he needs. Customized shopping experience Use the information you already know about the customer to provide personalized experi-ence. A clear overview of the industry your shopper is interested in, as well as content that supports his historical behavior, will help the user to quickly navigate and find what he needs. B2B 3

4 Especially in daily business, frequent orders such as consumable supplies or spare parts make up a great portion of procurement costs. To save any unwanted effort for the customer, display product recommendations for example, the user s last bought or viewed products. In this way you enable a quick checkout for frequently bought products. For new customers, show the top products of each industry on the corresponding landing page. Next to highlighting your products and services, it is also important to provide further infor-mation like news and trends for the preferred shop branch. Use onsite recommendations to display the most downloaded product brochures or news to increase the user engagement on your site and promote loyalty by seeing your website as a source for research, as well. Customer Service Speaking of research, you don t want your customers to leave your website after they are done collecting information. In the end, your website offers the best way to collect leads by offering several contact functionalities. Once you were already able to get the users interest in your offer you want to try to keep him on your side. One way to do that is to identify users who might be ready to exit your website. For instance, users that move the cursor to the top of the page are indicating that they are about to leave the website. When this happens you can show them a layer with reasons to stay on the site or to keep in contact. This could be a notification asking what the user was looking for and offering your help. B2B 4

5 Ask the customer to leave contact information so you are able keep in touch. You already know for what products and topics the user was gathering information, or you can ask him directly in a survey layer what he would like to know more about. Especially in B2B, when it comes to complex requirements and high order values, the customer journey can take several months until the actual order is placed. When it comes to direct customer service, business clients have different requirements than in a B2C environment. To approach one of the most important needs you need to provide self-service for your customers, in which numerous services and tools regarding the ordering process are available at all times. Functionalities like a transparent supply chain and a clear overview of orders and bills of delivery will not only improve the usability of your site, but also strengthen the loyalty of your customer base and increase the attractiveness of your website for new customers. Newsletter Another way to stay in contact with your customers is to take advantage of newsletters. Especially in B2B, when it comes to complex requirements and high order values, the customer journey can take several months until the actual order is placed. To be remembered by the customer, you should promote your offers frequently via newsletter campaigns. The content could be adjusted to the categories and industries the user was looking at. Also, newsletter remarketing can re-engage prospects by displaying dynamic recommen-dations of products the customer was looking at or left in the basket. A personalized land-ing page will support the customer even more based on their interests. B2B 5

6 Individual search campaigns To get information during the purchase process, business clients use Google just as much as consumers. Therefore, search remarketing plays an important role when it comes to generat-ing leads: You can reach the user when the willingness to convert is highest. Decisive for search marketing in general is a top-ranking position in the search results. Most of the users do not make the effort to look through many results and are most likely to en-gage with the first prominent placements, which are AdWords campaigns. With search remarketing you target users who have already visited your website and are familiar with your portfolio. When the visitor leaves your website without having generated an order or a lead, personalized AdWords campaigns are displayed depending on the user s interests. For example, if you have a new customer who purchases consumables like paper towels or beverages, chances for a repurchase are high. To make sure these users turn into steady customers you may want to bid up for those users when they search for these kinds of prod-ucts again. Those bids can then be readjusted downwards after a certain number of repeat purchases (and reactivated after a certain period of inactivity). Also, when it comes to higher order values like building machinery, it is even more frustrating when the user leaves your website right after adding the product to the cart without the actual order. To further optimize the AdWords bids, these users can additionally be segmented regarding their order value. The higher the customer value, the more you should be willing to reinvest in your potential customers. This will have a positive impact on the click-through rate, conversion rate and return on in-vestment for your SEM campaigns. Social media interactions Social networks like Facebook offer a good way to get in touch with your potential customers, as well as B2B portals such as LinkedIn or Xing. B2B 6

7 Identify your target groups and use the advantage of these platforms to directly share rele-vant content. Again, to target the most relevant individuals, you need to analyze your audi-ence and create small segments. Use the retargeting opportunities to export your defined target groups and promote, for example, your new content or offers. To generate new leads, decision makers are also often correspondent for a direct approach like a personal message. Here you should concentrate on discussions on an expert level, like starting with the promotion of white paper and similar content. Build a Bridge from Online to Offline Transfer your online-knowledge to your offline business. If you detect that certain products or product categories are getting more views and sales online, you can pass this information to account managers. With this knowledge, they are armed with the data they need to engage in meaningful offline conversations and make your customers aware of the changes and confirm the trend or refute in personal appointment. You can transform the online data into an offline consulting. Track online print offline Make better catalogues by using website to determine what is more relevant. Highlight the products that have been viewed and purchased by the major customer segments most fre-quently. With this information, you create specific catalogues that fit exactly to your custom-ers needs and provide bundles of the most relevant products and increase the satisfaction of your customers. Conclusion B2B commerce providers who know their customers and can fall back on a well-structured database are able to offer better pass-accurate and relevant content to every visitors. These providers benefit from loyal customers and increasing sales. So, if they know their customers needs it will be easier to offer exactly the right products and services to the customers. The focus is on the customer acquisition and retention. B2B 7

8 About Webtrekk Webtrekk is a global provider of digital intelligence solutions, headquartered in Berlin with offices in China, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and the USA. Webtrekk is widely recognised as a leader in digital marketing solutions. Webtrekk offers a wide range of consulting services designed to address digital analytics needs, from strategy to implementation to training. About the Authors Christin Stefanov has been a member of the Webtrekk team since As a consultant, she guides customers in industries such as e-commerce, finance and B2B. She completed an apprenticeship in marketing and communication and has a degree in media technology. Before joining Webtrekk, Christin was also engaged in design and online marketing. Benjamin Sendlewski is an analyst. His previous experience includes working as a geographer, analyzing humidity data from buildings and using monitoring systems for flat roofs and waste deposals. Later he switched to online marketing and was employed as an SEA manager and web data analyst, which was his primary role at Webtrekk. Contact Webtrekk GmbH Robert-Koch-Platz Berlin, Germany Would you like further details on how to drive growth from your data? Want to know how Webtrekk can help? Contact us! Send us an at info@webtrekk.com or give us a call at (0) Visit the Website Book your Demo