Could your enterprise business be sitting on a goldmine and still not be recognizing it? A study of 200 of the largest B2B companies in the United States and United Kingdom has shown that these businesses may have missed out on close to 70,000 sales opportunities in the past year. According to BrandWatch, the social media analytics company that conducted the study, most of these opportunities may be in the form of missed intents to purchase.
By definition, intent to purchase refers to scenarios where a prospective customer may have indicated their inclination to purchase a product. This could be in the form of online mentions or user behaviors. For instance, a small business looking for a helpdesk software could have tweeted their followers asking for recommendations. If your business was not mentioned by one of the followers, it is likely that the small business owner may have never researched your product – in effect, a lost opportunity.
Traditional B2B marketers are often guilty of not paying heed to online marketing requirements. This is especially true in the case of businesses where a predominantly high percentage of businesses still come from trade fairs and cold calls. Is the poor contribution of the online channel to the top-line possibly due to a vicious cycle created by inadequate focus on the website? If you are in a business that does not have an online marketing manager still, the following points will help you identify the mistakes in your online business strategy that could be leaking your business valuable money.
Not Walking Through Your Product
In traditional marketing, you do not demonstrate your product until you sit face-to-face with your prospects. In the online space however, businesses have less than 7 seconds to draw the attention of the prospect. The absence of an online demonstration, especially when your competition is doing it, is one of the top reasons to not have a successful online channel.
Take the example of Autodesk PLM 360 – this is a tool for managers to bring all tasks in a product's lifecycle under one umbrella. Prospective visitors to the website educate themselves on the features through a demo video. This not only makes a face-to-face demonstration redundant but also helps the prospect take a quicker decision. What was typically an outbound marketing process can be seamlessly converted into an inbound sale with just a simple change in the product's webpage.
Not Connecting With Prospects On Social Media
As the BrandWatch study shows, customers regularly ask for recommendations from their friends and followers on social media websites like Facebook and Twitter. Not having a dedicated social media team prevents your company from identifying possible opportunities that can be converted into a sale. Also, being present on social media can help you instantly reach out to unhappy customers and thus prevent a minor goof-up from snowballing into a PR disaster.
Not Retargeting Your Visitors
A majority of enterprise businesses, regardless of the industry they operate in, advertise on the internet today. What they however miss is the retargeting. According to a study conducted by marketing automation company Marketo, an overwhelming 95% of visitors to your website are there to research about your product and are not ready to make a purchase. However, 70% of your website visitors will eventually purchase the product either from you or your competitors. What this means is that given the right marketing strategy, it is possible to convert as much as 70% of your visitors into customers. Retargeting is the mechanism of advertising to customers who have already visited your website. By showing your ad to people who already know your business, it is possible to reinforce your brand and thus be more visible than competition. Executed right, this will help businesses convert past visitors into customers. Retargeting is available on all major advertising platforms including Adwords and Facebook.
What are some other common mistakes B2B companies do when it comes to marketing over the internet? Share your opinions in the comments.