One of the most critical aspects of successful marketing is
understanding buyer preferences and adapting strategies to keep them in line with
what potential customers want and expect.
However, while buyers’ preferences are constantly and
quickly changing, marketing organizations are often slower to evolve.
Lately, changes in customer behavior have come especially
quickly, as trends such as mobile technology and easier access to information
along with increased pressures to make smarter and more financially sound
buying decisions have altered what customers do during the buying cycle and
what ultimately influences their decisions.
To avoid losing business to the competition, marketers
should look at three key areas where many business buyers feel their needs
aren’t being met:
Time:
These days, people want and expect everything faster, and
that goes for their communications with businesses. Marketers need to change
their strategies to keep up.
Leads should be contacted soon after they take an action
while their interest is still high, Rob Butters, Principle Analyst with Frost
&Sullivan, said recently in his marketing tips video blog. Responders who are contacted in
the first hour of the first day are typically very receptive to the call,
Butters said. After the first day, success rates usually drop by more than 50%.
Buyers are increasingly demanding quick responses, and if they don’t get them,
they’ll likely buy from someone else, according to a survey from Velocify and Zogby
analytics.
The poll featured responses from 1,000 adults who had
submitting queries to get more information about a company’s products or
services, including a third who were buying on behalf of a business.
Among the respondents, more than 60% said if they don’t get
a response with 24 hours, they feel the company is going too slow. In fact, 29%
even expect a response within the hour.
Failure to meet those demands is costing companies business,
as 64% of business buyers said a slow response has influenced their purchasing
decisions. And 71% said the first company that responds to them has the
advantage.
Time becomes less important after an initial contact has
been made, according to Velocify. The majority (62%) said they preferred to be
contacted by the same salesperson every time even if it meant waiting longer,
while the rest want to be called as quickly as possible by whoever is
available. However, most still said they aren’t willing to wait more than a day
so they can speak with the same person.
Information:
In addition to the speed of contact, today’s customers crave
information and content. They’re putting in more effort to be better informed
about products and services well before they get in touch with the business.
That’s especially true in B2B sales, according to Velocify.
Among business buyers surveyed, 62% said they typically spend three hours or
longer researching before submitting an inquiry. In many cases, businesses can improve simply by giving buyers
the information they ask for. More than half of respondents in Velocify’s survey
said they’ve had an experience in which they’ve submitted an inquiry but never
got a response.
Customers also do research on their own, and they expect
content from a variety of different sources. Two-thirds of business buyers say
they’ve been increasing the number of sources they use to research vendors,
according to a recent survey from Demand Gen
Report. Therefore, marketers must make sure they’re offering plenty of content
in a variety of formats and through a variety of channels.
One area that content should focus on: the financial benefit
for customers. Close to half (45%) of survey respondents said they’re
conducting more detailed ROI and cost analyses than in the past.
Relevance is also key for customers – business decision
makers want to know what a product or service will do for companies like their
own. When asked what types of content were important, the top two answers from
the buyers surveyed by Demand Gen Report were:
- · Articles and resources targeted to my industry (45%)
- · Case study examples of other companies similar to mine (27%)
Mobility:
The increasing use of mobile devices is one of the top
trends affecting marketers, as those smartphones and tablets are changing the
way buyers want to communicate with companies.
As Butters said during a recent webinar, B2C marketers have largely figured out mobile
marketing, while B2B marketers lag behind. While specific strategies will vary
based on industry and customer base, it’s important that organizations create a
mobile strategy.
However, the majority of companies (71%) rate their mobile
marketing efforts as average or worse, according to a Frost
& Sullivan survey of marketing executives. While some tools such as
mobile apps and mobile-optimized web pages and emails are currently being used,
businesses are failing to take advantage of other important strategies,
including mobile-social integration, text messaging, mobile ads, and
location-based targeting.
Insufficient budgets and a lack of a defined strategy are
two of the biggest obstacles in the way of more effective mobile marketing,
according to survey respondents. But despite those challenges, mobility is
critical for marketers, and in fact, it may be even more important for B2B
marketing than B2C. According to Velocify’s survey, 63% of business buyers have
done a significant amount of their research on a mobile device, compared to 28%
of consumers.
The bottom line: Buyers want a lot of information, and they
want to be able to access it wherever they are at any given time, with whatever
device they have available. Likewise, they expect quick contact and hate
feeling ignored by the companies they want to do business with. It’s up to
marketers to change their strategies to meet those demands and stay ahead of
the competition.
About the Author:
Sam Narisi is the Publications Editor for Frost & Sullivan’s
Integrated Marketing Solutions Practice, which helps companies grow their
business through all stages of the customer buying cycle. For more marketing
information and insight, visit Frost & Sullivan’s IMS Knowledge Center.
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