We live in the era of the Internet and social media, and whether we like it or not, we as marketers need to adjust. The era of social media has changed the rules of the marketing game dramatically. This is true not just for the B2B space but for every space and for every type of business relationship.
In the era of the Internet, people and businesses no longer rely on companies’ sales representatives to provide them with information. I don’t know about you, but as a consumer, I do all my research – certainly the initial phases – online. Whenever I am faced with a buying decision, the last thing I am going to trust is some promotional email or a brochure from a company. I certainly don’t want a sales person to pressure me to reach a buying decision before I am ready. I am much more comfortable taking my time, carefully researching my options, sometimes waiting for a while before I am ready to make up my mind and part with my money.
In the era of the Internet, B2C and B2B are not that different. I doubt if they ever were that different – after all, when you sell to a business, people are the ones who make the buying decisions, so you are always dealing with people and their reactions and preferences. Now more than ever, the people who make the buying decisions in the B2B space act just the way I act as a consumer – they want to go at their own pace, do their own research online, gather as much info as they can, and take their time before they make a decision.
While your prospects are taking their time and researching, what you want to be doing is not pressuring them to decide with email blasts and painfully obvious promotional content. You want to take a gentle yet effective approach, to always be there in the background, making yourself available to answer questions and to provide truly valuable information. In the era of social media, you want to take it slowly and build a relationship with your prospects, to keep the connection going without pressuring.
However, doing that is very difficult. When you have a fairly large database, how can you possibly keep everyone engaged, provide them with the content they are looking for, answer their specific questions, never become generic or impersonal, and still be in a position where you can pounce and make the sale – at the exact point where your prospect is ready to buy?
The best way – probably the only way – to efficiently manage today’s complex marketing campaigns and to keep the conversation going with each of your prospects is to automate your marketing. Marketing automation works by allowing you to keep in touch with each prospect in a way that makes your communications with them helpful rather than annoying. While doing so manually – segmenting prospects, identifying their needs and responding to them individually – would be too time consuming, marketing automation systems allow you to develop a relationship with each of your prospects and to keep your communications with them helpful and to the point, gently leading them to the sale while allowing them to stay in control.
