Are you skeptical about using digital and social media in business marketing? Think it’s only for consumers, and that business customers don’t have time for it? Your competitors don’t think so. And they are gaining competitive advantage by embracing new digital and social methods of connecting with their customers.
Those tools are fast becoming the single most important way to attract new business customers and sustain old ones. Search has become one of the most efficient ways to create and optimize leads. Customers are hungry for more and different kinds of digital content, and new ways to network and engage online.
Increasingly, business customers create great content and experiences to market to their own customers, so they know what they want from suppliers when they themselves are the potential buyers. That doesn’t mean Procter & Gamble expects to see the Old Spice guy selling enterprise software (although maybe it couldn’t hurt). Business customers do expect to see the same unique and effective tools they use: from how-to videos on YouTube, to personalization tools, to employees as customer service reps, to intuitive design that rewards past activity and predictive data analytics.
At the heart of successful digital marketing to business customers are three core qualities: Radical Transparency, Micro-Relevancy and Open Collaboration.
