Top use cases for Marketing Automation in B2B eCommerce

The B2B eCommerce industry has seen drastic change over the past few years.

Before 2020, the audience was largely made up of baby boomers and Gen X. Getting their information from spreadsheets, collateral, trade shows, conferences, and print.

Today, 73% of millennials are involved in the B2B eCommerce buying process. And have flipped the industry upside down.

This was the first generation to grow up alongside the internet and technology. They are digitally-savvy, adaptable, and know how to conduct their online research.

As a result, 55% of B2B eCommerce marketing budgets are poured into digital efforts. Notably, automation.

Read on to learn some of the automation use cases from our clients within the B2B eCommerce industry.

You may just find yourself inspired.

Capturing and consolidating data for personalised experiences

Challenge

With buying habits rapidly changing, B2B eCommerce businesses need to gain a fuller understanding of their audience. This will enable them to offer a highly personalised experience, and stand out from the competition.

The key to achieving this capturing and consolidating data. Which can become particularly costly when relying on Google or other paid ads.

B2B eCommerce businesses need to set a solid data capture and consolidation strategy to begin to understand their audience and offer them a personalised experience.

Solution

To reduce costs, businesses need to focus on capturing data on their own website. Which can be supported through personalised website automations such as data capture forms, recommended products, promotional pop ups, and dynamic pages.

Next, businesses should consolidate all of their data systems, from CRM to ESP, spreadsheets, and hardcopies. To keep their data organised and reduce siloes.

Because according to 37% of marketers, successful personalisation needs to draw from a single data source. One that is developed with data across the entire business.

Gain a fuller understanding of target audience

Challenge

A key benefit of capturing and consolidating data is that it offers a fuller understanding of the target audience.

Marketers in this industry need to remain agile and respond to different audiences and customer demands. Therefore they need to form a full picture of who is engaging, their lifetime value, segments, high LTV vs low, and of course RFM segments

Solution

Marketers can use automation dashboards and pre-built segments to utilise their data and better understand their target audience’s behaviour.

They can identify their best customers, as well as those who are likely to churn, and automate personalised communications accordingly.

Reputable automation platforms will offer customer lifecycle dashboards. Providing actionable RFE, RFM, and CLTV segments to help understand target audiences and inform targeted marketing.

Engage new customers and increase acquisition rates

Challenge

73% of B2B marketers agree that customer expectation of highly personalised, targeted experiences is increasing rapidly. Customers now demand an efficient, seamless, and tailored shopping experience across the channels they prefer.

And with much of the buying process done prior to contacting sales, businesses need to ensure they have as much control as possible at this stage of the buying cycle.

This level of targeting isn’t simple. Many businesses in this industry will want to personalise based on region, customer type, account manager, and so on.

Solution
Businesses in B2B eCommerce need to focus on providing a hyper-personalised experience to engage and acquire new customers. Before their competitors do.

With the use of consolidated data and a full understanding of their customer base, marketers in this industry can provide highly tailored automations based on demographic, behavioural, and purchase data. Offering the right message at the right time.

They can virtually hold the hand of their audience through personalised welcome and nurturing campaigns and workflows, as well as offering tailored pricing and shipping, product recommendations, and relevant offers.

Encourage loyalty and repeat purchases

Challenge

Retaining customers is arguably more important than bringing on new ones. After all, it is five to 25 times more expensive to acquire a new subscriber than to keep one.

But with differing needs at different stages of the customer lifecycle. Ensuring that communications are relevant to the customer needs and requirements can be a challenge.

Solution

Continuous engagement with current customers is essential to increasing loyalty and repeat purchases.

Fortunately, automation offers lots of opportunities when it comes to keeping customers happy.  It enables businesses to trigger relevant communications at every stage of the customer lifecycle.

Predict customers’ purchases before they do with replenishment campaigns. Maintain engagement for longer periods with subscription models. And encourage repeat purchases with upsell and cross sell campaigns, and product suggestions

Do you work within the B2B eCommerce industry?

If you’re a business in this industry and are struggling to consolidate data, understand your audience, and retain customers. We can help.

Get in touch for a no obligation chat with one of our friendly experts.