Oro categorizes B2B eCommerce businesses into 3 distinctly different models by the type of interaction with their buyers. Buyer-seller interaction businesses – a traditional B 2B model, where purchases occur via negotiations with sales reps of the company. Self-service B2C eCommerce sites – where a purchase can happen without any interaction with a representative of the Company.
Personalization tips most applicable to self-service B2B eCommerce businesses. All businesses are intrinsically different, there is not a one-size-fits-all approach. A B2C customer purchases with their heart not necessarily with their heads. They will definitely respond to targeted marketing.
There are often multiple individuals involved in the buying process. Their buying decisions are logical as they tick off their checklist of needs. This is not the realm of the impulse buy. They don’t need flashy bells and whistles but more information and stand out service.
So what can you personalize in B2B?
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Offer informational assets: You want to give the prospect valuable, insightful information that is relevant to them. This can take the form of:
- explainer videos that deconstructs your concept in easy to understand terms;
- spec sheets that show vital stats and raw numbers that the customer is seeking;
- eBooks or white papers that outline the solutions to your buyer’s problems that your product can easily solve;
- demos, webinars and tutorials to demonstrate the capabilities of your product.
- Re-Energize your website: These days most people have a relationship with B2C e-commerce sites. So B2B customers are going to want little bit of the customer friendly functionality of a B2C site. Perhaps it’s time to include a landing page offering promotions, an excellent site search engine and different navigation options. The saved shopping cart and wish list options are a familiar function that users have a strong relationship with online. You want to improve the personalized content for customers arriving at your site so they feel their ongoing relationship with you has been recognized. It needs to look a little more like a B2C site but tailored to the needs of a B2B client.
- Add a quick repeat functionality: B2B customers usually know exactly what they want and will order again. Make their repeat purchase even easier with an order feature that allows the buyer to order the same set of items repeatedly.
- Enable corporate accounts: For B2B purchases there is often a team of decision makers involved. Perhaps you could set up a multiple user role functionality within the same account to simplify the buying process.
- Offer personalized product suggestions: We are all familiar with sites offering us product recommendations based on our buying and search history. B2B e-commerce could adopt this practice to drive further sales, for cross selling or upselling opportunities.
- Streamline your checkout process: The B2B checkout process is way more complicated than B2C. For example, you should take into account that different people (roles) in the company could be compiling and paying for the orders. So you need to make sure that shopping carts can either be easily shared or can be submitted for review to another customer role in your system.
- Create a coherent user experience across all screen resolutions and devices: If you can access your shopping list on the B2B e-commerce site you must be able to see the same information on your mobile device.
- Segment & incentivize: Use the information gathered on customers such as their click activities, personal interests, geographic location, buying and browsing history etc. to deliver personalized marketing content. This will capture their attention with your specific incentives to buy the product.
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