The B2B customer experience used to be simple: the customer would go into a store or attend a networking event and interact with the business in person. Or, lines of communication would be built through the mail or telephone.
Over time, the customer experience has become increasingly fragmented because of the plethora of marketing opportunities presented on the Internet. It seems like companies have to use social media, email, video, blogs, banner ads, and more in order to successfully reach customers.
But when you include all these elements into your marketing plan, you risk misrepresenting your company and skewing your voice. And this means that you could be missing out on potential customer conversions.
If you want to make sure that your potential or current customer has an excellent experience with your company no matter what channel they visit, take the following steps:
1. Think about How You Want Customers to See Your Company
To guarantee that your cross-channel marketing plan is comprehensive and on-brand, you have to put yourself in your customer’s shoes and contemplate his or her experience.
How are you going to come off to him or her? Is this in line with your other marketing messages? Are you providing him or her with value every time you’re sending out a new proposition?
This will help you determine whether or not you’re being perceived the same through your email newsletters, white papers, social media updates, and ads. If you’re not staying on-brand, then you’re potentially confusing the customer or causing them to distrust your brand.
2. Measure How They Interact with Your Brand
You can now gather data and see exactly how your customer experience is playing out.
For example, you can tell how long customers watched your videos for, whether or not they clicked on your ads, if they downloaded your white papers, and how often they mention you on social media sites like LinkedIn and Twitter.
By collecting and analyzing this data, you can see where your customer experience is excelling and where it’s falling short. From there, all you have to do is test and tweak your messages to see what works better.
3. Meet Them on the Platforms They Frequent
You’re not going to have any luck reaching a customer who isn’t active on LinkedIn by posting an article to LinkedIn. You will be successful, however, if you send a marketing message to him or her through email, which he or she typically opens.
Your customer experience is going to be made that much richer if you’re marketing to them in the places they actually frequent.
4. Communicate at the Right Time
Your customers want a seamless experience with your company. This means that after they visit your website and input their email addresses to receive a free white paper, it won’t come as a surprise when you try to sell them on your product.
However, if that pitch comes as soon as the white paper is downloaded instead of a few days or even a week after, it may throw off your potential customers because it’s too soon. Your messages have to be timed just right to ensure that your leads are going through the proper sales funnel and are being directed toward a purchase.
Although cross-channel marketing has made B2B marketing that much more complicated, there is also a bigger payoff: the ability to see what customers want, and therefore provide them with the best experience possible.
By putting in the time and effort, both you and your customer can be satisfied with your mutually beneficial relationship.