BUILDING A WINNING B2B ECOMMERCE STRATEGY IN THE AGE OF THE CUSTOMER

INTRODUCTION

B2B commerce is growing and changing at break-neck speed. In the past, B2B companies depended on offline resources to drive sales efforts and influence buyer behavior. Today, B2B customers are savvier, using multiple digital channels to research and purchase. As buyer demographics shift in favor of millennial digital natives, this trend will only accelerate.

Today’s business buyer is more connected, informed and in control of the buying process than ever before. Forrester Research, Inc. refers to this new era of the connected buyer as the Age of the Customer, wherein successful companies will consistently rethink and rework their approach in order to systematically anticipate and respond to customer needs.1

B2B companies also face unique business and technology challenges that B2C brands rarely encounter. A longer, more complex buying cycle, stakeholder misalignment and fragmented technology stacks are only a few of the obstacles to integrating every digital touch point for their buyers.

B2B companies must evolve their internal and external processes to remain competitive and profitable.

Fail to raise your eCommerce game and you’ll get left behind.

To stay ahead, learn the key elements of a winning B2B ecommerce strategy in the age of the customer.

1 “Make B2B Marketing Thrive in the Age of the Customer,” Forrester Research, Inc., May 21, 2013 2 “Death of a (B2B) Salesman,” Forrester Research, Inc., April 13, 2015

Forrester Research estimates that eCommerce will eliminate 1 million of the 4.5 million B2B sales jobs in the United States by 2020. 2

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DIGITAL EXPERIENCE

CUSTOMER

SALES & SUPPORT TOOLS

Type - Distributors - Dealers - End Consumers

- Pricing - Account Info - Products - Recommendations

Ease of UseAccessibility Via: - Mobile - Tablet - Desktop/Laptop

Personalized Experience Via:

SELF-SERVICE

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GET REAL… AND REALISTIC ABOUT WHAT FRUSTRATES YOUR CUSTOMERS

From support for multiple device types to streamlining the interactions and connections between suppliers and the sales organization, effective B2B eCommerce means thinking beyond the website. This multi-channel approach needs to be in place from the start—omni-channel commerce cannot be an afterthought.

Omni-Channel by DesignB2B companies that execute omni-channel eCommerce tactics well do so by design, and it all begins in-house.3 They operate effectively across functional departments rather than in more typical silos, and address internal challenges quickly and directly. Effective omni-channel teams have a shared understanding of technology capabilities and the role they play in buyer acquisition and engagement. With the right internal structure in place, you can experiment with new sales channels and adapt selling techniques for existing ones.

“B2B companies must start with a vision of where they want to be in five years as an omni-channel B2B seller, set key goals and objectives based on the vision (including defining what they are not going to do in that time frame), and then develop a detailed plan to achieve those key objectives.” 4

When building an omni-channel strategy, it is essential that companies not only focus on the technology solutions but also on business adoption and change management—two critical elements of a successful initiative. Ensure that your process allows you to view your omni-channel strategy holistically by orienting your internal teams and aligning goals to pragmatic solutions that factor potential organizational hurdles into the approach.

3 “Building a World-Class B2B eCommerce Business,” Forrester Research, Inc., January 7, 2013

4 “Death of a B2B Salesman”, Forrester Research, Inc. April 2015

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Embrace MobileMobile is the channel of the moment in eCommerce. What’s more, with tablet adoption gaining ground among buyers, smartphones aren’t the only devices to keep an eye on. Forrester Research estimates that while mobile currently accounts for only 3% to 5% of B2B eCommerce sales, it accounts for 7% to 10% of all B2B eCommerce website traffic.

If your company hasn’t invested in mobile, do it now. Your buyers expect to be able to compare prices, research products and complete transactions at their fingertips. Don’t make the common mistake of treating your mobile presence like a miniature version of your website. Design disciplines like responsive web design, which delivers content to multiple device types using a single base of code and content, can be extremely effective for content-dense B2B websites. And in light of Google’s April 2015 algorithm changes, mobile will be more important than ever for SEO.

Taking a mobile-first approach will not only benefit the customer experience but also assist your internal organization. Mobile enabled sales teams are far more effective through seamless access to essential product information anywhere at any time.

One B2B website that has effectively optimized its mobile and desktop experiences is StaplesAdvantage.com, which relies on images, dense text and drop-down navigation on its desktop site but uses scaled down navigation for its mobile presence. This approach recognizes the difference in needs between desktop shoppers who desire immersive, visual experiences and on-the-go, information-centric mobile customers. Your mobile B2B consumer wants to get to the point and keep moving.

GET REAL... AND REALISTIC

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GET REAL... AND REALISTIC

In addition to evaluating new design and development options to deliver content to buyers across devices, you can explore a broad range of tactics to enhance the buyer experience in every stage of the funnel. Real-time chat features, social customer service and fast, on-the-go access to delivery options are just the tip of the iceberg. The key is to understand your buyers’ preferred channels and meet them there with the right content.

Test, Measure & Adapt

Any company about to embark on an eCommerce transformation needs to think of the process as a journey—starting with the essentials and continuously adding and adjusting based on feedback. Understand where you want to begin and then allow your customers, suppliers, sales teams and internal stakeholders to influence your priorities. Today, measurement against defined metrics is essential to ensure that your customers’ needs are being met.

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Streamlining technology platforms to form a hub for content and commerce will make all the difference. Internally, that means eliminating the redundancy and fragmentation of licensing, release management and hosting costs. You can also reduce time-to-market and development costs and create efficiencies for maintaining content. Externally, a simplified infrastructure can deliver the powerful, holistic digital experience that is now critical to acquiring and retaining B2B customers. However, it’s also important to keep in mind that the changes and consolidation cannot stop with technology. To speed time to market and make a significant impact on your business, you may have to let go of operational processes that were tied to the legacy technologies you’re looking to replace.

Streamlining to Enable Self-Service CapabilitiesToday’s business buyer is looking for a wealth of information through digital channels but is simultaneously demanding accessibility and simplicity. They want to be able to quickly and effectively get to the product and company information that they’re looking for without ever picking up a telephone. “B2B buyers now favor do-it-yourself options for researching products and services. By a factor of 3 to 1, B2B buyers want to self-educate versus talk to sales representatives to learn about products and services.” 5 It starts with two important steps:

1. Re-think your product taxonomy: creating a modern taxonomy that your buyers understand, not one dictated by internal product silos

2. Re-engineer and redesign product search: in our experience, poor search experiences are the root cause of many under-performing transactional sites

BE WILLING TO “LET IT GO”2

5 “Death of a (B2B) Salesman,” Forrester Research, Inc., April 13, 2015

Frankenstack [frank-en-stack] noun

a collection or conglomeration of multiple, disparate technologies typically found in large B2B companies

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Kill the “Frankenstack”We call it “Frankenstack.” Business-to-business companies routinely use multiple technology solutions to address the needs of varying business units, subsidiaries and geographic regions. This approach to eCommerce can create numerous obstacles that will stand in the way of driving sales, including:

• High IT maintenance and operations costs. Costs associated with the human capital required to maintain different solutions can be high, and adding new features and functionality to existing platforms can drive costs even higher.

• A disjointed or unclear picture of customer data. B2B companies often have limited access to customer purchase data through indirect channel partners, making it virtually impossible to develop targeted content or evaluate the ROI of marketing campaigns.

• Limited cross-sell/up-sell opportunities. Using different systems for each channel can hinder the ability to respond to a buyer’s channel preferences or create personalized shopping experiences.

Don’t allow a “Frankenstack” to stand in the way of new customer acquisition and better customer experiences. When the time comes to reevaluate your eCommerce infrastructure, keep it simple.

Here’s HowThe argument for taking a more streamlined approach to eCommerce is clear, but a business needs to have the right solutions in place. No enterprise can completely scrap what it has, but as you work to streamline your technology infrastructure, there are key best practices to consider:

1. Understand the nuts and bolts. Understanding the components of WCM and eCommerce solutions isn’t just the domain of the IT department. Marketing and IT should both understand how the buyer experience is created, how out-of-the-box functionality is used (if applicable) and how integrations will occur.

2. Get marketing and IT aligned. In addition to understanding the technology, both teams need to collaborate on developing the goals, business case and requirements, software and services partner selection.

BE WILLING TO LET IT GO

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3. Look beyond features and function. Product offerings are compelling to a point, but if you compare most enterprise eCommerce and digital experience platforms you’ll see a lot of commonality. What really matters is how a platform will stand up to your unique business needs.

4. Start data cleansing & consolidation early. Taking the time upfront to incorporate data streamlining into your strategy will save resources down the road and enable you to distribute and syndicate information across all of your channels more efficiently.

5. Don’t forget taxonomy. Developing a cohesive and efficient content strategy with a modern taxonomy from the start will help in crafting a winning user experience.

Choosing the right solution doesn’t need to be painful. Clearly defining your strategy, understanding the technology and prioritizing stakeholder needs at the outset can make the process much easier.

BE WILLING TO LET IT GO

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No eCommerce discussion is complete without addressing targeting and personalization, and the fact that it’s no longer the sole domain of B2C brands. As B2B eCommerce experiences draw increasing comparisons to B2C, companies that fail to tailor content to existing and potential buyers risk avoidable damage to their bottom lines. Additionally, in the B2B space, leveraging personalization will not only enhance the customer experience and improve the bottom line but it can also help to alleviate concerns as B2B businesses tread lightly around channel conflicts.

According to Gartner, by 2018, 70% of B2B eCommerce sites will offer personalized features for customers, and B2B companies that effectively use personalization on their eCommerce sites will outsell their competitors by 30%.

While there are certainly lessons that B2B companies can learn from B2C personalization strategies, B2B offerings and buyer journeys are inherently more complex. As a result, the approach must go beyond a focus on personalized content.

Focus more specifically on areas such as account hierarchy, products and pricing. Organization level information, user management and access rights need to be incorporated at every turn to help effectively manage and streamline all customer interactions and employee activities. Finally, ensure that product offerings and pricing are both channel and customer specific.

Adopt a B2C MindsetAs we’ve already explored, B2B companies cannot adopt B2C tactics verbatim, but rather, they can infer from successful approaches and apply them to their digital strategies.

An effective personalization strategy in B2B will help you accomplish two goals: 1) sell more and 2) provide better service. From location-based push messaging to intuitive product recommendations, retailers keep upping the ante in the race to deliver best-in-class customer experiences. They use predictive analytics to automate marketing and drive sales. While marketing automation tools can track

GET PERSONAL3

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buyer behavior across inbound and outbound channels, integrating predictive analytics can give you insight into what your buyers are going to do next.

If you’ve ever seen product or video recommendations from brands like Netflix, Amazon or Target based on your previous purchases, you’ve seen this marriage of predictive analytics and marketing automation at work. And it’s very effective. Thirty percent of Amazon’s revenue is produced by its recommendation engine 6, and NFLShop.com used predictive analytics to ramp up efforts to market to female buyers, increasing year-over-year online sales 7

by 25%.

But where does this leave you? In the B2B space the stakes are higher, and so are the boundaries. Your buyers want fast, simple access to product information and targeted content, but may have a heightened sensitivity to privacy over consumers shopping for videos and football jerseys.

The Staples Advantage website highlights targeted offers and prominently displays customers’ recent purchases at-a-glance for seamless reordering. Construction machinery company Caterpillar makes access to “Catproduct” information accessible across devices, enabling customers to locate Cat Rental locations in real time using location technology. While these features are relatively simple compared to popular B2C tactics, their value in helping customers locate and purchase items quickly, easily and noninvasively is undeniable.

The Human FactorIn spite of the name, “business-to-business” is about selling to people. As you begin to incorporate targeting and personalization into your eCommerce experience, you have to consider the people behind your customer data—their behaviors, the channels they use, the problems they are trying to solve and how they interact with each digital touch point.

GET PERSONAL

6 “Stop Guessing: B2B Predictive Analytics 101 with Brian Kardon,” Heinz Marketing, October 11, 2013 7 “Can ‘Predictive Analytics” Help Retailers Dodge a J.C. Penney-Style Debacle?,” Forbes, April 22, 2013 10

A Success StoryA multi-billion dollar laboratory equipment company engaged Siteworx to “rescue” the redevelopment of its mobile and desktop sites. The company wanted to accelerate time-to-market, attract new customers and deliver new features to existing visitors and clients.

Using agile design, Siteworx worked to define detailed user stories representing the client’s product features, providing critical insights into how users interacted with the company’s digital properties and identifying critical gaps. Without search facets, users were unable to view products, site content and multimedia, which increased overall search time. Product details, site content and multimedia displayed differently in the search results, creating an inconsistent user experience.

As a solution, Siteworx upgraded the company’s search tool and made several enhancements to improve the overall search experience. By focusing on the habits and needs of the individual visitors to the site, Siteworx was able to enhance the mobile and desktop user experience and improve the site’s search capabilities to facilitate faster, more engaged purchase behavior.

Interests:• Continuous Improvement• Six Sigma• Materials Management• Process Improvement• Manufacturing• Contract Negotiation

Groups and Affiliations:• Operations Managers of America• Operations Managers “Alive”• Service Management 2.0

MEET JOHN BUYER

GET PERSONAL

Age: 45 Gender: Male Education: Master’s degree Title: Manager

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ACT NOW

If you haven’t started thinking strategically and holistically about your eCommerce strategy, it isn’t too late. But companies that ignore the changing B2B eCommerce landscape risk lost revenue, dissatisfied customers and stagnant growth.

3 KEY CONSIDERATIONS

This list is just the beginning, but the most forward-thinking B2B companies are well-versed in these key points and are leading the charge for the future of B2B eCommerce. With the right solutions, the right strategy and the right resources in place, your business can join the ranks of the B2B companies that are providing a best-in-class eCommerce experience for their buyers.

1Keep It Simple a streamlined technology stack will save you time and money, and facilitate better experiences for your buyers.

2Get Real and Realistic About What Frustrates Your Customers define and integrate your commerce solutions across the full buyer’s journey for a seamless, all-inclusive experience.

3Get Personal delivering tailored content to existing and potential buyers is critical to staying competitive and driving revenue.

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LEARN MORE ABOUT SITEWORX’ ECOMMERCE CONSULTING CAPABILITIESIf you are currently performing research on B2B eCommerce, chances are you will eventually need to identify the right partner to help you formalize and execute your eCommerce strategy. If you’re looking for a partner who understands the complexity of digital commerce and the unique obstacles confronting B2B companies, you should talk to us.

At Siteworx, we help our clients merge their digital strategy and business strategy through a strategic approach rooted in technical expertise and strong partnerships with category leaders in eCommerce software. This winning combination of experience, capabilities and processes enables us to create seamless high-performance buying experiences for your customers.

ACT NOW

Strategize with a keen eye toward execution –an iterative, process that mitigates risk, re-duces waste and ine�ciency and ensures alignment with your business goals.

Execute from end-to-end – In a Journey, we create and activate an end-to-end digital experi-ence then help you optimize as an integrated whole.

Experiment with agility – we standup environments and build clickable prototypes to help you innovate and test new digital strategies and approaches at an accelerated pace.

Understand performance metrics across channels and business silos– a customized view of your performance data mapped to your unique business KPIs with visualizations designed for di-verse business stakeholders and audience groups.

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ABOUT SITEWORX

About Siteworx

Siteworx is a digital experience agency built for the age of the customer. For more than a decade, we’ve applied a craftsman-level attention to designing services and experiences and engaged with deep technical expertise to solve the most complex digital challenges. Leaders such as Time Warner Cable, Citrix Online and Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group look to Siteworx to achieve tangible results across the full marketing value chain by creating experiences that serve the needs, wants and desires of their customers. In 2014, Siteworx was named Adobe’s “2013 North American Regional Partner of the Year.”

P: 1.877.798.7870 F: 703.935.0426 E: info@siteworx.

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