In B2B e-commerce you must focus on your online tactics and technology, bringing in new customers, and keeping the existing ones happy. You also have to maintain an optimal revenue mix of new and repeat customers, to boost business growth and achieve sales goals. We discuss five B2B e-commerce tips to boost sales and increase repeat customers.
B2B e-commerce is a slightly more complex world than the B2C e-commerce one. Here, finding a new customer, and retaining an older one is a matter of even bigger stakes for sales reps as they mostly rely on inbound sales.
Experts say it costs four to 10 times more to acquire a new customerOpens a new window than retaining a new buyer. While selling to new customers brings in more business and improves your brand visibility, focusing on existing customers will support business longevity. The probability of purchasing a new product or service by an existing customer is about 70% greater than by a new customer.Opens a new window
Five ways you can increase sales as well as repeat customers are as follows:
1. Customer Profiling:
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To increase your B2B e-commerce revenue you need to create customer profiles to understand their requirements and problem areas, formulate outreach tactics, ascertain cost of acquiring or retaining them and then chalk out revenue potential from various customer profiles. With online activities, there is no shortage of data, which can help you build robust customer profiles.
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New Customer – Create an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) to identify companies that best fit your target buyer persona. Identify your prospective customer’s technical or business needs, and then create marketing messages that help them solve their problems. You would also need to create a healthy mix of channels and content that will attract, nurture, and convert them. An understanding of their revenue potential and the cost to acquire them, will help you determine how profitable they can be.
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Repeat Customer – According to some Harvard Business School researchOpens a new window , “increasing customer retention rates by 5% increases profits by 25% to 95%.†You know your existing customers better, so you can create a customer profile based on Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), and Net Promoter Score (NPV). Keeping track of repeat purchases and ongoing customer activity will help you identify pain points and help reduce customer churn.
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2. Personalization:
B2B customers have less time and higher expectations, so you have to offer them a high degree of personalization.
- New Customer: Segment your prospect list based on their requirements and purchase potential then use Customer Data Platforms to create a unified customer view. This can be used to offer relevant content and targeted messages based on their preferences, industry, browsing history, etc.
- Repeat Customer: You can use existing customer data and deep learning (AI) algorithms to recommend the right product at the right time. Also, through robust sales support you can reinforce that they made the right decision by choosing your business.
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To deliver personalized experiences, offer a consistent, seamless, and customized experience across all touchpoints and channels. Your e-commerce portals should be intuitively designed to position products appropriately, provide detailed and visually-appealing catalogues, and guide them through the buying stages.
3. Customer Service/Customer Support:
Ensuring good customer support can delight your repeat customers and spread the word to new ones, which will go a long way in spiralling your sales. The use of multiple channels to offer support, address concerns, answer queries, product demos, etc. can ease the customer’s journey and help in improving your relationship with your customers. Use live chat, chatbots, email, and phone support, as well as interactive website support, to help them connect with you instantly.
Also Read: Does Customer Service Improve Customer Experience?Opens a new window
4. Build Trust:
Being honest and transparent with your customers and prospects will help you build credibility.
- New Customers: Display positive customer reviews and testimonials on your website, don’t oversell, follow delivery schedules, and have transparent policies in place. All that will win their trust and drive sales.
- Repeat Customers: Appreciate their feedback, act on negative reviews, be extremely sensitive about protecting user data, and try to deliver pleasant and memorable experiences to win their loyalty.
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5. Incentivize:
Offering the relevant incentive to your B2B customer will make a sale that much more likely.
- New customers: Provide trial offers, limited period discounts, free shipping, demos, installation, etc. to encourage customers to buy from you.
- Repeat customers: Incentivize them for social shares, testimonials, repeat purchases, etc.
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All this increases customer engagement and helps you attract new customers. Rewarding loyal customers with high customer lifetime value (CLV) by offering them exclusive or early access to offers, special discounts on new services, and even mentioning them in your content will show your appreciation and motivate them to keep buying from you. You can even create referral programs where existing customers can refer new customers and earn exciting discounts or rewards.
Conclusion
To boost your B2B e-commerce sales, it is essential to think of ways to acquire new customers. It is also equally important to keep wooing your existing customers so that they continue to send repeat business your way and become your brand ambassadors.
What sales tactics have you employed to boost your B2B e-commerce sales? Share your secrets with us in the comments below.
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