Our office is located near a major shopping mall and entertainment complex. During the holiday season in years past, we would exit our parking lot and carefully merge as we fought traffic. This past December, there was much less movement on our street. We breezed on home.
Leave it to the holidays to remind us how much shopping has changed.
But what about business buying? It has changed, too.
- Like consumers, B2B buyers are spending more time online. Sometimes they are buying while online, but many times they are simply “checking things out”
- Because these buyers are also consumers, they carry higher expectations for the purchase of business goods and services. Companies are quickly being disqualified for things like weak websites or social media accounts that haven’t been touched in years
- The relationship between sales and marketing has changed. Marketing isn’t creating awareness that then spills over into sales. Sometimes buyers are deciding on a company before they even reach out to them
The noted consultancy firm Gartner offers a nice overview of the changes in a white paper found here. Here’s an interesting statistic:
When buying, B2B buyers only spend 17 percent of their time with representatives from the company they are considering. The rest of their time is spent researching, on and offline, and evaluating the options.
Most of our clients work primarily in the B2B realm, and most operate businesses somewhere between $3MM and $30MM. How should they respond? A few quick thoughts for 2022:
- Consider how to improve your website and social media platforms
- Examine whether advertising on LinkedIn, Facebook, Google or other platforms could help target prospects
- Improve reviews found online on Google and elsewhere
- Knit these efforts together in a way that reinforces both marketing and sales success
From all of us at TRG Marketing, we wish you a prosperous 2022.
