B2B brands are taking a page out of B2C and D2C playbooks — they’re personalising every customer interaction, focusing on strengthening relationships, and providing white-glove attention at every phase of the buying process. And they’re showing up where buyers are scrolling and strolling.
Consider how your brand might look if it were a consumer brand and how you might better serve the individual, not the organisation. How and where would you show up? How would you speak to your customers? How would your audience react?
Xero, for example, made what many in marketing considered a bold bet and partnered with FIFA Women’s Football to support resources for more women in football. They attracted positive attention from buyers and fans, captured a massive amount of brand awareness from the sponsorship, and helped drive more viewership than the sport has ever seen.
“B2B brands are not operating in a siloed B2B world. Their buyers are not just B2B buyers making business purchases. They’re parents, partners, have hobbies, watch sports and listen to shows. Yes, the business and newsy ones, but also pop-culture, parenting, sports, comedy... They learn about new brands through all of the above, and through partnerships, creators, and in their communities. Brands in every industry need to show up outside of just their audience’s ‘business world’, but they need to do so in an authentic and contextual way.” Mia MacKinnon, Head of Brand & Awareness - APAC, HubSpot
B2C companies are masters of seamless customer activities — they enable their buyers to self-serve as much as possible from research, to buying, to support. And now, many B2B companies are recognising that buyers want to be able to self-serve in this realm, too. Or, at least, buyers want the option to do so for less complex purchases, or up until a certain point in the buying journey. In response, B2B marketing, sales, and customer service teams are working to create libraries of content to make research, initial purchasing, and ongoing support more autonomous and useful.
81% of Australian consumers care most about ease of use when engaging with brands online, and more than half use three to five different channels, both physical and digital, throughout the buyer’s journey. Take note — each second a mobile page takes to load, brands can expect to see a 20% drop in potential conversions.
By going all-in on customer experience, Koala has grown year over year and generated over $60M in annual revenue in just a few years. “The idea was to take all of the friction and negative pieces of the experience of buying a mattress. How can we make it extremely simple and risk tolerant? [We] set it up in a way that was really direct and simple, and took all the bullsh*t out of the experience. We’re a customer-first company, and we’ll always go above and beyond,” shared Peter Soterdyk, (former) CMO at Koala on the Unconventional Business podcast.
“Our content team puts so much effort into creating our content we felt like it was a shame to hide it all away behind a form. By making our content freely accessible on our website, we aim to enhance the user experience and allow Google to index our unique content for SEO benefits. Additionally, we still offer a PDF version for users who prefer to download the material. We've observed that these ungated pages perform exceptionally well, with higher-than-average time on page and scroll depth compared to the rest of our site," explained Luke Fielding, Head of Demand Gen, eftsure
“We’re un-gating a majority of research and insights-based content developed for our APAC audience.. We want readers to engage with the content we’re spending time creating rather than have them disengage because they're not ready to hand over their contact details. Instead, we’re experimenting with CTAs placed intentionally within these reports, enabling those ready for a conversation or the next step to take it - on their own terms. And we’re looking at time on page, traffic (which yes, can be considered a vanity metric), and peripherally at multi-touch attribution. Ultimately, we’re focused on creating great content that educates and solves for our audience here in APAC, and on building trust through quality content." Mia MacKinnon, Head of Brand & Awareness, APAC - HubSpot
Newsletters today, like anything coming into a crowded inbox, need to earn their right to be opened. Niche newsletters focused around adding value are growing in interest, and generic ones with no real purpose are quickly losing favour.
The Hustle is a good example of a more tailored content series that’s meant for a subset of HubSpot’s audience — founders and startup professionals. And The Daily Aus recently launched their own news round-up newsletter for Gen Z-ers and Millennials in Australia and, just like their IG page, it’s bite sized, digestible news delivered in a credible way, but with a youthful tone of voice.
Consumers want to conduct their own research and reach out when they’re ready. In response, more and more brands, like Australia-based me&u, are investing in streamlined, self-serve pricing calculators and transparent pricing, and they’re making it easy to interact with them on any device, including mobile.
“The modern buyer wants the digital and human experience — they want to be able to self-serve — that’s more and more important to them. They don’t want to be forced into a human-only interaction way of accessing information.” Christian Kinnear, Chief Sales Officer, HubSpot on the Inside HubSpot podcast
“It’s no secret that it’s getting harder and harder to reach audiences, new and existing. The channels that B2B brands have leaned on are saturated, and consumers are switching off. Creators — authentic partners for brands to work with — have their own, niche, engaged audiences and can get your message out in an authentic way.” Kat Warboys, Senior Marketing Director, APAC at HubSpot
Today, 79% of APAC consumers are more influenced by content that shows product value than discounts. When people go on social media, they’re looking to be educated, amused, or inspired, and they always want to feel they’ve spent their time well.
Buyers are increasingly looking to and trusting people, individuals, over big brands. We’ve seen B2C brands work with creators for some years now, and B2B companies are starting to jump aboard this trend.
HubSpot’s recent State of Marketing report found that Australian companies are finding value in partnering with influencers.
“Humans feel and make buying decisions based on emotion. It’s why Tracksuit is a B2B brand that walks and talks like a consumer brand. We’re fun, playful and cheeky — and our ecosystem loves it. The research tells us that emotion drives long-term brand growth and decreases price sensitivity. Invest in branding, personalisation, and seamless digital experiences that make your consumers feel something.” Mikayla Hopkins, Head of Marketing - Tracksuit
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