For companies active in B2B business, it is becoming increasingly difficult to acquire customers successfully with previous tools.
The reason for this lies in the currently changing customer structures, which B2B sales teams, for example from private radio stations, must consistently face. This is because many small companies, in this case advertising clients, are being taken over by larger companies, sole proprietorships are joining franchise chains, and more and more SMEs are working with agencies and other intermediaries. In short, clear concentration trends are observable in the B2B market.
As a result of this development, the number of decision-making points, especially at the local and regional level, is decreasing, presenting new challenges for regionally focused sales teams: namely, the lack of accessibility to local decision-makers. And those who can still be reached have the highest demands regarding the expertise of their contacts. Furthermore, they expect very good market, industry, and customer knowledge, which increases the demand for Key Account Managers on the supplier side.
Customers today have become much more autonomous and are also very well-informed. They increasingly make their purchasing decisions without prior discussions with the provider's sales force, in our case the radio station. Market transparency has increased significantly through digital sales channels, allowing them to be comprehensively informed about offers and prices before the first contact, and to define their own needs and solutions themselves. Practically every buying journey today begins on the customer's side on the internet. Furthermore, many products and services in the B2B sector can also be purchased digitally entirely without human contact. This reduces the influence that sales teams have on defining needs.
Furthermore, competition in the media business has intensified. New competitors with disruptive, often digital business models are influencing distribution structures. Data-driven companies are offering new business models and focusing on different parts of the value chain. Certain market chains are being overridden as a result, for instance, agencies and established marketing organisations are bypassed on digital advertising exchanges.
The coronavirus pandemic has further accelerated digitisation and made personal access to decision-makers more difficult through home office and virtual instead of in-person conversations. There will be no going back to the old ways.
Traditional acquisition methods, such as analogue cold acquisition, no longer seem entirely up-to-date in this situation. A solution for sales is to make intensive use of digital channels themselves, combined with a value-adding content strategy. To specifically generate lucrative new customer groups and corresponding contacts, it is therefore not just about choosing the right channels. Rather, potential customers must be addressed as directly as possible through a targeted digital presence and provided with truly relevant information.
„Companies should go where the customer is for acquisition – into the digital space.“ Matthias Giebel, Julia Schober and Marcel Gehner, B+P Consultants
Only early, targeted communication via digital channels with the desired target audiences can ensure that providers can still influence the buying journey and all buyer personas.
In a first step, strategically relevant topics such as new product launches or new target markets must be defined. This is followed by an analysis of the typical customer journey from the initial virtual contact with a company to the start of the collaboration.
All possible target groups that have an influence on a potential purchasing decision must be analysed and described. It is particularly important to examine where or via which digital channel or channels the respective target group is best reached. Do they tend to use classic web presences or social media? Facebook, Instagram and the like, or rather business networks like LinkedIn or XING? Who can be effectively reached with SEO or e-mail marketing? Are there suitable marketplaces where our target groups orient themselves? Which virtual conferences are suitable for presentations and discussion contributions?
Close alignment between marketing and sales is helpful here. While marketing is responsible for selecting channels and campaigns, sales is responsible for the content, meaning the compilation of engaging topics.
The following questions can help with this:
- What market developments are there?
- What problems and challenges are currently occupying our target groups?
- What solutions do we offer for this?
- What are the arguments in favour of our solutions?
- Which offers cover which customer challenges?
- What specialist knowledge and trends are interesting to you?
- Which white papers or videos might they need?
From the analysis of target groups and the selection of suitable channels and content, a plan for digital new customer acquisition finally emerges, with various campaigns for different target groups and usually also a reorientation of one's own online presence.
Relevant content for one's own target audience is the key to success here. Only when a provider, in our case the radio station, becomes a „virtual“ conversation partner at eye level for potential advertising clients will they be included in the potential clients' relevant set. This then leads to points of contact. They can achieve this, among other things, by offering attractive solutions for the demands and challenges on their homepage, for example, cross-media campaigns.
Naturally, all conceivable touchpoints should continue to be optimally served, including non-digital ones such as events, trade fairs, phone calls, advertising, sales materials, or company visits.
Eva-Susanne Krah of Sales Excellence (a trade magazine from Springer Professional) titled an article on the subject in April 2022 with the following sentence: „If you are not visible, you do not exist.“ I would add: „Who digital What isn't visible doesn't exist!“
Particularly smaller, classic audio marketing organisations have significant development potential here. My recommendation: they should supplement the individual experience of their usually small but excellent sales teams regarding social communication with customers with a digital new customer acquisition strategy, based on highly relevant content.
Yours, Andrea Anders
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