B2B business growth: Focus on your customers

My early experience as a 'Fashion Manager Trainee' turned out to be an unexpected asset for my current role as a freelance Revenue Operations manager. Working at a family-owned fashion retailer in The Netherlands, I learned the significance of hands-on experience, engaging with customers, and catering to their needs. By prioritizing customer satisfaction, I gained priceless insights on how to effectively grow a business. So, what's the connection between my previous job and my present one? It's simple: when you focus on your customers, you know precisely what to prioritize and how to expand your business.

In today's cut-throat B2B market, businesses must up their ante to achieve growth. With markets becoming increasingly saturated, entry barriers lowering, and opportunities for growth shrinking, B2B companies are struggling to maintain and grow revenue. Procurement specialists, vendor checklists, and an emphasis on low prices dictate the buying process. To thrive in this challenging environment, B2B organizations must adapt and adopt customer-centric strategies that revolve around buyer value.

Key Challenges:

1. Business buyers are becoming increasingly demanding, expecting quick responses and tailored experiences. As a result, winning vendors who fail to meet these expectations are facing dissatisfaction and the need to go above and beyond to exceed buyer demands.
2. B2B buying cycles are intricate and require a streamlined approach to navigate multiple vendors, departments, and decision-makers. Marketing, sales, and product teams must work collaboratively and efficiently to ensure timely sales closures.
3. As B2B buyers increasingly turn to digital channels to make purchases, organizations that lack a digital sales strategy run the risk of losing customers to competitors who prioritize self-service experiences. It is crucial to adapt and meet buyer expectations in order to remain competitive in the market.
4. As B2B buyers seek solutions that involve multiple partners, organizations must evolve their ecosystems to meet these changing demands. Failure to transition from transactional channels to dynamic partner ecosystems will put businesses at a competitive disadvantage.

To fuel growth in today's competitive B2B market, businesses must put customer value at the forefront and adopt customer-obsessed strategies. These approaches not only benefit buyers but also result in increased revenue, profitability, and improved customer retention rates.

Sustainable growth engine

In order to establish a sustainable growth engine, B2B organizations must understand that the key to success lies in fulfilling the needs, aspirations, and goals of their target business buyers. To achieve this goal, businesses should focus on delivering value through customer-centric strategies.

• Develop a deep understanding of buyers and their preferences.
• Empower employees across the customer lifecycle to create buyer value.
• Engineer buyer value across the entire business ecosystem, including partner offerings and services.

To truly thrive and remain competitive in the ever-evolving B2B market, businesses must prioritize customer value and align all aspects of their strategy – from marketing and sales to product development – around the needs and expectations of their buyers. This requires a strong culture of internal alignment and collaboration, where teams work together to prioritize buyer value and create exceptional customer experiences that drive growth.

• Encourage marketers to shift their focus from collecting insights to utilizing market and buyer insights to enhance the customer experience.
• Encourage sales leaders to prioritize delivering exceptional buyer experiences, rather than just focusing on controlling sales opportunities.
• Challenge product teams to prioritize delivering buyer value through innovation, rather than solely focusing on product features.

Image: A Competitive Growth Engine Aligns Teams Around Business Buyer Value. Source: Forrester

Technology for growth

Leveraging Technology for Enhanced Growth: In today's digital age, technology is a critical tool for driving growth. B2B organizations must incorporate technology in their strategy to improve the customer journey, optimize processes, and deliver exceptional experiences that foster growth. This is how they can utilize technology:

• Harness the power of data to reveal invaluable insights and become a more data-driven organization.
• Invest in technology that enhances the customer journey, boosts revenue, decreases costs, and delivers unparalleled customer experiences.
• Incorporate intelligent automation to streamline operations and enhance customer experiences.

To drive growth in the B2B market, businesses must adapt to the changing expectations of buyers. By placing customer value at the center of their strategies, fostering alignment within their teams, and effectively utilizing technology, organizations can establish a customer-centric growth engine that thrives in the ever-evolving landscape.

In my work with clients, I prioritize organizing their efforts and systems around their customers. However, I often come across CRM systems and Marketing Automation Platforms that are designed to cater to various teams, business units, or countries, causing the customer to get lost in the shuffle. This issue becomes even more evident when dealing with larger buying committees across different locations or countries, which is a frequent occurrence in the B2B SaaS industry.

If you'd like to talk about how to prioiritze your efforts, about how you use your Marketing Platform or your CRM, book a free meeting.