One thing I noticed after reviewing several marketing dashboards was that online metrics are everywhere. There is no shortage of metrics from website metrics like fans, followers, and likes to online authority rankings from MOZ’s Social Authority and Klout.
Some companies have found ways to link online activity to the pipeline, such as visit-to-conversion or engagement-to-conversion ratios, which also populate their dashboards. B2B marketing, which often involves a complex and long-term buying cycle where buyers follow and visit for a prolonged period, must report and focus on metrics linking customer behavior with business results.
B2B clients often mention numerous site visits and the early holidays are part of the consideration and evaluation phases. These online visits are the precursors to taking action. Consider exploring ways to connect online metrics and data to your ability to create preference and consideration during the buying stage. To do this, you will need to conduct research and perform A/B tests to determine which aspects of your marketing best support the buying process.
It is essential to find a way of understanding how customer behavior that you can monitor impacts the buying process. You can increase sales by connecting online and offline customer behavior related to engagement, experience consideration preference, and consumption.
You should monitor three areas and how they can be tied to outcome-based metrics.
Experience
Face-to-face interaction with customers may be delayed in today’s world. Your website, emails, phone conversations, and hopefully face-to-face meetings are ways customers experience your business.
You can control some interactions (your blog, website, emails), but you cannot prevent others (reviews and comments). The more we can measure and monitor customer experience and provide opportunities to assist customers in critical buying decisions, the better.
These critical steps are usually decision points in the purchasing process. Once you have identified them, focus on creating positive experiences for these steps or decision points in your customers’ buying process. This is especially important if they decide whether to engage in a face-to-face or voice-to-voice conversation.
Online or offline, measure experience about the cost of sales and the time it takes to make a purchase.
Convenience
Convenience is a must for everyone.
Customers often need customized products, not “off-the-shelf” items. They may also require additional components to complete a product.
The ease or difficulty of customization can indicate to customers how easy or difficult it is to work with you. Make it easy for customers to access and buy options and components.
The average order value and repeat purchases, can give you a good idea of how easy or difficult it is for customers to do business with your company.
Differentiation
We know, as marketers, the importance of positioning and differentiation. In a world of clutter, being able to articulate differentiation is crucial.
Text, photography, and video should make it easy for your customers to understand differentiation’s key benefits and aspects. Consider how to make the product’s differentiation and benefits more accessible to customers online.