It was only a matter of time before the B2C/consumer buying behavior leaked into B2B/enterprise buying (after all—it’s the same humans). As consumers, we do a lot of research online before buying a TV or choosing a restaurant, and a huge influence in that research process is peer reviews (e.g. on Amazon, Etsy, Yelp, TripAdvisor, etc.).
If you have a decent-sized sales team, and you are a customer marketer, you are probably very familiar with Slacks and emails from reps at all hours asking for references and case studies for their deals, “Do we have any customers in financial services, in EMEA, using our cloud analytics platform, where we beat IBM?”
Tactical content creation might not be the sexiest part of a customer marketer’s job, but it’s hugely important. According to an April 2022 study done by Uplift Content, case studies are still, by a big margin, the most effective form of marketing strategy (47% of respondents said it was the most effective, with the next best, SEO, at 29%).
B2B buyers are doing more and more of their own research throughout their buyer’s journey, and it’s up to sales and marketing to keep up with their appetite for content. Today’s buyers (mostly millennials – a majority of the workforce today) aren’t too keen on speaking with sales reps early on, with 44% of millennials wanting a seller-free buying experience. With this in mind, marketing and sales teams must adjust their strategies to reach these buyers with impactful and persuasive content during their research. Luckily, they can cater to today’s buyers by infusing customer evidence into their collateral.
Customer marketers need to create a range of content for different channels - some digital, some text based, some video. Having diverse content in different formats keeps marketing fresh, and different prospects like to consume content in different ways.
A relatively new space, gifting platforms have blown up in the past few years, especially in the wake of the work-from-home transition brought on by the pandemic. As it gets tougher for sales and marketing teams to cut through the noise with email, gifting platforms offer a way to demonstrate that your customers aren’t just receiving automated messages. By facilitating the sending of physical gifts (you can get really creative—margaritas, chicken pot pies 🥧, even baby toys), potential buyers and existing customers alike will feel valued and appreciated, all while their loyalty to your organization grows.
A big part of the job for customer marketers is creating customer content assets - case studies, testimonials, customer videos, social cards, logo slides, ROI calculators, etc. However, you can create all of the content in the world, but it won’t deliver value unless that content is actually being used and consumed by the sales team and other departments, and making its way out in front of prospects’ eyeballs.
80% of business decision-makers prefer to get company information from a series of articles rather than an advertisement. Today’s B2B buyers guide their own customer journey and are generally distrustful of branded collateral, preferring to do their own research rather than engage with sales teams. Why? Because this generation of B2B buyers are millennials. We know… that fact makes us feel pretty old too… 🤯
The field of customer marketing is growing in importance, and with this growth comes innovation. According to LinkedIn, customer marketing is the #3 fastest growing job in the United States. As a result, we’ve seen lots of new products and technology catering to the customer marketer pop up in the last several years. While this is great, it’s difficult to make sense of which products do what and how they overlap, complement or compete.
Marketing strategies have adapted and changed to fit the demands of today’s buyers. Product-led businesses have especially had to shift their focus as buyer preferences change. Nowadays, customers make purchasing decisions based on reviews, testimonials, and more. In fact, 72% of customers won’t make any buying decisions until they’ve read reviews! Luckily, product marketing teams can actually use this to their advantage. How, you might ask? Two words: customer marketing.
