An Enlightened B2B Vision

Eliot SykesSenior Planner

The Five Pillars of Omnichannel Nirvana

Omnichannel

As a term, omnichannel first registered in online conversations in early 2012 and has gained popularity ever since – notably in the Netherlands, US and UK.

“B2B omnichannel” garners nothing from Google Trends due to the current lack of search volume, which I would suggest will rapidly change.

Omnichannel is a “synthetic” hybrid word (probably created by an agency johnny like myself) to make something quite simple and already within existence sound exciting and new but also technical and complex. The truth is, in my opinion, all of those descriptions are equally correct.

Wikipedia points out that, ”’Omni’ means ‘all’. Some practitioners therefore argue that the omnichannel concept refers to the application of the same business strategy for all channels, while a multichannel concept refers to the application of different strategies for many different channels.”

This is a very insular view and one often repeated – where many fail to focus is the customer – whether a business or a consumer, retail or corporate, omnichannel means a consistent experience of the brand, wherever and whenever the customer chooses to engage.

What is it?

Source: Google Trends

Lessons from B2C omnichannel experience

As I’ve mentioned, omnichannel is jargon from the domain of the modern marketer combined with a veneer of technology speak verging on the pornographic to my tech brethren. It is true that without great technology, you would be unable to implement omnichannel, especially at enterprise scale – what it often lacks is human interpretation and application.

A true storyHaving found the perfect outfit for our four-year-old daughter online, my wife visited the local retailer to find they didn’t have the size we needed in the colour we

What it isn’t

A better storyAll the things that went wrong on my wife’s purchasing journey could easily have been fixed by the brand considering what their audience needs are throughout the journey and being consistent with their brand experience – why try to sell great products to mums but not go to the bother about learning how a mum shops and what helps her buy?

You’ll also notice a lot of the issues cited cannot be solved purely through technology – the store, its facilities and the staff within them are either channels in their own right or enablers of brand experience.

To deliver a great omnichannel experience, you must have a first-class understanding of your audience and their intrinsic needs.

wanted. So she decided to go for the colour that was available in the right size (as the assistant didn’t offer to find one in another store).

Returning home later to try the item on (because there were no changing facilities) she found that it didn’t fit. There was no visible way of organising returns through the website and upon

revisiting the store, she was told that it couldn’t be returned to that particular store because of some unfathomable reason.

Not a great brand experience, not omnichannel. But it was shared on Facebook. And Mumsnet. Ouch!

My daughter, in her favourite dress

Omnichannel for B2B

Lesson to be learnt

As the Google Trends charts demonstrated, B2C has been on the front foot with omnichannel for a few years now, which is unsurprising as it has been driven largely by the retail sector. My wife’s retail experience is an easy way to

demonstrate what omnichannel is and why it is easier to implement an omnichannel strategy within the B2C /retail sector.

Learning from what has gone before in B2C is widely accepted as a good place to start for anyone considering implementing omnichannel in B2B, probably because there isn’t much to go on from elsewhere. But the best place to start before looking at our B2C cousins is, as always, with your own audience – what do they want, think, feel and do?

69%

of B2B buyers prefer to use direct, instant

online payment rather than POs

and invoices

50%of B2B buyers

expect personalised

product or service recommendations

Source: B2Bmarketing

49%of B2B buyers prefer making work-related

purchases on B2B websites

75%of B2B buyers would make

repeat purchases because the

website was easy to use

Omnichannel for B2B

Your buyers have moved on, have you?

There has been a dramatic shift from top-of-funnel activity based upon buyers searching print catalogues and talking to sales representatives to performing digital searches and possessing 20x the volume of information to hand than just five years ago – this is a reinvention of the B2B buyer journey. The selling process is giving way to the buying process – provision of information is now expected, quality and specifics have become the vital currency and your edge is forged in the experience battleground - making the how, the what and when easily

and quickly accessible. You’re no longer selling, you’re helping your customer to buy.

68%

want to view all their activities

across all channels

73%want to buy in-store and have

it shipped directly

Source: Forrester

74%want to look-up

product information across any

channel

40%expect to be able to ‘click and collect’

61%want suppliers to deliver the

same day

Omnichannel for B2B

Your buyers have moved on, have you?

Forrester’s findings regarding the shift in audience needs are further bolstered by recent research by Google and Millward Brown Digital; debunking accepted wisdom throughout the B2B buying process by demonstrating the shifts in who makes and

who influences decision-making, as well as how they reach those decisions. All essential reading for B2B marketing departments.

Source: Google / Millward Brown Digital - B2B Path to Purchase Study

Finding: Nearly half of all B2B researchers are Millennials.

Implication: Take into account this group’s digital savvy nature and how this influences channel selection and content.

Finding: Decision making is influenced by non-C-Suite individuals.

Implication: Don’t focus solely on the C-suite audience; ignore less senior, yet highly valuable contacts at your peril.

Omnichannel for B2B

Your buyers have moved on, have you?

Finding: On average there are 12 searches conducted prior to landing on a brand site.

Implication: B2B marketers need to play a part earlier in the journey, in a more generic territory - before brand terms and where influencing decision-making now commences.

Finding: Mobile is being used throughout the entire journey.

Implication: Ensure your content is available for mobile, provide a rich brand experience and ensure it’s easy to buy in just a few thumb taps.

Finding: 70% watch video throughout their journey with 50% viewing over 30 minutes.

Implication: Product features, demos, reviews and how-tos are vital to encourage your audience to learn, compare and engage with your brand.

Source: Google / Millward Brown Digital - B2B Path to Purchase Study

Essentially, it is because your B2B purchaser is also a B2C consumer – today’s B2B buyer has B2C expectations in the purchase and post-purchase journey.

The days of modelling and firmographics in isolation to predict audience needs and behaviours, purely because they are a business customer, are long gone.

You should no longer think B2B or B2C but more like ‘Business To Individual’ (B2I) – a phrase coined by Avangate, a leading digital commerce company, and one that captures the essence of how to approach your audience’s needs

• They expect you to recognise them whenever they engage with your brand

• They want to continue a previous conversation from where they left off, on any platform

• They demand intelligent personalisation of their own specific journey/dialogue

• They need you to know more than they do (expertise), despite the volume of information at their fingertips, but they want that expertise tailored to their specific needs

So what’s driving this need?

Omnichannel for B2B

Simply put…

Surface content I want (or may

want) intuitively, based on intelligent

understanding

Recognise me and where I am on my journey

Make it easy for me to buy – how

and where I want

Empower me to share and

interact on any platform

Maintain a consistent

service experience

beyond point of purchase

Omnichannel for B2B

More than meets the eye

We all know that brands must adapt and change to remain relevant to their audience needs and therefore remain alive. Whilst omnichannel answers those audience demands and expectations, if you get it right it can deliver

much more than just remaining in business as the research of B2B businesses that currently employ a omnichannel strategy demonstrates.

B2B businesses that employ omnichannel strategies enjoy….

10%

growth in first time buyers

20%increase in speed

from lead qualification to

closing

Source: McKinsey & Company

20%increase in

customer leads

And if you still need convincing

Nominal revenues of the top three automakers

$250 billion

$36 billion

Market capitalisation

1.2 million

Employees

Nominal revenues of the top three technology firms

$247 billion

$1 trillion

Market capitalisation

137k Employees

1990Detroit – Motor City

2014Los Angeles – Silicon Valley

Source: McKinsey & Company

The shift in investment towards technology is staggering and its valuation eye-popping. The 71 tech businesses acquired this year have a total valuation of over $21 billion (Venture Beat). 65% of B2B, B2C and agency execs plan on investing more in marketing technology during 2015 (Conductor). It reflects a global human trend towards the

adoption of technology to enhance our daily lives. But more importantly to B2B businesses, it also demonstrates the growth in demand for technologies that enhance the efficacy of business management and marketing – and the smart

investors know it.

THE FIVE PILLARS OF OMNICHANNEL NIRVANA

1. BRAND

Before starting anything on your omnichannel journey, you must have a clearly defined brand and possess a deep understanding of the emotional responses it elicits from your audience.

Having this knowledge allows you to define the experience and the emotions this taps into that are particular to your brand. It may well result in something very similar to other brands’ experience offering but it will allow you to spot opportunities – even if they are micro-UX experiences, there is ground to be gained here.

Ask yourself what your brand stands for and what your audience will expect at every touch-point in every channel – existing or yet to be developed.

Omnichannel is all encompassing, so your organisation needs to pull in one direction in order to implement it effectively.

This may be a cultural shift but one that is vital to success. It is paramount to have board buy-in, not just for the investment required but to facilitate an omnichannel strategy and to demonstrate leadership behaviours and values. Before you invest in the technology, you need organisational and process alignment.

Particularly important in B2B brands, the sales teams will need to feel empowered and in control of the omnichannel terrain – consider how can you properly integrate them with marketing and service departments?

2. ORGANISATION

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3. INSIGHTFor solid foundations to build your omnichannel strategy upon, and to feel confident in the right technology investment, you must identify how and why your audience interacts with your brand as well as your competition.

As we now know, the B2B buying journey has changed unrecognisably and each sector and brand will have their own journeys, dependent upon size of business and the type of product or service.

You will need to understand key triggers, preferences, behaviours and value attribution. From here you can map the whole lifecycle, start to gain a clear view of archetypical journeys and begin to segment your customers into clusters to better tailor experiences.

You can also identify the gaps in your understanding and build this into your tech/data scope of work.

4. TECHNOLOGYMost research shows that businesses suffer from legacy systems that rely on silo processes and platforms that cannot speak with each other. This makes omnichannel tasks become impossible to achieve without a mind-bending amount of time and effort that ultimately becomes self-defeating.

However: there are existing and emerging technologies that can integrate existing systems or replace them entirely to create a single platform ecosystem, allowing one channel to inform the next and content to be automated – cross platform and cross-channel.

Depending on your resources, partnering with specialist providers should be a serious and pragmatic consideration, rather than going it alone.

Remember, your competitors are “on” this: you cant afford to take 5 years to get where they are now.

5. DATA

Linked heavily to technology and systems integration is your data integrity and sophistication.

First you need to get the basics right – permissions, access, preferences – a clean data set you can be confident of.Then you need to work on making it immediate, integrated and accurate to create a single view of:• Customers• Inventory• Product • Content• Orders

Achieving this will translate into relevant, actionable communications and personalised experiences – delighting your audience and CFO alike.

One vision

Of course, being omnichannel, the five pillars cannot work in

isolation; they must work together as one harmonious

entity. When combined, we can identify further areas that

support the pillars.

Copyright: big dog 2015

Brand consistency

Enabling mutual benefits

PersonalRelevant

Contextual

EasySeamlessConvenien

t

AnytimeAnyplace Anywhere

Sales upliftCompetitiv

e advantage

Lead-time efficiencies

Margins

LoyaltyAdvocacy

Audience Benefit

Omnichannel

Enablers

Business Benefit

Data

Tech

Org

Insight

Tech

Data

Org

TechInsigh

t

Omnichannel pillars combine in different ways to create direct benefits for your audience and your business.

Personal

Relevant

Convenient

ContextualIntelligent

Integrated

Seamless

All. Together.

No one benefit is derived from any single pillar,

just as omnichannel cannot be delivered

without the sum of its constituent parts. Omni

= All (or nothing).

Loyalty

Competitive

Efficient

Margins

Advocacy

Perceptions

Sales

Copyright: big dog 2015

In summary

Failure to invest and implement omnichannel capabilities in your B2B business will mean your business will struggle to compete due to an unrelenting decline in relevance to an audience whose behaviours and expectations have changed forever and are continuing to evolve at a rapid pace, whilst your competition’s advantage stretches over the horizon and out of your grasp.

On the other hand, by taking the omnichannel leap, you stand to reap huge benefits in all key business performance indicators, whether they are harder metrics such as leads, sales, margins, lead-time efficiencies and repeat purchases or softer ones such as brand preference, advocacy and engagement – you’ll be delighting your audiences and thrilling your board – win-win!

But it’s far from easy and will require significant investment of time, resource and budget. It is not just about buying a new piece of kit that will help the sales team – it is a cultural shift in your brand’s approach to doing business, one that demands buyer-centric organisation, technology and processes.

Old, siloed systems will need overhauling and perhaps replacing, important decisions will need to be made to invest in partnering with technology leaders in order to integrate and produce a seamless experience, and your teams will have to work in new ways that reflect your new capabilities and deliver against your omnichannel vision. But guess what, you’d need to do this anyway in order to stay on the pace, so why not do it positively and embrace the omnichannel opportunity?

As you travel on your journey to omnichannel implementation, it will be easy to find yourself entangled in a web of technological clutter. You will need to stay firm to the key tenets of your strategy and never forget that you are doing it for your customers not for the sake of technology.

Having an innate understanding of your audience and robustly defined brand, it will guide you through the challenges and decisions you will have to make along the way, whilst dictating what you need to implement where and when.

Keep it simple, be consistent, remain relevant and omnichannel heaven is within your reach.

Further reading / references

• B2B Path to Purchase Study – Google / Millward Brown Digital 2014

• Building the B2B Omnichannel Commerce Platform Of The Future – Forrester 2014

• Do You Really Understand How Your Customers Buy? – McKinsey & Company 2015

• B2B Buyer Preferences – B2B Marketing / Accenture 2014

• Escaping The Multichannel Marketing Maze – Sitecore 2013

• Research Report, Customer Experience – Bloomsberg Businessweek 2013

• Omnichannel Beyond Retail: The Customer Experience In Healthcare, B2B, Professional Services – Forbes 2014

• How B2B Brands Can Be Omnichannel Businesses Too – Econsultancy 2013

• IBM B2B Commerce – IBM 2015

• Adobe Marketing Cloud – Adobe 2015

James Clifton, CEO+44 7825 860167

James.clifton@bigdogagency.com

London. Leicester. Norwich. Birminghamwww.bigdogagency.com

Questions?Thank you

Eliot Sykes, Senior Planner+44 7920 210918

eliot.sykes@bigdogagency.com

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