Data Analytics and Next Best Action: The CRM Divide between B2C and B2B

What moves a customer? What is he interested in? What makes them decide to buy and how satisfied are they with a product or brand? If you know your existing and potential customers, you can address them in a targeted manner, speak to them personally, and provide them with the information they need at the respective point in their customer journey. Interested parties thus become customers and, in the best case, repeat customers - and companies increase their conversion rate in the long term. For this to succeed, marketers need a 360-degree view of the customer. Data plays a key role in this. To collect and evaluate it, companies must look at all touchpoints during the customer journey and develop an overall picture.

B2B marketers get customer data more easily

Organizations have different data at their disposal. B2B marketers can usually access a good inventory. They usually have customer master data stored in the ERP system and can see which products a customer has already ordered. They can see which configurations the customer prefers or whether he always buys a certain combination of products. Based on this, it is easier to address him personally and make recommendations.

Companies in the B2C sector, on the other hand, have a harder time getting to know their customers. Especially when it comes to everyday products with little emotional value, consumers are rarely willing to create a personal profile and register with an e-mail address and name. Here, suppliers must find other ways of addressing customers, such as via target group targeting on social media channels or ad networks. Anonymized tracking data - for example, which link a user clicked on when and what he or she put in the shopping cart - also flows into the data pool.

B2C marketers evaluate more customer data

Although it is easier for B2B companies to obtain customer data, they rarely analyze it. Traditionally, they tend to focus their analysis on internal sales channels - but not on the customer journey. As a result, many companies do not know who their customers actually are, what drives them, and how loyal they are. In addition, the B2B sector has so far often neglected brand communication and the buying experience. However, such emotional factors play an important role in the purchase decision, alongside functional properties of a product and the price. After all, corporate buyers are first and foremost people who want to be inspired. Products become more attractive by packaging their technical functions in an emotional experience. This also works for a new robot line for car production. In the end, a customer may be more willing to choose this product and this manufacturer, even if it is priced a little higher than the competition.

Business customers are not so different from consumers and have similarly high expectations today. Whether it's a buyer or a department head, we are all consumers in our private lives and are familiar with the advantages of advancing digitization. We are used to fast response times, digital services and a personal approach from the big online stores, for example. We automatically take these expectations with us into business life. That's why the demands on marketing have also risen in the B2B sector. However, many companies are still lagging behind their colleagues in the consumer sector. They do not yet put the customer at the center and have implemented little marketing automation.

A marketing cloud supports the next best action

To improve the customer experience, the right tooling plays an important role. A comprehensive marketing cloud can aggregate and analyze the data collected at touchpoints. It uses machine learning to cluster customer data and identify correlations. Perhaps on a certain day of the week or during a certain weather situation, the sales opportunities for a certain segment are particularly good. Customers should then be addressed with a tailored message at precisely that time. The Marketing Cloud can evaluate information in real time and trigger actions automatically. For example, a customer who has been looking at red cars in winter will then receive a suggestion for a red convertible in spring when the weather is nice. In this way, a marketing cloud enables a "next best action" approach: it determines the measure that best supports the customer at the respective point in their customer journey.

Even the best tool cannot solve all problems

However, the best technology can only develop its full potential if companies have a clear CRM strategy and vision. To do this, they should analyze which business goals they are pursuing and what the customer experience should ideally look like. In addition, sales and marketing must work more closely together. In the B2B sector, sales traditionally has contact with the customer. It can support marketing, for example, by encouraging the customer to subscribe to a newsletter. Conversely, personalized, tailored marketing paves the way for the sales team. If everyone involved pulls together and puts the customer at the center, it is possible to achieve the best success for the company.

Companies from the B2C sector have usually already implemented this better than the B2B sector. Both pursue the same goal: to win over interested parties, to persuade them to make a purchase, and to turn them into loyal existing customers. Whether business customer or consumer: In the end, it's always about people who need to be inspired.