DIGITALA STRATEGIER, PULL MARKETING, REFERENSER & CASE | READING TIME: 3 MINUTES | 15 SEPTEMBER
Increased conversions and a strong market position through a digital shift
Future leaders are shifting to becoming digital and data-driven in order to stay profitable. Manufacturing companies, who have relied on physical meetings, were especially affected when their sales had to go digital. Luckily, it is possible to reach new customers through digital channels.
The fact that the purchasing habits have gone digital is well-known. We have previously covered how one of our clients in the education industry adapted to a sudden digital shift in their market. This is far from the only industry that experienced a large digital shift. This article covers how a manufacturing B2B company in the automotive industry used digital marketing to increase the number of incoming requests coming in through digital channels.
Sales in B2B industries have traditionally been focused on building relationships in physical meetings. Because of this, the shift to digital sales processes during 2020 was very noticeable for many companies. Digital leaders who had already invested in their digital lead generation have instead been able to grow during the pandemic.
Case Study: Results from digital lead generation in a B2B company
Since 2017, GO MO Group has collaborated with a company offering professional van racking and storage solutions. The digital strategy covers several European markets. The collaboration started with a pilot project on the Swedish market, but good results have let the scope of the digital marketing to be expanded.
Together with the client, we have built strong online digital assets that generate business in each market. This means that the client was not impacted as hard by the digital shift caused by the pandemic since they were already pursuing visibility in digital channels and had a sales organization able to handle incoming requests.
B2B lead generation through digital pull marketing
One effect of the digital transformation is higher competition in the digital channels. The client chose to bet boldly despite uncertainty. The combination of a digitally competent sales organization and a stable SEO foundation let the client win a large portion of the market.
Our goal for the organic traffic has been to increase the yearly relevant visits to the website by 30%, which was achieved. In some of the markets, the traffic increased by over 100% during 2020, despite the pandemic.
An important measurement in digital marketing is conversions, which is when a web visitor completes a desired goal. Here, too, the digital strategy proved effective as some markets saw an increase in conversions of a staggering 700% during 2020.
Marketing agency to complement the marketing department
One of the challenges for the client was to reach their full potential. By adding external marketing capacity, the digital sales and marketing efforts have gone from reaching one market, to six. Scaling up the marketing to several markets requires scalable processes and a large marketing organization, which is hard to do using only internal resources.
Google: The new purchasing habits are here to stay
The recent digital trend in B2B purchasing is here to stay. A Google study researched the recent changes in purchasing behavior – how consumers’ perceptions of purchasing channels have changed during the pandemic and how they felt about them going forward. The results are not surprising: buyers do their own research online and prefer to use digital channels.
The preference for digital purchasing processes is expected to stick. Not adapting, and sticking to old processes can have disastrous effects on the company’s long-term results. On a global scale, digitalization is affecting buying behavior in an increasing amount of industries and demographics, which companies need to adapt to if they want to sell.
Between demand creation and the purchase is “the messy middle”, wherein buyers will explore and evaluate their alternatives – this is where they are amenable to corporate communication. This phase of the purchasing process is mainly located online and is characterized by the buyer being in control.
Data shows that buyers prefer to gather information on their own on search engines, meaning companies will have to use pull marketing to reach these individuals and to even be part of their buying journey at all. After that, conversion rate optimization, branding, and offerings will decide which company “wins” the buyers’ evaluation phase.
Reach new buyers using digital marketing
Demand can change quickly, and buying processes are quickly going digital. The market leaders of the future need to adapt and become fully digital to stay competitive. Large crises mean that your competitors will be struggling too – if you are able to keep up your marketing and sales, you will be in a stronger position when everything goes back to normal.
