The B2B Business Case Composition For Social Media

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The B2B Business Case Composition For Social Media
10 BENEFITS
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Make no mistake Social Media is Business
Media.
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Yet many B2B are not convinced that these game-
changing media demonstrate significant
benefits for their business sectors unique
challenges
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This attitude is
Costing them
Potential profits, Business leads, Industry
relevance and market share to their smarter
online competitors
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10
Benefits
The need of the hour? A better understanding of
the tremendous B2B business case for social media
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1
B2B branding is High Touch and is mainly
established through directly interfacing with
customers and relationship building (Vs. Ads
campaigns in B2C)
Extend Branding and Relationship building
Efforts
Social Media provides an array of new touch
points for B2B brand executives to interact with
prospects and customers.

• Due to two-way, real time attributes, social
  medial tools enable a highly personla branding
  experience for B2B customers and prospects.
• The convenience if social medai allows more B2B
  executives to build relationships with current
  and prospective buyers...and building
  relationships is core to all B2B marketing and
  sales efforts.

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B2B professionals actively network online to
find jobs, share knowledge, solve problems
build their network of industry contacts
2 Tap Professional Communities

• B2Bs can build professional communities centered
  on knowledge sharing reducing challenges that
  professionals face every day AND leverage
  these interactions to build brand, reputation
  and prospects

• Companys can participate in existing
  communities and networks to share insights and
  help solve problems
• Through the value of their community
  participation, Companies can increase their
  standing and improve the potential of positive
  third party referrals

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3
The B2B market seems smaller than the B2C market
thus, expanding reach is imperative for
recognizing and creating new business
opportunities
Grow Reach

• With social media, companies now have access to a
  world of new markets...and new business leads
• Through monitoring online conversations, B2B
  executives can learn of changing needs and
  emerging opportunities that can fuel new
  offerings and practice areas to drive new
  revenues for the organization
• With their newfound reach, B2Bs can also identify
  companies with which to establish revenue
  generating partnerships

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B2B relies on thought
leadership to communicate, differentiate and
position their offerings
4 Support Thought Leadership Programs

• Through text, audio and video, social media
  gives thought leaders a dynamic new platform to
  demonstrate their expertise and gain exposure

• Companies can create rich, in-depth
  conversations, professional forums and knowledge
  exchanges around their unique ideas, articles,
  perspectives, reports and methodologies

• Can rejuvenate and repackage their existing
  thought-leadership content in new ways for these
  new channels and thereby maximize the ROI from
  existing content

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B2B buyers are heavily influenced by third-party
feedback in their
5 Increase Third- Party Influencers (Word Of
Mouth)
purchasing decisions both to identify
solutions and to limit risk to their
organizations

• Due to providing objective, third party
  experiences and feedback, favorable WOM
  (word-of-mouth) reduces buyer-side risk of
  big-ticket B2B purchases
• Programs implemented through social media help
  to facilitate brand advocates that can help sell
  B2B offerings through spreading positive
  mentions and endorsements

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Unlike impulse-driven, low-risk purchases, B2B
sales cycles are far longer, with buyers doing
lots of research and reference checks
6 Dramatically shorten sales cycles

• Educating prospects throughout the purchasing
  cycle is a core role of B2B marketers, with
  social media providing them tremendous new
  outlets for knowledge sharing that can
  facilitate faster sales cycle
• Social media tools and platforms provides new
  ways to communicate information and answer buyer
  questions about their offerings much more
  quickly
• In providing two-way communications, companies
  not only inform prospects, but also build trust
  and credibility that can work to increase sales
  in shorter periods.

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7
Social Media is the MOST cost-effective media.
Ever.

• While social media requires an investment of
  budget and professional resources, its nowhere
  near the cost associated with other media
• Even in tough economic climates, B2Bs can afford
  social media programs and use these initiatives
  to gain competitive advantage
• As the cost of each sale acquired through social
  media is significantly lower, ROI and profit
  margins can increase

Decrease Marketing Spends
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B2B offerings are often very complex and
necessitate a learning curve for buyers, both
pre and post purchase
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Minimize Complexity of Services

• The information exchanged, and relationships
  built, through these social channels helps to
  decrease confusion and, in turn, increase the
  purchasing rates of B2B products and services

• Informing and helping prospective buyers through
  social media can help position B2Bs as trusted
  advisors and decrease the concerns associated
  with high learning curves

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Companies must identify ways to Strengthen and
improve their
competitive advantage of both their offerings
and their marketing strategies
9 Creating competitive sustaining advantage

• B2Bs must remain relevant with existing
  potential clients - they must be active in the
  media that their markets deem relevant and
  actively uses
• Since many B2Bs are slower to adopt social
  media, many companies can leverage first- mover
  advantages within their industries
• Due to the insights gleaned through monitoring
  online conversations, companies can identify new
  offerings and needed improvements around which
  to strengthen their competitive advantage

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Due to smaller market size and higher-priced
offerings, the value of each B2B customer is
much greater than B2C customers
10 Intensify CRM Efforts

• Social media technologies enable new CRM methods
  for B2Bs to improve their customer
  communications, extend customer service and
  share knowledge
• Social media tools and programs, B2Bs can not
  only inform but involve clients in every step of
  the brand development process and in return,
  deepen these relationships

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For B2B?

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