What makes online businesses so interesting is the number of tools they can leverage to achieve different goals. While it’s still challenging to be successful, like with any other business, certain processes are more easily handled.
Traditionally, you can likely see much more business-to-customer e-commerce businesses, such as small shops and artisans, but B2B businesses are also popular. With trillions in total revenue, e-commerce businesses are becoming important in our economy.
This article will help small and medium businesses with their goals by teaching them how to leverage certain tools. Furthermore, we’ll break down what separates B2B e-commerce from other industries.
What makes B2B e-commerce unique
E-commerce has been popular with individuals who sell the products they’ve made and with influencers who use e-commerce websites to sell their merchandise. However, the world of B2B e-commerce is vastly different.
Instead of trying to grow your audience within a certain niche, B2B businesses aim to work with large clients. For example, some of the main clients of B2B companies include wholesalers, large retailers, online marketplaces, dropshipping suppliers, and various other institutions and businesses.
While B2C companies would have to take care of individual orders from start to finish, their B2B counterparts usually work with large orders. Because these orders often include larger quantities of products and larger amounts of money, the whole process is a bit different.
The sale cycle for B2B companies is significantly longer than the one of B2C. The reason behind this is that the more expensive orders require more time to consider and allocate space and resources for.
Furthermore, businesses usually have internal decision-making processes which take some time. Let’s say you’re selling office furniture, and you’re discussing that with a client. Their process would consist of surveying the employees about their desires, discussing finances, and then making the decision after all the previous stages are completed.
Top tools to leverage for B2B e-commerce
There’s a never-ending amount of different tools and platforms that you can find on the market. Some of them have stood the test of time and have been used for decades. Others, such as AI technology, have been only around for some time, yet we’ve seen great implementations of it.
Regardless, you should do an audit of your company and understand your weak points and what goals you want to achieve. It’s certain that marketing tools, for example, can help you with reaching new audiences. However, you might be in an industry where cold emails are your go-to method of obtaining new clients.
Once you’ve understood the benefits of each of these tools, you can easily create your own arsenal and use them to improve your business.
SEO tools
One of the most popular marketing methods in the past decade is certainly search engine optimization. With SEO, your company can reach a new organic audience through search engines.
Although SEO can target primarily regular consumers rather than big business decision-makers, it still plays an important role in establishing your business. For example, imagine if a company is considering your offer only to find out that your website consists of a couple of pages and has a terrible domain rating.
This can lead to them thinking that your business is a scam or not as popular as they initially thought. With SEO tools such as Ahrefs or Semrush, you can analyze your competitors deliver better content, and rank better.
However, if your business isn’t too big to have whole teams that will take care of SEO, you can outsource a B2B SEO agency to do it for you. This way, you can continue working on other, more important, business aspects such as sales and email marketing.
Cookie consent management
In the past couple of years, data regulations have become tighter around businesses. It’s very important to comply with these regulations and ensure that your clients’ and customers’ data is handled adequately.
You can commit to this through technical and marketing methods or use a cookie consent management tool to automate the process of gathering and storing cookies.
Of course, as a B2B business, you won’t collect as much customer data as a merchandise store, but you’ll still need to use transparent methods of data collection. This can help you build a better reputation among your clients and ensure long-term trust.
Marketing automation tools
Depending on the type of your company and your average client, you’d want to conduct marketing campaigns of certain types. In our opinion, we’ve made a separate section about email marketing since it stands out as one of the best options in B2B.
However, by marketing tools, you can choose from a selection of great companies such as Marketo, HubSpot, Pardot, and others. These companies can help you with lead generation, social media marketing, and content, as well as email marketing.
By automating your marketing tasks, you can alleviate some of the workload from your marketers, and help them focus on more tedious tasks.
Email marketing tools
As mentioned multiple times throughout the article, email marketing can be a very helpful tool in your B2B business. Compared to B2C, where you’re conducting marketing campaigns in order to attract customers, B2B requires a more direct approach.
Cold emails and calls, as well as LinkedIn outreach, are some of the tools that are more applicable to B2B. In terms of email, you’d want to leverage tools that will help you maximize your productivity and capacities.
For example, if you’re new in business, you can’t start by sending emails to hundreds of companies on the first day. Instead, there’s something called “warmup” in email marketing. A lot of email outreach tools can help you with conducting outreach without having your emails labeled as spam.
Furthermore, email marketing tools can help with outreach as it can automatize the process of sending emails, which can help you save money in the long-run. You can also avoid having to manually send follow-ups, as these tools can automatize this as well.
AI-Powered processes
You’ve heard about all the fancy new AI-powered tools that are emerging. Many people are skeptical, while others are building hype around them. We try to have a middle ground and use AI-powered tools in aspects where they’ve already proven themselves.
One of the best applications of AI-powered tools is chatbots. They can help your clients and customers to learn more about your company and clear out any ambiguities they might have. Chatbots can be live 24/7 and reply within an instant, making them a more affordable alternative to human customer support.
You can also use AI-powered tools to automate certain business processes, such as hiring and project management. There are dozens of tools that help with hiring by giving you pre-made job descriptions and CV analysis.
Challenges unique to B2B e-commerce
Businesses that work with large clients need to pay attention to how they carry themselves when making large deals. The process of making a sale consists of multiple meetings that start with outreach on one side.
However, when the deal is made, the process is far from finished. Bulk orders, for example, can be outsourced, but if not, your company is still responsible for making the delivery and ensuring that the product is in proper condition once it arrives.
The pricing structure is also something that needs some consideration. It’s unlikely that you’ll have a cemented pricing structure as each deal can vary depending on order volume, long-term relationship, and negotiations.
B2B revolves around long-term relationships with clients. Because of this, the risks are higher since businesses can’t easily replace deals that are worth thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars.
If a company isn’t satisfied with your product, making refunds can turn out quite costly. This can even lead to bankruptcy or at least significant financial losses. This is why it’s also important to write good policies and cover all the potential bad outcomes through agreements.
Leverage the latest tools for the success of your business
There isn’t a tool or a method that will help you skyrocket your days. The golden traits such as patience and investing in your product or services are still going to be very important for your success.
However, these essential types of tools can significantly impact your likelihood of success and help you reach a new audience, build trust between you and your customers, and help you establish stable processes.
Some of these tools can be implemented immediately, while others require investments and manpower. Pair them with great products or services, and you’ll certainly see various benefits in how your company is doing.
About Writer
Veljko is a student of information technology who paired his passion for technology with his writing skills. He is an emerging specialist in cybersecurity having completed courses in the field and written for popular blogs in the industry. His hobbies include weightlifting, reading history, and classic literature.
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