Five Proven Tips for B2B Businesses to Retain & Acquire Customers

In these tough times, there is hardly any industry that has remained unaffected by the economic disruption. And, B2B businesses are now playing a pivotal role in assisting and supporting their customers in unprecedented ways. A significant decrease in renewals and subscriptions, marketing budget cuts, slashing forecasts, and downsizing have not only affected B2B clients, but their customers as well. So, as a B2B business, how can you prove your worth in the post pandemic world?
According to a according to McKinsey & Co. report, almost half of all B2B buyers are holding off on purchases due to the pandemic. This means, the remaining 50% are still very much accessible. So, how can you connect with all these prospects?
Here are some 5 tried-and-tested ways for B2B businesses to retain those important customers and even acquire new ones.
Be Empathetic in these Difficult Times: This is the time when your customers require your support and invaluable expertise than ever before. Keep in mind the pandemic experiences of your diverse customers and divert your attention to mitigating risks by offering critical strategic insights and decision support that is imperative.
Assisting your client in these difficult times could definitely help you reap benefits in the long run. In a  recent survey, when businesses were asked how they wish to be served in the past pandemic times, over 70% of survey respondents said that they want their suppliers to understand what they actually need. Here are some worthwhile suggestions for you to implement:

• Provide Free Content: Offering your expertise for free is one great way to build your brand and gain trust of your customers. Share surveys, publish white papers and provide expert advice.

• Provide Discounts or Free Access to Premium Features: Sooner or later, you customers will find it hard to operate without you.

• Personalise their Experience: Speak with your customers in the conventional manner. Prior to sales pitching them, change your sales strategy and find out their pain points. All customers are different and so are their issues. So, figure out how they could be benefited in the first place, before showing them the solution you have to offer. Such a personal approach will reflect the human aspect of your brand.       

Boost Your SEO Traffic: Buying behaviour of customers constantly changes throughout the troughs and peaks of the economic cycle. When work from home is the new norm, taking your business digitally is crucial. Each day, people perform more than 3.5 billion searches just on Google, and nearly 80% of a website traffic begins with a simple search query. So, take out time to invest in SEO to transform every search into a potential lead. Here are some ideas for you to consider:
·        Identify SEO issues and make the most of keyword opportunities
·        Keep an eye on your competitors and the keywords that are helping them out
·        Optimise your web content and landing pages and keep them updated
·        Use free infographics to boost traffic
·        Post informative content on social platforms
·        Create external links to websites with high domain authority (DA)
·        Regularly post blogs and articles
·        Be mindful of SEO best practices and latest Google algorithm updates
Be Genuine: Understanding your audience through meaningful interactions is the key. Never try to take the undue advantage of the ongoing tough situation as you would never want your business to be seen as insensitive and exploitative. Speak in your customer’s language, show concern for their problems, understand their needs, priorities and challenges to gain their trust and ensure brand loyalty. Here’s what you can do:
·        Showcase solid core values that reflect your integrity
·        Ensure excellent customer service
·        Conduct virtual conferences and webinars on relevant topics
·        Leverage customer success campaigns to convert your top customers into true supporters of your business
·        Create explanatory videos and tutorials to help customers make the most of what you offer
·        Create a social strategy for inviting your followers to subscribe to your newsletter emails.
·        Create a customer retention strategy to attain lifelong value.
Prioritise Customer Retention: A report from Callbox, a leading B2B lead generation service, suggests that customers choose to be with their existing supplier during a recession period, until the difference between their present supplier and a competitor is 10% or more. Don’t halt your activity during these uncertain times. Rather, focus on your existing clients and try not to lose them to unwanted competitors. Here are some great ideas for you:
·        Work on improving your net promoter score (NPS) while developing your marketing sratetegy. 
·        Reward customer loyalty – a collaborative study by BIA/Kelsey and Manta revealed that repeat customers contributed to over 50% of their sales. Sadly, just over 30% of SMEs have a customer loyalty program in place. 
·        Personalise your communication with a 30-minute video call, wherein your focus should be on your client’s top strategic areas, whether or not those areas are in connection with what you offer. Most clients believe that excellent customer support is a distinguishing factor for them. 
·        Develop customer advisory committee – this is a proven way to engage with clients and strengthen the mutual relationship. It acts as a platform to identify common values, understand your customers individually and work to achieve common goals.   
Foster Employee Engagement: Business tycoon, Richard Branson once rightly said, “A company’s employees are its greatest asset, and your people are your product.” Promoting your brand inside is as important as promoting it outside. Your workforce will feel more satisfied and will be more productive if they feel unified in their goals. Underestimating or ignoring your internal communications may cost you big time. And, this is the right moment to unite your people and show solidarity. Here’s how to facilitate employee engagement:
·        Clearly define you policy, mission and goals to your employees – having a solid brand strategy is the key.
·        Give them chance to contribute – ask for their ideas on product development and how to boost business
·        Run “Live the Values” campaign – discussing real employee stories
·        Regularly update them on performance while highlighting accomplishments
·        Contribute to local charities
·        Develop a discussion forum or shared intranet, where workers can share their own content
·        Organise events to report on company’s performance and facilitate team-building activities
·        Reward every employee with a special leave to recognise their hard work during the lock down.
As an award-winning web design and digital marketing agency in London that has worked with hundreds of diverse clients across different industries, we feel that now is the best time to create and deliver strategic web solutions and marketing tactics to help our clients adjust to the new normal smoothly.
Ensure long-term success of your brand by collaborating with our experts. Reach out to us today to see how we help you sail through these testing times.