You will no doubt have seen the numbers cataloguing the growth taking place in the mobile marketing field. Here at KDM, we like to keep our fingers on the pulse of what’s happening, which is why we wanted to take a look at the number of B2B (that’s business to business) queries that are happening on smartphones.

Where previously a business might rely on things like trade events and networking to build a brand, it’s now the case that most B2B users don’t expect to discuss things with a salesperson until they want to buy. You want to treat your B2B customers the same as your retail consumers and offer the same level of detail and care with the browsing and buying experience as your customers would get. After all, your B2B buyer is also a B2C (business to consumer) user, which means they are accustomed to the signalled buying experience. Give your B2B clients a B2C experience and you’ll find that they’re more likely to engage with you.

The B2B buyer of today

Like we said above, your B2B buyer of today isn’t going to be comparing you to other B2B buying experiences – they are comparing you to the entire internet. With so many people using their smartphones for searching and browsing online, it makes sense that you would be devoting energy to your mobile marketing efforts.

• B2B transactions are being increasingly carried out over mobile, with faster purchase rates being seen across transactions
• Mobile transactions are faster and easier, and offer a range of ways for you to be part of the purchasing process at various touchpoints (e.g. through social media and via your website)
• More queries are coming through B2B than through desktop and laptop sources, with a greater share of revenue being generated by mobile users

In addition to these indicators, mobile usage for B2B users has the added effect of increasing a customer’s loyalty. Think about it. If a user has a great experience buying on their phone, then they are more likely to return to you. After all, the phone is the ULTIMATE convenience device.

With your phone by your side, you are ~powerful~ because you are a wealth of information, you can order food to your home in minutes, arrange plans with friends (or cancel them – heyoo Netflix), and even stay up to date on what’s happening in the world from wherever you are. You can certainly arrange some B2B transactions and make the most of this convenience.

So how do you, the business owner, make your service B2B friendly on mobile?

1. Put the customer first – think about your touch points and consider how you are going to market your product/service to your users at each stage via mobile. By understanding how mobile use will impact on your users at each stage, you can craft a mobile marketing strategy.
2. Create mobile-first experiences which are targeting each stage of your marketing plan and take advantage of the mobile experience – so things like location data and click to call links.
3. Harness the power of data and use relevant third-party data to create better insights about your customers. You want to ensure you are driving loyalty and delivering a quality experience.

Ultimately you want to be engaging with your customers wherever they happen to be. If that is on their mobile device, then you need to be there as well. You should allocate some of your digital marketing budget to mobile and leverage the fact that you can optimise for local mobile searches. This is going to be a powerful tool for you if you are a brick and mortar business.

After all – an ‘on the go’ search where someone is searching away from their usual location of home or work – is usually conducted with a purpose to find something pretty instantly.

We can help you with mobile marketing strategy and with ensuring that your B2B efforts give you the returns you want them to. By getting started on your B2B efforts now you’ll see the rewards sooner. Contact us on 1300 596 636 and have a chat to him about how we can help you.