B2B companies are already working hard on customer experience, or “CX”. But how about customer experience marketing?
Confused? Don’t be.
It comes down to this: good customer experiences lead to increased sales. 73% of customers say that customer experience is what drives their purchase decisions, and 86% are willing to pay more for a better customer experience.
From omnichannel marketing to conversational marketing and hybrid events, enhancing the customer experience is a top priority for B2B marketers in 2022. And that has given rise to the concept of customer experience marketing.
What exactly is customer experience marketing?
It's tactics and tools designed to boost acquisition and retention via the customer’s experience with the brand throughout their lifecycle. Businesses can secure a strong place with customers by providing a memorable, exciting, informative, or otherwise relevant and compelling experience. Build powerful customer relationships that lead to increased revenue and growth through customer experience.
For example, B2B SaaS companies typically offer support services to customers, such as live chat, chatbots, or email support. Flip your mindset from that being a customer service feature. Instead think about how to turn it into a customer experience, that also serves a marketing purpose. Let’s say a customer initiates a chat about a problem they are having with the software. Once the problem is resolved, offer a free eBook download about user tips and hacks. Or ask for feedback on the troubleshooting process. These interactions are ‘marketing’ in style rather than just service oriented. They deepen your connection and turn their journey with you into one that is more meaningful and memorable.
Orchestrate your channels
No, not the Mozart kind of orchestration, but customer journey orchestration. B2B marketing involves several digital channels, from email to social media, service support and chat. Giving customers a smooth, logical, satisfying (and orchestrated!) journey throughout the funnel is essential to customer experience marketing. According to Gartner, adoption and orchestration of more digital channels is an upcoming trend B2B marketers should focus on.
Here’s an idea for a different kind of channel that is not just engaging but also automated, so you can easily integrate and orchestrate it as part of your customer experience marketing strategy: Gifting workflows.
3 ways gifting can enhance B2B customer experience marketing
When people have a great customer experience, they naturally feel more loyal to the company and its product. Gifting is a powerful and persuasive human interaction. When added to your B2B marketing strategy, it equals a great customer experience that makes your brand stand out.
Here are three ideas to include gifting workflows in your B2B omnichannel journey:
- Referrals: Referral programs are a really popular tactic for B2B marketing – it makes complete sense. A happy customer refers a colleague or friend and you reward them with a free month or some other benefit. Why not add gifting to the mix and reward them in the most powerful and original way for their referral? For example, offer a small treat or gift for passing on their friend’s details. If they sign on with you, show the referrer your appreciation with an even bigger, bolder gift.
- Surveys: Polls and surveys are an effective way to gather feedback about a software product, its features, bugs and other issues. If you tie gifting to the survey flow there is a bigger incentive to participate and provide candid feedback. Gifting campaigns can be integrated in an omnichannel way to the survey process. After the customer completes the survey online they receive either a digital gift instantly, or a physical gift. Either way, with spot-on and crafty messaging, a gifting workflow is an ideal accompaniment to the necessary and important customer feedback process. It helps you to achieve higher opt-in rates for your surveys, and better quality feedback.
- Onboarding: Onboarding new customers to your software so they really understand how to use it and get the most from it is essential to creating a great customer experience. Include gifting as part of the onboarding workflow and you’ll turn it into great customer experience marketing. For example, provide a gift to the customer once they’ve achieved certain milestones in the onboarding process. As a result, this makes a cumbersome and often compulsory task much more exciting and engaging. Plus, the gifting campaign landing pages can be easily integrated into the onboarding plan, so the process is automated, streamlined and native to the onboarding experience.
Gifting: the missing link
For B2B companies, adding gifting workflows to referral, survey, or onboarding campaigns; leaves a great impression on customers. It's a great way to tackle customer experience marketing. With a gifting platform like Outgage, streamlining a gifting campaign into your existing programs is simple. The campaign runs automatically, gathering precious performance data and insights along the way. All you need is an understanding of what kinds of gifts make your customers tick, a spark of creativity, and you are well on your way to a successful gifting campaign as part of your customer experience marketing strategy.
