So you’ve built a great product or service and think it’s just what your customers need. But how do you sell that product online? There are a lot of moving parts with B2B eCommerce strategies. The good news is that plenty of strategies can help grow your business with minimal risk and effort. In this post, we’ll explain each element so you can use them to build an effective strategy for selling products online.

Account-based marketing

Account-based marketing is a strategy that focuses on selling to companies instead of individuals. This is great for B2B marketers because it allows them to tailor their offerings 

based on the needs of each customer, making their products more attractive and relevant.

To start, you should:

• Focus on buyers’ needs instead of buying habits or industry trends.
• Use data to understand their journey (and how you can help them along it) at every stage of the buyer’s journey—from research through purchase.
• Use data to understand what they want in a product or service (and what they buy).

Understanding the B2B Buyer’s Journey

Regarding B2B eCommerce, it’s essential to understand the buyer’s journey. It’s not like consumer marketing and buying—the steps are different, and each process phase is critical for your success.

First of all, there are four different stages that buyers go through when considering a purchase:

• Awareness: before they even know they need your product or service
• Interest: when they begin researching what options exist in the market
• Evaluation: when they narrow down their choices and start talking to vendors
• Purchase decision: when they decide which vendor will be their partner in this endeavor

Selling a B2B Subscription Service? You Still Need an Online Storefront

Selling a subscription service is different from selling a product. When you sell a product, you have the luxury of a sales copy that describes the features of your product and explains how it works; this will draw customers in and make them want to buy from you. However, when selling subscriptions, there are so many more factors involved in determining whether or not a customer will continue using your service:

• Will they find value in it?
• Will they be able to afford it?
• Does this fit into their lifestyle?

Product Development as Part of Your B2B 

Strategy

Product development is an essential part of any business. However, regarding B2B eCommerce strategy, product development must be a strategic component to drive growth.

To develop the right product for your customers, you need to understand what they want and how you can deliver it as part of their customer journey. This will help you determine the products that suit your business model.

Reviews and testimonials

Reviews and testimonials are an essential part of your B2B eCommerce strategy. They can be highly influential in increasing customer trust and purchase intent. However, not all reviews are created equal.

Reviews from customers who have recently purchased from you are more likely to influence others than those from customers who made purchases years ago because they’re more recent, more relevant, and more authentic. If a customer has only purchased once or twice over the past few years but has left many positive reviews on your listing pages, this can also be helpful (but not as much).

The best reviews include photos of the product they’re reviewing or their experience using it—these images help potential buyers make better decisions when purchasing something online because they can see how relevant each item is for them instead of just relying on text alone.

When asking people if they’d mind leaving feedback about their experiences shopping with your company online (via email newsletters), try offering incentives such as coupons or discounts off future purchases if they do so–this way, you’ll increase both buyer engagement rates while simultaneously encouraging positive social proof signals about what type companies provide good products/services which makes them worth recommending later down the line too.

Email marketing

Email marketing is a channel you can use to reach new customers and keep existing customers engaged. It’s also a channel you can use to promote your brand. Email marketing is so effective for many reasons, but one reason that stands out is its ability to drive traffic.

Email marketing has been proven time and again as an effective way to drive traffic back to a website or landing page, which is precisely why it’s such an integral part of eCommerce strategies. 

Email marketing allows you to communicate with your audience regularly, increasing brand awareness while encouraging return visits by sending links back through emails themselves (or in their footers).

Loyalty programs

Loyalty programs are a great way to increase customer engagement. They can be offered at different stages of the buyer’s journey, from before they’ve decided to buy to after they’ve made a purchase and even further down the line. So what are some examples of loyalty programs?

• Trial membership: Offering a free trial or sample use allows you to show potential customers how your product or service can help them with their business problems. If they like it, then you have them hooked. Another option is offering access to educational content that helps explain how you make money or how they can do so.
• Discounts: Discounts on specific products or services are another way to encourage purchases by creating incentives for those who may not otherwise be convinced by price alone (or lack thereof). You could also offer temporary deals such as “buy five items and get one free.” This works well when selling digital goods, which don’t require shipping costs because it only costs more if you want more than five items.

B2B mobile commerce

The growth of mobile commerce is well-documented, but many businesses have yet to take the necessary steps to make their websites more mobile-friendly. B2B sites are particularly susceptible to this problem. 

If you’re a manufacturer or retailer that sells only through wholesale or distribution channels, your customers tend to be other companies rather than individuals. This means that most B2B eCommerce sites have customers looking for products and services on the go—and they need an easy way to quickly find what they want to stay competitive in their industry.

For your site (or any eCommerce site) to be helpful in this environment, it must be:

• Easy and intuitive for users.
• Responsive (i.e., compatible with any device).
• Fast loading.
• Accessible through multiple browsers.

Tackling shopping cart abandonment

You have a great product and are ready to take your business to new heights. So you start by increasing traffic on your website using SEO, social media, and other marketing methods. That works—but only so far. It’s time for a different approach:

• Retain more visitors who visit the site by increasing their engagement with content that is relevant to what they’ve searched for.
• Increase the number of visitors who add items to the shopping cart by offering them incentives like discounts or free shipping.
• Decrease shopping cart abandonment by creating an easy checkout process that doesn’t require too many steps (e.g., create one page instead of multiple pages).

B2B brand building

Building a brand is vital for B2B. Remember, you are selling to other businesses, not consumers, so your brand must resonate with your target audience. A great way to start is by making sure that your company name reflects what you do and why you do it. 

For example, if you provide software tools for sales professionals, naming yourself XYZ Software Solutions might be more effective than XYZ Tech Company or XYZ Software Development Company.

Making sure your website looks professional will help build trust with prospects and customers alike—make sure they can find what they need quickly by keeping navigation straightforward.

To grow, you need to understand how to sell your products online.

To grow, you need to understand how to sell your products online.

• The customer is different. B2B customers are making a decision with a much higher price tag and a more complex buying process than their B2C counterparts.
• In general, because of the complexity of their purchasing decisions, B2B customers want more information about the product before making a purchase decision.
• The sales process is different. With B2C eCommerce, the majority of sales take place online within three seconds after browsing; however, with B2B eCommerce, it can take months or even years from initial contact until closing out an order — especially if you’re selling into large enterprises where purchases often require approval by multiple stakeholders across departments and countries/regions before an order can be finalized (and don’t forget about all those lead times.). 

How does this affect your marketing strategy? You probably won’t see much traction in social media campaigns until someone clicks through and converts on one of your offers. 

Just because people are following along doesn’t mean they’re ready to buy yet — so don’t waste money running ads that target cold traffic unless they’ve already been identified as potential buyers based on past behavior like website visits or emails opened (and then turned into leads). Instead, save those bucks for remarketing ads later when they become hot prospects again based on previous engagement signals like clicks/open rates.

In conclusion

The key to success in B2B eCommerce is to have a solid strategy and be open to change as it happens. We’ve talked about how important it is to create unique content and tailor your products to specific customers, but it’s just as crucial that you stay on top of what your competitors are doing and keep your finger on the pulse of new trends. The most successful businesses will always understand their customers better than anyone else and deliver products they can’t find elsewhere.

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