Survey: Online Marketing Ups Offline B2B Sales

Business-to-business marketers should be investing in a 2019 omnichannel marketing plan to maximize the online impact on offline buying, at least according to the latest research from Boston Consulting Group and Google. An optimal, best-practices mix of digital engagement channels—such as search, display, video, social media, e-mail and websites—with traditional print catalogs/mail, sales calls and brick-and-mortar stores can increase the marketing contribution to sales by 3% to 8%, BCG has found. On average, two-thirds of B2B buyers of industrial machinery, industrial supplies, and packing and shipping products and services indicated in a new BCG survey that their purchase decisions had been significantly influenced by digital, even though the majority of buying journeys end with an offline purchase. The survey revealed that some 58% of industrial-machinery purchases were significantly influenced by online activity, even though 100% of the purchases were made offline. For industrial supplies, 88% of buyers performed some form of online research prior to purchase and 69% then purchased online. Among packing and shipping buyers 54% were digitally influenced, with 42% purchasing online and 58% buying offline. But it is the differences underneath the online influence data that reveal the opportunities for boosting sales. For example, spending to boost online branding ads/engagement can pay off when 75% of online industrial machinery researchers said that they consider two or more brands at the start of their buying journeys, compared with 55% of those who engage in offline research only. At the same time, 58% of industrial-machinery buyers said that they begin their online search with a product, rather than a brand, in mind. For these researchers, the manufacturers’ websites become primary points of influence. One of the more encouraging findings in the BCG study was that online business researchers make more follow-up purchases, especially if there is engagement post-sale. When manufacturers of industrial machinery engage their customers digitally after an initial sale, those customers are three times as likely to research supplementary products, twice as likely to purchase them, and three times as likely to repurchase the product. Buyers of industrial supplies engaged digitally post-sale are eight times as likely to purchase a supplementary product of the same brand and twice as likely to repurchase the same product. Effective after-sales digital marketing activities include promoting online account sign-ups, encouraging app downloads, maintaining regular contact through e-mail or "nurture" communications, and ensuring a positive overall customer experience with the product or service. For optimal results, B2B marketers need to measure across the entire buying journey to connect digital marketing expenditures to offline sales. BCG found measurement innovators use a variety of techniques—such as customer research, marketing-mix modeling, multi-touch attribution modeling, matched-market testing, and direct match-back approaches. For examples, go to our onsite blog post at https://www.acculistusa.com/new-survey-online-marketing-pumps-offline-b2b-sales/

Leaping the Hurdles to Cross-Channel Attribution

Cross-channel attribution is an acknowledged challenge now that most marketers combine multiple channels--both digital (search, e-mail, social media) and offline (direct mail, TV)--for multiple customer touchpoints in the buying cycle and a flood of data. Multichannel marketers need to identify the sales contribution of each channel, campaign and component (offer, creative, data targeting, timing, etc.) to optimize marketing spend and maximize bottom line and growth. A recent Direct Marketing News magazine article by contributing writer Jason Compton outlined the complexity of the issue. Here's a telling statistic: 38% of digital marketers have no attribution model in place and 34% rely on a single touchpoint, per Webmarketing123's 2015 State of Digital Marketing survey. Issues include lack of a common and lasting customer identifier across channels; use of simplistic first-touch or last-touch attribution over complex data matching; the cost (69% of attribution tech users polled by Forrester were companies with over 1,000 employees); and failure to integrate offline with online channels. For example, Forrester Research found that over 90% of marketers included online display and paid search in attribution models but only 42% included mass media and just 26% incorporated direct mail or catalogs! The prospect of attribution improvement is not out of reach, however, and the article provides real-life success stories, from cataloger Cabela's to a small, regional quick-serve chain, plus some handy "do's" and "don'ts" for the attribution-challenged. For details, read http://www.dmnews.com/dataanalytics/curing-marketers-attribution-addiction/article/478079/