Keep your golf clubs in the bag and club passes in your pocket. You don’t need them anymore.
For some of us, it is hard to remember a time when we didn’t dive into the blue light of our devices to strategically gather information before making a purchase decision.
For others, namely business executives who fall north of the 20-35 year old age range, conducting a business-to-business (B2B) transaction generally looked like a high-powered mating ritual. Long lunches, rounds of golf, and hours of in-person meetings, were the iron clad methods of closing a deal.
While these business practices were certainly effective for the times, most of them have been retired and replaced with more efficient alternatives, thanks to the amazing advances in modern-day technology and the young minds who take full of advantage of it.
These young minds are mostly made up of millennials, and they currently account for 25% of our working population. They are also primarily responsible for making research and purchasing decisions in the B2B space. As a matter of fact, 73% of millennials in the workforce have their hands in some aspect of B2B buying decisions in their companies.
Now that there is a younger generation sitting in the driver’s seat of the former generation’s pre-owned corporate vehicles, it is imperative that we understand and adapt to the emerging B2B marketing practices that accompany these millennials.
Here are just a few ways that the B2B landscape has changed with the influx of young minds into our workforce.
Online research
Millennials are a generation who grew up with the internet and access to immediate information when sought. Because of this, preliminary research into products and services is no longer being conducted over the phone or in vendor meetings. B2B product researchers, half of whom are categorized as millennials, can gather all of the information that they need via the internet before they call suppliers and vendors.
This is important to know, especially if you work on the seller end of things, because this fact can make it difficult to control the conversation. Think about it. If you were a vendor walking into a client meeting prepared to talk about your company’s history, product specifications, and competitor differentiators, it may throw you for a loop if your client already had that information and dove right into questions about the negative review they read about you on an industry forum.
This level of access to once hard-to-find information does not necessarily mean a disadvantage to the seller. To the contrary, it can actually work to the seller’s advantage. Since buyers have the ability to form an opinion about a vendor before an actual meeting occurs, then it is in the vendor’s best interest to understand what is being written about them and control the content being produced on their behalf.
Since millennials tend to veer away from business practices that they view as superfluous or inefficient, they are generally on the hunt for vetted and concise chunks of information laid out in interesting visual ways. A vendor’s website will be one of their first stops. It needs to be up-to-date with pleasing graphics and peppered with useful soundbites, specifically tailored to successes of particular products or services. Vendors must also try to blog regularly, stay on top of their social media pages, and do their best to solicit positive reviews from industry experts, existing clients, and brand champions, all while keeping their finger on the pulse of negative reviews.
If relevant, vendors should also enhance and streamline their e-commerce experience. As it turns out, 74% of millennials would prefer to buy from a website, rather than from an actual person.
Since it is these types of activities now on the frontlines of B2B sales, it is important for providers to direct time and resources here.
Social media
Now that it’s been established that millennials prefer short snippets of information delivered in a concise and visually pleasing way, it’s important to explore the means in which this information is generally distributed. Social media.
86% of millennials are active on social media and over half of B2B buyers say that they use social media to help them make buying decisions. This alone communicates the importance of this tool for making B2B transactions.
When it comes to the social content that is most impactful, millennials want to see that something works before moving forward with a purchase. So, it’s no surprise that 29% of millennials prefer videos when consuming content on social media. Videos have generated a reputation for providing the biggest bang for your buck, because again, you can pack a lot of content into a short-form video without taking up too much of your viewer’s time. Anywhere from 30 to 60 seconds depending on the platform is all that’s needed.
While video is certainly impactful, content creatively using the written word will also grab the attention of those that matter. Understanding your audience and writing for the particular platform will always be key. Identify the social media channels that make the most business sense, break the mold and lean on creative campaigns, always use interesting visuals, and never let a post come and go without measuring its success.
Corporate social responsibility
These days, with information at our fingertips and sometimes very little to differentiate companies based on corporate mission and reviews alone, B2B buyers, specifically millennials, will look to a company’s stance on corporate social responsibility and make their move from there. For as tech savvy as these youngsters are, it appears as though the latest trends in technology aren’t the only motivators behind their purchasing decisions.
According to The Merit Study, most millennials will make buying decisions and spend more money with particular vendors based on their social, environmental, or philanthropic efforts in various arenas. It has been proven that millennials want to align themselves with companies who are focused on making a positive impact in a larger sense.
Because of this inherent need to drive positive change through B2B transactions, vendors need to avoid modesty and publicly stand behind their particular cause. Suppliers should share successes and milestones via social media, dedicate a section of their website to corporate social responsibility, and weave their cause into corporate missions. This will serve as a wonderful and noble differentiator.
While some business veterans may not relate to how millennials conduct business, namely for B2B, the train is moving and it’s only gaining steam. But, if we peel away the layers that seemingly separate the traditional methods from the current, you’ll find the same basic principles. First impressions, trust, and relationships matter the most. The digital landscape is now the means to the end – not the coveted tee time.