7 Strategies for Boosting B2B eCommerce Sales

B2B eCommerce is growing. This is for many reasons, such as increased investment in digital marketing, more B2B clients demanding an omnichannel approach, plus more recognition of the benefits of eCommerce. For these reasons, it looks like B2B eCommerce is here to stay.

With B2B eCommerce sales exceeding 2 trillion dollars in 2023, it’s time to check whether your business is getting a big enough piece of the pie.

Why make the shift?

Offline sales have been the core of B2B success since the prehistoric barter system. However, the acceleration in the shift towards digital commerce cannot be ignored. In 2021, for the first time, B2B sellers were more likely to offer eCommerce channels over in-person selling.

Since most people in wholesale are also B2C customers, they recognize the ease of eCommerce from everyday life. It’s only natural that they will want to replicate that convenience in their B2B buying. To put it simply, customer demand is driving the change, and if you’re not doing what you can to generate B2B eCommerce sales, your competition will be.

So, are you ready for B2B eCommerce?

7 strategies for boosting B2B eCommerce sales

To boost online B2B eCommerce sales, there are several strategies you can use to fit in with most sales methodologies. What is a sales methodology? To understand this about your business, you’ll need to know the sales framework that guides your sales team through the sales process.

Here we’ll look at some of the key strategies for boosting B2B eCommerce sales.

1. Understand your target market

Having a full understanding of your market helps you to create content and marketing that resonates with potential leads. Incorporating multilingual product options can significantly expand your reach and cater to a diverse global audience, enhancing user experience and satisfaction. It also helps you communicate with your target market in a way that helps them to make informed buying decisions. In terms of B2B eCommerce, knowing your market well is much better than simply having an idea of who you’re selling to. For example, a glass company trying to sell glass to offices by simply telling building managers what they sell. It’s about understanding the pain points, drivers, and organizational structure of your target market, such as the need for noise reduction or privacy, and showing how you can solve their issues.

Web analytics tools can help you garner valuable insights on web traffic, such as:

• What search engines do visitors come from
• How long do they spend on your site
• What pages have they visited before
• How long do they browse your site before making a purchase
• Which pages get more engagement

Marketing teams can then use this data to change and improve how they communicate with people online. This communication can be improved further by using sophisticated AI sales coaching, which will give your sales team an advantage over competitors.

2. Give your website an overhaul

When was the last time you made any major changes to your website? If your answer is “a while ago”, it could be time to take an objective look at it and make some amendments.Armed with a deeper understanding of prospective buyers, small, targeted changes you make to your website could have a big impact. Coming back to the example of a glass supplier, understanding your target market means you can get the right message through to prospective buyers. This could be done by explaining different options for glass such as fire-rated, acoustic performance to decorative glass, and how each type could benefit their business.It isn’t just knowing your client well that makes a website perform. Unimpressive websites can turn people away. Some of the most off-putting websites may fail to sell because of:

• Poor functionality
• Lack of features
• Lack of comparison tools
• Slow response times
• Pricing issues
• Broken links

So when you’re planning an overhaul, consider useability as well as a strong brand experience to resonate with web visitors.

3. Build on content marketing

Content marketing aims to increase customer interaction by creating a relationship that will drive profit. But, coming up with new, engaging content can be tricky, and a good idea may be to adopt a “little and often” approach by carving your content up and sharing it more frequently. Providing new, relevant, and informative material in bite-sized pieces not only puts you in front of your audience more regularly but helps them remember who you are and what you stand for. This can build trust and help you stand out as a leader in your industry.

4. Invest in a strong SEO strategy

Having a strong SEO strategy helps drive people to your website who are not actively seeking your brand but are interested in the types of products/services you offer. Utilizing eCommerce tools such as keyword research software and analytics platforms can provide invaluable insights into search trends and user behavior. This is usually at the start of a customer’s journey when they’re in the research phase and looking at different options so it’s important to stand out from the competition. For example, a small business owner looking for a payroll solution may type in “payroll for small business” rather than Quickbooks or another brand name.If you optimize your product pages first to include FAQs and comparisons, product details in a clear bullet point format you can help improve search engine results and grow your SEO from there.

5. Create a better user experience

In offline sales, most businesses strive for high-quality customer service, right from greeting a customer to considering the best closing a sale questions to build rapport.In competitive B2B markets, UX is everything. Creating a fully comprehensive, enjoyable experience across all customer contact points can keep people coming back. In terms of eCommerce, consider the following areas for improvement:

• Website useability
• Website engagement (using a multimedia approach like video, sound, etc)
• Making sure it’s mobile-friendly
• Make sure forms work well on desktop and mobile devices
• A clear, easy-to-use checkout process, integrating advanced point of sale systems to streamline this process.
• Easy-to-spot CTA buttons
• Access to real-time help

Make sure that both desktop and mobile forms, such as order checkout forms, work seamlessly. Consider implementing features like real-time delivery notifications to keep customers informed every step of the way.

6. Personalization is key

Building a relationship with customers means understanding them and meeting their needs. To demonstrate this to leads requires personalization and a differentiated experience. This shows that we as businesses care about our customers and want to meet their needs.Standard personalization may involve sending targeted emails and promotions, but the technology available today allows businesses to go further.There are several key strategies for more sophisticated personalization:

• Start personalization from the first point of contact. This could mean, encouraging email sign-ups or offering promotions to generate a sale to capture more data.
• Personalize repeat visits. This could involve tracking order history or a user’s past browsing habits to display related content to that individual. For instance, if they bought a printer on their last visit, it may be useful to display the relevant toner or paper.
• Encourage visitors and customers to create an account. Encouraging people to create accounts means that you can offer personalized communication or even a tiered pricing system. Accounts also allow you to maintain product privacy by keeping certain products hidden from public view.
• Target customers by their job role. If you have the data, you can push emails to the right people or departments. This could be an invite to executives to attend a webinar on new legislation or promote a new sales funnel package to the head of sales.

One way to understand the buyer is customer journey mapping. Data collected from web analytics, customer email sign-ups, or accounts can help you put a picture together of your customer behaviors and enable you to segment your market based on different behaviors.

7. Have a social media strategy

‍Social media can help brands interact with people and grow a following. It can be used as a listening tool to better understand customers and their needs, which, in turn, can help businesses refine their model and adapt to meet those needs.Platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn can be used to run prospecting ads to tie in with other promotions that you’re running. This can help direct more people into your sales funnel just at the right point in your campaign.

Final thoughts

ECommerce for B2B enterprises is a growing form of sales. To stay ahead of the competition, it’s important to look at ways to boost eCommerce sales, especially as we see the shift from face-to-face sales increasing. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to sell online to businesses. By using the strategies above as part of a robust marketing plan, you should soon start to see results. But, as always, it’s important to monitor, track, and test results. Continuous improvement is key to staying ahead of the game in B2B eCommerce.