SAP and SAP part­ners dis­cussed chang­ing B2B buy­ing activ­i­ties and behav­iors, and how orga­ni­za­tions can respond to keep grow­ing dur­ing this month’s SAP Part­ner Live.

Atten­dees at the vir­tu­al event heard about B2B trends, includ­ing IDC stats show­ing that 74% of B2B tech­nol­o­gy buy­ers will use eCom­merce rather than sales­peo­ple, and how SAP part­ners, Pre­mikati and Clar­ivos, gen­er­ate more leads through SAP tools and pro­grams. Here are high­lights from the event. 

Data on B2B Buyers

Lau­rie Buczek, Research Vice Pres­i­dent at IDC CMO Advi­so­ry Prac­tice, and Chris Robisch, Strate­gist and Mar­ket­ing Trans­for­ma­tion Man­ag­er at Accen­ture Song, shared data on demand accel­er­a­tion and how B2B buy­er behav­ior has changed. 

In addi­tion to more eCom­merce, IDC reports that 38% of deci­sion-mak­ing infor­ma­tion comes from mar­ket­ing, and 17% comes from a sales­per­son. Also, 69% of B2B tech­nol­o­gy buy­ers will use chat or mes­sag­ing ser­vices more fre­quent­ly for pric­ing. Buczek said orga­ni­za­tions must extend web­sites with oth­er dig­i­tal efforts.

“The web­site real­ly becomes the main medi­um for engag­ing with your cus­tomers through­out their entire cus­tomer life­cy­cle,” Buczek said. 

Robisch agreed, not­ing that his clients focus on buy­ers’ expe­ri­ences as well as con­tent and oth­er infor­ma­tion through­out cus­tomer lifecycles. 

Ful­ly Informed and Ready to Buy

“The buy­ers are get­ting 80% through that process to make a deci­sion to get a final pitch and buy some­thing before they ever get involved with the sales team,” Robisch said. ​“So now sales teams are engag­ing with clients who are ful­ly informed and ful­ly ready for those con­ver­sa­tions rather than fend­ing off sales pitch­es and spam emails.”

He added that being cus­tomer-cen­tric, and giv­ing cus­tomers a most­ly dig­i­tal expe­ri­ence, leads to high­er reten­tion, prof­its, and growth.

Dig­i­tal infor­ma­tion is rat­ed the most use­ful con­tent in the eval­u­a­tion stage by buy­ers, with 67% of mar­keters say­ing peer case stud­ies are increas­ing the effec­tive­ness of mar­ket­ing. Robisch sees clients using coor­di­nat­ed dig­i­tal media efforts and build­ing jour­neys for cus­tomers with content.

When asked what he would say to exec­u­tives who are not focused on mar­ket­ing, Robisch respond­ed, ​“ignore mar­ket­ing at your own peril.” 

Part­ners share their expe­ri­ence with SAP tools 

Michael Buczyn­s­ki, Pre­mikati Mar­ket­ing Vice Pres­i­dent, dis­cussed how work­ing with Hy Pailakian from SAP in the lead mas­ters’ pro­gram helped Pre­mikati increase dig­i­tal con­tent. Pre­mikati also had 97 leads turn into 10 busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties in the first year after the lead mas­ters program. 

Frances Scott, a Clar­ivos Design Asso­ciate, said the con­sult­ing firm gen­er­at­ed more leads and land­ed a five-year deal after par­tic­i­pat­ing in the lead mas­ters pro­gram. Scott also shared how the social sell­ing pro­gram helped Clar­ivos improve social media engagement. 

Adding to the mix, SAP shared more details about each fea­tured pro­gram. Ira Simon, Vice Pres­i­dent of Part­ner Mar­ket­ing and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, said SAP can help ampli­fy mar­ket­ing capa­bil­i­ties. Erik Van Nis­pen, Glob­al Direc­tor of Cloud Chan­nel Devel­op­ment, empha­sized all part­ners can lever­age the pro­grams. He also high­light­ed how the Race2Revenue pro­gram helps orga­ni­za­tions go to mar­ket, from idea to execution.