Deepen B2B relationships during COVID-19 and beyond

B2B enterprises have traditionally relied on relationship building to drive pipeline. And physical experiences, such as face-to-face meetings and industry conferences, have been the catalyst for generating trust. Overnight, COVID-19 changed all that.

Now, months into rolling waves of lockdowns and re-openings, businesses have been forced to reevaluate and reimagine their business models—and reprioritize their investments. This has left many B2B marketers and sellers scrambling to find new ways to stay relevant, interact with current and prospective clients, and support customers’ immediate and long-term initiatives.

The disruption caused by COVID-19 can create fertile ground for marketing and sales innovation.

This urgent need to adapt has laid bare the weak links in B2B organizations’ digital transformation initiatives, particularly for marketing and sales. Many are still challenged by time-consuming manual workflows and a lack of data integration, modernized cloud solutions, advanced analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI). This makes it difficult to accurately track and anticipate client attitudes and behaviors, and personalize communications, experiences, and offerings. By digitally enabling key resources, systems, and processes, organizations can go beyond simply mitigating disruption to rebuilding market momentum.

Due to the pandemic, 73% of B2B CMOs say they’re now shifting more promotional activities online.

To better understand the unique challenges the pandemic has placed on B2B clients, B2B marketers, and B2B sellers, the IBM Institute for Business Value partnered with digital marketing intelligence company NorthPage Inc. to conduct data analysis of online activity and commentary from thousands of content sources globally between mid-March and the end of June 2020. Using IBM Watson™-based AI Ingester, we captured a data-driven snapshot of the key issues facing each persona, as well as leading practices to help B2B marketers and sellers drive digital closeness in an era of business distancing.

We found the disruption caused by COVID-19 can create fertile ground for marketing and sales innovation. Due to the pandemic, 73 percent of B2B CMOs say they’re now shifting more promotional activities online. In this time of continued social and business distancing, digital closeness is essential to help mitigate sales declines and maintain—or grow—client relationships.

To uncover how B2B organizations around the world are using digital technologies and channels to engage with clients in meaningful ways, we used Watson to gather and interpret massive amounts of content to uncover trends and areas of interest specific to B2B decision-makers, marketers, and sellers. The results reveal five essentials of digital closeness that can help B2B marketers address the challenges wrought by COVID-19.

Five keys to successful B2B marketing during COVID-19

Learn how digital collaboration tools can help mitigate sales decline, maintain and grow key B2B relationships, and transform enterprise go-to-market activities in a socially distanced world.