The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is impacting our lives and the global economy in several ways. And as the economic fallout progresses across the world, B2B businesses are grappling to meet the immediate needs of online marketplaces. However, amid social distancing and lockdown, e-commerce has become the demand of time, businesses and consumers. Thus, brick and mortar B2B organizations, which are still following traditional sales approach, need to redirect every aspect of their business towards digital commerce.
“The online sales revenue in the United States increased by 52% with an 8.8% rise in conversion rates between January 1 and February 29, compared to the same period in 2019.”
– Marketing Land
As the digital commerce industry is witnessing an upsurge globally, you must adopt a robust digital commerce strategy and seize the opportunity to make your e-commerce business profitable amid the chaos. Although the digital sales process is very different from traditional sales, complete digital commerce transformation is based upon several factors such as modern business strategy, advanced tools and processes.
This piece of article will walk you through the steps to create a robust digital commerce roadmap, helping your company to embark on a digital journey and re-engineer your business processes.
Five steps to creating a strategic digital e-commerce roadmap
The outbreak is accelerating the digital commerce landscape globally at a breakneck pace, forcing B2B businesses to re-examine and re-evaluate their strategy to procure a fair share of new digital customers amid the current scenario.
However, it is quite evident that a robust digital strategy is a foundation of digitally transforming company’s commerce landscape. All your business requires is to leverage a cohesive digital commerce plan and be a clear winner in the game of e-commerce strategic maneuver. Here is a five-step approach to creating a powerful B2B commerce strategy which acts as the fastest route to building out a scalable digital commerce presence.
1.Re-define your platform
The first step is to replace your legacy e-commerce systems and replace the entire platform with advanced versions and build progressive web applications. It is imperative to select the right set of tools and digital systems which give you plenty of additional compatible plug-ins to deliver top digital experiences. Moreover, to transfer data rapidly between different technology applications, your B2B company must host its dataset on a state-of-the-art cloud platform like Microsoft Azure. The right team of experts can assist you to choose the right solution in order to support your digital commerce vision.
2.Optimize mobility solutions
Mobility solution is essential for digital transformation for almost every B2B organization. In the ‘want it on-the-fly’ era, B2C businesses have already made a paradigm shift from e-commerce to m-commerce (mobile commerce) by optimizing their websites across sophisticated mobile devices, especially since millennials have entered the labor market. However, many B2B organizations, realizing the importance of mobility services are redesigning their digital commerce strategy to cater to the highly customized and user-friendly buying experiences of consumers. Hence, choose the right solution provider who can help you choose and implement the right mobile development platform.
3.Automate the digital marketing process
The next move is to pick the right marketing automation tool to efficiently manage defined marketing strategies and automate the marketing on multiple channels more effectively. Advanced marketing automation tools automatically deliver e-mails or messages to consumers such as a consumer’s purchase history, preferences, and browsing activities. These tools will assist you in reaching out to next-generation customers without making huge investments. Based on your requirements, you can choose the right e-commerce marketing automation tools from the different tools available in the market to strategize your marketing campaigns:
- A comprehensive marketing automation tool
- SM (social media) automation
- Advertising automation
- E-mail marketing automation
- Loyalty marketing automation
- Pricing automation
- Customer journey automation
4.Next-generation collaboration
Dynamic markets, ever-changing consumer demands and growing buyer expectations are leading B2B organizations to elevate their longstanding collaborative approach in a digital world so that two small businesses can collaborate remotely for the sales and delivery of the products or items. B2B interactions are far more complicated than B2C interactions. Hence, to win e-marketplace strategies, B2B organizations must move beyond the traditional collaboration approach and adopt modern-day remote collaboration tools/platforms and achieve customer-centricity with e-commerce 3.0.
5.Deliver personalized buyer experience
The most critical step is optimizing customer experience as customer acquisition, engagement and retention are essential constituents of new-age B2B businesses. Consequently, a modern-day sophisticated digital commerce solution empowers you to provide additional one-to-one support like chatbots and virtual assistants to further support your valued customers. These state-of-the-art interactive interfaces, commonly known as “conversational commerce” will assist you to take your business on a whole new level.
Be prepared for tomorrow
The current pandemic is causing modern-day retailers and B2B organizations to re-evaluate their digital commerce strategies for the rest of 2020 and beyond. Re-orienting strategies will help them to enhance their brand value, boost ROI and extend the best-in-class support to new-age customers. A powerful digital commerce strategy is, therefore, essential for every B2B business to bring its digital commerce vision to life and be at the forefront. If you wish to build a robust digital commerce roadmap and strategy to make your business profitable, then get in touch with our industry experts.
