In today’s ever-changing digital age, customers are more empowered than ever before. They have access to a wealth of information and can make informed decisions about their purchases. This shift in consumer behavior has led to the rise of Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) companies that sell directly to consumers without involving any middlemen. While D2C companies have been successful in many industries, they have yet to make significant inroads in the B2B space. However, with changing customer expectations and increased competition, B2B companies are beginning to realize the need for a D2C experience. In this article, we will explore how B2B companies can provide a D2C experience.

Balancing B2B and D2C Strategies

Before we jump into how B2B companies can provide a D2C experience, it’s essential to understand what it means. A D2C experience is all about providing a seamless customer experience from discovery through purchase and beyond. It involves removing barriers between the customer and the product while also delivering personalized engagement at every touchpoint.

While this may seem straightforward, implementing a D2C strategy isn’t as simple as it sounds for B2B companies. Unlike D2C businesses that deal with individual customers who often make quick decisions based on emotions or impulse purchases, B2B clients are often representatives of an organization that follows strict purchasing procedures.

Moreover, many B2B sellers rely on distributors for sales and distribution channels. These distributors often represent multiple brands and might not be as invested in promoting one particular brand over another.

To implement a successful D2C strategy, a balance needs to be struck between traditional B2B sales channels and new direct-to-consumer models that offer customers greater control over their purchasing decisions.

Creating Unique Product Experiences

One of the key ways B2B’s can provide successful D2C experiences is by creating unique product experiences. The products need to cater to specific market segments rather than being generic enough to appeal to everyone.

For instance, if your business sells software solutions targeting small businesses, your website should highlight features catered towards those specific demographics – such as pricing plans suited towards small and midsize business (SMB) budgets or integrations with commonly used tools such as Salesforce CRM software.

Personalization Through Data

Personalization is crucial when creating engaging experiences for customers; incorporating data-driven insights adds an extra layer of personalization that can help businesses stand out from their competitors.

For instance, offering personalized recommendations based on past purchase history or search queries enhances customer experiences by catering directly to their preferences rather than relying on generic marketing tactics.

Efficient Order Management

Providing customers with efficient order management capabilities is another critical aspect of delivering an effective e-commerce experience that aligns with the principles of direct-to-consumer marketing. Customers expect real-time updates on order status so they can track progress at every stage of the buying journey.

Therefore, businesses must invest in robust order management solutions that can handle complex orders efficiently while addressing issues such as cancellations or refunds quickly.

Enhanced Customer Support

Customer support plays a crucial role in delivering satisfactory post-purchase experiences. Businesses must invest in dedicated support teams equipped with relevant training so they can address customer concerns promptly while offering resolutions aligned with company policies.

Moreover, enabling self-service options such as chatbots or knowledge bases empowers customers so they don’t always have to rely on contacting support representatives.

Summary

Direct-to-consumer strategies have become increasingly popular, especially among retailers because they create unique opportunities for building relationships with customers through customized offerings and streamlined interfaces. The same principles apply when it comes to providing great buyer experiences within the B2B space: Personalization/segmentation through data analysis-backed insights paired with efficient ordering processes and reliable post-sales support services will help differentiate you from competitors who lack these qualities.

Ad Vic’s dedicated B2B Commerce team is ready to apply their knowledge and passion to your challenges. Whether you are migrating from a legacy eCommerce solution,  just starting to dip your toe into the B2B eCommerce world, or want to explore direct-to-consumer options discussed in this article, our team has the skills and expertise needed to quickly devise a technology roadmap so you can drive new revenue. Reach out and talk to us today!

Related Resources:

B2B Customer Success Story
B2B Commerce Accelerator
B2B Marketing Tips You Have Not Thought Of

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Not familiar with Salesforce B2B Commerce? Simply put, it’s a commerce solution that digitizes sales teams, allowing them to better serve customers across all interactions. 

According to a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Salesforce®, the latter’s B2B Commerce has helped companies achieve sales growth and increases in efficiencies, but also shows how businesses using it can: 

• Attain 278% return on investment (ROI) over three years.
• Earn payback in 13 months.
• Add 33% more revenue over three years.

11 Reasons to Consider a Salesforce B2B Commerce Solution

With a Salesforce B2B Commerce implementation, your teams can:

1. Scale Successfully: Launch custom and branded storefronts even faster with a connected ecosystem of implementation partners.

2. Innovate with Speed: Adapt to changing markets and customer needs by creating new business models on demand and making changes on the fly.

3. Connect with Ease: Seamlessly integrate your apps, data, and processes to get a 360-degree view of your customer.

4. Offer Simple Self-Service Online Buying: Give your customers the same easy, consumer-like shopping experiences they enjoy in their personal life — anytime, anywhere, on any device.

5. Lower Your Cost to Serve: Equip your customers with self-service tools and guided experiences, so you can reallocate both time and money to other growth opportunities.

6. Solve B2B Commerce Complexities: Simplify online buying with features specifically designed for B2B, including fast reorders, account hierarchies, contract pricing, custom catalogs, and more.

7. Empower Your Team to Sell More: Free up reps’ precious time by offering digital ordering, so they can focus on finding new accounts and building lasting relationships.

8. Unify Your Customer Journey: Connect every buyer touchpoint with a single source of truth powered by the world’s #1 CRM.

9. Tailor B2B Commerce: Make purchasing recommendations tailored to each customer in real time — no data scientist required.

10. Stay connected across every touchpoint: Make purchasing recommendations tailored to each customer in real time — no data scientist required… and maybe most important of all:

11. Keep customers coming back: Build customer loyalty faster and ensure repeat business with guided buying experiences that are fast, efficient, and personal.

Meet B2B Commerce Accelerator

Feel like you need to get into the eCommerce space – or upgrade your current platform ASAP? Did you know that AdVic’s B2B Commerce Accelerator – an out-of-the-box package – enables you to jump-start the platform and start selling online in weeks  – not months? It’s true! Watch the video below for more details. And if you would like a free demo, email Lynda Lewis. 

AdVic’s dedicated B2B Commerce team is ready to apply their knowledge and passion to your challenges. Whether you are migrating from a legacy eCommerce solution or just starting to dip your toe into the B2B eCommerce world, our team has the skills and expertise needed to get your branded storefront up and running quickly so you can drive new revenue. Reach out and talk to us today!

Related Resources:

B2B Customer Success Story

B2B Commerce Accelerator 

B2B Marketing Tips You Have Not Thought Of

Subscribe to the AdVic Salesforce Blog on Feedly:

The post How Salesforce B2B Commerce Drives Growth appeared first on Ad Victoriam Solutions.

In addition, this manufacturer wanted a unified sales and service management platform that integrated with their ERP and a robust eCommerce system.

What they needed – and the AdVic consulting team implemented for them – was a multi-cloud Salesforce® system.

The Salesforce Multi-Cloud System Solution

Our client’s multi-cloud system solution consisted of Salesforce’s Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, B2B Commerce, and Pardot(for executing marketing initiatives), plus integration with their ERP, CTI, payment gateway system, tax calculator, and Google Analytics.

Here’s an overview of what AdVic’s Salesforce multi-cloud solution accomplished for this manufacturer:

Sales Cloud

• Eliminated email tracking of asset warranties and quotations with an integrated system where all reps can now view and manage customer purchases, warranties, and quotations.
• Developed efficient lead capture and tracking methodology illuminating the potential business opportunities previously lost due to process gaps. Opportunity time tracking was implemented, expediting the quotation to close the process.

Service Cloud

• Unified service team and processes on Service Console, enhancing consistent and higher quality customer service based on real-time, comprehensive data.
• CTI integration propelled repair call processing by triggering account information and Milestones for SLA’s, upon call connection.
• Built custom components to expose contractor location through a visual map, speeding dispatching based on proximity.

B2B Commerce

• Replaced the manual order entry process with the implementation of a fully branded, device-responsive eCommerce store to drive sales.

Benefits of a Multi-Cloud Solution

Developing a multi-cloud approach can be a huge benefit for many businesses that rely on the cloud for critical parts of their technology infrastructure. Here are just a few of the benefits of a multi-cloud strategy.

• A unified 360-degree view of your customer.
• Interact with your customers via their preferred channels.
• Reach your customers when they want to be reached.
• Gain insights about the products your customers are buying and how they want to purchase them in the future.
• Adapt better to your customers’ needs.
• Flexibility and scalability
• Robust security

And when it comes to the Salesforce Clouds, the possibilities to integrate them are endless and less challenging than using piecemealed systems. For instance, you can launch different processes from different clouds, plus it’s much easier to have them talk to each other.

Ad Victoriam’s multi-cloud Salesforce implementation and integration consultants empower organizations with custom planning that gets you the most out of your full suite of business applications. Think a multi-cloud strategy will work for your business? Let’s find out! Simply fill out the brief form below, or contact us here.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][gravityform id=”16″ title=”true” description=”true” ajax=”false”]

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The Highlights of B2B Commerce

• Gain a new revenue stream
• Eliminate manual pricing calculations
• Increase the velocity of order fulfillment
• Automated approval processes
• Integration with ERP, UPS/FedEx, tax calculators, and more
• Eliminate manual pricing calculations

If you’ve ever wondered what a Salesforce® B2B Commerce solution actually does for your business, it’s this:

B2B Commerce displays your product catalog in a branded eCommerce storefront and allows your customer base to place an order independently. Complex pricing models can be configured to match your current business rules and enable contractual agreement tracking for product entitlements and price points. In addition, you can capitalize on B2B Commerce’s target marketing functionality that provides customers with a tailored, engaging shopping experience. And best of all, B2B Commerce is a flexible solution that scales as your business grows.

Get an eCommerce Jump-Start with B2B Commerce Accelerator

As outlined above, B2B Commerce displays your product catalog in a branded storefront, allowing your customer base to place an order independently, and that gives your sales teams more time to focus on…wait for it… SELLING!

And with AdVictoriam’s B2B Commerce Accelerator, an out-of-the-box package, you’ll get your business online selling your products or services within two to four weeks, rather than months.

The Accelerator package includes a branded storefront, product listings, pricing, cart for processing returns, email templates, reporting, and more.

B2B Commerce Accelerator Benefits

• New sales channel that drives new revenue with little maintenance and manual intervention.
• Replaces the need for sales teams to take orders from existing customers.
• Built on a CRM system, it integrates all data points, including pricing, for a 360-degree view.
• Offers a flexible pricing model based on group and customer type business rules.
• Data reporting to drive business, sales, and service-related decisions.
• Quick implementation and modifications of storefront without IT assistance.

Ad Victoriam’s dedicated B2B Commerce team will apply their knowledge and passion to your challenges. Whether you are migrating from a legacy eCommerce solution or just starting to dip your toe into the eCommerce world, our team has the skills and expertise needed to get your top-notch branded storefront up and running quickly with our B2B Commerce Accelerator so you can drive new revenue. Let’s talk!

Watch AdVic’s “B2B Commerce: The Online Sales Advantage” Webinar

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Listen to Ad Victoriam’s “Salesforce Simplified” Podcast: “Introduction to Salesforce’s B2B Commerce.”

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That’s an all too common scenario for the manufacturing industry as a whole today. The question – however – is, how can they accomplish all of that?

The answer is actually quite simple: with Salesforce® B2B Commerce. And what follows is an example of an eCommerce challenge Ad Victoriam was recently presented with, and the quick and successful resolution we implemented for a southern-based manufacturer.

AdVic’s Challenge

This manufacturer is a leading distributor of beauty and skin products. It had an antiquated order entry system for its salons and spas that needed a replacement. The company already enjoyed the benefits of Sales, Service, and Einstein Clouds by Salesforce. That successful experience led them to explore another Salesforce product, B2B Commerce. Their goal was to implement a new system for order entry. They also wanted to increase connectivity and data transfer between systems, and expose order entry to their customer base. With a long history of Salesforce projects, they once again turned to Ad Victoriam for a solution.

AdVic’s Resolution

As is our way, the AdVic B2B team quickly – and methodically – assessed the company’s needs and goals and integrated a B2B Commerce plan that allowed them to work more efficiently, using these key steps:

• Custom-built functionality that expedites order returns and account credits enabling customers to utilize those dollars when placing additional orders.
• Automated the sales process to systematically guide users through the sales cycle delivering higher quality, consistent data.
• Creation of a branded storefront with robust product listings engages customers and accelerates sales by enabling end-users to purchase products 24/7 with ease.

AdVic’s B2B Commerce solution provided this manufacturer with a more efficient guided sales process, while at the same time increased employee satisfaction and sales. It has also given its team greater control over price modifications while also exposing new product offerings and promotions to its customers that have led to increased product sales.

The Ad Victoriam B2B Commerce team can put a plan in place today for your business just as we did for this company. So, whether you are migrating from a legacy eCommerce solution or just thinking about a B2B solution, our team has the skillset and expertise needed to get your branded storefront up and running quickly so you can drive new revenue. Contact us, we’re ready to talk.

Watch AdVic’s Webinar “B2B Commerce: The Online Sales Advantage”

Related Articles:
The ABCs of B2B Commerce
B2B Commerce Solution Nets Significant ROI

Listen to Ad Victoriam’s “Salesforce Simplified” Podcast: “Introduction to Salesforce’s B2B Commerce.”

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The post Manufacturer Gains Greater Business Control with B2B Commerce appeared first on Ad Victoriam Solutions.

Here’s How:

• Flexible Online Marketplace: Whether you are managing one brand or multiple, B2B Commerce can be configured to provide a uniquely tailored shopping experience to your target audience for both mobile and desktop browsing.
• Connected CRM Data: Since B2B Commerce is built on top of Salesforce, you can leverage your existing Salesforce data in conjunction with B2B Commerce data to make fully informed business decisions.
• Self-Serve & Automated Ordering: Put the purchasing power back in your customer’s hands by providing a self-service checkout portal that frees up your reps to focus.
• Ever Changing Always Evolving: Salesforce ensures that B2B Commerce is constantly innovating and evolving to meet common business challenges as they arise.

Highlights:

• Gain a new revenue stream
• Eliminate manual pricing calculations
• Increase the velocity of order fulfillment
• Automated approval processes
• Integration with ERP, UPS/FedEx, tax calculators, and more
• Eliminate manual pricing calculations

Moving fast and reaching your goals in an ever-changing marketplace is easier with B2B Commerce. With B2B Commerce, your customers enjoy a seamless, relevant, and connected experience, while you enjoy a new sales channel powered by traditional Salesforce CRM data.

Ad Victoriam’s dedicated B2B Commerce team is ready to apply their knowledge and passion to help you migrate from a legacy eCommerce solution or start from scratch and build you your first B2B solution. Our team has the skills and expertise needed to get your branded storefront up and running quickly so all you have to do is concentrate on driving new revenue. So, let’s get started today! Click here so we can talk about the benefits of a B2B Commerce solution for your business.

Watch AdVic’s Webinar “B2B Commerce: The Online Sales Advantage”

Related Article
B2B Commerce Solution Nets Significant ROI

Listen to Ad Victoriam’s “Salesforce Simplified” Podcast: “Introduction to Salesforce’s B2B Commerce.”

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AdVic Salesforce Consultants Love a Challenge

This AdVic client was already using Salesforce® Sales and Community Cloud. However, they needed to integrate an eCommerce platform into their system. Doing this allowed them to meet the online ordering requirement set by a large customer. As they sought a solution, they also kept the productivity of their team in mind. AdVic’s client wanted a solution that required minimal manual intervention from their sales team so they could focus on new sales, and not order entry/fulfillment. They chose B2B Commerce to meet their needs, and the expert Ad Victoriam team to implement their solution.

AdVic’s Resolution Led to Immediate ROI

With our client’s solution now set, giving them the greater flexibility and scalability they desired, how, exactly, are they now working more efficiently and capitalizing on their ROI?

• Channel creation now drives the client’s revenue from a new source with minimal sales team intervention.
• The client has transitioned to a more modern automated process, enabling them to compete with large competitors.
• The need for sales reps to manually calculate and apply pricing to orders has been eliminated. This has increased the client’s velocity of order fulfillment.
• The client’s onboarding process for their customers has been sped up through standardization, automation, and application of best practices.
• The integration of FedEx has eliminated the client’s manual quoting and shipping processes. It has also expedited product shipments and enhanced purchasing data management.
• All-inclusive, this solution immediately led to new business for AdVic’s client.

As we did with this client, Ad Victoriam’s dedicated B2B Commerce team is ready to apply their knowledge and passion to help you create and drive revenue from a new channel. Whether you are migrating from a legacy eCommerce solution or just starting to dip your toe into the B2B eCommerce world, our team has the skills and expertise needed to get your branded storefront up and running quickly so you can drive new revenue. Let’s drive revenue together starting today!

Watch AdVic’s Webinar “B2B Commerce: The Online Sales Advantage”

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Listen to Ad Victoriam’s “Salesforce Simplified” Podcast: “Introduction to Salesforce’s B2B Commerce.”

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