Does your B2B company have the eCommerce strategies it needs to make 2023 the best year yet?

At IWD, we’ve been helping B2B eCommerce companies reach new levels of success since 2023.

Here are the eight strategies we’re telling our clients to use this year to navigate the new challenges it’s brought and make the most of the amazing opportunities that await.

Whether your eCommerce business is a Fortune 500 company or a bootstrapped startup, the eight eCommerce strategies below will help you reach bigger profits than ever before.

Before we get into the B2B strategies you need to use to bring shoppers to your site and convert them into customers, it’s essential that you understand the difference between how B2B and B2C companies use analytics.

If you make the mistake of adopting B2C interpretations of this data, costly mistakes are inevitable.

B2B companies typically sell products or services to other businesses, while B2C companies sell directly to individual consumers. The target audience for B2B companies is usually smaller and more specific, whereas B2C transactions involve a larger and more diverse customer base.

What exactly does this mean for B2B business owners like yourself?

The most important takeaway is that B2B sales cycles are typically longer and involve multiple touchpoints. Often, the B2B employee who finds your website isn’t actually approved to make a purchase.

B2C companies usually have shorter sales cycles, and analytics may focus on customer acquisition, conversion rates, customer retention, and identifying cross-selling or upselling opportunities.

But B2B analytics must focus on tracking and optimizing the sales pipeline, lead generation, lead conversion rates, and customer engagement throughout the buying process.

Compared to B2C companies, you’re probably going to see higher bounce rates and lower conversion rates – simply because B2B employees may leave after they find what they’re looking for because they’ll pass the information along to a manager with purchasing powers.

And this is why you may notice that Direct is the highest-converting channel for your business by far. Keeping track of your assisted conversions will help a lot. Email marketing can be huge for improving your analytics, too, especially if you can get your emails to those in charge of purchasing.

B2B purchasing decisions are often driven by factors such as return on investment, cost savings, business value, and long-term relationships.

B2C purchasing decisions, on the other hand, are influenced by factors like price, convenience, brand image, product features, and emotional appeal.

This can actually make it easier to track those all-important analytics, though.

Many B2B eCommerce companies don’t list the price of their items on their websites because negotiations play such a big role. The price for one B2B buyer could be radically different than what it would be for someone from a completely different company.

This is when a “Request a Quote” button can become your best friend. Tag that on your site as a conversion and you’ll have an easier time attribution revenue to your various marketing channels – even if the person who requested that quote isn’t the one with purchasing power.

Another way B2B companies can make more of their analytics is by focusing on account-based data to better understand and optimize the performance of specific B2B customers or accounts.

Again, this can be an effective way to offer specific customers special pricing, discounts, promotions, and more.

And aside from making it easier to track those all-important conversions, convincing B2B customers to sign up for accounts on your site will also make it easier to analyze important metrics, like:

• Customer Lifetime Value
• Customer Acquisition Costs
• Churn Rates
• Revenue Per Account

So, while segmentation and other strategies popular with B2C companies still make a lot of sense for B2B businesses, B2B eCommerce business owners need to branch out to embracing other analytical strategies to understand their data and up their revenues.

At IWD, we love doing email marketing for eCommerce companies. Years and years of experience have shown us how incredibly effective this simple channel can be for absolutely skyrocketing revenues for eCommerce companies.

And yet, it’s still one of the most underutilized channels for B2B businesses.

This, despite the fact that it’s well known that email offers the best ROI – and the most easily measurable ROI – of any marketing channel available to eCommerce companies.

Okay, we already touched on one reason email marketing is so important for eCommerce companies: segmentation.

Email makes it as easy as possible to identify which of your customers are most likely to buy which products, so you can target them with specific emails that will appeal to them most.

The result?

A high conversion rate and even higher revenues.

And this can even mean taking an account-based marketing approach – essentially, targeting a segment as one – to offer the best deals to your most important B2B customers.

Listen, we absolutely love SEO for eCommerce companies, but it’s no secret that this valuable strategy can take months to show results.

And while paid ads are a much better approach for a quick ROI, this strategy also has its own challenges. We’ll get into paid ads a bit later, but sufficed to say, you still might not see purchases right away with this popular approach.

As long as you have a decent email list, you can see a return on your investment the same afternoon as your first message goes out. That can make a world of difference for B2B companies that need incoming revenue fast.

And best of all, email marketing is incredibly affordable. Even with the high-quality graphics we provide our customers, emails don’t carry the same price tag as other (still very important) marketing channels.

This means you can adapt your email marketing strategy to your unique B2B market.

Whether you have 2, 10, or 20 segments, whether you need to send them 1 email a month or 2 a week, it’s all possible – and affordable – with email marketing.

If you do decide to leverage SEO for your eCommerce company – and you absolutely should – content marketing is probably going to become a pillar of your approach. It’s crucial for businesses targeting a focused audience of decision-makers, which is why it can quickly become your secret weapon for passing by competitors at record speed.

Unlike B2C content, which caters to a broader audience, B2B content must be practical and applicable to professionals in the industry. Establishing your brand as a leading resource in the field should be the primary goal.

B2B content marketing also differs from B2C in terms of audience, distribution, and formats. Content marketing for B2B eCommerce companies targets specific decision-makers within businesses, while B2C content has a wider reach. B2B content is less likely to be shared on social media, which is why it generally relies on SEO and email marketing to get in front of the right audience.

Aside from blogs and emails, other popular formats for B2B content marketing include:

• Webinars
• Case Studies
• Whitepapers

And, of course…

If you’re B2B company isn’t on YouTube, there’s a good chance you’re leaving a lot of money on the table.

For one thing, YouTube videos are often the easiest way to land on the first page of Google search results – and sometimes even the very top of those pages. Google absolutely loves YouTube videos.

Add videos to your blog posts and you’ll see your engagement rates improve, which can also make a big difference for your B2B company’s SEO.

And just like emails, YouTube videos can actually be very affordable. Whether it’s demonstrating one of your products or giving your thoughts on industry news, all it takes is a webcam and a simple microphone to publish this important type of B2B content.

Generally, it’s a bad idea to only use your emails to try to sell your B2B customers new products every month. There are definitely exceptions, but the risk is that your open rates drop when these customers realize you’re only ever in their inbox to get their money.

One powerful way to overcome this problem is by using your emails to promote valuable content you’ve created that will help these B2B companies with problems they face in their industries. This will keep your open rate high, which makes all the difference when it comes time to sell these recipients something.

Even after decades of working with B2B eCommerce companies, we’re still surprised how many businesses don’t upload the entirety of their inventories onto their websites.

But we get it.

You might have thousands or products – maybe even more.

The prospect of adding all of those products to your website can be a daunting one, especially if you think you literally have to do it one single page at a time.

Note: this is one reason we love Magento for B2B companies. You can upload thousands upon thousands of products to your eCommerce store in a matter of minutes, including all the Title tags, headers, and product descriptions you need to do those products justice.

The obvious reason to make sure that the ENTIRETY of your inventory is on your B2B company’s eCommerce site is that people can’t buy what they can’t find.

It’s as simple as that.

And, again, this doesn’t have to be a labor-intensive, expensive process. eCommerce platforms like Magento are literally designed for companies with massive inventories.

But here’s the other big reason: as long as you’re not publishing junk pages over and over (meaning product pages that are basically just placeholders), they can go a long way toward convincing Google your eCommerce store should be a topic destination for buyers in your industry.

So, even if each page doesn’t get tons of clicks – or any at all – they can still go a long way toward improving your organic traffic for pages that convert.

Earlier, we mentioned that paid search ads can be fantastic for B2B eCommerce companies.

But they’re even more profitable when you pair them with the power of Google Shopping Ads.

While Google Shopping is free – making it a complete no-brainer for eCommerce companies – Google Shopping Ads are far more effective for driving conversions fast.

These ads allow B2B business owners to showcase their products directly in Google search results, reaching potential customers actively searching for specific items. This is why they’re fantastic for B2B companies because of how they increase visibility, reach, and conversions.

The visually appealing format with product images, prices, and descriptions enables B2B companies to provide essential information upfront, enhancing user experience. With optimized targeting options, such as location and device preferences, B2B companies can easily reach their most valuable audiences.

And as we mentioned earlier, they can reach these valuable B2B buyers right away – starting on day one of running these ads.

Furthermore, Google Shopping Ads provide measurable results, so you can effortlessly track ad performance, optimize ad campaigns, and allocate resources as effectively as possible, ultimately driving higher sales and revenue.

No matter how you decide to drive traffic to your eCommerce website, you won’t see a single dime if your product pages don’t do their jobs.

So, while we stress writing product descriptions with SEO in mind, it’s just as important that you provide all the information a buyer needs to click the “Buy” button.

Here are some simple – but effective – tips to get you started:

• Optimize your product visuals with top-notch images that showcase the features just by looking at them
• Make it easy to compare products and, if possible, customize them
• Build trust by showcasing social proof and ESPECIALLY positive reviews (Review Snippets are key here, too)
• Highlight any available discounts and promotions to entice potential buyers
• Clearly display your return policy, shipping policy, warranty (if applicable), and any other policies you have that could affect their after-purchase-experience
• Add personalized product recommendations to improve conversions AND Average Order Value
• Use clear calls-to-action that encourage buyers to make a purchase
• Use chatbots so B2B buyers can get answers to their specific questions right away
• Prioritize page loading speeds for a seamless browsing experience

Always check out what your competitors are doing, too. Often times, this is the best way to quickly understand what your product pages are missing.

But even creating better product pages isn’t enough to maximize sales.

As a full-scale eCommerce agency, we’ve always stressed the importance of user-friendly sites to our clients. It’s one of the reasons we invented Dominate, a completely free checkout solution that you can customize specifically for B2B buyers.

Among other things, this means making it easy for them to create accounts, request quotes, and even make requisition lists, so it’s as easy as possible for your B2B customers to come back and place return orders.

And going back to our first point, this is one more big reason to pay attention to your company’s analytics. These will give you all kinds of unique insights into what you can do to improve your eCommerce product pages, so you see a bigger ROI from the traffic they’re already getting.

Lastly, let’s end on one of the biggest developments for eCommerce in 2023: Artificial Intelligence.

We’ve talked about ChatGPT and SEO a number of times before. Without a doubt, it’s one of the biggest SEO trends right now, but it and other forms of AI are going to impact every facet of eCommerce in the years to come.

A lot of these developments are already taking hold in 2023.

From helping with product descriptions to creating other options to A/B test your emails and paid ads, the sooner you leverage the power of AI for your eCommerce business, the better.

And that’s far from all.

At the Adobe Conference this year, we saw firsthand how Adobe Sensei GenAI is going to make it possible to create unique experiences for each of your customers in real-time thanks to the power of AI.

Talk about an unfair advantage.

But these are still just a few examples of how powerful AI is becoming and how much it can do for every aspect of your eCommerce store. AI can be your biggest ally for dominating your B2B competition.

A lot is going to change – has already changed – for eCommerce companies in 2023.

If you want to keep up, it’s vital that you employ the above strategies to give your business the best possible to succeed in a year that’s going to see a lot of change for B2B companies.

Of course, if you’d like any help better understanding these strategies or applying them for your eCommerce website’s unique needs, feel free to contact us for a free eCommece strategy consultation.