Jump to a section:
B2B purchases are typically lengthier and more complex than the more immediate and frequent B2C purchases. After a purchase is made, it may be years before that B2B customer is ready for a similar purchase or upgrade, especially if it involves larger financial expenditures, like heavy machinery or enterprise software. These long intervals can create a sense of disconnect between the customer and the brand unless the B2B companies engage their customers between purchases.
In short, engagement during the quiet periods between purchases is important because it:
- Boosts Retention: Staying engaged between purchases helps ensure your customers don’t drift to competitors when they’re ready to buy again. Increasing your customer retention rates by 5% can boost profits by 25% to 95%.
- Maximizes Lifetime Value (LTV): Engaged customers are more likely to make repeat purchases, buy add-ons, or upgrade to premium services, all of which increase their lifetime value to your business.
- Cross-Sell and Upsell Opportunities: When you stay engaged, you are able to identify opportunities to offer complementary products or services that turn one-time buyers into long-term customers.
The Role of Content in Sustaining Engagement
As one of the most effective ways to stay connected with your customers between purchase cycles, content delivers value and maintains your presence without seeming overly sales-driven.
Content offers ongoing touchpoints that remind customers why they chose your brand in the first place. In other words, it becomes the bridge that keeps your relationship strong, even when they’re not actively purchasing anything from you. Content helps maintain the connection with your customer by offering:
- Educational Support: After a new purchase, your customers might need or appreciate guidance on how to use your products or services more effectively. This guidance could be training materials, how-to guides, or video tutorials. By delivering this tailored information, you help ensure that your customers are getting the most out of their investment and build loyalty, especially since 86% of B2B buyers report that tailored content positively impacts their decision-making.
- Industry Insights: Whether through newsletters, blogs, or white papers, content that provides valuable industry trends, reports, and forecasts keeps your customers informed about what’s happening in their field and shows that you’re invested in their success.
- Personalized Engagement: Use the data you have about your customer’s preferences, past purchases, and behaviors to deliver personalized content that speaks directly to their challenges or goals.
Examples of Effective Content Types
Different content types reach customers in different ways and it’s important to plan a content strategy that incorporates a variety of effective formats for keeping customers engaged between transactions.
Webinars and Live Events
Interactive content, like webinars or even live events, is highly engaging and offers an opportunity for real-time learning and questions. In these sessions, you could dive into industry trends, new product features, or best practices that can add value to your customer’s experience with your product and keep them involved with your brand. 73% of B2B marketers say webinars are the best way to generate quality leads and are an effective way to retain current customers.
Case Studies and Success Stories
By showcasing real-world examples of how your brand helps to solve your customer’s problems and deliver results, you can build trust and give your audience something tangible to relate to. You could feature these stories in tailored newsletters or in videos on your website.
Newsletters
A regular newsletter keeps your brand visible and offers a way to consistently provide useful information. Newsletters are a non-intrusive way to share company updates, new industry trends, or upcoming events, for example.
Product Tutorials and Demos
Another way to deepen your customer’s relationship with your brand is to offer ongoing training or tips on how to maximize the use of your product or service. This can help customers feel like they’re getting more value from your product and, therefore, more likely to stick around.
Interactive Tools
Interactive content, like product demos, ROI calculators, or self-assessments can create a more immersive and enjoyable experience. These tools not only can educate your customers about your offerings but also show them the direct benefits of upgrading or expanding their current services.
By consistently providing content that’s educational, valuable, and tailored to your customer’s needs, you strengthen your relationship and build trust so that when the next purchase cycle begins, your brand remains in a prime position for re-engagement.
Value-Driven Interactions Build Relationships
While content is critical for keeping customers engaged between purchase cycles, value-driven interactions are equally important and add another layer of connection between your brand and your customer. Value-driven interactions build strong, long-lasting relationships by delivering meaningful value to your customers so they feel supported, appreciated, and confident that you value them for more than just their purchase.
Creating Value Beyond the Initial Sale
Your customers care about feeling like they are more than just a sale. In fact, 68% of customers state that they would leave a business because they feel the company doesn’t care about them. But, by continuing to deliver value, you reinforce the partnership and increase customer loyalty.
A few ways to create value-driven interactions include:
Regular Check-Ins and Support
Whether through a dedicated account manager or automated systems, maintain regular check-ins with your customers that are focused on support rather than on sales. Consider creating a formulary or list of questions to ask–like how they’re using your product, whether they’ve encountered any challenges, and if there’s anything you can do to improve their experience. The proactivity and care of your outreach demonstrates that you care about their success and builds trust.
To measure the effectiveness of your check-ins, you can track Net Promoter Scores (NPS) and send out Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) surveys. NPS is a simple, but powerful metric that measures customer loyalty by asking how likely the customer is to recommend your brand to others. Companies with a 70 or higher NPS score are considered world-class in customer satisfaction. Surveys help you gauge how customers feel about their experience with your brand. You can use this feedback to fine-tune your processes and better support your customers.
Exclusive Customer Events and Networking Opportunities
Hosting events or offering exclusive opportunities for your customers, such as webinars with industry experts, customer appreciation events, or networking opportunities, can be a powerful way to keep them engaged. These kinds of events build community and give your customers access to valuable resources and connections. And, companies that invest in customer engagement see up to a 20% increase in customer satisfaction.
You can track engagement frequency and recency which tells you how often and how recently your customers are interacting with your content, attending events, or responding to outreach. Customers who engage more frequently are more likely to be loyal and active, and particularly receptive to re-engagement in the next purchasing cycle.
Product Updates, New Feature Rollouts, Training
By offering ongoing training sessions, personalized demos, or even maintaining an online resource hub, you can keep your customers informed about key benefits, product updates, or new feature rollouts so they can maximize the value of your solution.
You can track how many customers are clicking on CTAs, downloading white papers, watching videos, or attending webinars to give you insights into which content types are most valuable to your audience.
Gathering and Acting on Customer Feedback
While asking for feedback through surveys and check-ins is a valuable way to engage customers between purchase cycles, acting on that feedback–by making adjustments or improvements–is equally important because it demonstrates that you value their input and are willing to evolve based on it.
You can track customer retention rates and churn rates to further evaluate customer satisfaction. Retention rates measure the percentage of customers who continue to do business with you over a specific period of time. High retention rates suggest that your engagement strategies are working. On the other hand, churn rates measure the percentage of customers who stop doing business with you. In these cases a rising churn rate can indicate that customers aren’t receiving enough value between purchasing cycles.