3 key factors and 6 routines for attracting new customers for To B products

Attracting new customers is a very important part of operations. It runs through the entire 2B operation. There is almost no such thing as the so-called product cycle theory. In the field of 2B products, the following three key factors need to be paid attention to when attracting new customers. There are also these six routines for 2B operation partners to learn.

Having been in this industry for so long, I have always wanted to write an article about how to attract new customers for my partners engaged in 2B operations. I searched online but didn’t see any content. After many attempts, I still haven’t made any progress.

To be honest, there are several main reasons:

1. I feel like there's really nothing to write about. In the 2C field, there are a lot of cool tricks, and you can attract millions or tens of millions of new users in a month. In the 2B field, it's amazing to work hard to get thousands of users. The gap is too big, and you will be despised.
2. In the 2B field, different industries have different results in attracting new customers (looking at the input-output ratio). The situation is different for a 2B in the catering industry and one in the automobile or furniture industry.
3. People who are not in the 2B operation field of this industry may not want to read the things I have said about the industry I used to work in, or they may feel that they are unreliable.

Also, I was busy before and was too lazy to write. I've been a bit free recently, and I happened to be working in 2B operations across several industries. After thinking about it, I felt that there are many common things, so I wrote them down and reviewed them myself.

For us, attracting new users means user growth, which I believe runs through the entire 2B operation. There is almost no such thing as the so-called product cycle theory. At a critical moment, a merchant may revive a 2B enterprise. It may be a bit exaggerated, but it does exist in reality.

So before attracting new customers, there are three factors that need to be discussed.

Key factors before attracting new customers

1. Connect stakeholders related to 2B products

All businesses, whether 2B or 2C, are related to people. Sometimes, getting people right means getting everything right. Especially for 2B operators, generally there are three key roles in 2B products: decision makers (usually the boss or CEO), users (the actual users of 2B products), and payers (usually the purchasing or finance department) .

Every role must be balanced well, which requires a certain amount of emotional intelligence and social skills. If you play any of the roles poorly, you will get into trouble. Serving the decision maker is half the battle. But if the user is not satisfied, your service will be on call 24 hours a day and the renewal may be canceled.

Operators may pay little attention to this, but in fact, this is a hidden role that affects 2B cash flow, especially in the early stages of the product. If you have nothing to do, come and sit with them privately and have a drink, they may recommend a few customers to you.

For start-up 2B companies, when attracting new customers, they should look for companies with simple target objects, few people in the decision-making chain, and few processes, which are easy to close deals with and easy to get done.

2. To enter the enterprise usage scenario

In the 2C field, the ways to attract new customers are varied, such as following hot topics, free services, MLM-style fission, creating festivals, etc., which are almost all the release of human nature. To be honest, if 2B operations follow the above routines, they can have fun if they have a budget, the boss will be happy, and the operators will also like it.

In fact, the input-output effect is not that good. It is best for operators to actually practice in the 2B product usage scenarios. Only by placing 2B products into usage scenarios can they truly convince the types of people I mentioned above.

Therefore, in 2B, studying efficiency is more important than studying human nature. 2B products can improve efficiency by improving internal aspects (process, space, human behavior, etc. ) and external aspects ( upstream and downstream supply chain, impact radius ) to find a point quickly and reach the market. For example: DingTalk’s clock-in assessment function, growingio’s simple one-time data analysis, etc., and they all start to expand from one point.

3. Sell products from a service perspective

I once asked the founder of a very successful SAAS product, what is the difference between traditional software and SAAS products?

The final answer is:

Traditional software focuses on achieving functions, while SAAS products provide services

Indeed, in the current business environment, informatization and IT have become standard, and service-providing enterprises, especially core enterprises, are more willing to find a professional consulting service. This involves not only product and after-sales service levels, but also in-depth in-depth research within the company to maximize output value. It only needs to provide long-term value, which will increase merchant stickiness and be more illustrative in actual applications.

How does 2B operation attract new customers?

I have listed 6 new methods for attracting new customers. Each 2B company will take corresponding actions based on its resources, manpower and cost.

1. The best way is to promote or visit strangers

Ground promotion is a simple and crude way to attract new customers, but it is also the most artistic. In ground promotion, we can break down the process: attract attention - stimulate action - reserve interaction.

It is crucial for us to attract the attention of merchants and stimulate them to take action. How do we attract their attention?

We can use the above three key points to promote and attract new customers to attract the attention of merchants:

1. Among the related stakeholders, the three related parties are most interested in: the product's ability to acquire customers, which is almost a rigid demand for many companies, so even if your product has some of this function, you must magnify it as the first point of entry for ground promotion, which is generally difficult to refuse.
2. Create the greatest opportunity for on-site experience and action stimulation. This is the natural advantage of ground marketing. Find the user scenario and experience it directly.
3. Output the value anchors that interest them, such as: industry knowledge lectures, tickets to industry big names, free trial weeks, etc.
4. Focus on effectiveness, and be specific when expressing to merchants, use more numbers, and compare such things as "opening an order in one second", "increasing efficiency by more than 10 times", etc.
5. The service is professional, ranging from clothing, expression content, industry boundaries, etc.

2. Bringing new customers with old customers is the most cost-effective and has the highest conversion rate.

Many companies are good at using the old to guide the new, and that doesn’t necessarily mean that many companies are bad at it. Especially in 2B operations, we see that the most common thing is to give interest rewards and commission sharing for referrals, which can be public or private. I won’t talk about non-public matters, I will just talk about public incentive policies.

For 2B enterprises, it is recommended not to advocate material incentives, as the effect is average. Enterprises are different from C-ends, as they involve different roles, and there are many taboos among peers.

The best way to bring new people together:

1. Establish and create model merchants, and award certificates of honor or industry ratings.
2. Be invited to participate in company sharing sessions and exchange meetings to maximize exposure and display opportunities.
3. From standardization to customized service enterprises.

3. Trade fairs, industry exchange meetings, and places with the highest concentration of customers

Invitations, training, demonstrations, and Q&A are also the best times to test a company’s organizational, writing, and execution capabilities. How to maximize value?

From all kinds of meetings of different sizes, apart from product factors, the biggest variable is the environment, so we only have one sentence:

Open scenes generate traffic, while closed scenes focus on transactions.

The openness or closure of the scene is the biggest variable that affects 2B operations. In an open scene, with a lot of people and a lot of noise, it is equivalent to advertising on a third-party platform. Attracting traffic is the first priority, and you can act cute, make funny faces, send gifts, and make jokes. Of course, it has to be related to the product tone and there can be no bottom line.

A closed environment has only one purpose, which is to close a deal or intend to close a deal. Cases, experiences, and trust endorsements are all factors that affect the deal. You can experience all the different feelings yourself, so I won’t go into details.

4. Conduct cross-industry alliances

Cross-industry alliances are indeed a convenient way to integrate resources and promote new customers. There are three key points to cross-industry alliances:

1. It is necessary to have a common target customer group;
2. It is to have valuable output content;
3. They are complementary to each other.

For example: We once made a SAAS system for auto repair shops. In order to find customers quickly, we sorted out our cooperative customers based on the above three points. It would be best if we found a company that makes auto beauty products to form a cross-industry alliance and conduct a "repair shop empowerment" activity. The effect of attracting new customers was obvious, and there were even transactions on the spot.

5. Find a landing partner

Landing partners, or city partners, are more commonly used in 2B, O2O, or large SAAS companies. Finding landing partners is the key to attracting new 2B products.

How to find a partner quickly? If it seems urgent, I will provide a few unconventional ideas:

1. Find people from the product market, basically circle them based on localization, which is suitable for 2B enterprises in life and catering;
2. Find people with necessary capabilities for human development, specialization or training industries, suitable for SAAS software;
3. Finding people from the upstream and downstream of the product supply chain is suitable for companies with high industry barriers and industry independence, such as chemical steel trade, automotive aftermarket, etc.

Of course, when looking for partners, the partner incentive mechanism is very important. There are three levels of partner incentives:

1. The first level: maximize short-term material benefits, make partners earn money as quickly as possible, and create an eye-catching effect. It is suitable for high-profit, high-value SAAS products. Low prices are not suitable for finding partners.
2. The second level: Combination of long-term interests and spiritual incentives, suitable for products with high frequency and low unit price.
3. The third level: there is the prospect of becoming a shareholder of the company, or receiving shares as gifts.

6. Online acquisition

Online acquisition of new customers is now a standard and common way to attract new customers. Whether it is from the official website or microblogs and self-media, you must have your own entrance. Of course, it needs to be carried out simultaneously with offline activities. I won’t go into details about this. Different companies invest different amounts of financial and human resources, and the results will be different. Here I will focus on recommending an online third-party channel to attract new customers.

• Join a third-party B2B platform: Every industry basically has some 2B platforms, including display and trading platforms, community forums, industry expert IPs, etc. These are all our partners. If done well, this can indeed bring in traffic and enhance the company's brand effect.
• Push: Generally, medium-sized enterprises have their own independent email addresses. Email addresses are a common way to contact company content, so PUSHing via email addresses is a more accurate way to attract new customers. You need to spend some time thinking about the email subject and content design. It is recommended to make several different versions for small-scale push, and then choose the version with the highest conversion rate to send to the entire network.

In fact, the 6 strategies for attracting new customers can be played differently from different dimensions. For 2B enterprises, I only list 3 more important dimensions:

1. To connect the stakeholders of 2B products;
2. To cut into the enterprise usage scenarios;
3. Sell ​​products from a service perspective.

Even though there will be many ways to attract new customers through splitting, from the perspective of 2B operations, the operational goals are more focused and the execution effect may be better.

Finally, different people may have more other dimensions, or there may be imperfections here, just throwing out some ideas.

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