What B2B Marketing Challenges Can Interactive Customer Experiences Help You Overcome?

Are you wondering why – or even if – you might need an interactive customer experience or sales enablement tool or touchscreen experience?

Interactive experiences are becoming a bit of an expectation not only for B2C but also B2B, over a wide spectrum of different industries now fully aware that they need to deliver something better than bog-standard PowerPoint presentations of the early ’00s.

And with some of the incredible interactive experiences already out there, the bar has definitely been raised: whether you’re delivering a showstopping pitch, or simply ensuring your customers have a seamless experience with your brand at any stage of their journey.

In this article, I’m going to explain more about the need for good interactive experiences, and one of the most important aspects to think about when creating one. But first…

What do we use to create these experiences, and what’s it all about?

Well, as an interactive design studio based in Bristol, we tend to use IntuiFace to deliver engaging, visual customer experiences for our clients. This is software we first stumbled across maybe around five years ago, when we first started looking at creating a touchscreen experience for The Royal Mint.

We weren’t entirely sure on what we were doing at the time (something we’re happy to admit now), and the direction we were headed, but we started playing about with IntuiFace – and luckily it worked out pretty well for us.

Now we use it a lot to create similar experiences for various B2B companies; namely in advanced manufacturing and technology. However, what we’re really about – and the most important aspect for us – as an agency, is the customer journey.

More specifically, the crucial, face-to-face meetings between our clients and their customers. We bring something visual, engaging and memorable to high-value conversations involving sales/marketing teams and key decision makers – in the form of the tools they need to sell those ideas, and bring their messages to life.

We like to think of ourselves as facilitators of these conversations.

What B2B marketing challenges can they help with?

Next I’m going to tell you, in our experience, about the B2B sales challenges our clients face and how that relates to the work we do – to give you a better idea if this is something an interactive experience might also be the right solution for you.

Clients who approach us about creating an interactive customer (or touchscreen) experience generally need something that helps them achieve the following:

• Overcome complex messaging
• Showcase a diverse portfolio
• Selling across multiple sectors
• Become more customer-focused (rather than product-focused)
• Be seen as innovative businesses
• Deliver the ‘WOW’ factor
• Operate and exhibit globally
• Engage with more informed customers
• Maintain consistency across brand messaging
• Deliver more for clients
• Meet/exceed expectations in the boardroom

But the no.1 B2B sales challenge most businesses face, and the biggest reason sales lose business, comes down to this: an inability to clearly demonstrate value (Source: SiriusDecisions, 2008-2018). *INSERT LINK*

The importance of this? Well, if we’re in the business of helping our clients win business, then we absolutely need to understand the B2B marketing challenges they face day-to-day. What’s going on in the wider world? What can we really focus in on to help them win that business?

We’re all about those conversations, and making sure the value really shines through in whatever it is they do.

Advice from an interactive design specialist

Could an interactive customer experience (or touchscreen experience) be an option you’d wish to look into further? If so, and you think it could make a difference to your sales team and/or sales enablement strategy, it might be worth checking out our blog on some of the things to consider before you get started.

Once you’ve had some time to consider some of the aspects we’ve mentioned in there, we’d recommend getting in touch with an interactive design or touchscreen specialist, so you can find out more about what’s possible whilst taking advantage of some free, no-strings advice.

Speak to two or three different agencies who are experienced in creating interactive experiences – rather than software or web design, as those two things are really quite different. They must be able to create engaging, intuitive and fun to use, with plenty of opportunities for interaction.

Found an agency you like the look of? They should be happy to show you some examples of their work, and asking you all the right questions before listening to the kind of B2B marketing challenges you’re facing in your business, as well as your main goals and objectives – to get a better idea if they’ll be able to help you.

Establishing these things is such an important step – no agency should skip this.

Ready to overcome your B2B sales challenges?

Interactive customer experiences are becoming the norm, which can leave people feeling the pressure of being dumped in at the deep end and unsure of where to turn next. There are so many options and possibilities when creating interactive customer experiences that it can feel a bit daunting.

However, there’s no need to feel that way. A good interactive design agency should be able to listen to your needs and help talk you through your options, so you come away with a better understanding of what’s possible. Here’s what we offer at POP:

Would you like to know more about your options when it comes to developing an interactive customer experiences? Simply get in touch – call +44 (0)117 329 1712 or email hello@popcomms.com.