Advanced Manufacturing: How to Improve the B2B Buyer Journey with Interactive Tools

Are you looking for a better way to engage your customers and bring your advanced manufacturing products and services to life for potential buyers? A powerful tool in your armoury to help you do this and to support both your customers and sales teams are interactive sales tools to encourage a more conversational approach.

The behaviour of B2B buyers and decision makers has changed. They now approach potential suppliers well armed with information, and 79% are aware of at least three potential suppliers – a further 86% already have a preference.

With odds like that if you aren’t the preferred supplier or even in the list of three then success seems unlikely; so how are you going to win their business through the B2B buyer journey?

There are a lot of factors which can influence a buyer’s decision but ensuring that when you do meet them face to face you make maximum use of that time is critical as face to face meetings with suppliers are the most important step in a buyers process, it’s where Trust is established.

The RSW new business survey recently reported that 97% of senior decision makers said the professionalism of a potential supplier’s presentation was either very important – or important – in awarding a contract. 

Ensuring that you have the right marketing materials and sales content and the right story to tell, that clearly has your customer at its heart and visually brings your proposition to life, is key. So that when you leave that meeting the customer clearly understands where you add value and create opportunities and can easily retell your story to other stakeholders within their business.

What is conversational presenting?

Conversational presenting means taking a different approach to the same old linear, static slides, an alternative to a typical PowerPoint presentation. It’s about creating a conversation – a two-way dialogue – that clearly has your customer at its heart and gives them the freedom to direct the conversation in the most relevant direction for them.

But, this doesn’t mean handing over control, far from it, with a well thought out interactive presentation (which is key to conversational presenting) you can tailor the conversation and glean valuable information from the customer whilst still giving them exactly what they need.

The way you can do this is by changing the format of your presentation so that it’s more interactive and lets you only present the information your customers want to hear about – and in the order they need to hear it in. No more skipping through slides or saying: “I’ll get to that part in a minute…”. The other key element is using leading questions within the interactive presentation which helps to get them talking about specific areas they have challenges with or are most interested in.

↑ Posing questions within your presentation creates conversations (Example: Fujitsu)

Where do touchscreens come into the B2B buyer journey?

This interactive element to presenting can be taken to a whole new level when you add a touchscreen to the mix.

Using a touchscreen lets you tell a much more visual, multi-layered story, whilst letting you and your customers physically interact with the content on screen together. The result? A more immersive and engaging experience that’s sure to keep their attention and deliver the WOW factor.

↑ This interactive experience allows Bosch Packaging to move around a visual of their customer’s environment, whilst going into specific services & assets. 

When you have complex solutions – as a lot of engineering firms do – it can be difficult to explain things without getting too bogged down in detail. Interactive touchscreens can utilise elements such as interactive graphics, maps and menus to not only act as a visual guide but give you the ability to drill down into more specific information when the customer asks to see it.

Why touchscreens and conversational presenting are a perfect match

Unsure if this is going to work for you yet? Well, there are some great benefits of delivering a conversational presentation with an interactive touchscreen – some of which we’ve touched on above.

↑ Visual stories of your customer’s world, combined with interactive content are very effective for conversational presentation (Example: GCP)

1. Interactive navigation and menus
   A touchscreen lets you have a wealth of content available which is tailored to different audiences, with interactive navigation and menus letting you select the relevant content to suit your audience, and let them lead the conversation.
2. Innovative features and functionality
   Interactive touchscreens can incorporate some immersive and engaging features, which encourage people to explore and interact. You can use videos and 3D videos, 3D models, gamification and interactive infographics – plus a lot more besides!
3. A powerful visual story
   The visual element of an interactive touchscreen can be very powerful – especially if you’re looking for ways to explain complex solutions within your B2B buyer journey. If you can also tell a compelling story that strikes all the right chords with them, you’ll be onto a winner.
4. A confident sales team
   Instead of having multiple different presentations on the go at once, your sales team can have one, unified interactive sales tool that has everything they could ever need to deliver the best possible presentation. Having this on their side will definitely boost their confidence!
5. An engaging experience
   If you can fit all the pieces of the puzzle together, then what your customers will be presented with should be a persuasive, engaging and immersive experience that has the WOW factor, but which also clearly articles your value and benefits to the customer – giving them the confidence to engage with you.
6. Update as you go along
   Touchscreens are an investment and are made to evolve along with you. So your content can be updated or adapted whenever you need a change. You can even tailor it to specific situations or events – just so long as you keep the core narrative and visuals.

↑ This interactive experience allows GEA VIPOLL to talk to customers about a range of topics and services, whilst providing them with relevant in-depth content as required. 

If all of the above has piqued your interest, and you think an interactive touchscreen presentation could potentially be a good move for your business, here’s our advice on your next steps.

Advice from the presentation pros

Before you dive in think about the following:

• The trends and challenges your customers are facing at the moment
• The sort of story that would have the most impact and inspire action
• The visual elements you could potentially add to drive your message home
• The type of content customers are going to find the most useful
• The questions and concerns they always mention or ask you about
• The types of features they’ll want to interact with most
• The elements that are really going to wow and persuade them
• What success looks like for you and your customers?

We’re sure we don’t have to tell you that knowing your audience is vital when it comes to nailing your presentation. Ignoring them is the biggest mistake you can make – and that counts for any kind of presentation or marketing efforts you put together.

Download our guide or contact our team

Hopefully, by now you should have a better idea of why interactive touchscreens – combined with conversational presenting – can be such an effective presentation tool for your B2B buyer journey.

What’s more, this way of presenting can really bring your ideas, products and services to life, setting you apart from your competitors. It can even become an indispensable sales tool that your entire team can use, whilst helping them make an emotional connection with your audience – something that’s becoming vital for winning business in B2B. Good brand stories have become essential.

Want some free, no-strings advice – or to talk through an idea – before going any further? In that case, we’d love to hear from you. Get in touch today on +44 (0)117 329 1712 or hello@popcomms.com.