b2b digital strategy: using personas and buyers journey in web planning

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B2B digital strategy Buyers journey and personas

Laura Invenius, ABB Drives marcom/J.Boyd Web & Intranet conference, November 6th, 2013

november 6, 2013 | Slide 1

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§  ABB (www.abb.com) is a leader in power and automation technologies that enable utility and industry customers to improve their performance while lowering environmental impact. The ABB Group of companies operates in around 100 countries and employs about 150,000 people.

§  ABB Drives are devices that are used to control the speed of an electrical motor, either an induction motor or a synchronous motor.

ABB as a company


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Creating better customer experiences in digital touch points


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§  The objective was to create better customer experiences in digital touch points

§  Marketing was traditional brochure and event type

§  Web had been the same for last 10 years, Lotus Notes as CMS

§  CMS change was communicated and ahead of us but we didn’t want to move on with the same navigation and structure

§  Web navigation is based on company hierarchy and product information

§  There was a need for change and a lot of ideas but the strategy and a bigger picture were missing

Where did we start


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Co-creation is the most powerful way to build internal commitment

Digital MarCom

Service Designer

SOME strategist

Market researcher

Junior service designer

Team N2 Nolla Team ABB Marketing Director

Sales

Product Mgmt

Partners

Counrty MarCom

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The process and time

Problem Mission

Insights (internal and external) Solutions Execution Validation

12/2012 1-4/2013 4-5/2013 8/2013 >>

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About the project From customer understanding to digital solutions


0. Kick off, current state analysis

1. Personas (user need profiles)

2. Contents

3. Touch points (channels, platforms)

4. Road map (suggestion)

5. Concepts & Prototypes

Included in the strategy

Further development

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§  Fictive characters of three different customer types

§  Provide inspiration for development projects

§  In web development personas are used for thinking the buyers

§  Personas develop and might return later on as a different persona type

Personas


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§  Interested in industry-specific information

§  Social media and new technologies are Chris’ passion.

§  His life is on the mobile and the tablet. Applications are more important for

private communication than phone calls and e-mails.

§  He is eager to share important content with his colleagues.

Persona 1 Chris the Sales Guy


Use of mobile device

He is always on the road using both mobile and tablets extensively for both social and professional purposes

Important contents

Industry-specific and drives-related product info are important, but sales arguments and sales tools would be

even more central Professional goals

Selling more to climb the career ladder motivates Chris. He is willing to share news with colleagues and competitors

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Persona 2 Bob the Engineer


§  Not very interested in engineering trends.

§  Information about products and applications relevant to him are of great interest. He is a real expert in his industry, drive knowledge being on a basic level.

§  Bob is a late adapter using social media seldom and mobile mostly for phone calls.

§  E-mails are read on the desktop computer.

§  New channels and medias will be taken into use when content is strong and value-adding.


Mobile is used mostly for phone calls. Tablet is occasionally used for private purposes

Important contents

Technical details are inspiring and he gets kicks when others do not understand his special knowledge

Professional goals

He is a full professional in his own field and wants to deepen his knowledge, not broaden it

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Persona 3 Johnny the Manager



Mobile is used for calls, e-mails and web browsing. When travelling tablet is used for e-mailing

Important contents

Trends are interesting.

Professional goals

Mission is to keep the business growing and transfer knowledge to younger generations

§  A managing director being responsible for the overall success of his company.

§  He is an expert in his field, has a good understanding of both motors and drives.

§  New technologies are interesting to Johnny even though he finds them a bit too time consuming.

§  LinkedIn is used occasionally.

§  He sees great potential in discussion platforms and online education.

§  He is likely to be a heavy-user of the contents once they are in a format that makes his life easier.

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§  The journeys help us to understand customer challenges when they buy, use, install, sell and replace.

§  We can define in what phases we could serve our customers better by offering relevant contents and tools in the right channels.

§  Buyers journey is really a critical element when thinking what kind of content needs to be offered and where.

Buyers journey


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1. Awareness & Consideration 2. Comparison 3. Purchase,

Delivery, Install 4. In use, Services 5. Upgrade, Replacement

Questions, problems, challenges

Who could help me with questions in any phase? – Who can help me with technical issues?

What do I need to be aware of? Where can I find the relevant information and contents?

What are the benefits?

What do I need to know and be aware of (standards etc.)?

How to compare and find the best supplier? Why should I choose ABB?

What should I know about products and features? How to compare and choose packages or drives ?

How are warranty issues dealt with?

Where can I get all the technical information needed?

Who will do the set-up, installing, configuring etc.? How can key persons be educated?

Delivery status

How can I get the best deals?

Where and how should I order?

How can I get the best out of my drive? How can I save the most energy and money?

Product updates and information

What kind of services can I get from my supplier and from ABB?

How can I develop my business?

What tools / applications could ease my work?

Tech support, spare parts

When and how to replace and recycle?

Technology news, trends

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§  Once we had the buyers journey in place we listed the content, tools and services that were missing

§  Based on gaps we created roadmap, web navigation hierarchy and mock-up tools

§  With customer insights, personas, buyers journey and good examples it was easy to ask for final acceptance from stakeholders

Filling the gaps


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§  ”My customers don’t look for information in web, they just call me” §  ”In B2B business people don’t use social media” §  ”You can’t find anything on our site” §  ”People want just technical specs, they don’t need anything else” §  ”We need only whitepapers, that is the only form of marketing that

is needed”

§  ”Thought leaders – we? We don’t really know what will happen in the future. Do we?”

§  ”All I need is a brochure that I can hand out when I’m standing on the event stand. It is an easy way to reach customers when they are passing by.”

Before


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§  We know who the customer personas are and what they are like

§  We understand and accept differences between different personas

§  We know what they are looking for

§  We know different stages of buyers journey and understand what they mean

§  We have identified different channels and created content plans for these channels

§  The most important fact is however that we all talk about the same things, based on the facts that we learnt directly from customers

After


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Content defines the channel


§  A digital strategy often concentrates primarily on channels and medias.

§  In this strategy we have recognized that the content should define the channel, not the other way round

§  Platforms, tools and technology selections don’t do the work alone – if we have big content gaps the new CMS system doesn’t help

§  Once you have content topics and ideas in place, it is easier to define the need for new technologies and make business case for them

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Digital ecosystem is needed for understanding user traffic, contents and the flow

PAID OWNED

EARNED

ABB.com/drives

Social media

Social media

Social media Social

ads

Mobile ads

Shares, blogs

Mobile search visibility

Social media

Other portal

News-letter

Blog (Conversations)

Mobile applications

Responsive abb.com

Social media

Display SEM

Search visibility,

PR


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What are we doing now?

§ We have created a digital roadmap including both content topics and tools – external and internal

§ We are changing from local processes and tools to global approach if we think it benefits the business

§ It is a tornado effect: once people figured it out, things started to happen

§ Clearly the need has been hiding in the organization but putting it all together started the change process