The Power of Experience-Led Strategies for B2B Brands
In B2B markets facing volatility from global economic headwinds, regulatory challenges and ever-increasing competition, management teams are constantly searching for innovative strategies to drive growth and maintain a competitive edge.
A catch-all term for a range of strategies that do just that is Experience-Led Growth. Tech firms and consultancies lead the way in this space, but we are seeing, and helping, business brands across the spectrum to adopt this approach.
What is Experience-Led Growth?
McKinsey describes Experience-Led Growth as a long-run way of protecting existing business and future growth from disruptive competitors that focus on innovation, novelty and (short-term) price competition - because such competitors find it difficult to emulate or compete on this level. They say:
Experience-led growth centres on delivering exceptional and memorable experiences to customers throughout their journey. It goes beyond the table stakes of product or service delivery and focuses on creating higher-value or holistic experiences that engage, delight, and build lasting relationships. Typical tactics or activations include:
Service content tailored to every stage of the customer journey
Tailored and enhanced onboarding and client service experiences
Distinctive, useful and inspiring thought leadership content
Creating and hosting client communities to enable peer to peer networking and collaboration
Truly exceptional, innovative and memorable client events and experiences
Traditionally associated with consumer-focused industries, experience-led growth has proven potential for B2B brands, especially those with high-value, long-term client relationships - from technology infrastructure to finance, professional services and law.
Why now?
In recent years, these sectors have seen £millions invested in Account Based Marketing (ABM) to win new business by targeting, nurturing and converting leads with a tailored experience. However, a survey of B2B marketers found that over half planned to reduce ABM budgets this year.
Forrester’s 2023 guide for ABM leaders says:
“A growth strategy based on new business is challenging in a tough economy. Expansion through cross-sell and upsell is already top of mind for most marketers. Organisations should maintain this focus with increased cross-functional collaboration and include more customer-focused content and events.
Forrester recommends that organisations invest in existing customers to feed future growth; expand their reach by incorporating more anonymous audiences; and boost their content engines to improve customer experience.”
But there’s another fundamental reason, a real irony behind this trend; in a world that’s never been more ‘connected’; it’s becoming harder to really connect.
The benefits of Experience-Led Growth for B2B Brands
Differentiation and amplification
By investing in original, thoughtful and useful content day in and day out, and remarkable high-engagement ‘showstopper’ experiences from time to time, business brands can cultivate a base of loyal advocates who are more likely to recommend the brand to their networks with word-of-mouth, testimonials, case studies, and social media advocacy. All of this amplifies the brand's reputation & visibility, and, over time, makes it more distinctive & memorable.
Strengthening high-value client relationships, growing retention and LTV
By understanding the specific pain points, goals and ambitions of their clients, B2B brands can tailor content and experiences that address those needs, fostering trust, loyalty, and ultimately driving growth through repeat business and referrals.
But again, while the fundamentals of product and service delivery are, well, fundamental for success, it is higher order / higher value elements of the client experience that have been found to have the greatest impact.
Indeed, Bain and Co’s B2B Elements of Value model has organised the 40 distinct kinds of value that B2B offerings provide customers into a pyramid with five levels.
The most objective kinds of value are found at the base (Table Stakes, Fundamentals), and the higher a level is, the more subjective and personal the types of value it contains (personal benefit, career development, purpose). Studying buyer attitudes in the IT infrastructure sector, Bain found that companies that excelled on the higher value / subjective elements had significantly higher NPS scores, and they were significantly more likely to buy again from that supplier compared to those that only scored well on the fundamentals. All elements matter, but subjective, intangibles have a greater impact on buyer satisfaction, intention and retention.
Who’s winning with Experience-Led Growth?
Taking a holistic approach to CX design by truly understanding the needs, pain points, jobs to be done and goals of clients - and aligning products, services, content and experiences accordingly, works.
McKinsey’s analysis shows that US companies that are “leaders of CX achieved “more than double the revenue growth of “CX laggards” between 2016 and 2021. The revenues of leaders also rebounded from the COVID-19 pandemic more quickly than those of other companies.”
Many of the business brands getting this right are tech companies and consultancies. For instance:
Salesforce has embraced experience-led growth as a core strategy, focusing on delivering exceptional experiences throughout the customer journey; from personalised onboarding and training to ongoing support and engagement. Their Trailhead platform offers interactive and gamified learning experiences to empower users and drive adoption. Dreamforce is a massive annual gathering of Salesforce customers, partners, developers and industry professionals that come together for inspiring speeches, hands-on training sessions, product demos, entertainment and networking, showcasing the latest Salesforce technologies and fostering a vibrant community.
Sage, a provider of accounting and business management software, has applied ELG by building on the fundamentals, such as personalised onboarding and support services, tailored training programs by adding a range of educational events and webinars, and user groups for fostering community to help their clients to succeed. By prioritising the overall experience, Sage has nurtured long-term relationships.
Adobe’s Creative Cloud suite provides a comprehensive set of design tools, but Adobe goes further, offering extensive training resources, and events like the Adobe MAX conference. Adobe's Creative Meet-up is a series of events for creative professionals to come together, learn, and be inspired by industry experts, Adobe evangelists, and renowned designers who share their insights, showcase innovative projects, and discuss the latest trends in design and creativity. Collectively these initiatives foster creativity, collaboration, and skills development, creating a memorable experience and encouraging brand loyalty.
Getting started with experience-led growth
Experience-led growth is about smart design and implementation with an injection of creativity and culture. It’s something all businesses brands can adopt regardless of size. Getting it right starts by developing a deep understanding of:
Perception of the brand beyond the fundamental product and service delivery to be clear on where you are starting from, and where you want to be
The pains, gains and jobs to be done across your client segments to identify where you can truly add value beyond the core product and service offering
The content, experience and community-building activities of your competitors to identify where and how you can be distinctive
The assets, talent and knowledge IP inside the business that can be leveraged to grow reach, relationships and revenues
About Volume
VOLUME is a strategy consultancy working with business brands to fully harness their IP and knowledge to deliver remarkable experiences for their clients all the time, everywhere, growing reach, relationships and revenue as a result.
Our Blueprint model enables us to assess every element of a business brand's activity to optimise and design innovative and unique experiences from content and owned media development to events.
Contact us to discuss how we could help you and to find out more about Volume’s work in this space, including:
Concept development and testing for an ambitious client experience programme for a global property consultancy, comprising a series of truly remarkable events, plus personalised associated content
Reengineering the content strategy and rebooting client events for a Fintech with multiple B2B audiences to grow the brand’s voice and change perception of the business
Venture-building for a global law firm to build an active client and partner community to inspire and support founders of growth-stage businesses