Customer acquisition is the life of any business, and different verticals have their own approach to it. When it comes to customer acquisition for B2B companies, there are several myths circulating in the business community. For example, as addressed in this research by Aberdeen Group, B2B companies are believed to have a longer sales cycle.

But how many of these are true?

To get a better understanding of the customer acquisition process for B2B companies, e27 speaks to Brendan O’Shaughnessy, Chief Commercial Officer at ViSenze.

Founded in Singapore, the company provides visual AI services for other companies, particularly those in the retail sector. The services that they offer include visual search engine recommendations and photo tagging; their list of clients include major fashion brands and even five leading smartphone manufacturers Huawei, Samsung, LG, Vivo and Oppo.

“Over the last two to three years, they have integrated our visual search technology into their phones’ operating system,” O’Shaughnessy explains.

With that, after eight years of operations, Visenze processes 350 million product visuals globally every month through its services and manage over 400 million product shoots for a thousand global retailers. It has also partnered with companies such as AWS, which O’Shaughnessy says has enabled them to focus on its core technology development.

In this article, O’Shaughnessy shares the key elements of customer acquisition for B2B companies, based on Visenze’s experience in the field. These learnings are divided into key four points:

• Principles of customer acquisition
• Getting the customers onboard
• Remaining challenges in B2B customer acquisition
• Customer acquisition in a time of crisis

Also Read: Rakuten leads US$10.5M Series B in AI startup ViSenze

Principles of customer acquisition

O’Shaughnessy begins his explanation by stating that in principle, there is certainly a difference in customer acquisition approach for B2B and B2C companies.

To explain how customer acquisition is like for B2C companies, he gives an example of a digital media company. To gain customers, they are likely to introduce a subscription that enables customers to gain access to content for a price, for a particular period of time. There will also be a strong paid marketing approach for these companies to reach their target customers.

“One of the biggest differentiators is the content proposition. It’s really critical for them to get it right because, ultimately, consumers will only pay for those subscriptions if they like the content they carry,” O’Shaughnessy points out.

He adds that while B2C companies tend to have lightweight to zero cost activation, many of these companies also have a minimum subscription term of just one month.

“It’s still a big consideration on the approach you take for reaching and acquiring those users. ‘We spend so much on attracting this amount to one month.’ It will cost you money. So there’s a risk assessment that has to be factored into your strategy at every step of process, acquisition and activation,” O’Shaughnessy concludes.

Meanwhile, with B2B companies, there are factors beyond content that need to be considered: From the different stakeholders involved in the process, the integration with other available services, data security, to even budget approval.

“It could lead to a requirement for trials, competitive evaluation and testing, and ultimately, price negotiation,” O’Shaughnessy says, adding that Visenze’s role in their clients’ business is more like a “component”.

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“We are the component that supports a function. We are not building an app for them. We’re not creating catalogue or managing interface UX. As components, we have to fit within their strategy. We have to fit within their ecosystem. We have to fit their business priorities. So, you know, part of our customer acquisition strategy, we really have to consider specific messaging,” he continues.

He also adds that for this kind of approach, in addition to having sales and marketing teams, a B2B company might also need to have a pre-sales and customer success support team.

Other principles that B2B companies need to keep in mind is timing and a global mindset.

“If we join a conversation too late, we might miss the boat. If we join too early, we may have a much longer sales cycle and that costs us resources and time,” O’Shaughnessy says, indirectly explaining the “longer sales cycle” myth.

Getting the customers onboard

So now that we have understood the key principles that Visenze is implementing in their customer acquisition approach, how about the practices? How do they onboard a new client into their service?

It starts with content marketing and outreach to specific individuals through various online and offline channels. When they are engaging with a prospective client, Visenze team will try to focus on what these clients need –not only today but also in the upcoming years. At this stage, it is important for them to show successful case studies to convince potential clients that they would not be the first to try this technology, that there are others who have proven its efficacy.

Once they managed to go through that process, Visenze is going to set up a trial account for the potential client –a stage that O’Shaughnessy dubs as “really critical” as it enables them to see how Visenze technology works with their data.

“When we are setting up a trial, we allow them to sort of play in the sandpit. We stay in touch with them throughout the process to make sure that we’re engaged in that. When we get past that point, it’s a question of, ‘Okay, how do we take this forward? What is the strategic fit?’”

Also Read: Moving from an MNC to a startup, what the leap really means

In some cases, some field trials might even be needed.

“Our policy is that field trials can run from one to three months. But we increasingly see one month trial being the preferred option, which is great because we can also demonstrate real business impact in just within that period,” O’Shaughnessy says.

He gives two examples of inbound and outbound leads that the company has pursued. The first company was a US-based major global brand who responded to a white paper published by Visenze’s marketing company. This led to a sales engagement process that lasted for months before they were able to confirm for a paid proof-of-concept.

“We worked very, very closely with them through our market pre-sales team. We also pulled in support from our product and data science team in Singapore. So, after an extended period that included a real-world test in multiple markets and competitive AB testing against one of our prime competitors (who were an incumbent in that account), we were selected … We signed a long term agreement,” O’Shaughnessy elaborated.

Another example involves a Europe-based brand with a local innovation team in Singapore. The company reached out to Visenze, asking to be helped with a “very complex” visual recognition problem for a mass consumer product.

According to O’Shaughnessy, this case was “interesting” as they almost did not win the contract.

“But the project was interesting to us … so we decided to proceed. We ended up conducting a one-month POC for free. We put the contract aside and said, ‘Look, we’ll just do it. Let’s see where we get to.’ We were also against the other two vendors,” he says, adding they eventually secured a partnership with the company.

Remaining challenges in B2B customer acquisition

When asked about that one aspect of B2B customer acquisition that continues to become a challenge, O’Shaughnessy firmly answers lead generation.

“Marketing plays a key role in this … our messaging, positioning, and supporting that outreach effort. [It also helps in] creating that inbound interest to a company like us, identifying target prospects, and researching solutions fit,” he points out.

Visenze’s marketing team will come up with a certain list of target clients in a particular market; a process that requires them to undertake research and analysis to build an understanding on how to best approach the prospects.

Also Read: ViSenze raises US$20M Series C funding round co-led by Gobi Partners, Sonae IM

“What we’re doing on a centralised basis of a sales campaign or marketing positioning [is that] we make sure they got the right messaging collateral that they can tap into and utilise … to support them in terms of best practice, activities that can help them create awareness mark that they can leverage and tap into,” O’Shaughnessy says.

“For any business, keeping that top-funnel out of a very healthy level and keeping that cycling through is really critical, because if you don’t have that, you’re limited in terms of the day-to-day sales activities. You can actually undertake the progress you can make. So, I wouldn’t say we’ve solved it, but we’re continuously evolving ways to deal with it and optimise our lead generation challenge,” he further explains.

Customer acquisition in a challenging time

It is no longer a secret that the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting the retail sector widely –a situation that also impacted a visual search platform such as Visenze. When dealing with a crisis of this level, the company believes that there is no option but to refocus.

“We changed our priorities, we changed our approach, and we faced it head-on,” O’Shaughnessy stresses. “So we took three major decisions back in Q2 when it became clear that COVID-19 was going to have a massive impact for an extended period of time.”

There are three steps that Visenze is taking to deal with it:

1. Over-communicate with team members across time-zones

“We were running three daily calls from HQ with our sales teams in different regions. And we felt that was important because sales teams are not used to staying at home … but they’re used to customer contact and team contact. And when you when that’s taken away, it’s it can have a big impact, particularly when you’re disconnected from your sources.”

“It did make a difference in team morale.”

2. Prioritise customer retention

“I’m glad to say that to shift the priority from acquisition –which was just almost impossible– to retention meant that we didn’t lose any major client despite the impact on their businesses.”

3. Take the opportunity to make a change

“[The changes brought by the pandemic] allowed us to reflect and look at our strategy and market offering, and we decided that there were changes we had to make. And we wanted to make it now, as good as any time to make. So we looked at how we could redefine a market offering to better position for a longer term business strategy.”

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Image Credit: Visenze

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