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Date: March 8, 2020
Word Count: 2462
Executive Summary
The objective of this individual report is to help Alibaba to expand its B2B public marketplace model and businesses into the U.S market through constructing a clear B2B customer journey map. At present, Alibaba is the China’s largest B2C online market place but it also significantly notices the future business opportunities and market potential in the global B2B E-commerce. It can potentially open a gateway for China’s manufacturers and suppliers to produce goods and raw materials for millions of the small and medium businesses (SMBs) in the U.S. The business goals of Alibaba can be aligned with the problems of the U.S SMBs because the latter is looking for cheaply-produced raw materials and intermediate products.
1.0 Introduction............................................................................................................1
2.0 Alibaba’s Customer Journey Mapping................................................................3
2.2.1 Understand the Company 4
2.2.2 Understand the client experiences 5
2.2.3 Build the B2B User Journey Map 6
3.0 Summary of Key Ways in Enhancing Customer Experience............................9
3.1 Align Goals with Target Clients 9
3.2 Collect and analyze Feedback Frequently 10
3.3 Create Meaningful Experiences 10
3.4 Provide Depersonalized Personalization 11
List of Tables
Table 1: Difference Between B2B and B2C (p1)
Table 2: Difference Between B2B and B2C Marketing (p2)
Table 3: B2B E-commerce Models (p5)
Table 4: Alibaba’s B2B customer Journey Map (p8)
1.1 Introduction
Business-to-business (B2B) and Business-to-customer (B2C) marketers are targeting at very distinctive audiences(Dant&Brown, 2008, p371). From table 1, the major differences between B2B and B2C can be illustrated as follows. B2B is actually making buying decisions for companies instead of individual customers. Within B2B sector, companies are often making bulky orders. Sellers can provide special discount policies when buyers purchase in a large quantity or make a compromise on the delivery time(Li, Wei&Cai, 2012, p640). Conversely, B2C stores target at individual customers. All prices are also fixed(Jiang, Fang, Fan&Wang, 2013, p141).
Table 1: Difference Between B2B and B2C
B2B |
B2C |
|
Ø Purchase size can be made in billions or millions of dollars Ø Making buying decisions for companies that produce goods or services for other companies Ø B2B deals with specific products for enterprises, e.g. LCD panels for automotive producers, office furniture, Smart lights for Google Voicebox. B2B companies are making bulky orders Ø Within B2B sector, prices are diverse. Sellers can offer special discount policies depending on the number of products, lead time or loyalty programs |
Ø Purchase size is usually very small Ø Making buying decisions for individual or family customers Ø B2C stores deal with largely consumer goods. For instance, Amazon sells a wide range of consumer goods ranging from toothbrushes to bicycles(Ratnasingham, 2006, p5). Ø Within B2C environment, all prices are fixed. Each customer will get the same product catalogue with a set price for each item. Even though customers may receive discounts or special orders, they are applied to all buyers equally. |
Table 2 mainly illustrates the differences between B2B and B2C marketing. It can be observed that B2B marketing strategies often involve a collective decision-making process with multiple stakeholders((Hadjikhani&LaPlaca, 2013, p294). B2C marketing, on the other hand, often needs individual persuasion and making individual decisions. The major objective of B2B marketing is to generate demand and high-quality lead instead of merely creating brand awareness or loyalty(Hadjikhani&LaPlaca, 2013, p296). Users in a B2B are looking for increased business values. For instance, apparel manufacturing companies may order cotton from suppliers in order to produce T-shirts. The purchase of cotton will help the company produce finished products and earn more profits. Therefore, B2B marketing will highlight more on the increased business value instead of enhancing customer’s satisfaction.
Table 2: Difference Between B2B and B2C Marketing
B2B Marketing |
B2C marketing |
|
Target audiences |
Ø Making buying decisions for companies that produce goods or services for other companies |
Ø Individual customers or households Ø Making individual decision-making process. Ø Requires individual persuasion |
Objective of Marketing |
Ø Create demand and high quality leads |
Ø Create brand awareness, popularity and loyalty |
User Expectation |
Ø Customers are looking for increased business value Ø Identify clients’ pain points and provide solutions |
Ø Looking for personal emotional fulfillment Ø Study lifestyle trends or customer’s buying behaviors |
Services Proposition |
Ø Highlight business value,trust and credibility in marketing |
Ø Highlight customer’s personal buying preference and enhance customer’s satisfaction |
2.0 B2B Customer Journey Map
2.1 Background
Alibaba has over 230 million buyers and deals with over 11.3 billion orders through the company’s E-commerce platform in 2019(Naidu, Widhianingtyas, Alenzi&Alfahad, 2019, p1). Alibaba’s global IPO so far is the largest in the world at $25 billion. Previously, Alibaba is more famous for its B2C services. Its Taobao.com and T-mall have become the largest online B2C marketplace in China(Mwasha, 2014, p177). In the past few decade, Alibaba aims to shift its focus toward B2B businesses. Alibaba’s meteoric rise, in fact, is attributed to its focus on growing its huge supplier base, which primarily targets at Chinese and other Asian sellers that Amazon and other B2C marketplace often neglect. Alibaba has a considerably large B2B marketplace which acts as a gateway to China and activate the enormous economy’s capacity to produce goods and services that the rest world demand. In order to meet the demand of other countries in the world, Alibaba has put into many efforts in establishing trusts and opening gates for China’s suppliers and intermediate manufacturers to the wider world. For instance, it conducts very strict business verification, factor inspection and quality assessment for its B2B businesses. Alibaba also notices that B2B E-commerce market is worth over $24.0 billion, almost 6 times larger than B2C businesses(Anwar, 2017, p366). Currently, like the aforementioned, Alibaba’s major target B2B and B2C market is still within China. But in the North America, the opportunity for B2B business growth is boosted by 30 million Small and Medium Size Businesses (SMBs)(Hillary, 2017, p8). Therefore, it is necessary and essential for Alibaba to conduct effective B2B marketing strategy in order to meet user’s expectations and demands.
2.2 B2B User Journey Map
Generally speaking, user journey map is an oriented graph that illustrates a customer journey through describing different touchpoints that characterize the users’ interaction with B2B or B2C services(Ludwig et al., 2017, p15). A customer or user journey has to demonstrate the vision for the marketing project. Then, it is necessary to understand the user behavior. Last, a user journey has to identify possible functionality. Through understanding the key needs and tasks the user wants to do and help to understand what sort of functional requirements will help enable the needs. In this report, B2B user journeys approach can be used to enhance Alibaba’s B2B marketing effort. The proposed B2B customer journey map aims to improve the service proposition of Alibaba when connecting China’s producers with the SMBs from the U.S.
2.2.1 Understand the Company
Before constructing the B2B user journey map, it is important to understand the target company very well. Alibaba, China’s E-commerce giant, is so far the largest driver of the B2B E-commerce trend in the world. Forbes reports that Alibaba’s B2B business will grow up to $6.7 trillion by the end of 2020. Global E-commerce businesses can be categorized into two groups and four models as shown in Table 3 (Pavlou& El Sawy, 2002). Alibaba’s B2B E-commerce business can be characterized by the Public Marketplace Model (many-to-many). As compared with a B2C business, B2B E-commerce marketplace is more targeting at suppliers and manufacturers instead of customers. In simple terms, the B2B public marketplace involves the electronic commerce between businesses at the level of suppliers, manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers(Standing et al., 2006, p297).
Table 3: B2B E-commerce Models
One-to-Many |
Many-to-Many |
|
Ø Independent Direct Model Ø Private Consortium Model |
Ø Private Market Place Model Ø Public Market Place Model. |
Source Credit: Pavlou& El Sawy, 2002, p1
2.2.2 Understand the client experiences
Besides, the target clients are predominantly U.S’ small and medium companies who demand raw materials, intermediate products and spare parts from China in a huge quantity(Sila&Dobni, 2012, 1255). Due to the cheap labor and land cost, raw materials, intermediate goods and spare parts can be produced in a cost-efficient manner. Even though China and the U.S are distant from each other, the shipment of the above-mentioned materials can still potentially reduce the production cost and add value in the final goods and services of American firms.
2.2.3 Build the B2B User Journey Map
As shown in table 4, Alibaba’s B2B customer journey map can be illustrated as follows. The major B2B marketing life-cycle stages can be divided into four stages, including visit website, register, on board, and convert&retain(Gillin&Schwartzman, 2010, p5). Corresponding to the four life-cycle stages, the touchpoints are also proposed accordingly.
At stage one, B2B marketing approach is through messaging and content marketing. Messaging including social media messaging and short messaging is a cost-efficient method in reaching the target audiences(Fill&Fill, 2005, p25). Content marketing, on the other hand, is a consistent effort to create and distribute valuable, relevant and timely content to build a target audience. Effective content marketing depends on two basic factors(Brosan, 2012, p154). Alibaba’s B2B marketers should optimize the content marketing mix for sales-qualified leads and revenue. In addition, they should also make content both for human beings and search engines. Among all the major challenges, it is often difficult for B2B marketers to measure the content ROI Besides, small content size and undifferentiated messaging will hinder the effectiveness of B2B marketing strategies. The effectiveness of the touchpoints at the stage one can be reflected by the bouncing rate, CTA button click rate and the conversion rate in registration(Wise&Zednickova, 2009).
At stage two, B2B marketers are designing and providing registration forms to potential clients. They also need to take the responsibility to motivate clients to click calls-to-action. As the above-mentioned, the CTAs click rate is an important indicator to measure touchpoints at stage one(Wise&Zednickova, 2009). At stage two, marketers will generally face two major challenges. One challenge is that CTAs may be untested. The other challenge is that the registration form may be designed very awkwardly. It hinders clients from registering. The percentage of registration can be used to measure the touchpoints at this stage.
At stage three, marketers should effectively and efficiently facilitate the client onboarding process(King, 2015, p14). It is about integrating new customers into the Alibaba’s B2B business network. Onboarding clients’ information should also be documented in details. Therefore, one major challenge is also the thin documentation which creates insufficient data for B2B marketers and sales sectors. Usually the percentage of clients who invite others into the B2B network can be used to measure the effectiveness of touchpoints at the onboarding stage.
At the last stage, marketers should be able to convert new clients into loyal clients and successfully retain them(Blythe&Zimmerman, 2005, p20). Payment process is often done at this stage in which clients are making orders and transactions. B2B marketers also need to nurture emails and establish trusts among clients and suppliers. Special discount and pricing strategies can be offered to clients who make a bulky order. However, Alibaba’s B2B marketers may also face challenges. Most of the time, systematic emails instead of personal emails are sent to clients. It is less heartfelt and often becomes a source of annoyance to clients. In addition, discount or pricing policies may be untested. Unrealistic discount polices may adversely affect the profits and business performance of Alibaba. At this stage, churn rate and User-to-paid conversion rate can be effective indicators of the touchpoints effectiveness.
Table 4: Alibaba’s B2B customer Journey Map
B2B Customer Journey Map | ||||
Life-cycle stages |
1. Visit Website |
2.Register |
3. Onboarding |
4. Convert |
Touch points |
Ø Messaging Ø content Marketing |
Ø Registration form Ø Calls-to-action (CTA) |
Ø Self-serve Ø Integration Ø Documentation |
Ø Nurture emails Ø Payment Process Ø Pricing and discount policies |
Challenges |
||||