Doing business with Millennials: 5 tips for dealing with the next generation of B2B customers

By Elaine WATSON

- Last updated on GMT

5 tips for doing business with Millennials
For boomers at ingredients suppliers seeking to engage with a new generation of Millennials within their customer base, b2b ad and marketing communications agency Anderson Partners Food Ingredient Marketing has come up with some tips designed to help build relationships across the generational divide…

While personal relationships remain critical in the b2b setting, says APFIM president Mark Hughes, not everyone wants to do business over a game of golf or in the bar anymore, while conversations that used to take place over the phone or in person are increasingly being handled via text, email or social media.

#1 “Limit phone calls and in-person meetings​,” says Hughes. “These can be considered old-fashioned and decrease productivity.”

#2  “As a business, you not only need to have a really great online presence, including a website, Twitter account, Facebook page and Instagram, but you also need for your presence to be interactive,”​ he adds. “Respond to reviews and tweets that are directed at your business. On your personal LinkedIn profile page, you can be interactive by endorsing your millennial customers. Carefully monitor all of your company’s social media sites, keep content up to date and be concise and to the point.”

#3 Many of your customers and potential customers will do most of their research online, he says, “so make sure your company is leaving a ‘big footprint’ online.”

#4 Give more positive feedback: “Let your clients know that you appreciate their business as well as asking if you could be doing anything to better help them.”

#5 Finally, he says, “Use your millennial employees as company ambassadors, in order to reach millennial customers and provide a sense of value to your own millennial employees at the same time.”

Read the full report HERE​.

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