In the age of Netflix, Lyft, and Venmo, young digital-native consumers are feeling entitled to receive on-demand, high-performance services. They expect these solutions to be fast, simple, frictionless, personalized, highly customizable, device-agnostic, immersive and visually slick and smooth (pretty modest, right?). Moreover, they trust their service providers to appreciate their values and demonstrate their respect for millennials’ way-of-life, while making it abundantly clear throughout their digital journeys. In return, young consumers are expected to be highly engaged and justify their reputation as the most brand-loyal generation.
While it is well-known that millennial customers are extremely sensitive when it comes to quality of service and user experience, what is less known is that enterprise software vendors are receiving similar feedback from their customers as well, regardless of their age. These vendors are fighting to differentiate themselves in the saturated SaaS market, especially when facing their customers, and more specifically, their customers’ end-users. They struggle to persuade their end-users to engage continuously with their products and be satisfied to the degree that will convert them from passive users to committed evangelists.
The unique products that have been able to appeal to Generation Y's taste are powered, inter alia, by Artificial Intelligence. It allows software vendors to provide a hyper-personalized and expedited experience to their clients. These algorithms do so by ingesting and analyzing users’ unique digital footprints and the plethora of information they generate daily.
Vendors realize they must use these AI-driven capabilities wisely and look beyond the core technology of their products. It isn’t necessarily the underlying technology that propels the value of companies that cater to the millennial's distinctive pallet, but matters such as value-based branding, UI/UX design, customer service, agile pricing models, personalization and frictionless execution, that established their competitive defensibility.
B2B marketers are feeling obligated and even coerced to look at their enterprise end-users through this newly formed generational lens. Millennials-in-mind approaches that were once associated with consumer-centric products have gradually osmosed into the enterprise realm. This profound transformation is impacting the way enterprise-grade products are imagined, developed and deployed. Two specific examples that stand out in this regard:
- Millennial-Driven Marketing - In an effort to convert leads and prospects into paying customers, enterprise software vendors are increasingly using marketing tools and channels, that were predominately used by B2C companies thus far. Targeted social media campaigns, ‘native marketing’ efforts and communications through emerging digital platforms and formats, are just a few indications of marketers’ recalibrated approach towards Account-Based Marketing. The ability to use AI to microsegment audiences and laser-target relevant stakeholders and decision-makers within a relevant enterprise (or external ‘influencers’ beyond the enterprise boundaries) is strengthening B2B marketers’ capabilities to optimize budget structuring and its deployment. These marketing methodologies will only become more prevalent as millennials occupy a growing number of decision-making positions in major enterprises.
- Putting the corporate employee on a pedestal - Startups that have traditionally perceived themselves as ‘B2B players’ in nature are gradually becoming ‘B2B2C players’ de facto, placing the end-users, and their preferences for outstanding design and experience, at the heart of their products and services. This trend is manifested in two main ways:
- Top-down: Enterprise-grade SaaS applications are expected to be slick, frictionless, and ‘sticky’ (whether this could be accounted for its eye-catching interface, relatable messaging, seamless integration, or digestible data and insights), in a way that will resonate with its end-users, and thus, drive more robust and continuous engagement. R&D and product teams are expected to consider this illusive KPI from the get-go and create products which are ‘Millennial-by-Design.'
- Bottom-up: A growing number of B2B marketers prefer to first establish a broad and active community of followers and evangelists, as a preliminary step to the initiation of an enterprise-scale sales process. The rationale behind using this ‘guerilla’ tactic is that by reaching a critical mass of early-adopters, the vendor’s sales organization will be more capable of selling premium products or enterprise-grade subscription licenses. In some cases, enterprise products are hinged on community contribution that leads to enrichment and augmentation of the product itself.
Finally, corporate’s brand posture is critical in this discussion. Relying on superior technology alone, while disregarding matters such as positioning, brand safety, and political stance, will prevent B2B vendors from fully exploiting the unique opportunities this millennial-driven era encompasses.
