B2B Marketing Blog

For those who don’t watch The Office, the sitcom parodies the 9-to-5 business world through the lives of employees at Dunder-Mifflin — a B2B company in the paper industry. In this season’s second episode, the company faces a top executive who wants to bring Dunder-Mifflin into the digital age with a new Web site to replace one that has long been under construction. The chaos that ensues is the sitcom’s own irreverent way of showing how B2B companies often struggle to adapt to new technologies that will help boost sales.

Here’s a snapshot of the events:

Dunder-Mifflin has lost seven clients in the past year. To keep up with their competitors, an executive plans to develop and launch Dunder-Mifflin Infinity, a Web site that will allow customers to order without the hassle of sales calls, as well as speed up the delivery process. Management doesn’t buy the idea and is determined that former clients can be won back the old-fashioned way — by delivering customer service door-to-door with the gift of food baskets.

But when salesmen arrive on the doorsteps of former buyers, they aren’t interested in fruit and chocolates. (They aren’t exactly thrilled by the unexpected in-your-face approach either.) One by one, ex-clients turn down the opportunity to buy from Dunder-Mifflin. Defeated, the salesmen finally pitch the Web site they don’t believe in as a last-ditch effort to win a client back. And guess what? The prospect perks up and says that although he appreciates the gift basket, call him back when the Web site is launched and they’ll talk.

Back to reality, this is a example of the importance of the Internet in moving B2B sales forward. The Internet age has shown us new ways to qualify leads and sell effectively. Potential customers are using search engines to find what they’re looking to buy. So, chances are, they’ll see your Web site before they talk to your sales team. It’s your job to give them a great first impression of your company and products, and retain their attention with an intriguing interactive experience. That way, only qualified prospects will contact you for more information.

On an aside, with a Web site doing your prospecting for you, your sales department will spend more time closing sales and aligning with marketing than chasing after unqualified leads.

In the meantime, we’ll need to tune in next week to see what happens when Dunder-Mifflin celebrates the launch of its new Web site.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 5th, 2007 at 9:47 am and is filed under Interactive. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.