Advances in information technology have dramatically affected the face of the B-to-B buying process. Online purchasing, often called e-procurement, has grown rapidly in recent years. Virtually unknown two decades ago, online purchasing is standard procedure for most companies today. In turn, business marketers can connect with customers online to share marketing information, sell products and services, provide customer support services, and maintain ongoing customer relationships.

Companies can do e-procurement in any of several ways. They can conduct reverse auctions, in which they put their purchasing requests online and invite suppliers to bid for the business. Or they can engage in online trading exchanges, through which companies work collectively to facilitate the trading process. Companies also can conduct e-procurement by setting up their own company buying sites. For example, GE operates a company trading site on which it posts its buying needs and invites bids, negotiates terms, and places orders. Or companies can create extranet links with key suppliers. For instance, they can create direct procurement accounts with suppliers such as Dell or Staples through which company buyers can purchase equipment, materials, and supplies directly. Staples operates a business-to-business procurement division called Staples Business Advantage, which serves the office supplies and services buying needs of businesses of any size, from 10 employees to the Fortune 1000.

Business-to-business e-procurement yields many benefits. First, it shaves transaction costs and results in more efficient purchasing for both buyers and suppliers. E-procurement reduces the time between order and delivery. And an online-powered purchasing program eliminates the paperwork associated with traditional requisition and ordering procedures and helps an organization keep better track of all purchases. Finally, beyond the cost and time savings, e-procurement frees purchasing people from a lot of drudgery and paperwork. Instead, they can focus on more-strategic issues, such as finding better supply sources and working with suppliers to reduce costs and develop new products.

The rapidly expanding use of e-procurement, however, also presents some problems. For example, at the same time that the internet makes it possible for suppliers and customers to share business data and even collaborate on product design, it can also erode decades-old customer–supplier relationships. Many buyers now use the power of the internet to pit suppliers against one another and search out better deals, products, and turnaround times on a purchase-by-purchase basis.

In response to business customers’ rapid shift toward online buying, today’s B-to-B marketers are now using a wide range of digital and social media marketing approaches—from websites, blogs, mobile apps, e-newsletters, and proprietary online networks to mainstream social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google+, and Twitter—to engage business customers and manage customer relationships anywhere, anytime.

B-to-B digital and social media marketing isn’t just growing, it’s exploding. Digital and social media marketing have rapidly become the new space for engaging business customers. Consider Maersk Line, the world’s leading container shipping and ­transport company, serving business customers through 374 offices in 160 countries:12

You might not expect much by way of new-age marketing from an old-line container shipping company, but think again. Maersk Line is one of the most forward-looking and accomplished B-to-B digital and social media marketers in any industry. Maersk Line has sailed full steam ahead into the social media waters with eight global accounts on primary social media networks including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube.

Maersk Line has more than 1.1 million Facebook followers with an average engagement of 7 percent per post, making Facebook a platform for engaging a broad audience of customers and other stakeholders interested in the brand. On Instagram, the company shares customer and employee images and stories to help visualize the brand. On YouTube it posts informational and educational videos detailing Maersk Line’s activities, services, and people. Maersk Line’s Twitter feed presents the latest news and events, creating conversation and buzz with and among its more than 123,000 Twitter followers. The company’s LinkedIn account, with more than 155,500 followers, lets Maersk Line engage customers, opinion leaders, and industry influencers, who share information and discuss industry challenges and opportunities with shipping and logistics experts. Why all this social media? “The goal is to use social media to get closer to our customers,” says Maersk Line.

Compared with traditional media and sales approaches, digital and social media can create greater customer engagement and interaction. B-to-B marketers know that they aren’t really targeting businesses, they are targeting individuals in those businesses who affect buying decisions. And today’s business buyers are always connected via their digital devices—whether it’s PCs, tablets, or smartphones.

Digital and social media play an important role in engaging these always-connected business buyers in a way that personal selling alone cannot. Instead of the old model of sales reps calling on business customers at work or maybe meeting up with them at trade shows, the new digital approaches facilitate anytime, anywhere connections between a wide range of people in the selling and customer organizations. It gives both sellers and buyers more control of and access to important information. B-to-B marketing has always been social network marketing, but today’s digital environment offers an exciting array of new networking tools and applications.

Some B-to-B companies mistakenly assume that today’s digital and social media are useful primarily to consumer products and services companies. But no matter what the industry, digital platforms can be powerful tools for engaging customers and other important publics. For example, industrial powerhouse GE uses a wide array of digital and social media, not just to engage and support its business customers directly but also to tell the compelling GE brand story more broadly and to keep the company relevant, contemporary, and accessible (see Real Marketing 6.2).