RS Components: Understanding Buyers in 32 Markets

The B2C sales process is rel­a­tive­ly straight­for­ward for com­pa­nies, as the entire sales cycle is typ­i­cal­ly com­plet­ed by a sin­gle per­son. But for B2B sales, the sales cycle can get com­pli­cat­ed with mul­ti­ple peo­ple from dif­fer­ent roles in the same com­pa­ny par­tic­i­pat­ing in a sin­gle pur­chas­ing deci­sion. An engi­neer might vis­it a web­site to research prod­ucts, down­load tech­ni­cal doc­u­men­ta­tions, and make rec­om­men­da­tions, but a pro­cure­ment man­ag­er will com­plete the pur­chase days lat­er. Under­stand­ing the dif­fer­ent needs of influ­encers and pur­chasers helps com­pa­nies serve their cus­tomers bet­ter and spend mar­ket­ing dol­lars wisely.

RS Com­po­nents, a trad­ing brand of Elec­tro­com­po­nents Plc., is the world’s largest elec­tron­ics dis­trib­u­tor. The com­pa­ny want­ed to solve this B2B sales dilem­ma by tak­ing a wider look at the cus­tomer base and mak­ing greater use of ana­lyt­ics data across con­tent, prod­uct, and mar­ket­ing teams.

RS Com­po­nents imple­ment­ed Adobe Ana­lyt­ics Pre­mi­um as a core com­po­nent of trans­form­ing its dig­i­tal strat­e­gy. Analy­sis Work­space dri­ves a self-serve ana­lyt­ics mod­el for 400 users. Users across teams can pull togeth­er reports in min­utes to under­stand how prod­ucts or mar­ket­ing cam­paigns are per­form­ing with cus­tomers across 32 markets.

With a sol­id foun­da­tion for dig­i­tal ana­lyt­ics in place, RS Com­po­nents is using data to improve dig­i­tal expe­ri­ences. Mul­ti­vari­ate test­ing through Adobe Tar­get Pre­mi­um allows teams to adjust mar­ket­ing cam­paigns based on mea­sur­able data, which sim­pli­fies the deci­sion-mak­ing process. One test looked at the col­or, copy, and place­ment of a but­ton locat­ed next to the Order Bas­ket. Mak­ing adjust­ments to this but­ton increased click-throughs by 75% and increased Aver­age Order Val­ue by 2%.

Rich ana­lyt­ics data also feeds into mul­ti­chan­nel mar­ket­ing cam­paigns through Adobe Cam­paign. Under­stand­ing pur­chase his­to­ry, mar­keters can com­mu­ni­cate con­sis­tent mes­sag­ing and per­son­al­ized rec­om­men­da­tions across email, social, and direct mail. This is lead­ing to increased engage­ment and return on investment.

“Adobe has helped to illus­trate the impor­tance of dig­i­tal ana­lyt­ics data in deci­sion mak­ing,” says Andrew Mor­ris, Head of Dig­i­tal Insight Deliv­ery at RS Com­po­nents. “Thanks to the pow­er­ful suite of Adobe solu­tions, there has been a mea­sur­able impact on our business.”

Read the full case study here