Acknowledgement

The authors want to direct a special thanks to professor Svante Andersson at Halmstad
University for his continuous support and feedback during the entire process. It would have
been hard to conduct this study without his guidance and expertise.

The authors would also like to thank key personnel at Axelent for your input and feedback
during the process and discussion about the studied topic. It was a pleasure to have you as our
contact persons. Thank you for your interest and devoted time to this study; we could not
have had a better partner company for this.

Lastly, we would also like to thank all the employees at Axelent who participated in the
interviews and helped finalize the empirical part of this study.

Thank you!

1
 Abstract
Rapid digital transformation, accelerated by covid-19 and a younger, more digital workforce,
has changed the B2B sales environment affecting customer behavior, business practices and
technologies. To adapt to this change B2B companies need to create new endeavors that
connect marketing and sales activities, and identify how these can be efficiently enhanced by
technology and digital tools. There is a need to identify effective tactics in different phases of
the marketing and sales process. Consequently, more academic research is needed to
investigate critical issues that technology may have in the B2B buying process. This paper
thereby aims to establish a framework for B2B companies on how to optimize the customer
journey by supporting the sales process with digital inbound marketing. This is examined by
looking at how B2B companies can optimize the sales process by targeting customers’ needs
with relevant actions throughout the customer journey with the help of technology and digital
means. The results of this exploratory single case study demonstrates that the customer
journey is complex with several touchpoints, and to create optimized processes, the customer
journey must be adapted to each specific customer segment. Further, the study also
contributes to the literature by demonstrating the importance of the marketing and sales
departments being integrated and working together to create efficient processes. The
presented framework for a customer journey can be used by managers to visualize the sales
process, and identify at what stages the process can be made more efficient by digital means.

Keywords
Data-driven Marketing, B2B Customer Journey/B2B Sales Funnel, B2B Sales Management,
Digital Inbound Marketing, Digital Content Marketing, Growth hacking

2
List of abbreviations
CRM - Customer Relationship management
B2B - Business to Business
B2C - Business to Consumer
KPI - Key Performance Indicators
SEM - Search Engine Marketing
SEO - Search Engine Optimization
USP - Unique Selling Point
ROI - Return on Investment

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Table of Content
1.0 Introduction 7
1.1 B2B Digital inbound marketing 7
1.1.1 B2B Sales management 8
1.2 Problem Discussion 9
1.3 Purpose 10
1.4 Definitions - Delimitation 11
2.0 Frame of Reference 12
2.1 B2B Customer journey 12
2.1.1 Sales Funnel 14
2.2 Digital content marketing 16
2.3 Omnichannel approach 19
2.4 Marketing technology 21
2.4.1 Digitalization of B2B sales 23
2.5 The future of digital marketing & sales 25
2.5.1 Growth hacking 26
3.0 Method 29
3.1 Approach and Design 29
3.2 Type of research and strategy 29
3.3 Instrument to collect the primary data 30
3.3.1 Secondary sources 31
3.4 Data Collection 32
3.4.1 Population and sample 33
3.5 Company description 34
3.6 Data Analysis 35
3.7 Reliability and Validity 35
4.0 Empirical Findings 37
4.1 Covid-19 37
4.2 The general Customer Journey 38
4.3 Prospects 39
4.4 Pre-approach 40
4.5 Approach 43
4.6 Handling and Presentation 46
4.7 Closing 49
4.8 Findings 50
4.8.1 Touchpoints 50
4.8.2 Aligning sales and marketing 50
4.8.3 Technology and data 51

4
5.0 Analysis of Empirical Data 52
5.1 Customer Journey 52
5.2 Identified Contacts 55
5.3 Marketing leads 56
5.4 Sales leads 60
5.5 Opportunities 62
5.6 After Sales 66
5.7 Summary of suggestions for Axelent 67
6.0 Conclusion 70
7.0 Theoretical and practical implications 71
8.0 Suggestions for future research 72
References 73
Online References 78
Appendices 80

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List of Figures
1. Marketing & Sales Funnel 14
2. How to build and maintain profitable customer relationships 16
3. Growth hacking pillars 27
4. Present customer journey at Axelent 39
5. Marketing strategies at Axelent 40
6. Leads management by sales team at Axelent 44
7. Sales pipeline at Axelent 47
8. Sales and Marketing Funnel 69

List of Tables
1. Detailed interview list 33
2. Customer Buying Journey Framework 81

6
1.0 Introduction
In this introduction chapter, the background to the topic is presented with clarification of
some concepts. The topic is then discussed by looking into some problems that exist around
the context, which end up in a research question and a purpose.

1.1 B2B Digital inbound marketing

The internet is constantly developing and has brought significant changes in companies'
marketing efforts, such as digital-, content-, search engine- and social media marketing.
These can be summed up under one great concept; digital inbound marketing (Opreana &
Vinerean, 2015). Also, in the last decade, there have been essential changes in the B2B
ecosystem regarding technology development and process automation. Therefore in today's
digital marketing, understanding the customers and the customer journey is essential for
acquiring new leads and understanding the process of sales (Maier, 2021; Saura,
Ribeiro-Soriano & Palacios-Marqués, 2021). A sales lead is a person who has been in contact
with a company regardless of the buying intention and often establishes requirements to buy
in the future (Joshi, 2021). According to Maier (2021), the development of new technologies
has made information gathering and availability an excellent advantage for selling and buying
parties. This innovation is called 'Big Data'. Technologies and new interactions have
developed to meet the complexity of innovating digitalization and the complex behaviors of
the customers, which has meant significant changes in sales and marketing processes. This
has changed how the seller interacts with the buyer, which means that new, efficient
communication strategies must be created. (Maier, 2021) Professional B2B selling is
sensitive to changes in buyer behavior, increasing customer expectations, and the merger of
new technologies (Pandey, Nayal & Rathore, 2020). Today B2B sellers need to do more than
sell a product as the customer journey gets more attention in management functions, requiring
personalization, automation, interaction, and journey innovation (Edelmann & Singer, 2015).

Digital channels and touchpoints influence consumers' buying decisions at every customer
life cycle stage (Brinker, 2016). Holliman and Rowley (2014) write that in inbound digital
marketing, customers and prospects actively look for brands that provide content relevant to
their needs. Therefore, reviewing marketing strategies by identifying suitable media efforts
for a more customer-centric focus may hugely affect B2B marketing (Krings, Palmer &
Inversini, 2021). Asensio (2018) agrees that data-driven marketing includes marketing
processes characterized by personal targeting through data, reducing waste and inefficiency.
This new B2B environment creates a new way of doing business with digital information
technologies (DIT) and the possibility of generating massive amounts of information about
buyers. This information can then be analyzed to develop new marketing strategies and push
for a more buyer-driven marketing strategy in the digital B2B setting (Marvasti, Huhtala,
Yousefi, Vaniala, Upreti, Malo, Kaski & Tikkanen, 2021).

The importance of digital selling has increased because Millennials and Generation Z have
more decision-making positions and prefer online contacts (Kim, 2020; Medina, Altschuler &

7
Kosoglow, 2019). Thus, the ongoing Corona Pandemic has accelerated the digital
transformation of both companies and consumers. Therefore, managers should be proactive
in developing digital sales initiatives (Kim, 2020). Due to this new approach of businesses
being led by their buyers and not their sellers, businesses now need to create new endeavors
that connect marketing and sales activities and match the new B2B buying behavior process
(Marvasti et al., 2021). Böringer, Dierks, Huber and Spillecke (2022) explain that people
have and will continue to run sales. However, since digitalization and technologies are
increasing in influence, B2B organizations need to combine the power of people with
technologies, data and analytics to utilize the best in all parts and become growth champions.
It is about gaining new insights, taking a holistic view, and creating real impacts.

1.1.1 B2B Sales management

The repercussions of Covid-19 have led to traditional sales excellence not being enough, and
there is a need to redefine sales strategies and establish more agile go-to-market models
(Driedonks & Paulowsky, 2020). Refining sales strategies based on customer behavior
improves sales productivity significantly (Smith, Stöber & Ulrich, 2020). The buying
preferences are changing fast in the B2B landscape, reflecting the 24/7 world increasingly
with customers expecting speed and accuracy in all the company's touchpoints, both digital
and in-person. This forces companies to be more agile in their sales operations with a
customer-centric operating model supported by the right processes and governance. For agile
sales teams to operate quickly and effectively, it is necessary to establish sound practices
around sales teams to provide structure. For example, having a clear growth plan on how to
win each type of customer developed by a cross-functional team (Driedonks & Paulowsky,
2020). As the business environment is rapidly changing, traditional approaches are being
challenged. Sales management and personal selling need to be reconsidered to find new ways
of doing business as the B2B buyers are shifting their needs and wants. More and more B2B
customers want the buying process to be autonomous, and many prefer the online
environment. B2B buyers are enhancing their standards simultaneously as shifting suppliers
is easier than ever before, and the salespersons' focus is becoming more towards support and
problem-solving than direct sales. Suppliers are also looking more alike, and the former
industry boundaries are slowly erased (Corsaro & Maggioni, 2022).

Social media has made it possible for companies to connect and create relationships much
faster than before. It is also easier to target and distinguish groups in the networks, reducing
screening time. Hence, the immediate two-way communication has improved the
relationships between buyers and sellers (Itani, Agnihotri & Dingus, 2017). Corsaro and
Maggioni (2022) mean that digitalization has gained a greater position in the modern
environment of sales transformation. The authors address four critical parts of digitalization
that are changing our sales processes; Big Data Analytics, Sales Force Automation,
Advanced CRM, Artificial Intelligence and Social Selling. On the other hand, digital
transformation raises both opportunities and challenges for companies (Bohnsack & Liesner,
2019). Today, most sales have moved to a remote model such as videoconference, phone or
web (Georgiev, Ibrahim-Hashi, Kiewell, Smith, & Youldon, 2021). According to Angevine,

8
Lun Plotkin and Stanley (2018), B2B companies that use digital means effectively have five
times higher growth than their competitors. However, customers still want both; effective
digital- and human interaction. Face-to-face interactions are still essential for large sales deals
since this gives customers the necessary sense of trust. However, for most deals, face-to-face
meetings may not be necessary. Therefore, in companies with a wide range of deal sizes, the
salespeople should differentiate their interactions so they do not spend unnecessary time on
smaller deals (Smith et al., 2020).

1.2 Problem Discussion

As the environment rapidly evolves, data and analytics is becoming a widely adopted method
among sales managers to advance and keep up with their commercial performance. However,
not all data is relevant, and not everyone knows how to translate or use data the right way
(Grandhi, Patwa, & Saleem, 2021; Böringer, et al., 2022). Therefore, other endeavors need to
be set in motion to complement the analysis. Today, more and more data gets available thanks
to digital channels accelerating growth. To meet the new environment, companies try to
develop their knowledge and benefit from all the data. Through these new opportunities,
consisting of tools for data-gathering and analysis, companies are now able to find many
more new leads. This means finding and converting a more significant number of new
customers, offering specific products for the customers' specific needs, and keeping the
customers by using the proper methods (Böringer et al., 2022). Steward, Narus, Roehm &
Ritz (2019) state that the amount of software and different applications available to
companies can be confusing. This creates a prosperous area for research with B2B managers
about the digital tools they use, how and when they are used in the customer journey process,
and the most valuable ones for the buying process. Steward et al. (2019) also argue that more
research could be done to understand at what stage technology would effectively and
productively improve the purchasing process.

The leading educational resource for B2B salespeople, Sales Hacker, uncovered that B2B
buying behavior patterns are changing due to different factors such as the younger workforce
and job functions technology. Hence, understanding these factors helps B2B companies to
identify relevant mediums to use and optimize for engagement of specific buyer personas.
(Medina et al., 2019) Corsaro and Maggioni (2022) agree that these changes force
organizations to transform their sales roles and adapt to these new changes. As sales are
going through a complete change as an organizational department, it is uncertain whether
traditional sales will completely disappear or transform to fit the new environment. However,
what can be stated is that sales departments will not be as secluded as it has been, but
integration between customer support, sales, and marketing will have a new cross-functional
relationship. (Corsaro & Maggioni, 2022)

Krings et al. (2021) state that organizational functions, such as marketing, sales and customer
support, have been treated separately but are becoming more and more integrated. This
creates a challenge for organizations that often do not have a strategy for this endeavor.
Medina et al., (2019) write that according to the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council,

9
poorly managed leads and lost productivity cost a lot for companies each year. The modern
sales environment consists of changes in consumer behavior, business practices and
technologies, leading to considerable challenges in sales organizations. Medina et al., (2019)
also states that overwhelming administrative work, lack of data that drives specific sales
outcomes, and outdated frameworks, mindsets and technology solutions are holding back
sales organizations. Marketing automation increases the transparency of digital touchpoints
with customers through the customer buying journey. This allows more research regarding
digital marketing channels and tactics in the B2B customer buying process, especially since
Krings et al. (2021) state that digital media is still considered questionable as a concept in
B2B sales and marketing. Maier (2021) writes that there are many communication channels
to choose from when deciding on the most efficient one to reach the customer in a B2B
environment, and it is up to the salespeople to find the right one for their customers. Thereby,
this new environment of infinite information through the new technologies has also enhanced
stress levels, which could negatively affect the motivation of the workers (Corsaro &
Maggioni, 2022).

According to Maier (2021), the decision-making process is increasing in complexity at the

same time as customers' expectations are getting enhanced. Organizational factors are
changing in shorter cycles, externally and internally, and on top of that, the products increase
in complexity and diversity. More significant insights into digital marketing channels within
the B2B customer buying process would be fruitful in identifying the most efficient tactics at
different phases of the marketing and sales process (Järvinen & Taiminen, 2016).
Accordingly, more academic research is needed to examine critical issues that technology
impact may have on the B2B buying process (Steward, et al., 2019). Although digital media
enables marketing processes to become more effective, there is a need for a comprehensive
framework that guides B2B marketers to choose, apply, and combine the correct type of
digital media to improve marketing performance outcomes (Krings et al., 2021).
Additionally, the role of social media in B2B content marketing and how this can be
automated needs more research (Järvinen & Taiminen, 2016).

According to Baumgartner, Hatami and Valdivieso (2016), companies that master digital
channels often take an approach to combine traditional and digital channels, so called
omnichannel approach. Further, Pandey et al. (2020) argue that B2B digital marketing is still
only in an early stage of academic research. Digital marketing is used in a tactical way rather
than a strategic one, hence not reaching its full potential. Thereby the authors suggest that
within the B2B area of digital marketing, it would be interesting for researchers to conduct
case studies with companies to understand how digital marketing has been used for
competitive advantage purposes (Pandey et al., 2020).

1.3 Purpose
Based on the previous chapter, this paper aims to establish a framework for B2B companies
on how to optimize the customer journey by supporting the sales process with digital inbound
marketing.

10
RQ: How can B2B companies optimize the sales process by targeting customers' needs with
relevant actions throughout the customer journey with the help of technology/digital means?

1.4 Definitions - Delimitation

This study is delimited to a case study with one Swedish B2B manufacturing company that
wants to change from a more traditional sales model to a more integrated digital one. The
study is also delimited to the customer buying journey of this company to dig deep into the
details and see how they operate the different stages, and to give suggestions on how those
might be improved. This study is delimited to the company perspective only and thereby all
insights are created based on the company's position today and how they handle (and at the
end, can improve) the customer journey.

In this study, the two concepts “sales funnel” and “customer journey” are frequently used. To
clarify those and avoid misunderstandings, the customer journey is the stages that a customer
goes through to make a decision to make a purchase (or not), meaning from a customer
perspective. The sales funnel is the same thing but from a company's perspective. However,
in this study the two concepts are not separated but have the same meaning to them. They are
both used referring to the buying journey that a customer makes, but from a company's
perspective.

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2.0 Frame of Reference
This chapter is a literature review where different theories, figures and concepts are presented
in regards to the B2B customer journey. This will be used to analyze and reflect on the
findings revealed in the empirical chapter and to be able to give concrete suggestions for
improvement in the conclusion. This chapter contains literature on marketing, sales, digital
tools and growth, which represents the scope of this study.

2.1 B2B Customer journey

The B2B environment has become more complex, and so have closing sales. It is no longer a
linear decision process when making a purchase, but more people within a company have a
say and play a role in the buying process within B2B sales. The expectations are heightened
due to the simplicity of communication and interaction channels, partly because buyers are
influenced by their shopping awareness. Today's B2B sales environment is more like a B2C
sales environment where cold calls are not as simple as before and where the buyer expects to
talk to a deeply knowledgeable representative. Also, as millennials are moving up the
business ladder, their digital online habits are putting pressure on businesses to meet their
new requirements, like being given an online profile on the business website. (Lingqvist, Lun
Plotkin & Stanley, 2015) The development of digital marketing has also made it crucial for
the seller in B2B settings to understand the process of potential buyers. This is because a B2B
buyer spends more than half of the process just being exposed to touchpoints digitally before
they initiate contact to buy from a seller. A salesperson in a B2B environment has a
significant advantage over the situation if knowing what stage the buyer is in, considering the
perceived value and the complexity of an agreement. (Marvasti et al., 2021)

Today, B2B buyers use social media when searching for information and rely more on social
media information during the purchase process (Gustafson, Pomirleanu, Mariadoss &
Johnson, 2021; Holliman & Rowley, 2014). Also, other digital channels have grown in
influence regarding purchase decisions (Krings et al., 2021). Digital development is changing
the customer buying journey and established sales theories and practices, which means that
the traditional sales funnel needs to be adjusted to fit a new customer experience (Corsaro &
Maggioni, 2022). For B2B sales, "personalization" is about delivering tailored solutions. To
do that, sales organizations need a very clear understanding of customer needs. This requires
technical experts to be involved with customers at a very early stage in the buying journey.
(Baumgartner et al., 2016) The traditional linear sales funnel helped the sales department
keep track of the sales and ticked off daily wins. However, since this linear sales process no
longer mirrors today's actual process, it is harder for the sellers to know the drivers for
purchase and loyalty. Using and analyzing the data about buyers makes it possible to follow
the leads instead of pushing them to follow the organization, which makes an opposite funnel.
Even if this new environment in B2B sales processes is complex and challenging, it also
brings new ways of getting to know the buyers and influencing their purchases. Information,
previously not available, opens up for analyzing big data and creating specific sales actions.
(Lingqvist et al., 2015)

12
Finding and mapping the decision journey and categorizing it according to customer
segments will preferably be done with different methods at different customers. In big sectors
where companies only have a few huge customers, it is hard to do this without meeting in
person to analyze the decision-making. However, this is not possible for companies with
thousands of customers; in these cases the companies would preferably conduct data-driven
market research instead. It might be hard for senior executives to accept and embrace the new
emerging approach; therefore, it is crucial to include all company departments when
discussing new strategies. By including all departments and getting their input, it is proven to
strengthen the will to understand a shift and the meaning and benefits for the company's
whole performance and strategies. (Lingqvist et al., 2015) Salespeople today are required to
be much more than just sales; it also includes strategy, consulting, and being experts with
knowledge. This has to do with many reasons, not least that the buying process is becoming
longer and more complex, products being increasingly complex, and a product life cycle that
is decreasing in length. This requires faster and smarter salespeople that can provide more
personalized strategies and solutions. The sales job is no longer about being a supplier that
makes sales pitches; instead, the salesperson should act as an advisor on solution selling and
guide the customers through the buying process by providing tools to help them in their
decisions. (Corsaro & Maggioni, 2022)

A new approach has been showing itself among B2B companies by having a journey-based
sales strategy. This is done with three specific actions; mapping the decision journey of each
customer segment with their expectations and wants within every stage; targeting resources
within sales and marketing with activities that are likely to impact decisions; and
restructuring to create closer cooperation between sales and marketing. (Lingqvist et al.,
2015) Furthermore, digital developments have made the information easy to access.
Therefore, B2B sales are not as dependent on salespeople as they used to be since customers
can seek out the needed information to make a buying decision by themselves. This means
that the potential buyer spends time searching for relevant digital information about a
company or a product that they analyze during the buying journey to make a decision. The
buyer is about 60% into the B2B buying journey when he or she makes contact with a
salesperson. (Marvasti et al., 2021) New technologies do not mean that salespeople are no
longer needed; however, a lot of the pre-sale work can be done with automation. Salespeople
will still be needed to close many sales; the challenge is to have the right person at the right
place, which is more easily done today with analytics technologies. The new environment of
sales is based a lot on matching leads and salespeople together and for the salesperson to have
all the valuable information needed to close the sale. (Baumgartner et al., 2016) Feiz, Zarei,
Mibashrazgah and Shaabani (2021) write that B2B organizations can use strategies to push
for specific and intended customer actions; this is one part of conversions. For example, they
can convert leads where a potential customer browsing the website is converted to buy a
service or product. When this is done by digital marketing, it is not only about the sales pitch;
it also comes down to the website's design, the simplicity of navigating through the layout,
and particular actions.

13
2.1.1 Sales Funnel

The sales funnel is a tool commonly used to understand business opportunities and the flow.
Using the sales funnel can help develop alignment between marketing and sales and improve
organizational performance by managing the funnel. Critical awareness about where and
what types of processes are most effective within sales and marketing can be identified. An
ideal flow can be established with this insight, thereby seizing opportunities effectively as
customers move through the opportunity development stages. (Patterson, 2007) According to
Gustafson, et al. (2021), previous research has identified three distinct B2B buying situations:
straight rebuy, modified rebuy, and a new task. The level of problem-solving required
depends on which situation the buying process is in, which is where the sales funnel provides
essential insights. Järvinen and Taiminen (2016) also explain that having a merged marketing
and sales funnel allows managers to track the activities by getting an overview of the
marketing leads' quantity and quality, tracking the sales department's activities and lead
follow-up. With this sort of tracking, managers can see sales numbers concerning lead quality
and follow-up activities.

Figure 1, Marketing & Sales Funnel

Adopted from Järvinen & Taiminen (2016. pp.170)

Järvinen and Taiminen (2016) state that the B2B customer journey starts with
decision-makers' business problems needing to be solved. It often starts with the awareness
stage, recognizing and clarifying the actual problem. The evaluation stage follows when the
B2B buyer understands the actual need better. Here the B2B buyer searches for possible
solutions and evaluates their strengths and weaknesses. This is followed by the decision
stage, where the B2B buyer tries to limit the options to those suppliers that might be best in
solving their problem. Finally, the buyer validates one of the options and further justifies the

14
choice. Holliman and Rowley (2014) state that in the B2B buying process, it is up to the
marketer to push the potential customers from a pre-purchase to a purchase stage and further
assist in a post-purchase stage. This is not an easy task since the process is complex and
includes multiple decision-makers. Paschen, Wilson and Ferreira (2020) walk through the
marketing tasks that are applied in the sales funnels in separate stages. Firstly, one needs to
find potential customers, which is the first step in prospecting, lead generation, and
segmentation.

Duncan and Elkan (2015) write that leads are identified by marketing teams and through
marketing automation software. These leads are then qualified based on, e.g., amount of
interest or demographics. The qualified leads are called 'marketing-qualified leads' as they
proceed to the sales team. The example provided by Paschen et al. (2020) is that a potential
customer could be asked to give away their contact information through one of its marketing
channels. Also, the company could find much valuable information in the potential
customer's web browsing and search history to find out information about them and their
interests. The upcoming step is prospect scoring, which identifies the potential customers
most likely to make a purchase. The company evaluates if the prospect could and how likely
the potential customer would purchase within this step. Finding high-quality leads is the goal
of this step. Duncan and Elkan (2015) also state that dealing with low-quality leads is an
expensive task for the sales team, and therefore it is crucial to identify and focus on the
high-quality ones.

The high-quality leads then move on to the next step, which includes two stages:
pre-approach and approach. In these two stages, the company procures detailed information
about their leads, often including their background information and needs, habits, and
preferences, which they use to contact the leads. The pre-approach and approach have been
researched together with sales as more research is done about potential buyers, and it is
recently suggested that sales is merging with the pre-approach. (Paschen et al., 2020)
According to Gani, Hanafi and Amar (2021), this step uses strategic approaches to convert
leads into wins by following leads from the beginning or using the conversions to win the
possible percentage. With this step in the marketing tasks, it is made possible to provide
customized and personalized content to match the potential buyers' interests; this tactic is
called lead nurturing (Paschen et al., 2020). Lead nurturing can be seen as an iterative process
where marketers transform marketing leads further into sales leads by attracting, educating,
and engaging the marketing leads with timely content. This also allows marketers to gain
more information about the leads. (Järvinen & Taiminen, 2016) Altschuler (2016) states that
outbound selling with sound lead generation and nurturing is vital for sales. Further, more
leads at the beginning of the sales funnel create better numbers at the end, mainly if the leads
are targeted leads, also known as "low hanging fruit."

Paschen et al. (2020) explain that the process is about doing the homework (pre-approach)
and then acting on that by building relationships. The salespeople try to gain insights about
the lead by analyzing the information and establishing trust. As they analyze and understand
the potential benefits for the potential customer with the offering, these implications are then

15
used to create a specific presentation of the problem-solving offering for the potential
customer. The presentation is advantageously based on straightforward content of what the
potential customer wants or does not want. Gani et al. (2021) refer to research done by
Boujena, Johnston and Merunka (2009), where they discuss sales force automation (SFA).
The study found that in interactions between salespeople and customers, the customers find
benefits in professionalism, interaction frequency, responsiveness, and the quality of the
relationships with salespeople, which suggest these dimensions to be crucial.

In the next step, a follow-up task is to be done. This follow-up is to supply the actual order by
recording the order, initiating the process, managing the inventory, and executing the supply
systems. Nevertheless, it is also to follow up on the order when completed to identify new
needs with the customer, thereby re-entering the sales funnel. The follow-up might also
uncover upsell or cross-sell possibilities, which would mean upgrades, add-ons, or even
associated products that fit the primary one. (Paschen et al., 2020) Gani et al. (2021) also
state that analyzing the sales results can help provide rewards, coaching, mentoring, training,
and even punishments to help salespeople improve their performance. Finally, Järvinen and
Taiminen (2016) agree that the customer journey is not necessarily a linear process, but a
potential customer can move back and forth in the funnel over time. Also, an addition to
Järvinen and Taiminen’s (2016) model, Kotler, Armstrong, Harris and Piercy (2017) present a
simple framework on how to build and maintain profitable customer relationships.

Figure 2, How to build and maintain profitable customer relationships

Adopted from Kotler, Armstrong, Harris and Piercy (2017. pp.482)

2.2 Digital content marketing

The development of technologies and digital information has made it easy to access
information about the customer buying journey. This has also brought that activity hit rates

16
and efficiency can be significantly increased by knowing what stage of the process a potential
buyer is in. This is done by adjusting and targeting the proper marketing and sales for the
buyer in the right journey stage. (Marvasti et al., 2021) When companies grow and start
serving more customers, it is vital to identify segments with similar needs to develop
archetypes to whom companies can then create targeted campaigns and solutions to match
their pain points with digital solutions. Thereby enhancing the whole customer journey for
this particular segment. (Angevine, Meyer, Thomsen & Zemmel, 2021)

Many advanced companies have strong cooperation between marketing and sales and include
both in decisions on advancing actions with different touchpoints. These actions could be
regarding search engine optimization to improve awareness, make the request for proposal
more customer-friendly, and track customer satisfaction with loyalty programs. Better
cooperation comes with clearer priorities, quicker wins, and improved response times.
(Lingqvist et al., 2015) Wang, Malthouse, Calder and Uzunoglu (2019) emphasize a new
marketing role closer to the salesforce. In a B2B setting, the sellers have a crucial role in
maintaining relationships with their customers through personal selling. The authors state that
content marketing (CM) has become a potential new way of keeping in contact with
customers by adopting the salesforce’s emphasis on relationships in B2B settings. However,
conflicts between the sales and marketing departments often exist regarding generating and
processing leads (Krings et al., 2021).

Understanding the role of content marketing in B2B sales becomes particularly crucial given
persistent conflicts between marketing and sales departments. Salespeople criticize the
quality of marketing leads, and marketers criticize sales representatives' poor follow-up skills.
In the same vein, according to Järvinen and Taiminen (2016), insufficient follow-up of leads
is a huge problem in the B2B sector, and sales representatives ignore the majority of leads
generated through marketing. This problem with content marketing efforts, aiming to
generate sales, risks becoming fruitless. The study by Järvinen and Taiminen (2016) showed
that companies could generate more high-quality sales leads and increase efficiency by
overcoming a heavy selection process of potential prospects by integrating content marketing
with marketing automation. Hence, understanding content marketing as an interface between
B2B sales and marketing is crucial (Krings et al., 2021). The new environment where B2B
buyers research online information and evaluate the content has brought a new digital content
marketing approach. This approach uses content marketing as an inbound strategy to create
valuable content and target the potential customers' needs, which is found in previous
information seeking a product or service. (Järvinen & Taiminen, 2016)

Further, Account Based Marketing (ABM) is used to engage target accounts with
personalized content through marketing channels. It focuses mostly towards a narrow set of
accounts, like key accounts, since these have a higher business volume, making it easier to
tailor truly personalized content. (Kohli, Paulowsky & Stanley, 2019) However it does not
replace other types of digital marketing; it works in conjunction to target top accounts
optimizing the process. For example content marketing is helpful as a foundational tool to
attract the targeted accounts. Since the leads are already identified and qualified, the sales

17
team can focus on expanding relationships and buy-in with decision-makers of those specific
accounts to understand their deeper needs and directly engage and delight them. (Morgan &
Chavez, 2021) Creating content is also a strategic component of inbound marketing
techniques (Holliman & Rowley, 2014; Opreana & Vinerean, 2015) that focuses on
developing and distributing relevant content and attracting the target audience (Feiz, et al.,
2021). Further, Taiminen and Ranaweera (2019) argue that digital content marketing (DCM)
means creating, distributing, and sharing relevant content to engage consumers in a specific
stage in their decision-making process. Moreover, converting them to wanted outcomes, such
as generating quality leads or sales. Therefore B2B digital content marketing requires
understanding the target audience's information needs during the different stages of the
decision-making process (Holliman & Rowley, 2014).

Corsaro and Maggioni (2022) write that today's companies use social media in their sales and
marketing efforts; however, it is not yet considered a source for building relationships. Using
social media to generate leads or identify opportunities is rewarding. However, it should also
be considered a strategic tool in the sales funnel. Social media is an excellent tool for
targeting specific customer segments and complementing customer relationship management
(CRM). Social media can be used in marketing endeavors and all selling processes as
prospects or follow-ups. Terho, Giovannetti and Cardinali (2022) state that social selling can
be defined as a selling approach where the salesperson uses social media at relevant touch
points during the customer journey to understand, connect and engage influencers, prospects
and customers. Further, Schmitt, Casenave and Pallud (2021) argue that social selling can be
integrated into the whole sales process from prospecting to closing the sales and maintaining
customer relationships. Buyers in the B2B context use social media to compare different
products or brands, analyze the market for the best fit, and establish contacts with sellers
(Itani et al., 2017; Corsaro & Maggioni, 2022). Furthermore, CM is closely related to
marketing on social media; because the content created must be distributed and shared to
multiple social media platforms to reach a significant amount of potential customers with the
message and extend visibility (Feiz. et al., 2021). The customer is exposed to the content,
valued in its own right, through owned or sponsored media (Wang, et al., 2019). Further,
digital content that engages consumers in the B2B context is often about industry issues,
phenomena, and trends (Taiminen & Ranaweera, 2019). Feiz et al. (2021) agree that rather
than advertising the company's products and services, DCM informs the target customers and
prospects about industrial issues connected to the company's products.

Corsaro and Maggioni (2022) argue that integration between sales, marketing, and customer
service is crucial in the organization's sales transformation, even in a B2B setting. It is
necessary to have a high degree of collaboration regarding common KPIs and joint
objectives, information sharing, implemented through job rotation, a joint social media
marketing, social selling strategy, and constant communication between departments.
Järvinen and Taiminen (2016) state that by combining marketing and sales systems, the two
units can learn from each other and create more integrated processes. The marketing
department can learn and use the data from a CRM system and better understand the
relationships. At the same time, the sales department would benefit from understanding more

18
about activities and leads that are created in the marketing efforts. However, Corsaro and
Maggioni (2022) argue that this requires more from the workers, like having transversal skills
rather than hyper-specialistic ones. Different sets of competencies are being put together to
cooperate in the sales transformation by integrating these departments. The traditional
relational and rational salesmen are no longer as coveted; instead, a salesman needs "hybrid''
skills to combine analyzing, interpreting, observing, and gathering information to get the
whole context of the business for the buyer. This requires development and continuous
training. (Corsaro & Maggioni, 2022) Sales teams often use management tools in which
marketing teams are excluded, an integration of these would therefore be crucial to make the
two departments work together. Integrating sales and marketing systems (CRM and
marketing automation) can considerably increase the organization's efficiency by reducing
unnecessary manual input of leads to the sales department, which also means that leads can
be received by sales more rapidly. Hence, marketing and sales teams will have fewer
arguments regarding the quality of the leads and follow-up practices. (Järvinen & Taiminen,
2016)

2.3 Omnichannel approach

Cui, Ghose, Halaburda, Iyengar, Pauwels, Sriram, Tucker and Venkataraman (2021) define
omnichannel marketing as managing all customer touchpoints and internal and external
channels synergically. The goal is to ensure customer experiences across different channels
and optimize the company's marketing activity for both customers and the company. To
obtain this, companies need to overview all their interactions with each customer along the
different stages of the customer journey and how these touchpoints impact customers'
behavior and their incremental role in overall sales conversion. Hence, marketing efforts are
optimized jointly across all channels in an omnichannel setting. The customer journey
includes both online and offline channels; therefore, integrating these channels with external
and internal data is necessary. An integrated CRM system strategy is crucial when creating a
seamless customer journey between channels and integrating data from external sources with
the company's internal sources. Digital channels provide buyers immediate access to product
information and reviews, while suppliers experience cost reductions, the generation of new
leads, and better customer insights (Corsaro & Maggioni, 2022).

Polo and Sese (2016) point out that 90% of customers use multiple channels to communicate
with a company; hence understanding how and why customers choose the available channels
is critical when establishing a strategy to communicate with the customers. Today's
omnichannel approach is ten or more channels delivered 24/7, over three engagement modes;
in-person, remote, and self-service (Arora, Harrison, Lun Plotkin, Magni & Stanley 2022).
Maier (2021) states that there seems to be a common belief that a multichannel approach
should be used when salespeople communicate with buyers. Thus this omnichannel approach
increases efficiency; personal contact is essential in cases when the experience of the
salesperson contributes to the sales performance positively. Also, replacing salespeople with
digital channels is impossible for all industries and products, especially complex products
requiring salespeople's expertise in explaining details. Even if the sales process is becoming

19
more and more digital, Angevine et al. (2018) still mean that most digital customers want to
have human interaction when researching products or services. This means that digital tools
such as supporting the information and helping customers to compare products should be
combined with the sales force skills in this part of the process. However, as customers have
made the purchase and now discuss upselling, renewal, or cross-selling, the customers who
wanted human interaction in the previous stage now want a majority of digital interaction.
Driedonks and Paulowsky (2020) also state that more than half of B2B buyers today prefer
digital channels. On the other hand, Arora et al. (2022) found that all B2B consumers prefer
omnichannel regardless of the industry, size, location, or the customer relationship stage.
Hence, consumers prefer more channels, convenience, and a more personalized experience.
They argue that the more channels a sales organization exploits, the more significant are the
gains regarding market share. B2B companies that focus on customer responsiveness should
use an omnichannel strategy model together with a robust e-commerce engine, according to
Driedonks and Paulowsky (2020). The objectives to drive customer responsiveness and
productivity in sales and customer satisfaction are centered on inbound sales and
e-commerce, which are more cost-effective than having a traveling sales force to the
customers physically (Driedonks & Paulowsky, 2020).

B2B buyers use several channels across the decision-making journey and within each stage
(Arora et al., 2022). Challenges with omnichannel marketing are that one touchpoint in the
customer journey can affect multiple subsequent stages in the purchase funnel (Cui et al.,
2021). Channel conflicts and cannibalization might occur between different channels
(Harrison, Spillecke, Stanley & Tsai, 2021). Angevine et al. (2018) state that B2B companies'
salesforce should be focused on maintaining the customers and on repurchasing instead of
finding new leads and opportunities. Considering that this is the opposite of what the
customer said about where they wanted the human expertise, digital companies should
establish more face-to-face contact at the beginning of the buying journey to see more
significant growth. Hence, the personal relationships with customers after-sales are said not
to be as needed; therefore, sellers are recommended to shift their focus in the buying journey.
B2B customers no longer want to put an order through email; instead, they want to place an
online order where they can chat with sales experts. At the same time, online availability also
makes it easy and transparent regarding ordering status, such as delivery, eliminating
unnecessary back-and-forth communication (Driedonks & Paulowsky, 2020). Some B2B
decision-makers prefer personal interactions when making complex and high-value deals,
while others are comfortable making even larger deals through digital self-serve, the most
important thing is to understand where and when the personal interaction is needed and
wanted and to be available quick and easy by phone or chat when the customer needs it.
Digital investments should focus on customer value, e.g., easy and fast purchases, tools to
compare products or services and pricing in real-time, and digital tools that enable better
contact between customers and sellers when needed. (Arora et al., 2022) Angevine et al.
(2018) continues by stating that the agile, hybrid sales model is essential when serving
customers how they prefer to be served across the channels. Furthermore, technology enables
information to reach customers through multiple channels such as ads, social media, websites
and face-to-face with the salesperson; therefore, this information and messages must be

20
synchronized. Hence the objectives of the marketing department need to be aligned with the
sales department (Rodríguez, Svensson & Mehl, 2020).

2.4 Marketing technology

There is a new dimension of marketing and digital marketing today, namely marketing
technology. Soon, marketing technology will become a hacking tool used by companies to
stay ahead of their competitors. Therefore, marketing departments need to implement
technology platforms to achieve their objectives and be able to track and develop their efforts
regarding marketing and sales. (Baltes, 2018) As potential customers in B2B settings research
the potential products to match the need, they usually go along the journey by gathering
information that would support their arguments (Marvasti et al., 2021). Data-driven
marketing collects and analyzes data to understand consumers' purchasing patterns and
psychology and then develops a personalized strategy based on information and traces from
the customer's research behavior (Grandhi et al., 2021; Marvasti et al., 2021). Hence, this
data helps identify customers' needs and factors influencing each stage in the consumer
decision-making process (Grandhi et al., 2021). Accordingly, gathering and analyzing data
insights enables B2B companies to grow by maximizing ROI at the customer level across all
the channels and touchpoints between the company and the customer throughout the
customer buying journey (Böringer, et al., 2022; Grandhi et al., 2021).

The marketing technology stack should consist of different pieces clarifying how the sales
process can lead to closing more deals. It is crucial to create an ecosystem of technology tools
that can support a variety of sales and marketing strategies over time (Medina et al., 2019).
Baltes (2018) argue that marketing technology is based on:
● analysis of user behavior (such as Google Analytics);
● online forms with automatically pre-filled information that is known regarding the
user;
● tools monitoring user behavior on the company's website, customizing the content
regarding users' searches and interests;
● automatically customized email campaigns based on the user's behavior;
● automatic notifications regarding commercial opportunities;
● automatic update of contacts, so the database is always up-to-date.

The author states further that a large variety of complex digital marketing tools exist.
Examples of marketing tools today that cover all areas of digital marketing are:

● monitoring and analysis tools

● automated marketing tools
● CRM (Customer Relationship Management ) tools
● tag management tools
● data management platforms (DMP)
● content delivery networks
● emailing platforms

21
 ● optimization tools for mobile devices
● advertising networks
● remarketing solutions
● SEM tools
(Baltes, 2018, p. 44-45)

These different tools enable automation of specific tasks giving salespeople more time for
personal contact with customers and other valuable sales activities that require human contact
(Medina et al., 2019). Moreover, sales automation and other technological applications
generate a virtuous circle where data is fed and integrated into the CRM system and provides
analytics and indicators that support decision-making regarding the different touchpoints of
the customer journey (Corsaro & Maggioni, 2022). On the other hand, monitoring different
web analytics tools help companies measure the effectiveness of digital inbound marketing
(DIM) campaigns. Successful DIM campaigns often require optimization by studying which
tactics work and which should be adjusted to create relevant content across different
channels. This will attract more leads or convert leads into customers. (Opreana & Vinerean,
2015) Järvinen and Taiminen (2016) agree that lead qualification can be supported by data
insights and the use of IT tools. Moreover, the marketing technology tools can often be
integrated into a single platform (Baltes, 2018). However, it will also come with different
challenges in the analyzing process. Some of the main challenges that B2B organizations may
face with these new techniques are not understanding that having the right experience to
analyze the data, or being contradictory and difficult to read. Also, the relatively new
regulations concerning data protection in the EU, also known as General Data Protection
Regulation (GDPR), are putting more pressure on organizations dealing with this data to keep
and use the information. However, there are technical solutions with Artificial Intelligence
(AI) that can help B2B organizations protect and use the big data and chart the customer
journey. (Marvasti et al., 2021; Corsaro & Maggioni, 2022)

Saura, et al. (2021) state that data-driven decision-making processes are increasing; hence the
implementation and the use of CRM is essential since this can collect all types of information
regardless of the channel. Thus, plenty of analytical tools help digital marketers understand
the customer buying pattern and gain insights that can be used to direct, optimize and
automate the consumers' decision-making process. (Grandhi et al., 2021) Corsaro and
Maggioni (2022) argue that although the benefits of CRM systems are known, there are still
many companies that do not exploit its full potential but use it primarily as an information
repository. They have not implemented the more advanced functions such as the interaction
between internal and external data, analytics predicting future scenarios, and suggestions on
actions. Therefore, according to Järvinen and Taiminen (2016), it is essential to work with
reliable and valuable digital tools in the B2B environment. One tool which has gained
attention as an excellent tool to use is Marketing Automation. Vendors state that marketing
automation connects the sales system with the marketing system to upgrade and develop the
lead qualification process to personalize the content and more accurately target customers
with the right content. Marketing automation is thereby meant to streamline strategies within
content marketing, and B2B companies might be able to enhance the lead follow-up

22
enforcements. (Järvinen & Taiminen, 2016) On the other hand, Corsaro and Maggioni (2022)
argue that automation is sometimes seen more as a tool spent on supporting activities and not
as a way to enhance customer relations. Thus, the essential value of this type of technology is
the automation of low-return activities by reducing selling time. Therefore, automation is
seen as an opportunity for better time management, reducing daily chores' effort and allowing
better focus for relationship development with customers. However, some salespeople might
experience that automation could replace their role within a company.

When B2B organizations have obtained the proper techniques and tools for analyzing the
data, they can gather data happening in real-time and be up to date with the trends. This also
enables large amounts of behavioral information to be analyzed, giving accurate insights into
the process. With real-time data, the activities made within the sales and marketing
departments can be better fitted to the customers, which would increase both efficiency and
hit rates. (Marvasti et al., 2021; Itani et al., 2017) Marketing technology tools and platforms
create new ways of working for a company's marketing department and change how it relates
to its customers and conducts its business. It helps companies quickly identify potential
customers and study their behavior to provide relevant content that serves their needs.
(Baltes, 2018)

With the help of customizing the content according to customer data and studying prospects'
actions, the marketing and sales team can contact the prospect at the right moment, only
when the customer is ready to become a client. This, of course, is a costly process and
requires knowledge in both marketing and technology and continuous communications
between marketing and sales departments. (Baltes, 2018) Further, when an organization
wants to leverage data-driven decision-making, it is vital to have an agile IT infrastructure to
integrate several data sources to drive cross-departmental alignment for data governance
(Grandhi et al., 2021). Proper IT makes cooperation and interfaces between marketing and
B2B selling processes robust (Krings et al., 2021) and according to Baltes (2018), marketing
technology functions as a perfect bridge between marketing, business, and technology.

2.4.1 Digitalization of B2B sales

Sales management in the B2B sector is changing, as is expected thanks to experts, specialists
and project personnel contributing to value creation done by sales and marketing during the
sales processes (Alamäki & Korpela, 2021). Mattila, Yrjölä and Hautamäki (2021) state that
digital transformation is application of technologies to improve competencies and rethink the
company’s value proposition, since it enables salespeople to provide value in new ways
through for example customer-interaction processes. Further, Guenzi and Habel (2020) state
that digital technologies can help to gain this knowledge of value drivers of each individual
customer by providing salespeople easy access to real-time information. Digital tools help
salesforce to serve customers and acquire information, thereby adapting communication and
value creation through more customized proposals and therefore deliver better experience.
Digitalization also creates better cross-functional communication so the whole organization
can better understand and serve the customers, for example through a CRM system.

23
Since B2B companies are becoming more agile, inbound sales are more important in driving
growth for small and medium-sized customers. Salespeople on the field need to use a
significant amount of time visiting established customers, and inbound sales teams can
develop more time communicating with new customers. This is supported by chat and mobile
apps and advanced analytics solutions that help them identify, prioritize and convert
opportunities meeting customers' preferences accurately and rapidly. Furthermore,
maintaining a backlog of customer journey improvement sprints helps to improve customer
satisfaction. (Driedonks & Paulowsky, 2020) According to Rodríguez et al. (2020), today’s
top priorities for sales managers in B2B markets with complex solutions is revenue
maximization and increasing the effectiveness of the salesforce. This can be done by reducing
the cost of salesforce by focusing on digitalization and SFA in the sales process. Current
ways of doing sales may become obsolete due to the fundamental changes in sales processes.
(Rodríguez et al., 2020) The challenges with rapid ramp-ups in remote and digital sales, are
finding the most efficient ways for field reps to make remote interactions to feel the same as
physical experiences, and being able to demonstrate proof of the concept with digital demos
that can replace the physical walk-throughs (Harrison, et al., 2021). Guenzi and Habel (2020)
argue that by offering customized solutions and having consultative selling approaches,
companies can add value to complex product-service solutions based on the individual's
needs of every customer. Additionally, the digitalization is also dependent on the buying
organization, which may need more face-to-face encounters in order to close the deal
(Rodríguez et al., 2020). The salesforce must simultaneously learn and adapt new routines,
channels and information sources but also abandon some of the old ways of doing things.
Therefore it is essential to gain buy-in from salespeople so they understand that new
technologies will support them instead of replacing them. (Mattila et al., 2021) Baumgartner
et al. (2016) state that matching the right salesperson with a lead and, through digital data
gathering, providing maximum amount of information to the salesperson to close the deal, is
vital in the new sales environment.

Rodríguez et al. (2020) argue that for sales processes with complex B2B solutions, the
person-to-person communication is still important in creating relationships. Hence, the
digitalization of the sales process must be implemented carefully and with balance. Further,
the acceptance of information systems (such as SFA) increases with appropriate training,
since this makes salesforce realize the impact it can have on their performance. Some
salespeople might see these new systems as a risk since it takes time that could be used in
generating sales by for example doing customer meetings. Fraccastoro, Gabrielsson and
Pullins (2021) point out that in addition to facilitating the selling process, adopting digital
media reduces geographical barriers and gives companies easier access to the global
marketplace. When salespeople have direct access to large volumes of data and understanding
of customer’s preferences, it is easier to target the most profitable customers and
opportunities and to manage these relationships. Rodríguez et al. (2020) argue that
digitalization also enables companies to divide a complex sales process to different
organizational functions such as for example identifying customers, creating new
relationships, making proposals, closing deals etc. making the sales team function more

24
effectively. Later, the digitalization opportunities can be divided by geographical territory,
accounts or products depending on the company.

To measure the digital transformation, it is necessary to have proper KPIs set up, such as
customers-focused, bottom-line KPIs and KPIs for learning (Guenzi & Habel, 2020). Today,
due to customer’s complex needs and demands, the value creation requires a tight
collaboration between different teams in the sales organization; hence both online and offline
sales operations should be combined. This has led to a need for new types of sales teams
including salespeople, actors (such as technical experts) and marketing professionals. (Mattila
et al., 2021) Rodríguez et al. (2020) recommended that staff should be trained how to
organize, analyze and exploit data and companies should have a business system to store
organized data and make dashboards. Additionally, the companies need to know how the
information can be integrated and shared with the other systems as well as the security issues
involving this. Further, the authors recommend using a consultancy company to propose a
road map for the digitization process of sales and the treatment of sales data. Technical
support should then be implemented to promote- and resolve issues with digitalization.

2.5 The future of digital marketing & sales

The sales function will be more and more intelligent in the future due to new forms of
automation and human-machine interaction (Pandey et al., 2020). Corsaro and Maggioni
(2022) agree that future sales are highly dependent on data-driven insights and AI that will
act as support to the sales funnel. This expected new way of doing business will optimize the
process and preferably increase customer satisfaction. Today's data environment is complex,
and CRM systems are gradually getting more integrated with social media data and
leveraging AI systems when gathering insights and making customized recommendations.
Soon, AI and CRM systems can effectively provide product recommendations and automated
email responses, and daily administrative tasks. According to Bohnsack and Liesner (2019),
artificial intelligence (AI) will automate the process of customer data analysis by interpreting
data, learning from it, and using these learnings to reach a goal by adapting to customers'
specific needs without being specifically programmed. However, Paschen et al. (2020) state
that social and emotional competencies will always be essential in B2B sales and needs to be
performed by humans in the AI-enabled sales funnel.

The modern CRM systems help companies to find more leads, but still most of them are not
even contacted. By using AI, all leads can be contacted automatically in a somewhat
human-like way by a bot. By using AI like this, companies can increase the interaction with
leads, reduce costs and save time. It also shows that customers are more satisfied as they can
get what they need or want faster. This required working a lot more in cooperation with IT
and tech-experts to create solutions. Also, salespeople can focus on the tricky and more
valuable customers with the human touch and can leave the ‘easier’ or colder ones to be
solved by AI. (Baumgartner et al., 2016)

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2.5.1 Growth hacking

According to Troisi, Maione, Grimaldi and Loia (2020), top B2B marketing and sales trends
are personalized emails, diversified strategies, a younger workforce, interactive web content,
and big data analysis. Furthermore, the B2B segments are increasingly complex and
globalized, placing the data at the center of decision-making in marketing (Troisi et al.,
2020). The extensive development of technology that has been within marketing in recent
years has brought new opportunities for testing new ideas. It is no longer necessary to put
much time into planning and executing marketing campaigns to test ideas. Instead,
technology has meant that marketing departments can try early ideas, use the data, and use
the result to continue developing that idea. This way of working in loops by testing, learning,
and committing, is the new way of doing marketing, especially since everything is changing
too fast to be up to date with traditional planning campaigns. The importance of speed in
planning and execution is also found in Growth hacking. Accordingly, the most successful
B2B companies have a proactive and systematic, data-driven approach to sales management
and with the support of analytics-based platforms. (Conway & Hemphill, 2019) Feiz et al.
(2021) also state that growth hacking is a relatively new concept that differs from
conventional strategies, making growth the main focus. Digital marketing focuses on
communication, generating awareness, and acquiring potential customers, the first stages of a
customer journey. Growth hacking deals with all customer journey stages to obtain
continuous growth (Bohnsack & Liesner, 2019; Conway & Hemphill, 2019). The core
principle of growth hacking is to test marketing ideas (e.g., by running A/B tests), analyze the
outcomes with the help of data from analytical software, then iterate and optimize the
process. However, it is still a creative process, requiring people with the right skill-set
(Conway & Hemphill, 2019) since growth hacking combines technological innovations with
a creative mindset and marketing. (Conway & Hemphill, 2019; Troisi et al., 2020)

To obtain growth, companies need to deliver the right products to the right customers, create
a database of users and identify adequate channels for communication with consumers and
target audiences (Bohnsack & Liesner, 2019). Using social media as a channel for B2B
organizations has increased in acceptance and enables the organization to maintain their
relationships both outside and inside the organization. This means that the distance across
borders and the cultural distance has been made smaller and increased customer knowledge
and understanding. Organizations can now easily find and use international knowledge about
customers in a more available, global setting; which creates a new environment of leads,
conversations, and information transfers. The information an organization now can find about
its customers makes it possible to discover connections and analyze the information to gain
new knowledge to help it develop and grow. (Itani et al., 2017) The availability of social
media anywhere enables companies to reach a massive crowd in a second and without a high
cost. However, it also entails that competitors are more present due to lower barriers of entry
and being able to change the preferences and requirements of the customers fast. This means
that managers must be flexible and meet new demands as they shift and be up to date with the
competition. (Bohnsack & Liesner, 2019) Feiz et al. (2021) argue that growth hacking
involves identifying efficient methods to provide value at scale and develop engagement and

26
trust. The last step of growth hacking is optimizing and improving the conversion rate. The
higher the conversion rates are, the more sales will occur, and the return on investment (ROI)
will increase.

Figure 3, Growth hacking pillars

Adopted from Troisi et al. (2020, p.544)

“Growth hacking is a mindset used by individuals, teams and whole companies, small or
large, with a goal of growing the company. A growth hacking process begins from product
development and finding a product market fit, following by customer acquisition and
retaining customers. Lean methodologies, data, testing, iterating and creative thinking,
combined with a large toolkit, help a growth hacker to execute sales and marketing activities
in a way that makes her business grow faster than it would have with traditional methods.”
(Roschier, 2018. p.20)

According to Bohnsack and Liesner (2019), marketing, data analysis and programming are
the ingredients of growth hacking. Any touchpoint between the customer and the company
can be simplified to generate value for the user and automated to make the process more
efficient with the help of programming. A key for growth hacking is the results gained from
customer data analysis, which helps tailor the offering and message and adjust these to
become more efficient. (Bohnsack & Liesner, 2019) The most used marketing framework in
growth hacking is the sales funnel, from acquisition, activation, retention, revenue, and
referral. The goal is to optimize this process by making each stage of the funnel more
efficient and increasing the number of conversions. (Troisi et al., 2020) Furthermore, a
pattern taxonomy can bring clarity to the process. First, it unites best practices concentrating
them in a standardized way and classifies them. The groups are based on the customer
lifecycle, enabling companies to choose a growth hacking pattern that fits the customers'
specific needs. The taxonomy also inspires to develop growth strategies. It reduces the

27
complexity by allowing managers to choose from a modular set of patterns and thereby
helping them to find approaches that address specific problems. The taxonomy helps to
choose the right strategy based on the available data in the customer lifecycle, which helps in
decision-making by having a 'list' to tick off. Accordingly, the taxonomy brings together
marketers, product managers, and developers and can be used as a measurement basis and
communication tool. (Bohnsack & Liesner, 2019)

Agile processes are essential in growth hacking since they involve step-by-step
experimentation and testing in a continuous process (Bohnsack & Liesner, 2019). According
to Böringer et al. (2022), companies that master growth hacking collect insights and feedback
from their sales organization into their insights generation. This promotes continuous learning
beyond the traditional sales function. The companies also establish cross-functional settings,
integrating sales representatives and marketing experts with IT and data analysis. Troisi et al.
(2020) state that technologies for big data and methods for analyzing are increased through
the strategies and techniques that are Growth hacking. This can be merged with real-time
analysis of customer data which would improve the search for patterns, interactions, and
purchase decisions it might lead up to. This real-time information about customers makes it
easier to create targeted marketing content that can be ideally matched with a customers'
specific needs or preferences. Digital marketing is a key element of growth hacking, but it is
still essential to consider the more traditional forms of marketing, especially when filling the
gap between physical and digital channels (Conway and Hemphill, 2019).

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3.0 Method
3.1 Approach and Design
This study is of a qualitative design. The qualitative approach aims to investigate a
phenomenon, its driving force and its purpose (Tracy, 2012). The strong base of qualitative
research creates opportunities for further investigations on the topic and aims to gather
information that will help to find facts and explanations which help to better understand the
research topic (Wacker, 1998). This research topic is fairly new and unexplored in its context.
A qualitative research approach was thereby chosen for this study to be able to investigate the
topic and get primary sources to provide in-depth information that could work as a foundation
for further investigations of this context.

For this research an abductive approach has been adopted. A abductive approach is not just a
merger between the inductive and deductive, but it focuses on discovering new relations and
concepts (Dubois & Gadde, 2002). Abduction has become a more frequently adopted method
to use in qualitative research and is seen to eliminate some of the weaknesses that are found
in deductive and inductive approaches (Bryman & Bell, 2017). Bryman and Bell (2017) write
further that the deductive approach has been criticized for its lack of clarity in choosing
theories to test certain hypotheses, whilst induction is criticized for no amount of empirical
data will be enough to provide theory creation. The abductive process is about adjusting the
research as it progresses, it could be because theoretical insights change as the researchers
read more about the topic or that the empirical gathering generates new information to
consider. This means that as current theories are compared and mixed with real-life concepts,
new models and processes can be formed. (Dubois & Gadde, 2002) Hence, abduction is a
way of finding and developing theories about the reality and to be able to draw rational
conclusions about it (Bryman & Bell, 2017). The researchers did not know the exact basis for
this study from the beginning, and therefore this study has been developed by going back and
forward between the literature review and the empirical chapter to make the best fit and to be
able to analyze the findings. This research approach was therefore chosen based on the above
explained benefits. Also, since the purpose and problem statement has been formed and
molded along the way together with the case company, as the researchers gained new insights
both from theories and data gathering, the chosen approach is highly suitable for the research.

3.2 Type of research and strategy

This study is conducted through an qualitative in-depth case study, this is to get all the
relevant and detailed information required to answer the study's RQ and fulfill the purpose.
Sekaran and Bougie (2016) state that case studies are focused on e.g. a specific activity,
business unit or topic. This means that the idea of a case study is to get close to the problem
and identify the context and processes of a real-life setting. According to Yin (2014), the case
study approach is well suited when the study investigates a real-life context with a
contemporary phenomenon and when the boundaries between them are not evident. A risk in
using an in-depth case study approach would, according to Troisi et al. (2020), be that

29
uncontrollable factors such as randomness or coincidences could affect the results and give a
faulty picture of the reality, therefore the authors suggest a multiple case study approach to
eliminate this risk. However, the opportunity of getting closer to the context and investigating
the problem in depth outweighs the weaknesses of a single case study in this research.
Considering the scope of this study it would therefore not be as favorable to do a multiple
case study and try to compare the results. Since the aim of this study is to get detailed
information about the topic and create a framework to make the B2B customer journey more
effective, an in-depth case study is considered to be the best strategy for gaining these
insights.

Troisi et al. (2020) explain the “Action Research” approach, initially stated by Lewin (1946).
Action research is explained as a climate of collaboration in a study and it goes all the way
from initially defining the problem to the actual implementation. Troisi et al. (2020) state that
action research is not only about finding and extending knowledge about a topic or problem,
but also aims to come up with real solutions for the problem(s) that arise in the analysis. In
action research, it is made possible to work in a circular way with theory and practice and
thereby to observe a phenomenon, and then verify, intervene and even modify the case before
coming up with solutions that should improve the actual conditions. (Troisi et al., 2020) This
research is being conducted together with the case company, therefore an action research
approach is highly relevant and preferable since it enables working together and forming the
right conditions for this research, thereby realistic and useful solutions for the studied
problem can be generated.
This is an exploratory study with the goal of developing a framework through new
knowledge and insights about how B2B companies can optimize their marketing and sales
efforts in the customer journey with digital means. An exploratory method approach is
favorable since this is an new and evolving concept (Feiz et al., 2021) in a field that has been
faced with new challenges due to the Covid-19 pandemic. During this period companies
using a majority of personal selling have been faced with the challenge of being forced to
work more digitally in their sales process. Using an exploratory approach for this study will
open up for exploring this phenomenon by linking existing theory with key issues in a real
life setting and could hopefully serve as a base for future theory-building regarding this topic.
This approach has been successfully adopted in various settings and contexts within
qualitative research (Beard & Olsen, 1999; Mollick, 2014; Cavaco, Dias & Bates, 2005;
MacCullagh, Bosanquet & Badcock, 2017; Twinn, 1997) and is therefore a well tested
approach that suits this research.

3.3 Instrument to collect the primary data

Considering this paper's aim, an in-depth case study approach is an appropriate strategy to
use in order to answer the research question. The primary sources of data were collected
through semi-structured interviews, that is a mix of a structured interview, which is usually
based on a detailed interview schedule, and unstructured interview, an interview with
minimum guidance where the respondent is encouraged to speak freely about a topic.

30
(Krishnaswamy & Satyaprasad, 2010) The semi-structured interview allows for the
interviewer to have a list of topics or scenarios to go through, which gives a sort of guidance
to the interview. However, it also allows for the respondent to talk freely and thereby more
likely to speak about what he/she considers to be most essential related to the topic.
Interviews can be biased due to many reasons, however, semi-structured interviews reduce
the bias by not having direct questions nor fully following an interview schedule, which
could happen intentionally or unintentionally as the moderators create the questions. (Sekaran
& Bougie, 2016) This research is however considered to be biased due to only investigating
one company and that the respondents speak from their own experiences and not quite
generally. Also, semi-structured interviews are well tested and commonly used in exploratory
studies (Beard & Olsen, 1999; Cavaco, Dias and Bates, 2005; MacCullagh et al., 2017;
Twinn, 1997) thanks to being a great choice to understand fairly new or unexplored
phenomenons. MacCullagh et al. (2017) write that qualitative inductive research is a great
approach for developing theories on topics or phenomenons that are not thoroughly
investigated. Beard & Olsen (1999) also state that in-depth interviews with individuals or
small samples are limited to generalize through its findings. Still, this qualitative approach is
seen as the most appropriate to conduct this research due to the limited research available on
this phenomenon, which would not have been enough to do a quantitative investigation
through structured surveys. The data collection went on until the authors felt satisfied and
confident that the phenomenon and context was comprehensively understood and provided a
solid foundation to describe the context of the case company.

The interview questions were created as a guide for the authors to use during the interviews
(find the interview guide as “Appendix 1 – A Interview Guide” under Appendices). The
questions were formed based on the literature review and the different theories. When
conducting the literature review, the most important concepts were identified and then used in
the interview guide. The interview guide was divided into different sections starting with the
respondents background at the company. This then went over to questions about digital
marketing, the next section concerned the sales management, and then ended in more general
questions about the organization. Having the guide structured like this enabled the authors to
adjust the questions depending on who was interviewed, and to get answers based on the
respondents area of expertise.

3.3.1 Secondary sources

The literature review related to the topic, secondary sources (Krishnaswamy & Satyaprasad,
2010), were found through online searches on databases such as Google, Google Scholar and
Halmstad Universities digital library OneSearch. This by using keywords such as;
Data-driven marketing, B2B Customer Journey/B2B Sales Funnel, Digital Inbound
Marketing, Digital Content Marketing, Marketing technology (marktech), Growth hacking
and B2B Sales Management. As secondary sources are not limited to time and place, they are
common and preferable to use as a basis for further extension of the topic, e.g. using already
established theories that have been tested and to put them into a different perspective or
setting (Krishnaswamy & Satyaprasad, 2010). The secondary data also included observations

31
of digital content that the case company produced through their website
(https://www.axelent.se). Also, the authors were sent internal material from the case company
about their customer journey, an internal survey and a basis for their brand platform. This
gave the authors some additional information about the company background and the
viewpoint they want to convey.

3.4 Data Collection

The interviews for this study was carried through in a cross-sectional time horizon between
February to April 2022, with each respondent participating in one interview except for the
two contact persons. Cross-sectional studies take place in a single point in time (for example
months), researchers can look at multiple characteristics at once and the variables cannot be
manipulated, it also provides information about a current setting (Cherry, 2019). A couple of
meetings and interviews were held with the two contact persons to start the project and
decide on the problem formulation, and later also to check in and decide on how to proceed.
The interviews took around one hour each time and were recorded, with the permission from
the respondent, for the authors to be able to go back and make sure that they had the correct
information.

The respondents were informed about the purpose of the study as well as what the interview
was about. This was done to make the respondents feel comfortable and be able to speak
freely, as well as to keep the study ethical (Sekaran & Bougie, 2016). In addition, since the
authors did not receive consent from the respondents to disclose their names in this study,
their identity details are not revealed either. Due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and
interviewing employees from other countries, the interviews were held digitally,
computer-assisted through Zoom and Microsoft Teams (Sekaran & Bougie, 2016).

There were eleven interviews in total with employees from Axelent’s Marketing and Sales
departments, representing Axelent Sweden as well as Benelux, Germany and Great Britain.
Table 1 below shows the details of the interviews where the length of the interviews varied
from 41 minutes to 58 minutes and was conducted between the 23rd of February to 13th of
April in 2022. The time they have been working for Axelent varied between 1,5 years up to
17 years, which may mean that it affected the details and content of the interviews and one
reason for why it is included in table 1. After all the interviews were completed and the
empirical chapter was written, a draft of the finished empirical chapter was sent to all
respondents for them to be able to give feedback and make sure that the authors had got the
right perception of what was said.

32
 Position Worked at Axelent Interview date Length of interview

The Global Sales 17 years 23-02-2022 58 min

Manager in Europe

The Marketing 2,5 years 23-02-2022 55 min

Manager in Sweden

The Marketing and

Customer Support in 4,5 years 11-03-2022 55 min
Benelux

The Global Account 4 years 16-03-2022 51 min

Director:

Sales and Marketing 1,5 years 22-03-2022 45 min

in Germany:

Salesperson in 8 years 22-03-2022 45 min

Sweden

The Social Media 14 years 29-03-2022 48 min

Manager in Sweden

Customer from Worked with 30-03-3022 27 min

Sweden Axelent for 7 years

A Salesperson in 4 years 06-04-2022 55 min

Germany

A Coordinator for 8 years 13-04-2022 45 min

Global Sales

A Customer Support 7 years 13-04-2022 43 min

in Germany

A Customer
Support/Inbound 1,5 years 13-04-2022 41 min
Sales in Sweden

Table 1, Detailed interview list

3.4.1 Population and sample

The respondents were provided by a contact person that the authors have at Axelent, also one
was provided by a respondent after the interview. This was to establish interviews with the

33
right employees that are able to provide the information needed for this study, so called
‘judgment-, purposive sampling’ (Sekaran & Bougie, 2016). Sekaran and Bougie (2016) also
explain this type of sampling as a ‘non-probability convenience sampling’ and is often used
to get basic and fast information in an exploratory phase, which fit this study both in context
and due to time pressure of only about five months to complete the entire study. This also
provided a type of snowball effect, Goodman (1961) explains the snowball sampling as a
random sample of individuals, drawn from a population, where each individual is asked to
provide x other individuals from the population. This is not exactly reflected in this study, but
the same principle was applied where each of the given respondents could provide other
individuals to answer specific questions or elaborate answers in more detail, which also
happened in one case where another salesperson was provided. This is a great way to get
additional information and more detailed answers when the given respondents are not able to
provide answers for all the questions.

3.5 Company description

Krishnaswamy and Satyaprasad (2010) state that in empirical case studies, first-hand
information is required from the field of study. Therefore, this study's data gathering is based
on interviews conducted with key personnel at the company Axelent. Axelent is a Swedish
B2B industrial enterprise established in 1990. They have great experience in manufacturing
network-wall systems in protection and dividers for industry, warehousing, and construction.
The company offers a complete safety concept for machines, construction sites, warehouses,
and cable ladders. Axelent's head office is located in Hillerstorp, Sweden, where all product
development, production, warehousing, and packaging take place. Axelent has sales offices
in 60 countries, and the products are sold worldwide. Axelent has been responsive and
listened to what the customer wants, which has made the customers perceive Axelent as a
quality supplier. Axelent expresses that the customer experience is more important than what
they write about the company and the products and services they provide. Their experience
tells them that the pillar stone of keeping it "simple" but still using a unique business model
has made Axelent one of the leading brands in the industry. Their speed, corporate culture,
and knowledge give the conditions to deliver the best possible security solutions quickly, and
their extensive knowledge within safety helps them always have the applicable legal
requirements in mind. (Axelent, n.d.)

However, even though Axelent appears to be on the frontline with maintaining their
relationships with customers and reactive to their needs, their sales strategy has had a main
focus on personal selling. Since the last two years, the Covid-19 pandemic has made its mark
on most organizations in some way. For Axelent, this has meant that their sales strategy has
been on pause, since driving to meet customers on spot has been restricted. This has opened
their eyes to realizing that they need a more digital strategy as an option and complement to
their personalized selling. Axelent wants to revize their strategy from a traditional
relationship based B2B strategy to a more digital strategy, and to map the customer journey
from the initiating touchpoint to after sales. This is to really understand the digital process
their customers make, and hopefully gain new knowledge about which efforts are the most

34
efficient in the different stages of the customer journey. Their marketing department has been
working more with digital inbound marketing during the last 2-3 years. Now, however, they
want to create a proper foundation for this so that everyone in the company understands it and
can adopt it in their own work. This study will thus be carried out by first looking at the
current state of Axelents marketing, sales, digital channels, systems and data, and from there
make a map or a framework on how they should advance from there, to get a more efficient
digital strategy.

3.6 Data Analysis

All study data were documented, saved and stored in an appropriate way. All the interviews
were recorded and detailed notes were taken during the interview sessions. The raw data were
reviewed by the two researchers before writing the empirical chapter, which was displayed
through direct quotes and summaries (Miles and Huberman, 1994), and then conducting the
analysis. During the process of reviewing the raw data, small notes were made along the way
to support and ease the analysis. The analysis was then conducted with a three-step
thematization in consideration, which includes; data consideration; data display; and
conclusion drawing (Miles and Huberman, 1994). The data consideration was conducted by a
descriptive coding of data into relevant categories which included; Digital content marketing;
Omnichannel; Marketing technology; Digitalization of B2B sales; and Growth Hacking, this
was made to be able to exclude all data that was not considered as relevant to the case.
Further, the data display was conducted by organizing the data according to the steering
framework, mainly the Sales Funnel, which resulted in a sales and marketing funnel
suggestion presented in the papers discussion and conclusion section. To improve the
reliability of the results, each stage of the analysis was reviewed by both researchers by
agreeing or disagreeing with the other researcher's interpretation, which sometimes resulted
in a joint reinterpretation and reanalysis to consider all aspects and reach an agreement.

Further, the analysis was conducted in relevance with the theoretical viewpoints and a data
triangulation approach was used to recognize any biases, conscious or unconscious, occuring
in the interviews. The purpose of using data triangulation is to achieve a more comprehensive
understanding of the study which is being conducted by using multiple sources of data
(Sargeant, 2012).

3.7 Reliability and Validity

Sekaran and Bougie (2016) explain that the measurement of reliability in the academic world
indicates the extent to which it is in the absence of bias. This in turn ensures the consistency
of a measurement across time and different research instruments. This is however, a difficult,
if not impossible, thing to achieve within qualitative research endeavors due to research tools
being influenced by outer variables such as questionnaire keywords, physical settings, mood
at the time of the interview etc. (Kumar, 2011). Also, since this research is limited to only one
case company, it is considered to be biased.

Further, external validity concerns the extent to which the results of a causal study is

35
generalizable over different settings, events or people, while the internal validity concerns the
degree of our confidence and certainty in the causal effects of the results. There is also a
known trade-off between the internal and external validity where the researchers should be
willing to trade higher internal validity for lower external validity. (Sekaran & Bougie, 2016)
For this study, the external validity is low, which meant that in order to research the topic on a
detailed level, the generalizability of the findings had to be traded for doing an in-depth case
study. Further, triangulation was used as a method in order to increase the validity of this
paper, and to reduce bias by conducting multiple interviews with different people within the
studied case company (Turner, 2016; Williamson & Johanson, 2017).

36
4.0 Empirical Findings

This empirical chapter structure is based on the different stages in figure 2, based on Kotler et
al. (2017), on how to build and maintain successful customer relationships, moving from
initial prospects to closing and follow-up. This structure is chosen to make it easy to divide
each stage and in detail explain what is done by the company in each stage. The chapter is
formed as a retelling of all the interviews combined to try to capture the whole picture of
Axelents work today within sales and marketing. The sales and marketing funnel stages,
shown in Figure 1, adopted from Järvinen and Taiminen (2016), are also used as a reference
for the disposition of the chapter. These two figures slightly overlap, with Järvinen and
Taiminens’ (2016) concept being more detailed on how marketing and sales work together in
each stage, and together they make a suitable structure for retelling the empirical findings.

4.1 Covid-19
Like most other companies, Axelent has been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic spreading
around the world. Axelent's salesforce, generally having a more traditional way of
approaching their customers, has been forced to adjust their way of working from going out
to customers and meeting face-to-face to doing more work and meetings digitally.

"Covid has affected how we meet our customers and follow up quotes; for example, since we
have not been able to make visits, there have been more phone calls, emails, and digital
meetings than before. Therefore, we have increased our digital marketing efforts and
engagement in social media and Linkedin channels. We have seen that the sales results
regarding the new customer acquisition remain the same, even though we make way less
physical visits."
- Global Sales Manager in Europe

Axelent had to change how they communicated when Covid-19 hit rapidly. However, doing
things digitally is quicker, easier, and more convenient when getting decision-makers to sit
down together, thanks to having to schedule all digital meetings. Still, the Benelux market
kept the more traditional business approach but with fewer visits. In Germany, Covid-19 had
a significant effect on doing business due to making a lot of physical visits to customers.
However, the sales results remained the same as before Covid-19, and they came to realize
that sometimes, especially for smaller projects, the physical visits were not always required to
make a deal, which is the common picture throughout Axelent's different markets. The focus
was shifted towards digital channels and digital inbound marketing, and the Swedish
headquarters did a lot to help the subsidiaries digitally during Covid-19. Axelent had already
seen a digital transformation before Covid-19 hit; however, the pandemic accelerated the
transformation. This rapid digital development could potentially be the start for salespeople
working more hybrid within the company in the future.

37
Although it was tough not to be able to do business as usual with physical visits, the good
thing was that digital tools were now being utilized a lot more than before. Digitalization,
which is now commonly preferred to a certain degree, has facilitated the sales process in
arranging meetings with customers faster and easier. For example, a customer called a
salesperson at Axelent asking for a meeting 1 hour later; after this meeting, an offer was sent
to the customer that day, showing the great potential of digital tools. In Sweden, the
marketing department got more inquiries during Covid-19 due to salespeople not physically
getting out to the customers. This has opened up doors between marketing and sales and for
the salespeople to better understand the potential of marketing in the sales funnel.

4.2 The general Customer Journey

Axelent wants to be trendy, first, innovative, and at the forefront of inbound marketing. The
customer journey was identified four years ago when Axelent conducted an extensive
analysis and strategy change. However, today this journey has changed further and could be
adjusted to fit the new environment. The journey varies a lot between customers, and today
there is not a straightforward journey identified for specific buyer personas. However,
Axelent has good knowledge about their customer buying journey’s different stages; thus,
there is more focus on marketing at the beginning of the customer buying process and, in the
end, more focus on sales. The salespeople could be more updated with this journey to
understand the advantages of using it in their processes. The salespeople are not as familiar
with the customer journey as they could be, and today, the journey’s stages are mainly used
by the marketing team. Although the journey has been shown to salesforce, they are not
familiar with this process or even remember to have seen it. There is no integrated structured
process for working with leads throughout the sales funnel, and much work has to be done
manually to extract and structure the leads. Weekly lists with leads are then sent to different
countries from the headquarters in Sweden. The marketing department has been explained as
the driver of sales within Axelent. However, it should also work another way and, thereby,
sales that connect marketing to the process. Since working with the customer journey is
relatively new for the marketing department, the most important thing is expressed to be for
everyone to understand the customer journey and customer needs.

It is suggested that Axelent needs better technical systems, such as a better CRM system and
marketing automation system, to communicate better between departments without importing
and exporting all the information manually. A new technical system could also help to
understand better at which stage in the journey the customer is in, which actions need to be
taken, and when. Axelent has made a considerable digital journey in-house to meet future
needs, but there is still more to be done.

“Salespeople will always have a great role in building relationships and customer care. But
when it comes to customer acquisition, it will become more and more important how we work
with customers digitally.”
- Marketing Manager in Sweden

38
 Figure 4, Present customer journey at Axelent
This shows Axelents present customer journey in a simple funnel and with very general
actions for each stage.

4.3 Prospects
Axelents inbound marketing has been good at generating new leads, with little effort
required, especially in the new markets where Axelent is not a known brand. At new product
launches, the subsidiaries in the different markets are contacted to give input about relevant
content and how to identify the target group. Google Adwords and search engine
optimization, together with paid and organic content in social media, are used to attract the
target group. For account-based marketing and new customer acquisition, Axlent mostly uses
LinkedIn, while Facebook and Instagram are mainly used for employer branding. Axelent has
a digital tool that enables them to plan and manage all social media content and campaigns in
the same place. Furthermore, they work a lot with retargeting people interested in their
content and creating look-a-like audiences to reach out to new potential leads. With large
global accounts, much work is done manually to identify the accounts and gather insights
about them and possible actions to take; these are then targeted with personalized content.

In Germany, they use social media, mainly LinkedIn and some similar German channels.
LinkedIn is explained to work as a digital business card for Axelent Germany. They try to get
the attention of potential customers by, for example, linking them in a post. However, Google
is seen as the most important channel since most of the customers in Germany find Axelent
through Google. They also acquire customers from previous projects and participate in
exhibitions to show the products. Generally, Axelent’s different subsidiaries have good
knowledge about who their potential customers could be. Many new customers are found by
researching the internet; the salesforce also uses Google and LinkedIn to find new potential
leads. However, some customers also contact Axelent directly by calling customer support, as

39
they have found information about the company online or even been recommended to
Axelent by other customers.

“Many customers search for information digitally and have already made a decision before
they contact Axelent.”
- Social Media Manager in Sweden

4.4 Pre-approach
The marketing department has three clear strategies to target potential customers. The
inbound marketing strategy is used to attract as many new customers as possible to the
webpage by reaching out to buyer personas in different markets/industries. The focus is to get
as many leads as possible by creating awareness, and that then can be handed over to the
sales department and, after that, contacted. The account-based marketing strategy is instead
used to target specific accounts based on the ideal customer profile, aiming to expand
globally. The focus here is to establish engagement and build relationships, including the
sales department. This is connected to the funnel's first stages, and strategies focus on
quantity and the other quality of the provided leads. Finally, the content marketing strategy
focuses on creating relevant and personalized content for different target groups to attract and
engage customers and as a support in moving potential customers further in the sales funnel.

Figure 5, Marketing strategies at Axelent

Axelents different marketing strategy funnels combined with content marketing

There are different approaches to how the marketing department tries to convert the visitors
from their homepage to sales leads. Some workers in the marketing department use calls to
action from the website, such as "Contact us," "work for Axelent'' and whitepapers to

40
download where the visitor writes down his or her contact details; as triggers to approach
leads with marketing or directly by the salespeople. They also use retargeting to reach leads
that have been looking at content on the different landing pages.

It is explained that the key performance indicators that the marketing department in Sweden
measures depend a lot on the content and the engagement of the posted material. One
example could be the number of clicks leading to the website through a posted article about
machine safety.

“It would be great to have some kind of contact formulas on the landing pages, where
customers could describe their needs before contacting sales. Often they just contact us
wanting to get a quote, but we need way more information in order to prepare one.”
- Customer Support in Germany

Axelent has a leads portal on their website that sales can use through marketing to get a list of
leads every week. Unfortunately, not all salespeople are using it due to not working with
leads, not knowing about it, or being unable to see its real potential. There are cold and hot
leads, and the marketing department defines cold leads as the ones that have been on the
website, looked at posts, or parts of a video, while warm leads can be divided into those who
have liked posts, clicked to the website through a link, or shared posts. However, not all
salespeople share this definition of which leads are so-called warm and feel like it is hard to
find the warm ones from the provided list. The leads list is hard to read, and, thus, it is hard to
search through the list to find the warm leads, which means that some contacted leads are not
interested in the way the salespeople thought. This makes it hard for salespeople to acquire
new customers through the list, and thereby many salespeople avoid this way of working.

There are differences between the different markets; for example, only some markets work
successfully with leads weekly provided by the marketing department. If the sales team does
not contact the leads provided to them, the market department continues to target these leads
digitally. However, it is stated that the marketing team could get better at checking out
quotes/offerings that have gone out to customers. For example, a company that receives an
offer two years before the actual purchase should get information and targeted marketing sent
to them every month from the offering to the purchase to remind them of Axelent. The status
of the leads can be found in the CRM system but needs to be searched manually.
Additionally, it is stated that there is a lack of structured follow-ups for the leads. This means
that the marketing department does not know what happens to the leads after they are sent,
and the salespeople receiving them are not always sure what to do with them; hence, they
sometimes get lost without any action.

In Benelux they do not work much digitally today, and all content and campaigns are done
through Sweden. Benelux gets reports and statistics, for example, the results of a campaign,
from Sweden, but they do not fully understand its meaning or know what to make of the
information. Also, better communication would be preferable to be updated on what the
Swedish marketing department is doing to nurture Benelux's existing customers. Benelux

41
provides a list of their customers to the headquarters but does not know what happens after
since there is no regular follow-up on leads. The marketing department in Sweden agrees that
the leads are not used in the best possible way, and there is a need for better interaction and
communication to work more efficiently with leads.

“It is a challenge to make all the salespeople understand why the marketing department is
doing this and that they can see the possibilities with this way of working. There is a lack of
information about the leads, and Axelent should work with lead scoring to identify the most
important ones if their system would allow this.”
- Marketing Manager in Sweden

It is essential to identify the decision-makers of the companies, not only the people using the
products. Axelent works a lot with personalized content on the homepage and social media.
The marketing team in Sweden works with four different personas, which are targeted with
personalized marketing. Further, Axelent also works with account-based marketing on
LinkedIn and has profiles of personas where they target a specific industry or a company with
relevant content. If one company is identified as a potential client, the personas within the
company are targeted with digital campaigns, for example, three months before a salesperson
makes the first contact with that company. Further, the marketing department makes much
well-produced content. In the future, they hope to create this more automatically and get
better analysis/feedback for what content works for a specific persona in different stages in
the buying journey.

"We have produced videos and other material to help salespeople in digital selling, that they
can show to their customers digitally and help customers show it to their colleagues. One
example is the virtual tour on the homepage. We produce 2-3 well-planned content in a week,
and it would be great to automate some parts of this process, so it fits even better with the
target audience/recipients. Creating content takes time since we are a global company and
have to translate everything into seven different languages".
- Marketing Manager in Sweden

In Sweden, the marketing team works with personas when doing campaigns and big
launches. With new product launches, they talk to colleagues in the world about the target
group and then target these mainly through content on LinkedIn. Their Paid Social content
niches a lot towards personas; however, more generally, they produce much content based on
issues expressed by customers, coming from customer service. The target groups are
generally found through LinkedIn based on language, work title (such as; factory managers,
operators, maintenance), age, geography, or a specific company. However, today it is not
possible to search for specific customers or target groups in the CRM system, which would
be preferred.

Marketing and sales work together regarding content, but it is stated that there is a need for
better understanding and communication in earlier phases between the departments.
Customer support and inbound sales are not included in the content ideas, although they work

42
in close contact with customers and provide information about issues that customers
highlight. In Benelux, they could see customers asking for more hard facts; and did not care
so much about the soft values; this feedback was then given to the marketing team in
Sweden, which provided more of this type of content. In Germany, the customers want more
hard facts when making buying decisions. It is also expressed that more content about
technical issues could help the salesforce in their work by providing customers with content
to answer technical questions. The content is mostly produced in Sweden, which is then
translated into other languages. However, for example, Germany makes their content
regarding different local happenings to attract potential customers in their region.

“The brochures Axelent had before, felt like they had more detailed information about the
products than the home page does today. Both the homepage and manuals could contain
more detailed information for the customers to have easy access.”
- Salesperson in Sweden

4.5 Approach
Axelents vision is to expand their sales and grow globally. As their customers are becoming
more and more global, this provides opportunities to keep the cooperation even in other
countries.

All the markets get weekly information from the marketing team in Sweden about who has
visited their homepage, including the company name, type of device used, and what page
they were visiting. It is then up to the sales team to see if those leads are of interest to them,
for example, by looking at the time the lead spent on the web page. They also research who
the leads are through LinkedIn and Google searches. Although these lists are seen as
generally helpful, some salespeople experience that it sometimes feels weird and too soon to
contact that type of lead and would prefer to add information about what the leads were
looking at exactly on the website. Some state that they feel that the leads do not generate
sales. It is up to them to segment the leads by using common sense because there is no
structured way provided of how this should be done today.

43
 Figure 6, Leads management by sales team at Axelent
How leads are handled by the sales team

Also, the Swedish salesforce gets leads from the marketing department, which is expressed as
a helpful tool. However, the sales team needs to divide the leads based on geographical
location, etc., which creates much manual work with the leads. Also, since they do not know
precisely who within the company visited the website, it is sometimes hard to find the right
person to talk to within the company. However, when that is done, the salespeople google the
leads analyzing how “hot” the leads are or if they are already customers of Axelent. It is also
pointed out that more information should be available about the leads (still following the
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws) to ease the pressure of doing so much
manual research by the salespeople. It is expressed that when a salesperson is working with
leads, marketing could help by targeting these leads with personalized advertising to maintain
them in the meantime. This is done by, for example, retargeting with content on social media,
but also with newsletters. However, the marketing department does not always know where
in the process the actual lead is in and what kind of content would be needed to help
salespeople close the deal.

“It would be good to have a “leads person” that controls the leads and follows up on these.”
- Global Account Director

Axelent’s salesforce still has a more traditional way of working with finding the potential
customers and contacting them to identify if there is a need. Axelent uses key account
managers who work more relationship-based for the larger customers. The face-to-face
meetings with customers are appreciated; still, it is good to have a mix of both physical and
digital meetings. In Germany, they say they have a good mix of physical and digital tools but
do not work that much with social selling today. They make cold calls and visit companies to

44
identify their needs, but customers also contact them directly. In Benelux, sales are more
about problem-solving for the customers in that the customers themselves read about the
product and its benefits. They contact Axelent to get further explanations and for salespeople
to solve their problems as experts.

In general, face-to-face contact is still significant in creating accountability and reliability and
is hard to replace. However, since video calls are taking over, these need to be improved. To
help the sales team with their digital meetings with customers, especially during Covid-19,
the marketing team in Sweden has provided digital material to make the meetings easier,
which has been generally appreciated as a tool. Still, the most important is to take advantage
of opportunities and establish relationships when seeing a potential customer.

Axelent has started to push for social selling, giving out prices for best engagement and social
selling to provide a carrot for the sellers to engage. In Benelux, they use LinkedIn to share
mostly content from Sweden. There are differences between countries regarding social
selling. In the UK, they are pretty good with social selling and engaging in social media, but
for example, in Germany, they are more careful with sharing for different reasons. Asia has
more of its marketing channels, and there are differences in the content. In Europe, the
workers are good at liking and reposting posts in general. Most want to engage and share
content on social media to help Axelent. Nevertheless, there is a lack of understanding if
there is something more that they could do. The sales team could be educated even more in
social selling as they are quite traditional today. It is a challenge, but it could help their work
see this as a tool they can use. The salesforce has significant differences in age and how they
accept the digital transformation.

” I can see that there is a huge opportunity in educating salespeople more in how they can
take advantage of the digital tools and help provided by marketing.”
- Social Media Manager in Sweden

Axelent has established two primary buyer personas; the technical, older ones who are more
product-focused; and new younger ones with different values, who are more
solution-focused. A conference was held where the salespeople were educated regarding the
newly developed buyer personas and digital opportunities. However, when it comes to
approaching these personas, it is mostly up to each salesperson to understand what type of
customer they are dealing with and which actions are relevant to take. In general, the
salesforce understands the customers and how to approach them and does not use the
personas established by the marketing team in their daily work. Further, it is hard to have
detailed manuals to follow on acting as each customer is an individual. There are also a lot of
different personas next to the big global ones. For example, personas are based on jobs (such
as safety, engineers, etc.), and it is important to identify the decision-makers and work
differently depending on what type and size of the project it is. In Germany, they have seen
that they can save time handling smaller customers and projects through digital channels.
Nevertheless, still, it is beneficial for them to go and visit new customers. A salesperson in

45
Sweden has seen that key account customers, for one, require more visits. However, the
Marketing Manager in Sweden stated that;

“I believe that even larger customers could make the whole buying journey digitally in the
future.”
- Marketing Manager in Sweden

In Germany, they typically do not work with buyer personas; they are confident in knowing
their customers well and segment the customers depending on the type of sector instead of
persona. In Sweden, the salespeople contact the customers and ask about their needs to create
a picture of their situation. At the same time, the Benelux market works a lot towards dealers
and gets many customers through the dealers. Still, they can see possibilities in having
different strategies for different personas. In Benelux, the general perception is that older
customers prefer to have calls and talk, while younger customers prefer to keep in contact
through email instead. The omnichannel approach is necessary, and the idea is about finding
different digital tools and systems to use. It is also vital to identify the decision-makers in
each company to know how to meet the customers right. They are both machine builders,
project leaders, sometimes professional buyers etc. There can be several decision-makers in a
company. It would be good to implement this knowledge into their process so that the
salespeople would know what type of customer it is and which actions to take in what
situations, already before contacting the customer. Knowing which leads would prefer to
receive more digital material over phone calls could help to streamline the process and make
the meetings more effective.

“Our own view of how customers make their decisions is not always correct; it is important
to gain insights and data to really understand this and not try to guess.”
- Marketing Manager in Sweden

4.6 Handling and Presentation

Axelent has established a new, small team with global sales, trying to get the salesforce to
work the same way, thereby helping to grow sales globally. The general opinion is that
marketing and sales work better now than before and a good improvement has been in the
communication between departments and people involved. Furthermore, Axelent has
identified a need for more cross-functional teams and hybrid roles between sales and
marketing. Traditionally, sales and marketing have worked more in silos, but it has changed
during the past years. For example, product development used to order the material from the
marketing, and marketing produced this without having a deeper understanding of what was
requested by the customers. Today Axelent uses Sharepoint, where all the salespeople and
subsidiaries can find and download different material and information. News etc., are shared
through the intranet. Axelent has a goal to work more efficiently and more integrated
between departments in the future. It is important to get everyone to work more
cross-functionally and understand that they are doing this together and have the same goals.
They are now moving to more cross-functional teams between inbound and outbound sales;

46
for example, outbound sales get assistance from one person in inbound sales. Hence, the sales
role will become more and more hybrid in the future. The Social Media Manager in Sweden
wants to educate and put the marketing and sales departments together to work as one unit
and expressed it as;

“For example, the marketing part working with the customer journey could be named digital
sales.”
- Social Media Manager in Sweden

The salespeople handle most contact with the customers, customer service and inbound sales
make the quotes, and technical support helps with technical issues. Snappetworks, a software
that enables customers to make their own drawings with Axelent’s products adapted to their
own project, is one of the examples of digital solutions that can be helpful for both customers
and save time for Axelent. The customer service/inbound sales have a lot of contact with
customers regarding technical issues and other issues that need to be clarified to make a
quote. Although customer support has several touchpoints with the customer, they neither
have contact with the marketing department nor are they familiar with the whole customer
journey and the different buyer personas. The general opinion is that it would be good to
automatize the analysis parts to give better feedback to the sales department. Today, there is
much manual work to collect the data from all the subsidiaries. Sometimes documenting all
the information to the CRM system can be challenging because of the lack of connection with
the system when they are on the road, and therefore some important information can get lost
on the way. On the other hand, in Germany, some feel obligated to document information that
is not really relevant.

Figure 7, Sales pipeline at Axelent

The efforts by marketing department during Axelent’s sales pipeline

47
Today, salespeople do not know the potential marketing has regarding sales. Salespeople need
to know where they should take over from marketing, and marketing should be better at
retargeting the customer at later stages in the customer journey. Hence, the marketing team
should be more interactive with sales further down in the customer journey. The salespeople
can see where the leads come from but do not seem to work a lot with it or give feedback to
the marketing department. On the other hand, there is a lot of focus on development and
innovation from the marketing side, but this is not always communicated to the salespeople,
who may be informed right before the launch of new digital tools or material. Then it is
expected that the salespeople learn to use these tools fast.

In general, the opinion is that there is a need for more technical support and better systems
such as better CRM and automation software. Today the marketing department does not have
time to do any A/B testing. Digital tools are used for publishing content and planning social
media and online advertising, and analysis with tools like Google analytics. However, a lot of
data and information from sales must be gathered manually. They analyze the marketing
metrics, such as new visitors to the homepage and engagement, and look at these concerning
the sales results. Globally, customers, the company, and the roles are analyzed to expand the
relationship and sales. In Germany, as key performance indicators within marketing, they
look at engagement on social media. They can see the potential to set up more key
performance indicators to get better insights. It seems like there is a wish to have more KPIs
set up for everybody to understand better and measure progress.

Furthermore, there is much data, but it is not used as efficiently as it could today. The general
opinion is that they need to get better at gathering data more seamlessly and use it more for
making analyses. The data Axlent has today is very local and can not be easily collected
globally. There is a need for more continuity in actions regardless of the market and
customer. Even though Axelent is divided into different countries, for example, Axelent
Sweden and Axelent Spain, the customers are global. They do not separate Axelent Sweden
from Axelent Spain but do business with Axelent as a whole.

"We need a new and modern, common system that seamlessly integrates data from a global
market."
- Global Sales Manager in Europe

They also lack a CRM system that both marketing and sales use; thus, everybody has access
to the data in their region. It is used more for documentation and logs than something that
drives actions based on personas and the status of leads. This digitalization and working with
leads is a new way of working for Axelent's salespeople, which was not used 2 to 3 years
ago. It would be good to have more automatized triggers and automated sequences so the
sales could get more information about the leads before they come to the sales.

"Our CRM is something that has been developed for Axelent. It does not offer the functions
that we need today. We need a system that can integrate data and automate different actions."
- Global Sales Manager in Europe

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Further, the Global Account Director wishes for a CRM that is integrated with other
channels;

“Today we follow up on leads manually and have a lot of communication back and forth, but
it would be good to have a system that facilitated this process.”
- Global Account Director

On the other hand, it is stated that it could be pretty hard to introduce digital tools due to time
pressure and that it needs to be maintained in knowledge.

4.7 Closing
Axelent works together worldwide based on a central government and tries to have standard
products and prices regardless of the market. Common for all markets is that outbound sales
are trying to find the customers and create the need. The inbound sales make the offer and try
to close the deal with the outbound salesperson with a common product portfolio. There can
be quite a lot of mailing back and forth and including the technical support before being able
to finish the quote. The outbound salesperson follows up to check that everything has gone
well and satisfied the customer. The aim is always to delight existing customers, so they are
satisfied and hopefully become brand ambassadors for Axelent. The estimated time spent on
existing and new customers is 50/50 to maintain good relationships on both sides. Most
customers are existing ones who come back with new orders. Axlelent wants to show their
appreciation towards existing customers by creating customer cases and sending monthly
newsletters. Axelent arranges events and workshops for their existing customers. Axelent’s
salesforce works a lot with relationships on different levels within the companies to keep the
relationship even if the roles would shift on who purchases within the customer companies.

Sales and new customers are seen as growth rather than results, and Axelent needs to secure
value for the customer and continuity at the global level. Axelent is driven by acquiring new
customers and growth, and their most important KPI is “the Rolling 12”, which means how
many unique new (buying) customers they have had during the last twelve months, which
should always increase. Through this, they have a growth vision of doubling their revenue
within the next five years, which is supported by having a market with much potential that
they can work with more efficiently by using, for example, automation. Today, there is a need
for more follow-up and feedback.

In Sweden, the marketing team has a meeting once a week to analyze the customers and
reactions to content, etc. Some salespeople have a role in marketing and attend these
meetings, and others do not. They have a global Axelent World Marketing group with regular
meetings, where they can gather feedback on what has functioned and what has not. It is up
to every person to give feedback from sales to marketing, for example, regarding content. In
Britain, they have one person in marketing who gets feedback from sales and then reports it
further to the Swedish marketing team. There are no automatic data flows. Marketing and

49
Customer Support in Benelux has monthly meetings with the Marketing Manager in Sweden
for feedback. They also have meetings three times a year with all marketing representatives
present. In Belgium, there is a very open and freely speaking office; the door is always open.
In Germany, they get feedback on marketing from sales and also have monthly meetings with
the whole German branch. In Sweden, sales work is very individual work, so they do not
have much communication with other salespeople. The outbound sales team in Sweden has
regular meetings with the Marketing Manager in Sweden. The Social Media Manager in
Sweden is part of the Axelent World Marketing Team and has daily contact with members to
communicate and find issues from customers. The aim is to be able to answer the questions
of customers through marketing. Finally, it is stated that the future is digital, and Axlent
needs to keep up with that to not lag behind competitors.

4.8 Findings
Below is a summary of the findings that were most obvious and comprehensive. These
findings are used as reference and main points for the analysis of Axelent’s customer journey
in the analysis chapter below.
4.8.1 Touchpoints

Today's buyer personas are segmented primarily by demographics and firmographics;

however, there is a need to segment customers further into sub-segments based on their needs
and buying behavior. There are also great differences in customer pain points and purchasing
patterns regarding the need for technical support and consultation, and therefore these should
be the base when designing content as customers move further down in the sales funnel.
Today, Axelent is working extensively with content marketing and has started to create
relevant digital material that both customers and salespeople can use. However, some work
remains to separate the customer journeys for different personas and understand each
segment's different needs at every touchpoint during the whole journey.
4.8.2 Aligning sales and marketing

The marketing department has started working with digital marketing successfully, especially
in the earlier phases of the customer journey. The content on social media and their homepage
is designed to attract their target audiences' different needs. They are creating awareness on
social media and acquiring more visitors to the webpage. However, how their campaigns are
designed to follow customers' buying journeys further in the process remains unclear. The
aim is to follow the whole journey where marketing can assist sales with digital material and
targeted campaigns even after the leads have moved further to the sales department to be
contacted. Even though Axelent has started to work more cross-functionally and the
communication between the marketing and sales department has enhanced, there still exists a
great gap with feedback loops. The marketing department does not receive any automated
updates about what is happening with the leads and which stages they are in, which would
help know how to nurture these potential customers with relevant content and help
salespeople close the deals. One other important challenge is the quality of the sales team's
leads from marketing. Today, most salespeople do not see these leads as warm ones and are

50
missing some relevant information about the leads. There is a lot of manual work with leads
to segment them to the different salespeople, who then tries to find out if some of the leads
are hot enough to be contacted.

4.8.3 Technology and data

Today, Axlent has quite a limited CRM system and no marketing automation software,
making it hard to work seamlessly between departments and different markets. There is a lot
of manual processing with data, which also means that Axelent has a fairly limited overview
of the data and what it means.Human interaction will always be necessary for some stages
with some customers and in order to optimize the sales process, it is essential to identify
where and when human interactions are necessary and when they can easily be replaced by
digital means. This, of course, depends heavily on what kind of customer Axelent is dealing
with.

51
5.0 Analysis of Empirical Data
This analysis chapter is structured almost in the same way as the previous one. Kotlers’ et al.
(2017), figure 2, is used as a basis for the structure, and Järvinen and Taiminens’ (2016)
figure 1 is used for reference when analyzing thanks to the fact that it combines sales and
marketing efforts. During each section, the three main findings from the empirical chapter are
used to discuss each step regarding the findings in relation to the theoretical framework.

5.1 Customer Journey

Axelents' salesforce is experiencing how the B2B environment is becoming more like a B2C;
the customers want to speak to specialists, and cold calls are not as appreciated or generate as
many sales as before (Lingqvist et al., 2015). However, although most customers want a more
digital experience, physical visits can not be entirely excluded, as some still want to do
business between four eyes. Further, Axelent has also seen a digitalization trend in their
industry, making it necessary to understand and adapt to this new way of working to not fall
behind competitors, and according to Corsaro and Maggioni (2022), this has to do with
digital development changing the customer journey. Axelent has a well-established reputation
for being fast in order management and providing a good customer experience. The challenge
for Axelent is knowing when to prioritize between the digital and physical means and meet
the customers the way they prefer.

On the other hand, Axelent has sound knowledge about their customers and their needs in
general. They have mapped out a general customer journey with actions that can be made at
each touchpoint with the customers. There are, however, no identified differences between
the buyer personas and their different needs. According to Marvasti et al. (2021), knowing at
what stage the customer is in and what that stage means for both the seller and the buyer is
gaining more ground in doing business. Lingqvist et al. (2015) and Angevine et al. (2021)
state that companies with many customers and customer segments require different methods
for different customers; it is therefore vital to include all departments and what actions they
could take at each stage. Furthermore, according to the authors, when companies grow and
start serving more customers they first need to identify segments with similar needs. Second,
they need to develop archetypes and then create targeted campaigns and solutions that match
their pain points with digital solutions, thereby enhancing the customer journey for this
segment. Axelent has a lot of customers, but it is hard to segment their customers based on
demographics since they differ significantly. Instead, it is more accurate for them to look at
needs and behaviors to identify differences and segment their customers based on such
factors. One example could be how much help the customers need to make a purchase.

At Axelent, a great challenge is that not everyone understands how the customer journey
stages can be used in their work. They also do not know exactly what content the customer
has received before their contact, which can create difficulties. They possess some data about
their customers and their pain points, however, they still lack processes to gather and analyze
data and front-line feedback throughout the whole organization. Marvasti et al. (2021) state

52
that understanding what the customer has been exposed to before getting in contact with a
salesperson will help the salesperson work more effectively and raise the perceived value for
the customers by meeting them with accurate and relevant information related to the
purchase. Conway and Hemphill (2019) argue that digital marketing needs to be integrated
with more traditional forms of marketing to fill the gap between physical and digital channels
and meet the customers at all levels. Axelent needs to be able to adjust their strategies based
on the individual customer preferences, both physically and digitally. Hence, this will be done
more efficiently when the segments with different needs and pain points are identified, and
the customer journey is mapped with possible physical and digital actions. As Paschen et al.
(2020) state, the physical interaction of social and emotional competencies will always be a
requirement in B2B settings and can not always be replaced by digital means.

For the customers who prefer to search for information by themselves through digital
channels, Axelent has developed, amongst other things, a digital showroom on their website
where customers can walk through rooms with their different products displayed to get a
more accurate picture of what they look like at the scene. Arora et al. (2022) found that B2B
customers prefer omnichannel regardless of the industry, size, location, or the customer
relationship stage. Hence, the authors argue that customers prefer more channels,
convenience, and a more personalized experience. This type of online information and
service can help eliminate unnecessary communication going back and forth to get accurate
information and support the buying process by having digital information and physical
presentations (Driedonks & Paulowsky, 2020).

Today Axelents' customer journey is mapped as a linear process. However, Lingqvist et al.
(2015) and Järvinen and Taiminen (2016) argue that today, customers are moving in more
circular processes and can move back and forward in the funnel over time, making it harder
to follow and understand the drivers in their decisions. Axelent has mapped a general
customer journey for their 'typical' customers. However, this is optimized from a marketing
point of view and does not include sales or customer support; therefore, it lacks many touch
points during the journey. Troisi et al. (2020) and Marvasti et al. (2021) state that when
creating the customer journey, the company's goal is to make each stage of the funnel more
efficient and increase conversions. One way of further changing to a more journey-based
sales strategy is exemplified by Lingqvist et al. (2015) by three necessary stages. First,
companies need to map the decision journey of each established segment by including their
expectations and wants for each stage. Second, they should target resources from sales and
marketing to create activities that could impact the decisions. Lastly, they should create closer
cooperation between sales, marketing, and customer support to make this work as smoothly
as possible and understand each department's contribution to the journey.

Being a traditional company and having worked with more personal relationships in the past,
Axelent is far from having detailed segments of customers with their current state. They are
focused on getting awareness and acquiring potential customers through the marketing
department's digital marketing efforts (Bohnsack & Liesner, 2019; Conway & Hemphill,
2019). However, since their vision is to grow, they could look more into the later stages of the

53
customer journey and include all stages for continuous growth, which is called growth
hacking (Bohnsack & Liesner, 2019; Conway & Hemphill, 2019). To make growth hacking
work, Bohnsack and Liesner (2019) argue that companies need to segment their customers in
detail to choose a pattern that will fit those customers' needs. By making a detailed
"personalized" pattern for each customer segment, Bohnsack and Liesner (2019) argue, it will
be easier to make the departments work together all the way through, enabling them to
choose the right strategy on the available data in the customer lifecycle. The chosen pattern is
based on suitable customer data gathering, connecting IT to the processes (Böringer et al.,
2022).

For being an industrial company, it is not surprising that Axelent has had a traditional
approach to working with marketing and sales. However, they have been proactive in creating
their brand and have started to work with content marketing together with ABM and inbound
marketing, which they have seen as a good strategy, especially in the new markets where
Axelent is not a known brand. The overall picture is that Axelent has established a profound
foundation for digital marketing that helps support the sales function and is flexible in
communicating to meet the expressed issues from customers'. However, it is also expressed
that the content of some support functions (especially on the website) is not comprehensive
enough compared to, for example, the previous brochures that Axelent often distributed.
Even if the created content is appreciated and helpful, it could be suitable to include
salespeople more in creating content to get a comprehensive picture of what to include. The
salespeople's interaction with customers gives them more insights about what they need and
would want, content-wise. Hence, getting the sales peoples' views on what to create will
establish closer cooperation between the departments and more well-chosen content.
Axelents' marketing department provides targeted personalized content, mainly in the initial
stages of the journey. The marketing department aims to re-target the leads that are not yet
contacted to increase visibility and to stay at the top of mind for these leads. However, this
requires the marketing team to manually find the uncontacted leads.

Axelent is dealing with customers with a wide variety of needs for technical support; hence,
for Axelent, it could ease the work by doing less physical meetings in vain as they take up
more time and effort for the salespeople than digital ones. Still, it needs to be pointed out that
there are differences between the markets Axelent operates in. Some of the markets are more
open to establishing a more digital approach, which means they are more willing to adapt to
this change and incorporate it into their daily work. Other markets explained that they are
more stuck in traditional ways and that their customers prefer physical face-to-face contact,
which means this change will be harder to implement since its support might not be as strong.
This implies that Axelent must take advantage of feedback and insights about their markets to
be able to promote and advocate for such a change, and see how it behaves. Böringer et al.
(2022) and Grandhi et al. (2021) argue that data gathering and analysis are important because
the insights help companies grow by getting to know and understand the customers, the
channels, and all touchpoints in the funnel. This gives a better experience for the customer
and at the same time, maximizes return on investments (ROIs) for the company by avoiding
unnecessary employee workload. The authors state further that the importance lies in looking

54
at the whole journey that a customer makes when buying a product, and by doing so, the
company can meet the customer with the right person and the right action just when needed.

It is stated that Axelent gets asked to provide products outside of their standard options; in
those cases, the salesperson has to put a request, often by email, to the correct department that
will then have to check and get back to the salesperson. This process is done manually and
can take a long time, which for example, could be streamlined with a better-integrated
communication system. One of Axelent's success factors is speed, which aligns with
Baumgartners’ et al. (2016) findings that customers are more satisfied when they can get
what they need and want faster. According to the authors, this requires working with
technical experts and IT. Since Axelent is growing globally and getting more and more
customers, they need to use the technology to keep their strong focus on growing and not
losing their professional strength.

5.2 Identified Contacts

Many of Axelent's customers do not know that their product exists or the need for it before
they, for example, buy a new machine and realize that they must think about the security
around it. Järvinen and Taiminen (2016) state that the B2B customer journey starts with a
problem that decision-makers in the company have become aware of and that needs to be
solved, which indicates why most Axelents' customers then find Axelent through online
searches, many on Google. Therefore, Axelent works with SEO and has relevant content on
their homepage, as they produce various well-planned content every month. They also work
with different landing pages so the potential customers more easily can find the solution to
their needs, enabling Axelent to identify what type of content is attractive to their customers.

Axelent has much information on their website for the buyers to look through when
evaluating the products. For example, the customers can use a tool to go through a virtual
experience of what the products look like on sight and in different constellations. Still, it is
expressed that some information that customers are asking for is missing on the website. It is,
however, also stated that they are fast to provide that information when this is communicated
to the marketing department. Järvinen and Taiminen (2016) state that the B2B customer
evaluates their need and what kind of solutions there are on the market to solve them
digitally. When trying to make the decision, it is then a question of what option is the best.
The important part is to have informative, relevant content that strengthens the brand and
helps customers understand the products, content that Axelent is constantly developing. More
in-depth or additional information (laws and regulations etc.) is then to be explained and
partly solved by the salespeople, due to sometimes being hard to comprehend.

Axelent works a lot with social media and has established a position for a Social Media
Manager who is in charge of all the organic and paid content on social media. This part of
Axlent's inbound marketing strategy ensures that customers receive relevant information
through digital platforms, which will convince them that Axelent's products are their best
option. Today, customers rely more and more on social media when researching information

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during the customer journey's initial stages (Gustafson et al., 2021; Holliman & Rowley,
2014), which is where Axelent uses social media to attract visitors to the homepage and
convert them into leads. Further, social media is also used to find new potential customers
and get more detailed information about them.

Axelent is trying to find new ways of understanding their customers and what they like. They
identify potential customers quickly and find relevant content to provide those leads with,
which is what Baltes (2018) suggests. This, however, is not integrated throughout the entire
organization. The marketing department provides some information about leads for the
salesforce to use and convert into customers. However, only parts of the salesforce use it
properly; information and many work hours get lost. In some cases, the salespeople do not
even understand why this information is given to them since those leads are not easily
converted into customers.

Furthermore, the salesforce generally has little knowledge of how the marketing department
follows up on leads or that they are retargeted with marketing efforts if not contacted.
Holliman and Rowley (2014) write that the marketer within a company has a great
responsibility to help the customers from a pre-purchase into a purchase stage and then
further assist in the post-purchase stage, which is a communicative challenge that Axelent
could work more with. Better information exchange and communication across all
departments would increase mutual understanding of the work that is done. Listening to and
learning from each other could also help to take advantage of the provided information and
not do unnecessary work.

Axelent uses lead generation software on their homepage and supports this by searching
information online about customers, as supported by Paschen et al. (2020). The authors note
that the first step in the sales funnel is finding potential customers. Companies should gather
potential customers' contact details and find as much valuable information about them as
possible. The information about leads is manually provided to the sales team; however, not
documented or stored in any customer database, which could provide a more accurate picture
of the specific interests and identify pain points of the specific lead.

5.3 Marketing leads

Axelent's marketing team is active on social media and encourages all the other departments
to share the content on their channels to maximize their reach. Some employees share content
frequently, while others do not and state that it should be enough to come from Axelents own
channels. Further, Feiz et al. (2021) remark that content marketing is closely related to social
media since the content is mainly shared and spread through social media platforms for
maximum reach. Axelent uses a digital tool to simultaneously plan and monitor all the social
media content and campaigns, giving them a fair overview of their content strategy.
Unfortunately, this system is not integrated with the CRM system, meaning that the
interactions can not be linked between these systems. According to Taiminen and Ranaweera
(2019), social media can also be used to engage customers in specific stages of their

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decision-making process. As some of Axelent's salespeople use social media to maintain
relationships with customers during different stages, it becomes essential to understand the
audience's needs and provide relevant content for them (Holliman & Rowley, 2014),
complementing the marketing department's efforts.

As the customer moves forward in the funnel into CRM, Axelent's marketing department no
longer has easily accessible information about the stage in the journey the customer is in.
Therefore they lose the personal touch in their content. Today, there are no automatic triggers
recorded in Axlents' CRM system along the customer journey. According to Medina et al.
(2019), this could be helpful by supporting various sales and marketing strategies over time,
providing an overview of customers' pain points in each stage, and creating relevant content.
Customer support/inbound sales suggest content ideas based on expressed customers' issues.
These are then used in marketing endeavors to answer potential questions that customers
might have or inform about specific uncertainties, which helps Axelent provide targeted
solutions and is an excellent way to engage customers (Taiminen & Ranaweera, 2019; Feiz et
al., 2021). Axelent has invested in digital self-service through their design program,
Snapperworks, a calculation tool, the Experience room, and various whitepapers available for
download. This makes it easy for the visitor to explore their products and get information
about them independently. Arora et al. (2022) claim that today's omnichannel approach
requires having many channels delivered 24/7, both in-person, remote, and self-service.
Further, Corsaro and Maggioni (2022) point out that customers should receive immediate
access to, for example, product information through digital channels. For the company, digital
channels can help to reduce costs, generate new leads and gain better customer insights.

Axelent has installed software on their homepage to track visitors and gather data about
leads; that information is then sent further to the sales department. The marketing team
continuously generates new leads for the salesforce, but these leads are not elaborated on
before being handed over. The sales team thereby experiences that the leads are of poor
quality and should be processed better by the marketing department before the sales team
receives them. Since Axelent does not work with lead scoring, the sales team needs to use
quite a lot of time to identify the high-quality leads. According to Duncan and Elkan (2015),
lead scoring is where the company identifies high-quality leads and is important because
dealing with low-quality leads can be an expensive task (Duncan & Elkan, 2015), which
Axelent'sAxelent's sales team has experienced. It is seen that there exist slightly conflicting
ideas between the sales and marketing departments on how and who should work more with
leads to segment them, which is in line with Krings' et al. (2021) statements. To solve such
issues, Järvinen and Taiminen (2016) propose integrating content marketing with marketing
automation. This would suggest that Axelent should implement an adequate marketing
automation system to get the most out of this process and generate more high-quality leads
while reducing the manual work. Paschen et al. (2020) claim that high-quality leads should
include detailed information about the leads during the pre-approach and approach stage,
such as background information and needs, habits, and preferences, which sales can use when
contacting the leads. This type of detailed information about leads is what Axelents sales

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department feels is missing, as sales have to check for more information about the incoming
leads manually. The amount of these leads is increasing due to the increased inbound
marketing efforts by the marketing team, which suggests that Axelent needs to deal with this
challenge before it gets to be a bigger problem than it is today.

Järvinen and Taiminen (2016) state that conflicts between marketing and sales are often
based on blaming each other for the poor quality of leads, or poor follow-up skills, which is a
real issue for Axelent. To improve this challenge, Axlent could establish common goals for
the sales and marketing departments on how to process leads and follow up on this process
together. It is stated that a lot of the leads are not contacted, the marketing department is not
following up on the leads they send, and much of the work disappears into nothingness,
which ends up in a much unnecessary manual workload. Baltes (2018) argues that with the
help of studying prospects' actions and customizing content according to customer data,
marketing and sales can identify when the customer is ready to be contacted. Therefore, the
marketing team could process leads more with customized content. Sales and marketing
could work more integrated to get better quality leads and fewer workloads on contacting
leads that are still too cold. Gani et al. (2021) write that to convert leads into wins; a company
can use strategic approaches and follow the leads from the inception; for example, Axelent
uses "call to actions" (CTAs) to initiate the conversion of a lead. They have CTAs on their
homepage, although not on every landing page. Therefore, placing more CTAs, such as
forms, to facilitate customer interaction and gather more information about the customer
could facilitate conversion from marketing leads to sales leads. Using forms on the website
was also desired by Axelent's employees as a supplement that would help them a lot in the
process.

Opreana and Vinerean (2015) state that digital inbound marketing requires testing and
studying to optimize the content across different channels and be successful by attracting
more leads and converting more leads into customers. Today, Axelent is conducting some
analysis on the gathered data, for example, all the campaigns and the engagement. However,
they do not have time to do A/B testing. The marketing department mainly uses the data in
Sweden, and the insights generated from campaigns do not always reach the other markets
successfully. This argues that Axelent could benefit from testing and educating the staff more
about how to read and use the analysis results. Troisi et al. (2020) state that B2B segments
today are more complex and globalized, making the data very important to analyze since it
should be the centerpiece when making decisions. Collecting and analyzing data helps to
understand customers' purchasing patterns and psychology and then develop a personalized
strategy based on this (Grandhi et al., 2021; Marvasti et al., 2021). Therefore, implementing
good technology platforms helps companies achieve their sales and marketing objectives
(Baltes, 2018). Axelent has implemented tools to support their data gathering on website
visitors and uses tools to analyze user behavior (with Google Analytics etc.). However, there
are plenty of other tools that Axelent could benefit from implementing, for example, as Baltes
(2018) suggests; tools monitoring user behavior on the company's website; customizing the
content regarding users' searches and interests; automatically customized email campaigns

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based on the user's behavior; automatic notifications regarding commercial opportunities; and
automatic update of contacts, so the database is always up-to-date.

Furthermore, according to Duncan and Elkan (2015), a marketing automation software

system could help find the most qualified leads before going further into sales. This could
also help reduce the manual work done with leads today and would release valuable time to
spend on other tasks. Today, Axelent is doing quite a lot of time-consuming manual work
with leads. Järvinen and Taiminen (2016) state that integrating CRM with marketing
automation can reduce the unnecessary manual input of leads. Axelent, also does not have an
updated CRM system, which would facilitate them in many ways, both with information and
communication flows. Therefore, a CRM system connected to Axelents other systems could
facilitate the data flow and give Axelent a better view of the customers, with better sales
qualified leads. Implementing automatic sequences could help Axelent target more leads and
gain more information about the needs of different leads. Using data about leads that have
been visiting Axelents' website can be used as a trigger to send automated content marketing
depending on what the lead has been looking at. This can be done with content marketing as
an inbound strategy to create content and target potential customers' needs (Järvinen &
Taiminen, 2016). Also, campaigns on social media that lead potential customers to the
website can trigger complementing marketing to be automatically sent. Using automation for
these actions allows more time to be spent on other tasks, such as creating more elaborate
leads for the salesforce to contact (Baumgartner et al., 2016).

Axelent is going through a significant change and is trying to adopt a more digital strategy to
grow their business. Still, there is much more to do to enhance their digital transformation.
Axelent gathers and analyzes data about their customers, which is then distributed to the
subsidiaries. However, since it seems like this data is not used to its full potential, it would be
a suggestion first to identify what kind of data is most crucial and how it can be used. Then,
educate employees about what the data means and integrate it into their daily work to make
decisions based on what emerges from the analysis. Conway and Hemphill (2019) state that
the core of growth hacking is to analyze the tested data using analytical software and then
optimize the process, which requires people with the right skill-set. This, according to
Conway and Hemphill (2019), means that the marketing department should be the ones that
analyze the data with the right software and work with it until it is understandable to others.
The real-time information the company will get from these analyses will make it easier to
create targeted marketing content that is ideally matched with customers' specific needs or
preferences (Troisi et al., 2020). Axelent does all the marketing campaigns from Sweden
based on trends and feedback and has to translate all the content they make into seven
different languages. According to Conway and Hemphill (2019), it is no longer necessary to
put much time into planning and executing marketing campaigns. They argue that instead, the
marketing department can try early ideas and use the data and results to develop the idea,
thanks to the new technology, making it easier and more convenient. This would still be a
time-consuming and challenging task for Axelent to optimize since the markets differ
significantly and would have to be analyzed market by market, not as a whole.

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5.4 Sales leads
Axelent has seen a new environment emerging where traditional sales strategies of
approaching customers with sales pitches are not paying off as they used to anymore.
According to Corsaro and Maggioni (2022), today's salespeople need to be experts,
consultants, and strategists, which Axelent has started to implement in their salesforce.
Axelent is listening to what the individual customer wants and providing them with a
tailor-made offer to which they explain why it is tailored like that (depending on space, laws,
etc.). Axelent rarely works with common strategies for different personas in their salesforce,
partly because each customer has to be treated differently. Therefore, the opinion is that there
can not be a 'standardized' way of doing business. However, Corsaro and Maggioni (2022)
argue that the salesperson should provide tools and help the customer in their journey of
decisions. It could therefore be helpful to have a base to start from by mapping out a detailed
customer journey with potential actions to use and pick from along the way (Patterson, 2007).
The information on the homepage and different touchpoints with customers must also be
fitted to present solutions to customers' pain points. According to Marvasti et al. (2021), this
is important since the customer is about 60% into the B2B buying journey when first
contacting the salesperson. Axelent could identify relevant actions as a help to guide the
salesforce as they move with the customer to make the journey more effective both externally
and internally. Axelents' products are regulated by laws that need to be followed, which affect
purchase decisions. By creating actions based on information about the customers, the
company is following their customers and not pushing them to follow the company, which
would be an opposite funnel (Lingqvist et al., 2015).

Axelents' sales team has had an overall relationship focus, yet it is unnecessary to invest
much time on customers making small purchases. This is because Axelent is in a business
where their products only matter to their customers when they need them. Hence, automation
could help deal with some of the touchpoints with customers, which would mean that the
salesforce can maintain relationships with larger accounts and provide good service for
customers who need it. It is stated that Axelents' salespeople have a significant focus on
meeting the customers personally in the initiating contact stages and the after-sales stages of
the journey to support the customers after the purchase and maintain the relationships.
However, Angevine et al. (2018) found that customers wanted more contact and support at
the beginning of the buying journey, which is why this is suggested as the more critical focus
when meeting the customers. Still, Axelent's product is complex and often requires help from
a salesperson to understand and find the right solution for the customer. This would mean that
the personal contact is not always delimited to the beginning or the end but needs to be
present in many other journey stages. Angevine et al. (2018) still argue that personal
relationships with customers after-sales are just not as essential and can easily be managed
with automated digital actions where the customer is given contact information to sales if
needed. Digital contacts can be used to nurture relationships, which does not always require
personal contact. Many of Axelents' customers make repurchases, and some even know how
to do it themselves without extensive help. Accordingly, this suggests that the outbound

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salesforce could focus more on the decision journey's middle and more complex stages and
only assist those who need support in the later follow-up stages.

Many salespeople stated that they use Google to find information about potential customers,
but perhaps mainly to check out companies in their region. It is stated to be important to do
the "homework" about leads as a pre-approach to then be able to act on those insights and
build relationships (Paschen et al., 2020). LinkedIn is also frequently used to gain
information about potential customers and establish contact. According to Paschen et al.
(2020), the salesperson could use customer information to create specific offerings and
presentations about problem-solving for the potential customer. In Axelent's case, this is done
with almost all offerings since their products have to be individually tailored to fit different
locations, settings, and how they are meant to be used within the customer's business.
However, the information found by searching on the internet might not help a lot in the sales
process, but mainly to find information about the business as a whole and who might be a
potential customer. Hence, the marketing department could help gather this information about
leads to create a strong base when initially contacting leads.

Axelent has made a lot of helpful digital content that customers can seek out themselves, but
more can be done to facilitate customers' decision-making. Axelent has focused a lot on
creating relevant content for different pain points. However, the salespeople wish for even
more technical material and videos, for example, instructions for assembling, to reduce the
salesforce workload and make the information fast and easily accessible for their customers.
Having additional information on the website would show how easy and quick Axelents
products can be assembled and push customers to make a purchase decision without much
effort. Axelent also monitors all social media efforts from Sweden, ensuring that the message
is consistent. However, Axelent's sales team is not always updated with the newly published
content or the digital self-service launched on the homepage. The salesforce and all affected
departments should be educated and kept updated with all digital tools and developments that
may be communicated through their channels. Hence, Maier (2021) argues that the
multichannel approach is preferred when salespeople communicate with potential customers,
and therefore information and messages must be synchronized through all the channels,
internally and externally. At Axelent, many tasks have to be done manually today, and a lot of
the documentation required is time-consuming and not really seen as necessary, and can
sometimes be a bit carelessly done. Corsaro and Maggioni (2022) argue that automation can
help to reduce daily chores, better time management, and allow better focus for customer
relationship development.

When turning to Axelents website, a lot is dependent on the website's design and
user-friendliness to reach the correct information easily (Feiz et al., 2021). Feiz et al. (2021)
also argue that B2B organizations can push for specific customer actions by using different
strategies. For example, Axelent has added a virtual experience to see their products
assembled and in place, also used as a tool among the salesforce. A possible further
development of their website, expressed by some of the respondents, could be to add a type

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of form where the customer could, by an easy-to-use tool, draw or insert the products as they
think would fit their needs. This will suggest which of Axelents products fits their idea to
give the potential customer an idea of their purchase. They can then send the form to Axelent,
where a seller receives the form and contacts the potential customer to talk it through and
make a deal. It is noticeable that Axelent could use more time to qualify the leads before
sending them to sales. These would be better matched with the salespeople and served with
more practical information before the contact. Since these leads are not segmented either, it is
complicated and challenging for the salesforce to find the 'hot' leads and successfully use
them. Since they get many leads that they have to work through to find the potential ones, it
takes much work and might be why they are not used as frequently as would be preferred.
Baumgartner et al. (2016) also talk about the importance of matching leads with the right
salespeople. They, in turn, should have all the information necessary to close the sale, which
can be done more efficiently with analytics technologies.

5.5 Opportunities
Axelent offers customized solutions and has shifted to more consultative selling approaches
by not only selling products but more consultative safety services, which according to Guenzi
and Habel (2020) adds value to complex product-service solutions based on the customer's
individual needs. Axelent also sees that there are huge differences between the different
customer segments, with the younger customers often being more digital. There are also
remarkable differences between different markets; in some markets they are more
comfortable using digital tools, while in other markets both Axelent's customers and
personnel prefer a more traditional way of working and face-to-face contacts. Rodríguez et al.
(2020) add that digitalization is dependent on the buying organization, and some may still
require more face-to-face encounters. Arora et al. (2022) argue that while some customers
prefer personal interactions when making complex and high-value deals, others might be
comfortable doing even larger deals through digital self-service. Therefore, it becomes
important for Axelent to analyze and understand their different customers, but also to have
the right salesperson in the right place.

Axelent has a more generally mapped customer journey from a marketing point of view,
which means that it would need to be developed in view of Cui's et al. (2021) suggestion that
companies need to overview all of their interactions with each customer segment along the
different stages of the customer journey. Further, the authors state that companies need to
understand how the touchpoints impact customers' behavior and their role in overall sales
conversion. Patterson (2007) states that the most effective processes are identified by
developing a realistic and accurate sales funnel and that it is critical to understand the flow
and get insights that help seize the opportunities effectively as the customers move in the
funnel. The customer journey includes both online and offline channels, and all the internal
and external customer touchpoints must be managed synergically. The goal is to optimize the
company's activities and ensure a satisfying customer experience across different channels
(Cui et al., 2021). It would be hard for Axelent's marketing team to follow each customer's
journey today since there is no common system where all the data is integrated or easy to

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access. Seeing the customer journey as an integrated sales and marketing funnel could help to
track the sales department's activities better and follow-up on leads, as Järvinen and Taiminen
(2016) suggest.

The cultural differences and the level of digital transformation is something a global
company like Axelent needs to keep in mind when implementing common processes for all
the markets. Bohnsack and Liesner (2019) highlight the importance of delivering the right
products to the right customers, creating a database of users, and identifying adequate
channels for communication with consumers and target audiences. Axelent has seen their
customers becoming more digital and the need to know their customers well and adapt the
sales process according to customers' preferences is increasing, which is in line with
Lingqvist et al. (2015) who suggest that the sales funnel should follow the customers. On the
other hand, salespeople are and will always be important for Axelent's sales processes. It is
impossible to replace salespeople with only digital means for all complex projects Axelent is
dealing with, since these require salespeople's expertise. Angevine et al. (2018) write that
digital tools can be used combined with the salesforce skills, which is Axelents goal.
However, today there exists both opportunities and challenges for Axelent to exploit the
potential of the digital tools fully, for example, an opportunity in the form of automation or
the challenge of establishing common understanding of the digital transformation.

Wang et al. (2019) mean that today there exists a new role in marketing that is closer to sales,
which is consistent with Axelents’ aim to organize their sales and marketing department more
integrated. This integration is still in a starting phase and the roles are not entirely organized,
still an opportunity is to make inbound sales work more closely to marketing, acting as a
bridge between the departments. However, it takes time and effort to make everybody
understand the benefits of this since most of Axlent's salesforce is quite traditional and used
to working separately from marketing. Recently, Axlent has started to see the importance of
having hybrid skills in the salesforce. Hybrid skills are important to be able to combine
analyzing, observing, and gathering information, which requires a lot of training (Corsaro &
Maggioni, 2022). Axlents’ quite traditional salesforce suggests that they should look into
organizing more cross-functional teams that work together with certain customer segments.
Further, Rodríguez et al. (2020) suggest setting up common goals for marketing and sales,
which Axlent could also consider doing, since they are beginning to integrate their marketing,
sales, and customer support departments. This could help to create better communication
flows and make it easier to understand and support each other's work.

Axelent is also reorganizing their sales operations towards a more hybrid, cross-functional
model, which Corsaro and Maggioni (2022) supports, having transversal skills rather than
hyper-specialistic ones, which is essential for sales transformation. Axelent has reorganized
their salesforce into inbound sales/customer service and outbound sales teams, divided by
geographical areas. Inbound sales are handling more phone calls and supporting customers
digitally; outbound sales are the ones that tailor offers to customers to fit their needs by
visiting their locations, adjusting the offer according to existing laws, and being the face

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outwards. Driedonks and Paulowsky (2020) argue that B2B companies are becoming more
agile. Inbound sales are more important in driving growth for small and medium-sized
companies and communicating with new customers. In contrast, outbound sales spend a
significant amount of time visiting established customers. They also point out that inbound
sales and e-commerce are more cost-effective ways to drive customer responsiveness,
customer satisfaction, and sales productivity than the salesforce traveling to meet customers
physically. Axelents’ customers choose Axelent because they are fast, easy to deal with, and
have a professional approach, which is a combination of their inbound and outbound
salesforce. This is also what Axelent pushes when marketing their own brand; speed, safety,
service, and smart solutions, which are the keywords for their organization. Hence Ganis’ et
al. (2021) view of what customers perceive as most beneficial in salespeople's interactions is
what defines Axelents USPs. Gani et al. (2021) also argue that professionalism, interaction
frequency, responsiveness, and relationship quality are crucial dimensions when dealing with
customers. Axelent has successful USPs, which can be seen as a significant part of why their
customers choose to have Axelent as their supplier, together with their interaction quality of
inbound and outbound sales efforts.

When asking about feedback loops in-house at Axelent, it was a bit unclear. Some stated that
feedback is given frequently, while others felt it could be more included into their work. Gani
et al. (2021) state that analyzing results can help to improve performance. It can also help to
integrate the departments by giving feedback to individual workers and having feedback
sessions where questions and suggestions can be brought up and discussed with others. Also,
insights from people working on the frontline can bring new developments up for discussion.
However, Axelent’s inbound sales that are dealing with most customer issues seldom have
direct contact with the marketing team. Although salespeople state that the marketing
department has become better at listening to their opinions, there is a lack of structured
feedback and common KPIs that includes both marketing and sales departments. Itani et al.
(2017) and Corsaro and Maggioni (2022) recommend that companies broaden their scope of
using social media; because it can be used in marketing endeavors and all selling processes as
prospecting or follow-ups. Schmitt et al. (2021) also argue that social selling can be
integrated into the whole sales process from prospecting to closing the sales, and maintaining
customer relationships. Although social selling is becoming more and more common, most of
Axlent's sales team does not see the buy-in with social selling. However, some are curious
about it but do not know how to do it and wish for more training. Therefore, since there is a
clear commitment to learning more about social selling, Axelent could take a closer look at
introducing this more within the organization.

Axelent uses their CRM system mainly for documentation and information, which later do
not seem to really be used. Further, Järvinen and Taiminen (2016) remarked that combining
marketing and sales systems (CRM, marketing automation etc.) creates more integrated
processes; the marketing department can use data from CRM systems and gain deeper
insights. At the same time, the sales department would learn more about different marketing
activities. According to Saura et al. (2021), the CRM system should be used to collect all
types of information, regardless of the channel, and use this information as a basis for

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decision-making. Driedonk and Paulowsky (2020) recommend maintaining a backlog of
customer journey improvement sprints to improve customer satisfaction. Axelent has much
knowledge about their customers' needs but lacks processes for analyzing and learning
throughout the whole organization. Still, having marketing and sales working more as a team
over the entire customer journey and keeping a close dialogue would help them to learn more
from each other. Without this integration between departments, it could be hard to go through
the digitization phase, which they are moving into right now.

Axelent is going through a shift of integrating a more digital way of working, which means
new possibilities and challenges with customer data. The challenge for Axelent is to analyze
the data and thereby create new actions to streamline their business. Lingqvist et al. (2015)
mean that the new B2B sales environment is challenging and complex but also allows the
salesforce to get to know their customers and influence their purchases in a completely new
way. The authors state further that by analyzing big data, specific sales actions and strategies
can be created to meet the customers more efficiently. Marvasti et al. (2021) and Corsaro and
Maggioni (2022) state that many B2B companies do not have the right experience to analyze
such data.

Axelent is active with social media in all their markets and sees this as a part of their inbound
marketing tactics, which helps them to increase visibility in new markets with quite little
effort. Still, Corsaro and Maggioni (2022) claim that although companies today use social
media in their sales and marketing efforts, such as generating leads and identifying
opportunities, it should also be considered a strategic tool in the sales funnel; for example to
strategically build relationships. Today, Axelent is encouraging their workers to share content
through their own social media but without any structured processes for this, other than for
the marketing department. Further, some salespeople have expressed to have rather poor
knowledge of how to use social media in their work. According to Itani et al. (2017), using
social media as a channel in B2B settings enables organizations to maintain their relationship
both inside and outside the organization, making cultural distance and distance across borders
smaller. Still, since Axelent operates in many different countries but handles most of their
marketing from Sweden, it is important to understand cultural differences in how business
should be conducted. Axelent looks at engagement on the content in social media in the
different markets and listens to local organizations for input with content ideas.

In Axelent's sales process the customer service and technical support play a huge role, and
the digital marketing department works heavily on creating relevant content to facilitate the
sales process. This is in the same vein as Alamäki and Korpela's (2021) findings that other
departments are increasingly involved in value creation in today's sales management sector.
Mattila et al. (2021) agree that digital transformation enables salespeople to provide value in
new ways, such as through customer-interaction processes. Axelent has taken advantage of
this by making digital content easily available for their customers and salespeople, facilitating
the interaction process. The digital showroom and different whitepapers are examples of this.
Even the software Snapperworks, which customers download and use to design their own

65
projects with Axelent's products, is a smart way of enhancing technology to make the
interaction easier. However, salespeople still see a need for even more material with digital
access since today's customers also expect this.

Today, Axelent's marketing department does not have a clear overview on what happens with
the leads after handing them over to the salesforce. In order to get this information, they
would need to search for information in the CRM system and ask the salesforce for input.
Axelents' CRM system is quite limited, which means that it is not possible to collect data
seamlessly and much valuable information might be missed. Since Axelent does not have all
the information about customers gathered in one place, and thereby not a clear overall picture
as it is now, it might be hard to make the data-driven decisions that they would need.
Moreover, Corsaro and Maggioni (2022) add that when data from sales automation and other
technical systems are integrated with a CRM system, it provides analytics and indicators to
support decision-making regarding the different touchpoints of the customer journey, which
suggest that having a updated CRM system is a challenge that Axelent needs to deal with.
Better systems and processes for gathering information can be used to enhance cooperation
between marketing and B2B selling processes (Krings et al., 2021; Itani et al., 2017; Marvasti
et al., 2021; Baltes, 2018). Medina et al. (2019) also argue that companies need to create an
ecosystem of technology tools supporting various sales and marketing strategies over time.
Additionally, with proper systems in place, Axelent could gain more accurate behavioral
information to be analyzed, because also international settings benefit from today's
technology, making it easier to find information about customers and use this knowledge to
discover connections and gain new insights to grow (Itani et al., 2017). This could help
Axelent’s new global sales team to identify new growth opportunities.

Axelent understands that they will need to make digital investments to meet future needs;
therefore it is essential to know where to make these investments to gain the most value.
Arora et al. (2022) point out that the investments should focus on areas where the value for
customers can be enhanced and enable better contact with customers and sellers. Axelent sees
the advantage of automation in order to decrease manual workload. However, today they do
not have a system for this. Axlent could thereby start by trying to map the most important
CRM and marketing automation functions together with the different departments, since they
possess a lot of knowledge and experience that should be considered for these decisions.
Bohnsack and Liesner (2019) write that with automated actions at any touchpoint between
the company and customer, the process can be greatly streamlined. Automation and CRM
systems can effectively replace a lot of daily administrative tasks and provide, for example,
product recommendations and automated email responses (Corsaro & Maggioni, 2022).

5.6 After Sales

When a customer makes a purchase, the response time is fast, and the delivery is relatively
quick, which is appreciated by customers and one of Axelent's strengths. Gustafson et al.
(2021) state that there are levels of problem-solving when it comes to products and buying
processes, and as Axelents products most often need to be customized to fit each customer's

66
conditions, it means that most need personal help to put in an order. In some cases, existing
customers know exactly what they want and need and are able to make a repurchase by
themselves. Others might always need help to design and find the right products, which often
is when purchasing for a project where standardized products are not sufficient.

Paschen et al. (2020) state that the follow-up after a purchase is also of great importance to
make sure that the customer is satisfied with the delivery and identify other needs that would
make them re-enter the funnel. Another important part of after-sales is to continue delivering
personalized marketing to the customers, making them remember Axelent for future
purchases, and creating new opportunities for cross- or up-sell (Paschen et al., 2020). This
could be improved with better communication about the extent to which marketing sends
content to the customer and what results it gives, further making the customers re-enter the
funnel when the potential is there.

Axelent has a strong customer focus but could still establish more agile processes for
gathering feedback to not to miss out on valuable insights. Böringer et al. (2022) argue that
companies mastering growth hacking are good at collecting insights and feedback, and
promote continuous learning beyond the traditional sales function. Furthermore, Feiz et al.
(2021) note that the last step of growth hacking is optimizing and improving the conversion
rate and that higher conversion rates give better ROIs. The leads that are sent from marketing
to sales are stated not to generate as many customers as they might have thought. That is why
it is important for Axelent to establish more processes for analyzing performance and what
the work they are putting in actually generates in the end. They are measuring the amount of
new unique buyers rolling in the last twelve months; however, this does not tell them what
the most efficient processes are, if the majority are converted from leads or maybe sought out
customers by the salesforce. By analyzing and learning from these insights, it will be easier to
prioritize and focus on the work that is generating the most sales.

5.7 Summary of suggestions for Axelent

Based on the previous discussion chapter, some critical and clear development possibilities
have been found. First, since Axelent's customer journey is not fully developed and very
simply designed, they could start by mapping out a more detailed customer journey for each
customer segment and identify their pain points at each stage of the journey. Since it is also
suggested that Axelents customers are rather complex, they should identify their customers'
needs to find suitable ways to segment them. Also, to include possible actions that Axelent’s
marketing and sales department can do at every stage to offer solutions for the customer’s
pain points with both human and digital interactions. It is essential to have aligned goals and
KPIs for the departments and create understanding of each other's role in the sales process.
The departments could thereby together identify what types of data is most important when
mapping the customer journey. Further, they could try to identify when and where digital
tools are most efficient and can help the departments ease their work. Digital tools can
replace tasks that do not need to be done manually, or with human interactions. Also, they
could identify and implement adequate CRM and automation systems that fit their business

67
and make sure that these are integrated and possibly connected with other channels, such as
Linkedin.

When new systems and ways of working are installed, time and resources should be invested
in educating, training, and maintaining the digital transformation that is done. This would
preferably be done by establishing more cross-functional teams with shared goals for
marketing and sales, and create consensus about personas and lead generation. Lastly,
Axelent could establish structured processes for feedback, data analysis, and learning. The
insights generated from this can help them to understand their customer segments better and
create a more personalized experience with content through all touchpoints during the
journey, and hopefully streamline processes and help them develop it even further.

Based on these findings, Figure 8 is created as a road map for Axelent to use, and which
shows a customer journey with automation, triggers and leads. This customer journey shows
that even if the journey is horizontal, customers can move back and forth between the stages
and that different digital means need to be incorporated in several parts. The customer
journey in Figure 8 does not include specific actions to take during each step. This is because
the company needs to identify channels, pain points, tools, KPIs etc. according to their own
customers to be able to meet them with specific possible actions. This is shown as a sheet in
Appendix 2, The Customer Buying Journey Framework, which is meant to help companies to
find the right actions for each customer segment. The company can use this sheet for each
customer segment by filling in the blanks to fit that segment. This should then be developed
and adjusted along the way as the company learns more about the customers and can see what
works and what does not.

68
 Figure 8, Sales and Marketing Funnel
Sales process and data infrastructure optimization with integrated marketing automation and
CRM system.

69
6.0 Conclusion
The aim of this paper was to establish a framework for B2B companies on how to optimize
the sales process with specific actions throughout the customer buying journey by combining
digital inbound marketing with personal selling. This is presented as a Sales and Marketing
Funnel in Figure 8 and a Customer Buying Journey in Appendix 2, with a great insight that
the customer journey includes more touch points and is more complex than one might
initially think.

For B2B companies to optimize the funnel, it is essential to work more data-driven and start
with the incoming leads by creating clear and detailed customer segments. Then, companies
should work with scoring and analyzing the leads to be able to focus work on the leads
considered as potential, convertible customers. It is important for the company to use the data
they have about customers in an effective and beneficial way. Also, avoid doing work
manually that can be done with automation, for this is time-consuming and unnecessary since
it can be partly replaced with implemented technology. Further, using insights that employees
from different departments and customers bring, will help develop and grow the company.

Another important suggestion to optimize the process is by implementing a CRM system that
can be integrated with other support systems. This will help companies with more accessible
documentation (both from marketing and sales), gathering insights more automatically and
present a better overview of the customers together with what stages within the funnel that
they are in. The CRM system is preferably integrated with triggers for automated actions;
cloud-based to reach it from everywhere; integrated with marketing automation systems and
social media; and used as a communication platform. This will help access data and
information easily; import leads directly from the marketing department; enable marketing to
be more involved in the later funnel stages and assist sales further. By doing this, more
efficient processes are created, like follow-ups on leads and feedback, which means more
agile workflows where the company can test and learn from different approaches.

Further, marketing and sales needs to be integrated and work with common goals and
objectives, that is; agree on target personas; agree on when a lead is hot and ready to be
contacted; have regular feedback loops with meetings and common processes; continuous
education to maintain the digital work and understanding across departments; work together
in cross-functional teams towards different customer segments; establish a common
understanding of what needs to be documented; and decide who does what in the funnel (for
example leads acquisition or social selling). To implement such a proposed transformation, a
Customer Buying Journey Framework has been developed, which can be found as Appendix
2. This framework is meant to be used by companies by filling in each stage based on each
established customer segment. The framework includes everything from a prospecting phase
to the follow-up stage and can be adjusted with different actions to find the most optimal way.

70
7.0 Theoretical and practical implications
The results of this study have the most implications for a managerial perspective. However,
we still want to present some theoretical implications to take from this study as well. First,
this study contributes to the literature by showing that the customer journey is essential for
the company to map in detail and gain knowledge about. The study also implies that the
customer journey is more complex and with several touchpoints at the end of the journey,
which is often not shown in the customer journey/sales process figures. It is also found that
the customer journey must be adapted to each specific customer segment by creating separate
journeys in order to contribute in the best possible way and optimize the processes aimed at
each segment. The study also contributes to the literature by demonstrating the importance of
the marketing and sales departments being integrated and working together to create efficient
processes.

This study offers many implications from a managerial perspective, not to forget that case
study results often prove to be more useful than survey-based ones (Johnston, Leach & Liu,
1999). Firstly, the presented framework for a customer journey can be used by managers to
visualize the sales process. It is also a great way to try and identify where processes might be
failing, hence where in the different stages to invest more resources and where digitalization
might help. So, companies can steer their digital transformation endeavors by using this
developed framework. However, managers need to understand that these strategies with
automation, lead management and a new extensive CRM system are implemented over time
and require that changes are being done continuously to fit the organization with all its
markets. To foster this change and learning process, managers can offer education and
continuous training. Also, integrating departments to work as more cross-functional teams
would encourage this process by having knowledgeable and more technically trained
employees to teach others not so technical. This type of change requires great investment and
patience to get everyone to accept these new systems and ways of working, however it will
also eventually pay off with great benefits for the company.

71
8.0 Suggestions for future research
This study offers some promising ways of extending this topic and other roads to continue the
research in this area. Firstly, since this study focuses on the B2B sales funnel and the
company's side of the journey, a future research suggestion may instead be to investigate the
customers' side. Also, this study only includes one company for an in-depth investigation,
hence comparing two or more companies that are further along in their digital transformation
would provide more general findings by including other points of view.

Marketing automation makes the digital touchpoints along the customer journey more
transparent. Hence, researching to understand the digital marketing's role (with strategies and
channels) in the B2B customer journey, could provide opportunities to identify the most
effective tactics throughout the different stages of both the marketing and sales process. With
this said, it is a lot of talk about data and that the data should be analyzed to provide
beneficial insights. Thereby, a suggestion for future research would be to investigate what
data is the most beneficial to use, hence study which data is most linked to the customers and
gives the most honest results to base decisions on.

72
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Appendices
Appendix 1 – A Interview Guide

Interview Checklist
Background
Covid-19
Organization structure – marketing/sales/outsourcing
Teams – cross-functional/separate
Vision - growth vision

Marketing
Customer journey - needs in different touchpoints
Customer Segments – who are they/were/treated differently/how did you identify
Personalized marketing - buyer personas/CRM/automatization
Content
Channels
Decisions – Analysis/Research/testing/KPIs
Data Storage/Usage - tools
Strengths/weaknesses

Sales Management
Channels – digital/traditional
Support – approaches/sales tools
Customer experience
Future customers – measures
Performance tracking – review results/feedback

Organization
Technology/data analytics tools/skills – in-house
Integration between departments - meetings/communication/shared goals
Knowledge/innovative insights – from collected data/reporting
Learning process – optimizing results/spread of new knowledge to the organization
How is the cooperation and communication - centralt styre
What are your biggest obstacles

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Appendix 2 - Customer Buying Journey Framework
(Customer journey for each persona including detailed touchpoints.)

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