With 67% of the buyer’s journey occurring digitally, your audience’s online interaction with your company will make or break sales numbers. Yes, there’s an overwhelming amount of information on the web about optimizing B2B consumer experience — but with that many voices, where you do you start?
Start with the buyer’s journey. Knowing how your audience moves toward making a decision and what challenges they might face gives you a clear view of effective marketing practices. We researched the best insights on the B2B buyer’s journey to support your strategy.
Here are some golden nuggets from marketing experts:
1. Pardot: Recognize the Role of Search Engines
Once buyers recognize they have a specific issue, they start researching. About 72% of them will go to Google. The initial research phase involves using broad search terms as buyers look into their options. At this stage, they typically seek educational content, customer reviews, and testimonials. – Pardot
Takeaway: SEO matters. Optimize your site by identifying and utilizing common keywords that are related to your customers’ pain points and your offerings. Always focus on educating potential clients with tools like interactive content.
2. Kerry Bodine: Map Out the Journey
I like using stickers for this. You can get red and green stickers at your office supply store. You can use markers. The idea is that you’re going to note where the different steps in that process are going well and then maybe where those steps start to go south. This will give you a really good depiction of where the problem points are in your customer journey and where you need to focus on improving interactions to better meet your customer’s needs. – Kerry Bodine
Takeaway: Figure out what exactly your prospects look at every day when they jump onto your website. Are their any detours or roadblocks that keep them from moving forward? Get visual — don’t be afraid to dive into your office supplies and map it out on a whiteboard or your conference room table.
3. Lori Wizdo: Consider Group Personas
For the B2B buying process, there is typically no single buyer . . . it’s a team; therefore, individual personas aren’t as important. There is no “average” buyer. In fact, individual personas are almost irrelevant for B2B marketing. What you need to do is profile the buying team as a whole based upon your own assessment of the buying team’s journey. – Lori Wizdo
Takeaway: Who do you need to woo to make a sale happen? It’s probably not your individual lead but their boss! Include the entire purchasing team when developing B2B personas, delving into the process with the same detail that you would with an individual buyer persona. Together, your group persona and buyer’s journey map will give you a complete picture.
4. Seth Godin: Honor the Hierarchy of Needs
If you’re selling a product or service to a business — to a non-owner — consider this hierarchy, from primary needs on down:
- Avoiding risk
- Avoiding hassle
- Gaining praise
- Gaining power
- Having fun
- Making a profit
In most large organizations, nothing happens unless at least one of these needs are met, and in just about every organization big enough and profitable enough to buy from you, the order of needs starts with the first one and works its way down the list. – Seth Godin
Takeaway: Print out Seth Godin’s hierarchy of needs and stick it next to your computer. When you develop copy, speak to your lead’s primary needs first: avoiding risk and avoiding hassle. Despite the instinct to delve into ROI, leave that for your end game. It should be the icing on the cake – not the foundation for your conversation.
5. Joseph Thibeault: Roll with the Ch, Ch, Ch, Changes
Up until digital really changed the way people interact with organizations, the buyer’s journey largely looked like this (1):
It was a straight shot with one step following the next, a linear color-by-numbers approach. But because of digital, the buyer’s journey has taken on a shape more like this (2):
Image Source: econsultancy
How did digital transform the linear buyer’s journey into this spaghetti mess? Most likely because consumers are inundated with information 24/7/365. From social media or the web, new information comes online every second that can impact a purchase decision (i.e., a new review).
As such, consumers are bouncing around the different aspects of the buyer’s journey —discovery, consideration, and decision — as new information is discovered. – Joseph Thibeault
Takeaway: Recognize that your content is not the only influencing factor in a buyer’s decision. Your work may be offset by a bad review or a Twitter comment that went viral. As a marketer, keep your eye on the big picture, making sure to tune into social channels, especially when negative feedback requires a thoughtful response. Also expect leads to wander before they commit.
6. Fred Studer: Optimize in Every Form
Quick question: How many devices do you have on your person right now? The average is three and I have six! We need to offer the same marketing outreach and overall customer experience across all devices and engagement platforms. Our end goal must always be consistency, while connecting with the customer in the way they want to and at the time of their choosing. Our ultimate aim is to lay the foundations to build lifelong relationships with our customers based on trust via our marketing. – Fred Studer
Takeaway: Is your content equally compelling on a smartphone, tablet or laptop? Even for B2B buyers, your buyer’s journey needs to be engaging on every possible device. When a site is mobile-optimized, 67% of buyers are more likely to buy products or services.
7. Meagen Eisenberg: Capture & Act On Data
We all know the story around how buyers have more information when they come to us, and they are doing a lot more research. But on the other side, we as marketers also have a lot more information if we are embracing newer technologies. If we’re capturing the data and we know which data to capture, then we are learning from it and getting insights. The amount of time that it would typically take to go through the funnel should be shrinking, because not only do they know more about us — but we know more about them if we’ve done our job and have embraced the new technologies. – Meagen Eisenberg
Takeaway: The most effective marketers give buyers the data they need to make a decision quickly. Utilize emerging technologies and interactive formats to harness powerful data that can serve you (and the consumer) in the long run.
8. Kristi Hines: Keep It Up Post-Purchase
Closing the deal and getting the purchase is not everything. You will want your customers coming back for more. The best way to do this is through email content. Get your customers on your mailing list and keep providing them with the same valuable content that attracted them to your business in the first place. Also make it easy for customers to help themselves on your website through comprehensive support content. If you have a support team, let them be in charge of creating content to solve the most commonly asked questions they receive. – Kristi Hines
Takeaway: Keep your content fresh and relevant to current customers as well as prospects. Your sale is not the end of the conversation but an opportunity to further cement your relationship. Utilize email marketing that addresses common issues.
Conclusion
The buyer’s journey is an ongoing adventure for you and your clients. Even if you have a solid inbound marketing strategy, continual evaluation allows you to hone your company’s approach. Tweaking your efforts will only further fortify your growth as a company. After all, demand generation marketing is an ever-changing field — keeping up requires a posture of exploration and a willingness to adapt.
Learn how interactive content works at any stage in the buyer’s journey!
