Understanding who your customer is, what they want and how you can help is a never-ending quest. Most of the clients at my agency are from the B2B space. And so I wanted to explore the latest trends and how the pandemic affected this space.
We’ve seen a once-in-a-century scale disruption with the B2B market being no exception.
B2B buyers favour a considered decision-making process when the ticket size is high. The buyer journey involves many people. and there is usually procedures to follow.
As the infographic above shows, the B2B journey is a complex non-linear path.
With that in my mind, I set out to find what the data has to say and found a few that surprised me.
The New Digital B2B Buyer
The B2B buyer is now digital.
Gartner says 80% of all future interactions between suppliers and buyers will happen on digital channels.
A gradual digital transformation has now accelerated due to the pandemic. If the buyer is digital, then your GTM strategy must also favour digital.
Gartner report on the Future of Selling proposes creating a digital sales experience.
The profile of the B2B buyer is also changing. 60% of all B2B tech buyers in 2021 are millennials.
The millennials entering senior positions in organizations are influencing the decision-making process. Their worldview is different. And their experiences of the digital world will influence the decision-making journey.
The millennial buyer is sceptical of the traditional sources of information – sales reps, analyst reports and mass media. The buyer expects the digital experiences of the B2C world in their B2B interactions. The Millennial B2B buyer is also 2.2 times more sceptical of a sales rep than a Baby Boomer.
Buyers rely as much on the suppliers’ website for information as they do from a sales rep. And this seems to be the case for all the stages of the buying journey.
B2B Buyer’s Information Sources
The B2B buyers rely on information from places they trust, deem critical and find useful. But, there is a glut of information for buyers to read and review now.
For a vendor, it’s harder to stand out in the noise because everyone has a content marketing strategy.
The survey data suggests marketers spend their limited resources on product-led marketing.
PR based crafted and sanitized narrative is not regarded as much in their buying journey. The B2B buyer is instead seeking control and self-service. Product demos, free trials, user reviews and vendor websites can serve this need.
How buyers discover products have evolved and diverged from the baby boomer generation.
When it comes to discovering products, B2B tech buyers don’t prefer social media. But, other non-tech B2B buyers use it. And Facebook seems to feature prominently in that.
85% of millennials use social media to research products and services.
When buyers are considering a long term engagement they look at Glassdoor reviews.
Not surprising that among Millennials with an education degree, most are on Linkedin.
Gap in understanding the buyer’s needs
While buyers seem to want information from certain places, marketers seem to prioritize areas that are not always deemed as high priority by buyers.
Here are marketing assets that companies waste their money on (according to a survey by TrustRadius)
- Marketing collateral
- Case Studies (this one’s surprising)
- Customer References
And where companies should be spending more of their marketing budget on:
- User reviews
- Sales enablement
- Product marketing
While buyers rely on vendor-provided resources like case studies the most, they wouldn’t miss it. This suggests that there are hygiene marketing assets one has to create. But also provide information buyers deem critical.
The top 5 marketing tactics that tech buyers hate are:
- Too many emails
- Cold calling
- Aggressive sales reps
- Uninformed sales pitches
- Non-personalized communications.
And what the buyers want are:
- Personalized guidance
- Immediate differentiation
- Transparent communication on the pros and cons about the product and service
What B2B tech vendors believe are the most effective marketing tactics:
While 41% of marketers believe chatbots are effective, only 10% of buyers were likely to respond to them.
43% of marketers thought cold-calling was effective, but only 7% of buyers were likely to respond to it.
Webinars have become popular post pandemic, but what buyers and vendors think of them differ.
And what about ads on social media – annoying or useful when targeted well?
Remote sales during the pandemic
Remote sales is now a reality. Given the uncertainty around the pandemic and a shift to WFH for many, remote sales is here to stay.
But, with remote sales come some obvious challenges. The loss of face to face interaction leads to a loss of influence. It also means longer sales cycles.
The availability of information has resulted in empowering the buyer to make their own decisions. The power and control are now in their hands. The sales rep needs to provide guidance through the digital channels and digital journeys of the buyer.
Spec sheets and product brochures won’t cut it for the digital buyer. Digital assets can offer valuable information to users through an interactive digital experience.
Therefore, a sales team will now act more as a guide or consultant to the buyer’s digital self-service oriented journey.
Forrester’s ‘Winning the New B2B Buyer‘ provides a framework for understanding the new buying patterns.
- Transaction – high familiarity, low complexity:
- Low-risk and defined decision making model
- Mature markets
- Eg: Office supplies, business laptops
- Buyers want openness and immediacy. Pricing transparency will be table stakes
- Improvement – high familiarity, high complexity
- Significant business change, disruption and risk
- Eg: migrating legacy applications, outsourcing non-core processes like payroll
- Buyers expect vendors to be familiar with who they are, what they want to achieve
- Transformation – low familiarity, high complexity
- Disruptive solution in new markets
- Buyers are problem-aware, but not solution-aware. They expect vendors to enlighten them through a collaborative and consultative sales approach
- Where is your prospect in the decision-making process? (State of Awareness)
- High-risk decisions often initiated by senior-level executives and involves a protracted buying cycle. Contextual and relevant marketing can be an aid
- Reaction – low familiarity, low buying process complexity
- Immediacy is the driver, driven by competitors moves, disruption in the market or a mandate from the CEO
- Best served through self-service digital assets
- Low familiarity means they may not all of the risks and implications of their choices. Customer references can help/
How should marketing teams adapt to the changing needs of a tech B2B buyer
- Websites were and still are the responsibility of the marketing departments. But it now needs to be a joint effort of the sales, marketing and customer support teams.
- Make it easy to schedule a product demo on the website. Even better if there is a self-service option or a free trial account.
- Product website has to be on point. The copy, design and UX needs to be customer focused and updated.
- Encourage and incentivize existing users to leave reviews on 3rd party review platforms.
- Be active in communities and forums relevant to your product and industry
- Have a digital PR strategy
- Have a content strategy to help buyers through their decision making journey
- Microsites, landing pages, resource hubs, self-assessment tools can be built on top of the main product website
- Thought leadership and content marketing is par for the course. New content formats, mediums and digital storytelling has to be embraced.
- Brand strategy gains even more significance now because there is very little to differentiate between competing products today.
