Selling complex B2B solutions is a tough gig given current market conditions. SBI research with CEOs finds 44% say buyer factors are creating commercial inefficiencies. This isn’t just a sales issue. It means the buyer-driven experiences marketing creates must carry a heavier load.
From the buyer side, friction is the multiplier that plays against bold decision making. Some of it we inject into the process but much of it our buyers and their companies inject. From more people involved to more internal bureaucracy to constant organizational change and greater perceptions of risk, buyers find making purchase decisions harder and more complex.
As a clarification note: SBI defines a bold purchase as 31% of purchase decisions that also result in 15% larger deals with a 62% increase in demonstrated customer advocacy.
What’s interesting to me in this research is that B2B buyers rank “how they felt” during the buying process as carrying more weight (59%) vs. “what they bought”—the product— (41%) for making a bold purchase decision.
And yet we think B2B buying is based on logic.
It Takes More Than Your Product to Win the Deal
We’ve got the “logic” part with 58% saying products they evaluate meet the threshold to drive bold purchase decisions. Where we fail is with how we make them feel. Only 24% say suppliers provide experiences that meet that threshold.
That’s a big gap from what B2B buying experiences need to deliver to strengthen the commitment to change that promotes bold decisions.
Yet the areas that have the highest impact on the likelihood of making a bold decision are related to the experience more so than the product.
For example, the SBI research finds impacts above 130% toward the likelihood of making a bold purchase decision for how well suppliers:
- Advance customer evolution (137%)
- Anticipate customer roadblocks (131%)
Evolution includes “getting” what the buyer is trying to accomplish, demonstrating adaptability to needs, and putting their needs first.
Roadblocks means helping the buying team validate their needs, break through decision obstacles, and provide steps that make buying feel easier.
Your product is only half the battle. If you can’t deliver on the experience buyers deem important around factors for evolution and roadblocks, your likelihood of a sale diminishes.
My argument is—given the tendency to self-educate 70% of the way through the buying journey—the experience your buyers have cannot be relegated only to sales. If your company doesn’t deliver satisfying B2B buyer-driven experiences that get you on the Day 1 list, your sales team won’t get the chance to shine.
As B2B buyer journeys shift control to buyers it behooves us to look to the strategic implications for marketing.
Creating Empathetic B2B Buyer-Driven Experiences
Showing buyers you “get” them is harder than you may think. With 10 – 12 people (or more) involved in complex B2B buying decisions, that’s a lot of perspectives to understand.
This is where I make my stand for the importance of buyer personas built using conversations with buyers and customers in addition to data and research. I’m not saying you need to build 10 – 12 personas but choosing the top three most likely to interact directly with you (website, events, social, downloads, etc.) is critical.
The best part is that recently acquired customers can tell you about the others involved, what objections they had, what information they needed, and more. I call these Tertiary Personas. They aren’t likely to be involved across the entire journey, but lack of consensus limits your chances for inclusion on the Day 1 list. Therefore, you need to “get” the perspectives of all those on the buying committee – and show them that you do.
Gaining insights to buyer perspectives includes understanding how they felt during the buying process. You can’t get this from data. But you can get it from the words they use, how they talk about the experience, what mattered most to them, how they felt about roadblocks, and more.
Listen carefully to what they say and how they say it. Replay the conversation to note specific phrases and watch body language. There’s a treasure trove of insights in customer conversations you can use to inform marketing programs and content.
The other benefits from conversations over data and external research include:
- How buyers explain the initiative – both product focused and bigger company impact
- Phrases they use to explain the problem, company objectives, and outcomes they want
- What they needed to learn along their path from problem to solution
- What stumbling blocks they hit that, if removed, could speed things up
- Information or insights they wish they’d had prior to implementation
Armed with this information, you’re primed to develop strategic programs. Connecting your solution to the bigger company initiative it impacts helps you build traction across the buying committee.
This is not to say data isn’t a key component, just that it’s only one component in your ability to understand and truly know your buyers and customers. The combo of insights from conversations and data allows you to create buyer-driven experiences that get to the depth of relevance your buyers need to move forward.
4 Ways Your Content Can Improve B2B Buyer-Driven Experiences
Buyers have told us for years to stop selling and start helping them. Our lack of listening resulted in them standing back and taking control over how they research, evaluate, and identify the solutions to consider when solving problems.
Marketers have a huge opportunity to level up to what buyers demand by putting their content to work in service to buyers. Your buyers have a lot of work to do to get to that Day 1 list. Better B2B buyer-driven experiences play a big role in making that happen.
Here are four ideas to help you help them:
ONE: Paint the Bigger Picture – Understand how what they’re buying fits into the bigger business initiative. The insights gleaned from customer research help you build this story. You must think of an account/company as an interrelated group of moving parts. Buyers purchase a solution to a problem in line with company objectives. If the outcome gained from your product doesn’t contribute to those goals, you won’t make the list.
Think about how your product…
- Contributes to their company objectives and what that means to the different perspectives on the buying committee. Show buyers you understand their business.
- Combined with your subject matter and industry expertise brings a better outcome than your competitors and share why and how that feeds into the bigger picture.
TWO: Validate Needs – Show them they’re not alone and are on the right track to help them build confidence in moving forward.
For one client ABM program we created a piece that talked about why leaders chose X product. Using insights from customer research we showcased reasons why buyers made the choice along with customer evidence (quotes from case studies with links to them) to validate each reason. It was the content asset engaged with and shared the most during the buyer research phase of the program.
THREE: Anticipate Objections – Help them manage risk and navigate around internal change events and objections. It’s likely your solution will spill over to impact adjacent teams and functions. And since you learned about that during your customer research, this information is valuable to help your top priority personas understand how to talk with others who have reservations or objections to either solving the problem itself or choosing your solution.
For change events, such as budget reductions or reorgs, perhaps you have a phased approach that allows them to incrementally gain value rather than biting off the entire solution at once. This is also when helping them build the business case with a focus on why the “change event” amplifies the need to move forward…
This is an area your sales team can help provide insights to help develop this content. The resulting content is also useful to sales teams once they’re in conversation with buyers.
FOUR: Make Buying “Feel” Easier – Give them paths to change. While buyers are choosing to self-educate, that doesn’t mean they know what they need to learn or consider. Research finds that nearly all buyers say they have prior experience with the winning vendor. This is your chance to build or enhance their experience with you. Most buyers say buying is complex and frustrating. Create content that simplifies buying.
Buyers also define and set requirements prior to creating their Day 1 list and engaging with vendors. Provide content that helps them understand why specific capabilities are critical to achieving the outcomes they need. Think of this as an upgrade to comparison charts that lack context. Go farther toward helping them draft the requirements for the solution.
B2B Marketing’s Huge Opportunity
With marketing carrying the load for at least 70% of the buying process, we need to start thinking about how we help our buyers “build the RFP” to stack the deck in our favor. That 70% is critical to get your solution on the shortlist.
So, what are you going to do to create better B2B buyer-driven experiences in 2025?
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