B2B Marketers Need to Look Beyond Decision Makers

Yesterday I attended the webinar Inside the Mind of the B2B Buyer - New Data on the Path to Purchase. The webinar was based on data collected in a survey conducted by DemandGen Report and sponsored by Genius.com.

Marketers tend to describe their prospects based on the traits of the decision maker. But, what the survey found was that there was a pretty good spread of people involved in the purchase selection.

When asked what role the respondent played in the final solution selection, these were the responses:

• Recommender - 34%
• Influencer - 45.4%
• Decision Maker - 50.5%
• Buyer - 17.5%

Yes, the responders could select all that apply, which is why the scores add up past 100%.

The point here is that marketers need to create and distribute content that reaches beyond the decision maker if they want to build the types of relationships that shorten time to revenue. The way to do that is with the appropriate content strategy and platform for execution that provides marketers with increased visibility about who's doing what. (e.g. marketing automation)

Here are a few discoveries about why content is so darned important:

• 95% of buyers said that the vendor they selected provided ample relevant content during their buying process.
• 66% of buyers said consistency in messaging by vendors influenced their buying decision.
• 59% shared the information they learned during research with others. 

So start thinking about how you can not only be consistent with your content storylines, but also how you can get to know all the types of people involved in the buying decision so that you can create the relevant content needed to build extended engagement with each of them. 

Oh, one more thing. Eighty percent of buyers said that timeliness of response was influential in their selection of a vendor.

This is where strategy comes into play. If your content motivates responses from prospects, you'd better be ready with answers that are consistent with the messaging, information and communications they're interacting with. And it can't just be consistent with one buyer type, but must resonate when shared with the entire buying committee. Remember that stat about sharing information...

With an editorial calendar, you can map your content across both buying types and buying stages. Without one, you're relying on instinct and reaction. That's hard to keep on track over time.  

There's a lot of good stuff coming in the final report. In the meantime, go view the webinar to learn more about what's influencing your buyers' decisions to purchase. When you do, you'll be added to the list to receive the report when it's published.

Comments

[twitter.com/ReadyContacts]

Ardath, that is very interesting to note. I am not really as surprised as we build list strategies with our customers all the time and in the first 2 weeks, our focus is to give feedback to customers based on what we are seeing in terms of the roles and responsibilities of the different contacts and the list profiles should be defined. I am going to check out the webinar now. Thanks much for sharing this summary!

[www.galcomm.co.il]

I learn about all types of people involved in the buying decision so I can create relevant content for the construction of extended engagement with each of them.