A Digital Marketing Guide to Optimising Your B2B Buyer Journey!

Having a well-thought-out, optimised B2B buyer journey is vital for creating targeted, effective, and efficient marketing strategies that lead to more conversions, better customer experiences, and business growth. In this edition of the Digital Beat Brief, I want to explore the stages of the traditional three-part B2B buyer journey, key factors to consider, bust some myths and offer actionable tips for optimising this journey to enhance success.

I apologise in advance, I wanted to make this a brief article...as the "brief" part of the name would suggest, instead I ended up creating a much more in-depth guide. I'm still considering whether or not to rename this the Digital Beat Bible...

Anyway! here we go!

The Stages of the B2B Buyer Journey

The B2B buyer journey typically consists of three main stages:

1. Awareness Stage

2. Consideration Stage

3. Decision Stage

In each stage, you must utilise different strategies, and content, and measure specific metrics to ensure you're truly connecting with your key buyer persona.

1. Awareness Stage

At this initial stage, potential buyers recognise a problem or need but are not yet aware of specific solutions. They are seeking information and insights to better understand their challenges. Understanding your Unique Selling Point (USP), your key buyer persona and your intended marketing objective will dictate your next steps.

Understand Your USP

A strong USP addresses the specific pain points or needs of your key buyer persona, making them more likely to engage with your content and seek more information. Decision-makers in B2B environments often have limited time, that's why a well-articulated USP provides a quick, clear reason why they should consider your offering, speeding up the initial decision-making process.

If you're unsure of what your USP actually is I recommend conducting thorough research to understand your target market’s needs, pain points, and preferences.

• Use surveys, interviews, and market analysis to gather insights. Talk to your existing customers to understand why they chose your product or service over others. Look for common themes in their responses that highlight your unique value. You can then evaluate your competitors to see what they offer and how they position themselves.
• Identify gaps in the market or areas where you can differentiate and focus on that. Focus on the benefits your product or service provides rather than just listing features. How does it solve your customer’s problems better than other solutions?
• Articulate your USP in a clear, concise statement that communicates your unique value proposition in a way that is easy to understand and remember.

Here are some great examples of how to frame effective USPs.

Know Your Key Buyer Persona(s)

Understanding your audience’s needs, challenges, and behaviors allows you to create targeted and relevant content that resonates with potential buyers, establishing your brand as a trusted resource. And if your senior leaders ever try to rush you in gathering your research just go back to them and yell "93% of companies who exceed lead generation and revenue goals?segment their database by buyer persona! " That ought to buy you some time.

Regardless of your product or service offering, I recommend using trusted tools to gain data-driven insights into your key demographics. My personal go-to's are a mixture of SEMrush , Google Analytics , and HubSpot . These tools always help me answer these key questions:

1. Who is my key buyer persona (demographics)?
2. What are their pain points?
3. What content resonates with them?
4. Where do they spend most of their time online?
5. How do visitors find my site?
6. What actions are the users taking on my website?

Demand vs Lead Gen

In a previous edition of the newsletter, I discussed how lead gen and demand gen impact your marketing strategy . When you're optimising your B2B buyer journey this is also important. Demand generation strategies aim to reach a wide audience, making potential customers aware of your brand and its offerings.

This is critical in the awareness stage, as it introduces your company to prospects who may not yet be familiar with you. By providing valuable and engaging content, you can build interest and educate your audience about the challenges they face and the solutions you offer. This sets the stage for further engagement and consideration.

Once demand generation has built awareness and interest, lead generation activities capture the details of those who are interested. This allows you to identify and focus on individuals who have shown a genuine interest in your products or services. With lead generation, you can tailor your communications and content to specific leads, providing more personalised and relevant information that moves them closer to making a purchase decision.

Common Myths of the Awareness Stage

"Buyers in the Awareness Stage Aren’t Ready to Engage"

Many marketers believe that buyers in the awareness stage are not ready to engage with their content or brand. However, buyers in this stage are actively seeking information to understand their problems better. Providing valuable, educational content can establish your brand as a thought leader or a brand that can see around the corner and build early trust.

"Only Top-of-Funnel Content Matters"

While top-of-funnel content is crucial in the awareness stage, it’s also important to introduce mid-funnel content that guides buyers further along their journey. Case studies, whitepapers, and webinars can start to position your solutions as potential options.

2. Consideration Stage

In the consideration stage, buyers have clearly defined their problem and are exploring various solutions. They are evaluating different vendors and products to find the best fit for their needs. Effective digital marketing strategies can influence buyers by providing in-depth information, comparisons, and case studies that highlight the benefits and differentiators of your solutions.

Personalisation, Because Everyone is Unique

Personalisation is essential in this stage of the B2B buyer journey. Personalisation is a strategy that uses data to target and retarget leads with a brand message that speaks directly to specific customers' interests, demographics, and buying behavior.

With a personalised marketing strategy, your customers should FEEL like the brand message was made just for them. I must emphasise the FEEL part as marketing is not purely logical, but also emotional. As Bruce Lee said to his student in Enter The Dragon "It's like a finger pointing away to the moon. Don't concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory." So yes, include the cold hard facts, but don't lose the "emotional content"...I am shocked I managed to bring up Bruce Lee in a half-way relevant manner.

While Personalisation can be a gruelling and time-consuming task, trust me you'll see the difference when you look at the revenue generated. In fact, 80% of B2B buyers are more likely to engage with a brand that offers a personalised experience . This highlights how critical it is to tailor your messaging to the specific needs and interests of your audience.

In my past and current role I also keep two considerations in mind when thinking about personalisation:

Account-Based Marketing (ABM): Have I developed a customised marketing strategy for high-value accounts? Have I created personalised content and emails, and addressed the unique challenges and goals of each target account?

Sales Enablement Collateral: Have I equipped my sales team with the tools and information they need to engage effectively with prospects? This includes tailored decks, templates, one-pagers, video testimonials, etc.

Content is King

55% of B2B buyers rely more on content for research and to guide their purchasing decisions than they did previously. That's one of many reasons why content is important in the consideration stage of the B2B buyer journey.

It provides valuable information, helps differentiate your services/products, builds trust, and guides potential customers toward making an informed purchasing decision. I've found success in three main areas when it comes to converting B2B MQLs into sales:

Webinars and Online Events: According to The Center for Sales Strategy, 73% of B2B marketers and sales leaders say a webinar is the best way to generate high-quality leads. I've certainly found success in utilising webinars not only to impact consideration but also awareness of our brand. Webinars and virtual events helped to showcase our expertise and demonstrate how our services can solve specific business problems.

Webinars also allowed our team to initiate follow-up touchpoints via nurture campaigns providing registrants with the recording, presentation collateral, data points, and more, further segmenting our MQLs into SQLs and ultimately sales.

Email Marketing: Nurturing leads with personalised email campaigns that provide relevant content, product comparisons, and customer testimonials is very effective. Using tools like MailerLite and MailChimp you can segment your key buyer personas, create workflow automation, and link the engagement results to CRMs like Hubspot, giving you full visibility on who engaged with which emails, where they clicked, and more. All of this supports sales in identifying an SQL and streamlining the outreach process.

Case Studies and Whitepapers: In my experience, case studies and whitepapers are arguably one of the most impactful ways to engage key buyer personas. They provide detailed, evidence-based information that helps the buyers understand the value and effectiveness of our solutions, educate, build trust, and support informed decision-making. The proof is in the pudding as according to a Demand Gen Report, 68% of B2B buyers said they use case studies to research purchasing decisions, while 65% use whitepapers.

If you can include solid testimonials in your case studies then even better. After all is there a more effective way to convince someone your service or product is exceptional than a review from a current or previous client?

Engagement and Follow-Up

According to Gartner, the typical B2B buying group involves 6 to 10 decision-makers, resulting in an average of 13 touchpoints during the buying process . So simply sending a potential client one email, or a single webinar won't result in a SQL, much less a conversion.

That's why it's essential to develop a series of additional touchpoints. You can utilise automated emails that provide valuable content and insights at different stages of the consideration phase. I often tailor the messaging based on the prospect’s behavior and interactions. I also communicate with our sales team to reach out directly to prospects to answer questions, provide additional information, and offer support in the decision-making process.

Common Myths of the Consideration Stage

"Buyers Only Compare Prices at the Consideration Stage"

Although price is a factor, buyers are more concerned with value and how well a solution meets their specific needs. They evaluate features, benefits, customer support, and potential ROI.

"Email Campaigns Are Ineffective in the Consideration Stage"

Email marketing is highly effective at this stage when personalised and targeted. Nurture campaigns that provide relevant content, like product comparisons and case studies, can significantly influence buying decisions.

3. Decision Stage

Wow, congratulations you made it to the decision stage! This is like being in the last stage of the original Donkey Kong game, and my hats off to you for constantly dodging barrels. If your key buyer persona is still here it means you've piqued their interest. At this final stage, buyers are ready to make a purchase decision. They have narrowed down their options and are looking for final validation to select the best vendor.

In the decision stage of the B2B buyer journey, you need to focus on converting prospects into customers by addressing their final concerns, showcasing value, and facilitating the purchasing process.

Offer a Trial Run

At this stage, I always like to ensure that prospects have all the necessary information to make an informed decision. Depending on your service or product you can also utilise product demos and trials. I've seen success by doing this in my current role with Insight222 where we offer a trial period for our sister learning brand myHRfuture . We provide B2B prospects a week's trial on the myHRfuture Academy, an online SaaS HR learning portal. This allows prospective clients to immerse themselves in the product and understand its real value. And it's no wonder it's been a deal sealer for us as 67% of B2B buyers want to see a demo before purchasing .

Address Objections and Concerns

This stage is arguably the most difficult of the B2B buyer journey as you have to convince your key buyer persona why you're the best option. That's why it's crucial to mitigate any potential barriers to purchase by proactively addressing common objections and concerns. Here you can provide a comprehensive FAQ section and knowledge base that addresses common questions and concerns.

You can also offer technical details and documentation that can address the specific needs of different stakeholders within the buying group.

It can also help to provide real-time support through live chat or direct communication channels to quickly resolve any issues or questions. Sales will be crucial in this step as well as they need to carry the burden of supporting marketing at this stage. It's a team effort after all!

If You Fail, Keep Nurturing

If you managed to get a prospect to this point only for them to decline your product or service, DO NOT start sending scathing emails! Clients decline for a myriad of reasons, budget, timing, resources, and stakeholder buy-in. But that doesn't mean that the client won't be back, change their mind, or require a different service in the future, so keep nurturing them.

Offer up a newsletter subscription, or invite them to future webinars or events. Either way ensure that you are engaging with the prospect and providing them with useful, education-based content to prove your worth. All good things come to those who wait.

Common Myths of the Decisions Stage

"The Decision Stage is Purely Rational"

Even in the B2B space, emotional factors play a role in the decision-making process. Trust, brand reputation, and the perceived risk of making the wrong choice are significant factors that can sway decisions.

"Once a Buyer Reaches the Decision Stage, the Sale is Guaranteed"

Boy, this couldn't be farther from the truth. Buyers may still have reservations or be considering competitors. It’s crucial to provide reassurance through demos, testimonials, and personalised follow-ups to close the deal. I find going directly to their home during dinner works wonders!

ABD - Always Be Data-Driven

All of your efforts throughout the different stages of the B2B buyer journey will have been for nothing if you're not data-led. That's why I can't stress enough the importance of tracking key metrics to make decisions on each of the three stages.

As I mentioned earlier Google Analytics, SEMrush, HubSpot, MailerLite are some of my essentials when it comes to creating a data-driven strategy for my buyer journey.

I look at quite a few metrics when analysing the success of and improving my B2B buyer journey. Here are some that I recommend for each stage:

Awareness Stage:

• Website Traffic: Important to understand which channels are driving the most visitors.
• Bounce Rate: High bounce rates can indicate issues with content, site relevance, or user experience.
• Organic Search Traffic: Important for assessing the success of your SEO efforts and content relevance.
• Social Media Engagement: Sometimes a superficial metric, but it reflects the effectiveness of your social media campaigns in raising awareness.

Consideration Stage:

• Time on Page and Pages per Session: Longer times and more pages suggest deeper interest in your services/products
• Lead Generation Metrics (e.g., form submissions, webinar sign-ups): Critical for assessing the effectiveness of your lead generation strategies.
• Content Engagement (e.g., downloads of whitepapers, case studies): Important for understanding which content pieces resonate most with your audience.
• Email Open and Click-Through Rates: High rates indicate successful engagement and relevance of email content.

Decision Stage:

• Conversion Rate: Essential for evaluating the effectiveness of your sales funnel.
• Sales Life-Cycle: Important for identifying bottlenecks in the decision-making process.
• Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): Helps assess the efficiency of your marketing and sales strategies.
• Trial and Demo Engagement: Provides insights into product interest and potential objections.
• Customer Feedback and NPS (Net Promoter Score): Important for understanding the effectiveness of your product and customer service.

I hope this B2B Buyer Journey guide has been useful. If you have any questions about any stage or concepts I welcome you to comment below.

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