How to Be a Better Guide to Your Prospect on the Buyer’s Journey
Jody Sutter
I help marketing agencies go from an unpredictable, inconsistent and exhausting approach to winning new business towards one that leads to reliable, predictable success.
Are you familiar with the concept of the “buyer’s journey”?
Of course you are!?
It's the process a customer goes through to purchase a product or service, from identifying a problem to making a purchase decision. And I’ll wager that you–or someone on your team–refer to it daily in the work you do for your clients.
But how frequently do you apply the framework of a “buyer’s journey” to your own agency’s business development process?
THE AGENCY NEW BUSINESS CYCLE IS LONG
We all know from our direct experience that it takes months, sometimes years, to convert a promising lead into a paying client. A 2022 study from 6Sense (a platform that uses AI to analyze buyer intent data) says the average B2B buying cycle is eleven months and the study was quick to point out this number was dependent on complexity and bespoke nature of the sale, how many suppliers were being considered, and how many people on the buyer’s side were involved (hm, sounds like the agency review process!).?
Interestingly, the study also found that buyers typically make direct contact with vendors eight months into the buying process.?
The study goes on to say:
“84% of deals are won or lost before providers know they even exist. Either way, buyers clearly indicated that they conduct most of their buying journey before engaging directly with providers, and that when they do, they do it on their own terms. They have already established their requirements and chosen favorites in the race for their business.”
In other words, B2B buyers shop anonymously. They do their research with at best small crumbs left behind. They choose which content to interact with and form their own opinions based on what they see and hear.
This has significant implications for your agency’s new business process! But you can also manage your end of the buyer’s journey to make the most of every interaction with a prospective buyer until they’re ready to hire you.
IT IS A JOURNEY AFTER ALL
The selling process is a journey, but most agency leaders don’t think through a good strategy to make it from beginning to end. They don’t optimize their online presence (website, LinkedIn page, Instagram feed, random speech they gave eight years ago that still pops up in search results, etc.) for creating a positive, consistent impression during the anonymous shopping phase and then, once a person-to-person connection is made, they aren’t always prepared to advance the sale from one conversation to the next until a deal is sealed.?
At each stage, your buyers have an objective– they want certain types of information delivered in certain ways so that they can make the right decision with the least amount of effort and risk. And at each stage, you want to have a clear objective too for what you want the prospects to think or do.?
STAGE 1: UNKNOWN → AWARENESS
Desired reaction: “This agency gets us.”
It’s early in the journey, your prospect doesn’t know you or maybe they’ve heard enough about you to be curious. Maybe they're plowing their way through a list of a dozen websites their agency search consultant gave them, or maybe your cold email caught their attention and they decided to check you out. In all these cases, you’re working against time because their objective at this stage is to qualify you as quickly as possible as an agency that gets them.
And if their objective isn’t fulfilled right away, they won’t be willing to watch the 2.5 minute agency showreel or navigate their way to the “work” page to scroll through a few case studies, much less respond to your cold email.??
Don’t let the journey end before it begins. Give them:
STAGE 2: AWARENESS → FAMILIARITY
Desired reaction: “We might hire them one day.”
The journey from Awareness to Familiarity may take minutes or it may take years depending on how acute their problem is and how quickly they want to solve it. For instance, in the case of nurturing a relationship through outreach, your objective is to reinforce and deepen your message. This will likely take a long time, multiple efforts, the use of different tactics and platforms, and it will benefit from a complementary marketing strategy.
As you anticipate how you want to reinforce your message, help the buyers fulfill their objectives:?
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STAGE 3: FAMILIARITY → INTEREST/NEED
Desired reaction: “Let’s put them in our consideration set.”
If the prospect has made it this far, then they like what they’re seeing and hearing from you. And, if they’ve been shopping anonymously so far, this is when they might make themselves known and start some kind of exchange. Their objective is to validate their early conclusions that you’re a potential match so that they can safely put you in their consideration set.
Your objective: engender trust through –?
STAGE 4: INTEREST/NEED → PREFERENCE/INCLINATION
Desired reaction: “Why should we hire you today?”
You and your buyer have made it to the point at which there’s a real assignment to be discussed with a budget and a timeline. In my experience, it’s not that unusual for the prospect to experience a moment of reversal. They want to make sure if they extend an invitation to pitch, that you’re really as equipped to take on the challenge as they’ve been led to believe so far.
You might think that your objective is to reassure, but that’s likely to throw you back into people-pleasing mode, which erodes your authority when you should be gently asserting it. Your objective at this stage is to probe and guide:
This is often when an agency is willing to relinquish all control to a process dictated by the client, even if that process is deeply flawed. Try to retain some control through smart, insightful leadership as you define and price a scope of work, handle objections, and maintain momentum.?
STAGE 5: PREFERENCE/INCLINATION → CONVERSION
Desired reaction: “You’re the favorite.”
You’re almost there. You’ve been told you’re the preferred choice. It’s the last chance for your prospective buyer to poke holes before making a decision. And if it’s not your direct buyer, it might be other stakeholders that haven’t been very involved in the process so far but are nonetheless wondering why, exactly, you should be hired over someone else.
Your objectives are to? –?
EACH BUYER’S JOURNEY IS UNIQUE
I offer you this road map as a tool to make good decisions about what to communicate to your buyer and when as you prepare yourself for what is typically a lengthy journey. While I believe that every one of these stages occurs, they may occur sooner or later than expected. It may take months to get through a stage or it could pass through it over the course of one conversation.
It depends on many factors, of course. Some of them are under the control of your buyer, such as timing for budget approvals or product launches, but some are in your control. For instance, a strong elevator pitch—that is, one based on a well defined ideal client profile and a clear value proposition—made to the right person has the potential of opening a door much sooner than a vague promise of award-winning creativity, passionate teamwork, or fierce independence.
About the author
Jody Sutter is the owner of The Sutter Company , a business development consultancy and coaching firm that specializes in working with leadership at small ad agencies who are underperforming when it comes to winning new business and would like to win the right clients consistently but also make the process less chaotic and exhausting for their teams.?
Learn more here or get in touch by emailing [email protected]
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4 个月I appreciate that you mention ghosting. This has been happening to me a lot lately. Told I'm the one/the favorite, given a clear timeline to reconnect ("We have to get XYZ done before we start, let's touch base at the end of Q2." ), and then it's been crickets when I've reached out to reconnect and discuss next steps. Any tips/best practices to get a prospect to respond?