Why B2B's Need to Understand the Connected Consumer

The digital age is making B2B content marketing more challenging than ever. Industries are crowded, competitor products are similar and the volume of online information is overwhelming. With 100+ factors to consider before making a pricey business purchase, entire C-suites are often involved in a B2B purchasing decision and multiple contacts must be courted and won.

But these challenges are not without a silver lining. With them comes new opportunities for sales teams to rewrite the B2B playbook and become indispensable allies in helping connected consumers reach successful purchase destinations.

Understanding the B2B challenges of the connected consumer.

The rise of e-commerce has brought with it a deluge of digital content that often leads to information overwhelm, making B2B purchasing decisions increasingly fraught with uncertainty and anxiety. Far from simplifying and expediting the purchasing journey, the current conditions of the digital age are complexifying and extending it.

B2B buyers are routinely reporting that the time dedicated to online research of a product or service is only increasing. The more expensive a purchase, the more intensive the research, with buyers investing more than 40 hours of research into purchases exceeding $100,000. Even for modest purchases, B2B buyers are often devoting as many as 20 hours to research before seeking out a human sales rep.

And the path to purchase is getting longer for other reasons. Almost 25 percent of buyers report purchasing decisions involving 5 or more people, with less than 10 percent involving a single purchaser. Just as larger purchases mean more time invested in research, larger purchases also mean more people involved in the purchasing decision. When purchases are worth less than $5,000, they often involve just 1-2 people. But for purchases exceeding $100,000, nearly one-third involve 5-10 stakeholders. 

And not only this. The more people involved in a purchasing decision, the harder it is to share relevant content, further complexifying and extending the purchasing journey. 

Why human connections are still critical to B2B buyers.

Even though in the digital age connected consumers are conducting their own research by relying on online industry reports and peer reviews or in-person conversations, this approach to solving old problems also presents new ones. Sales teams who understand these new problems can offer valuable solutions and differentiate themselves from their competitors. 

B2B buyers are actively seeking these solutions. A full 70 percent of B2B buyers know they could use some help, with only 30% preferring to complete their purchasing journey independently. Nearly 40 percent of buyers say they favor a direct relationship with a sales rep over their own independent research, and nearly a third prefer a combination of their own research and a sales rep’s guidance and expertise.

How can your business become an indispensable ally to B2B buyers in the digital age? At Zen Media, we’ve found three powerful approaches. 

Integrate all aspects of your business to deliver a superior purchasing experience.

Since prospective customers (and especially C-suites) depend so heavily on industry and peer reviews, businesses need to operate with this in mind. The purchasing experience your business offers B2B buyers needs to be seamless from start to finish. Starting with your B2B content marketing and your website’s appearance and running all the way through your sales, support, client relations and billing departments, your business needs to pave a clear, well-defined, highly integrated path to your buyers’ purchase destination. In time, a trail of happy customers will follow you and your reputation will precede you.

Curate the content that is most valuable and expedite the purchasing process.

The saying “You can have too much of a good thing” is a truism for the digital age. Buyers are deluged with B2B content marketing, but much of it isn’t relevant to their specific needs and concerns. Sales teams who know exactly what kind of content is most valuable to B2B buyers will curate it accordingly to ease the pain points and illuminate the path of the purchasing journey.

In our experience at Zen Media, we’ve found the table stakes all-stars to be case studies and technical specs, followed by streaming video, white papers, and infographics.

As for content that most expedites a purchasing decision, ROI calculators top the list, followed by a personalized content portal, and augmented reality technology.

Generate confidence by making content easier to understand and easier to share.

Because of their limited time to invest in research, more than half of C-suites and more than 80 percent of VP’s report struggling with content-related issues. (Namely, finding the content difficult to understand or difficult to share internally.)

With the struggle to understand and easily share content comes uncertainty and anxiety. Sales teams with a knack for simplifying, streamlining, and strategically unpacking content so it is easy to understand and easy to share (often with the help of content portals) can win trust and generate confidence in the purchasing decision. And by forming relationships of trust with multiple decision-makers, sales teams can increase alignment among key stakeholders and further expedite the purchasing process. 

In conclusion.

The digital age has created as many gaps in the purchasing journey as it has closed, but it is these very gaps that bring with them new opportunities for sales teams to successfully rewrite the rules of the B2B content marketing playbook. Rather than making human connections obsolete, connected consumers are showing that relationships of person-to-person trust are still the bedrock of successful business. 

--

Shama Hyder is CEO of Zen Media, a leading marketing and new media consultancy, a best-selling author, and an internationally renowned keynote speaker.

As seen previously on Forbes.