The traditional B2B buyer journey is changing because buyers are accessing quality digital information at each stage of their purchasing decision. Buying behaviors have changed and you’ve got less time with buyers to influence their decisions.
You need to rethink marketing and sales strategies to adapt successfully. Clients aren’t going to jump straight into your marketing funnel and slide straight down to a purchase with the sales team.
The new B2B buyer journey is non-linear, adding to the existing complexities of most B2B purchases. Anyone or anything that makes the process easier immediately puts themselves at an advantage.
NewtonX customer segmentation research gives you that competitive edge. Deep insights into your buyer personas gives you the opportunity not just to make the B2B buyer journey wearing their shoes – but to create the landscape they navigate.
What is a B2B buyer journey map?
Using custom insights to construct B2B buyer journey maps helps you understand your clients’ mindset at the different stages of their path to purchase.
The stages of your B2B buyers’ journey are specific to your industry and organization. These are the typical stages that apply to most buyer journeys and how high quality B2B market research informs each stage.
Awareness
Make sure that you’re top of mind by determining who your client is, how you meet their needs and where you can find them. This custom research ensures that your clients understand your service or product and you can close the sale more quickly.
Consideration
After initial contact with the sales team and interest is piqued, you need to flesh out the buyer personas of each of the decision-makers involved. In-depth B2B buyer persona research means you can address the priorities of each team member and understand how they interact with each other.
Decision
Creating a B2B buyer journey map for each buyer persona means that you’ll know what each decision-maker needs at each stage of the process. By making sure everyone has all the information they need at the right time you avoid any stalling and keep the decision on track.
Purchase and delivery
Nurturing a long-term relationship starts with how you deliver and onboard your new clients after contracts are signed. Reliable research gives you a gauge on the strength of your first impression and how you can exceed client expectations.
Support and retention
Retaining existing clients is cheaper than finding new ones, so you need to know how to keep renewals coming in. Regularly monitoring customer experiences and loyalty keeps you ahead of the competition.
Growth and expansion
Satisfied clients are more open to cross-selling or up-selling, and can become great advocates for your company. Brand tracking research and regular client health checks gives you reliable data to strengthen your brand, build your reputation and encourage word-of-mouth referrals.
It’s important to bear in mind that these aren’t sequential stepping stones. The new B2B buyer journey consists of several twists and turns that sees them revisiting and adjusting course at various points. NewtonX insights help you position your business perfectly within this decision making landscape.
What influences affect your B2B buyers’ journey?
New B2B buying journeys are affected by a myriad of different information sources. Your buyers have an internet’s worth of choice. They’ll be getting their pre-purchase information from:
- Online research: multiple websites, social media platforms and forums
- Advice from colleagues in similar roles in the same industry
- Conferences and events: speakers and written materials
- Professional publications by industry organizations and bodies
- Discussions with adjacent channel partners
These multiple sources are consulted continuously through the various stages of the B2B buyer journey. If you’re not there with the information your clients are looking for, your competitors will be. The chance for connection and direction towards your offering is lost.
Be the ultimate B2B journey guide
The features you add to your clients’ landscape give you the opportunity to optimize every possible touchpoint on their B2B buyers’ journey. NewtonX custom research is based on insights from your current and potential clients. You’ll know what help they need, where they’re looking to find it, and how they prefer to receive that information. Your marketing and sales strategies will align to have all the right signposts – and hubs of knowledge – within your clients’ decision-making landscape exactly when they need it.
You need reliable insights on three key areas to generate your new B2B buyer journey map.
1. Get to know your B2B buying team
You need to know every member of your buying team. Each decision maker has their own priorities, concerns and challenges about this purchase. Understanding their starting position, preferred sources of information and hurdles to overcome during the buying journey. Deeper understanding of each buyer persona, based on customer segmentation research, gives you a competitive advantage on many levels.
2. Draw the journey map
There isn’t an ‘as the crow flies’, clear route from top of funnel content, to sales, ending with purchase and reordering. The pipeline of warm leads being passed to sales teams is disrupted. The new buyer journey involves much more back and forth between the two. The linear path to purchase is more of a zig zag, with assorted diversions and re-routing.
Your custom insights tell you where to best place signposts for your clients for whatever they need at each stage of their journey. They will see you continuously helping at every twist and turn.
Creating your buyer journey map from powerful data means that you’re there as their guide over obstacles, around gaps in knowledge and through to the perfect destination – your product or service.
3. Find out what direction they’re coming from
The custom findings that define your buyer personas help you understand their individual motivations. This is their starting point in the decision-making landscape and how you know the direction they’re traveling to you from.
By specifically addressing how your product or service meets each of their needs, you can track their buyer journey and remove information obstacles before they even reach them. For example, the end user of your product is likely to want to compare it with similar products on the market. So you provide this information in an article published on their preferred platform. A signpost that makes the decision easier and leads them smoothly on towards the next stage of their buyer journey.
