A number of interesting reports came out this year that examine the B2B buyer journey. In one way or another, each weighs in on the seemingly unavoidable tug-of-war between marketing and sales. Who owns the customer journey? Who is more influential in the customer experience?
Depending on which report you read, the answer varies. For example, a Forrester survey found that 74% of business buyers conduct more than half of their research online before making an offline purchase. The implication being that “marketing now owns a much bigger piece of the lead-to-revenue cycle.” Yet another report from Gleanster found that 85% of senior marketers believed that sales and sales support were in control of the customer experience.
That B2B buyer information consumption preferences will continue to evolve is inevitable. With the ongoing proliferation of digital channels and increased sophistication of content platforms, B2B buyers are more savvy than ever. They know what content they want at each stage in their decision making process, and how and where they want to consume it. While more and more of this content consumption is happening online, in-person information sharing still plays – and will continue to play – a critical role in the decision making process, especially in B2B.
Too often, this silo’d approach creates inconsistencies in messaging across different touchpoints, leading to customer confusion, or worse, disengagement. Instead the entire customer decision-making experience should be shaped by a company’s brand.
B2B companies should be asking brand-driven questions, such as:
Examining these key moments in the B2B customer journey from the perspective of a company’s brand will not only ensure consistency in messaging, it will also lead to more collaborative and effective marketing and sales strategies. Most importantly, it will create better experiences for prospects. And as B2B buyers continue to behave more like consumers in their interactions and expectations of B2B brands, companies that are able to deliver comprehensive, consistent experiences will have more success in connecting with prospects and moving them along in their decision-making journey. Everybody wins.
In today’s content-driven B2B marketing landscape, a compelling, user-centric content strategy can be a brand’s most powerful tool for connecting with prospects and clients. To be truly effective, a content strategy must be based on a clear understanding of and alignment to specific customer needs and consumption preferences throughout their decision…
They are the holy grail of B2B marketing: C-suite executives who open the doors, make the decisions and write the checks. And they are increasingly difficult to reach through conventional marketing channels. The key to getting inside is providing executives with something they need but can’t get elsewhere: relevant content.
Innovation. It’s been a recurring theme in almost every one of our conversations with B2B companies looking to refresh their brands. From the CMO to the CEO, B2B executives have been laser-focused on building brands that convey innovation.
When did this word become so ingrained in our lexicon? According to Google Ngram, the…