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THE NEW
B2B BUYERS’
JOURNEY
A GUIDE FOR DATA-DRIVEN MARKETERS
www.brightfunnel.com
[email protected]
THE STATE OF THE B2B BUYERS’ JOURNEY
Marketing, while critical to any organization, is a
function that does not always command the respect
it deserves. Too often dismissed as simply a cost
center—especially by non-marketing executives—
many perceive marketers as creatives that do little
more than throw fancy parties, write clever copy,
and experiment with pretty ads. The reason for
this misconception is simple: too many marketers
are unable justify expenses, because they lack the
visibility into the B2B buyers’ journey and the ability
to interpret the efficacy of their own campaigns.
The buyers’ journey is a process that must be
intimately understood by marketers in order to
improve marketing efficiency and drive sustainable
revenue growth. Easier said than done, the B2B
sales cycle is long and complicated—spanning
multiple channels, numerous stakeholders, and
disparate technologies—and the ability to attribute
marketing-generated contributions to profit and
revenue are necessary, but by no means trivial.
Today, more than one-third of all marketers (36
percent) cite their biggest challenge as being
able to accurately measure and attribute online
conversions to the correct marketing channels1.
To succeed, marketers must evolve to become
increasingly data-driven. Today’s most effective
marketers are backed by performance data and
analyst teams with the skills and vision to turn data
into action. With better visibility into how various
marketing programs coexist and complement each
other—accurately measuring and analyzing
The majority of marketers
(58 percent) said that they
were unable to accurately
attribute success across the
entire marketing funnel2.
campaign performance across channels—
marketers will be able tie activities directly to
revenue, make smarter decisions, and forecast
future outcomes of their marketing initiatives.
This guide will serve as a primer for B2B marketers
seeking to realize greater ROI from their marketing
investments through a better understanding of the
new B2B buyers’ journey. In it, we’ll examine how
the journey has evolved in recent years, highlight
the opportunity for data-driven marketers, and offer
some basic tips to help ensure that your marketing
team is well-equipped to thrive as the buyers’
journey continues to evolve.
1, 2:
B2B Magazine Survey: “The Evolving B2B Purchase Process”
1 The New B2B Buyers’ Journey: A Guide For Data-Driven Marketers
ATTRIBUTES OF THE NEW B2B BUYERS’ JOURNEY
Today, the B2B sales journey is longer and more
complex than ever before and 43% of marketers
agree that their B2B sales cycle has increased
in length3. Gone are the days when B2B sales
was simply a numbers game—moving thousands
of leads through a static set of campaigns until a
handful of deals emerge. To be successful now,
marketers must reach a range of audiences, across
varying channels, and do so in a highly targeted
way—delivering the right message, at the right time,
to the right prospective client.
More Stakeholders
The current B2B buyers’ journey is defined by a
number of trends:
Marketers can no longer focus solely on the
perceived decision maker, as purchases are now
made by a committee of stakeholders who all
play critical roles in purchase decisions. What’s
more, each one of these buyers follows a unique
path to purchase—with varying interests and
looped into the sales cycle at different stages.
Marketers must to understand how and when
varying decision makers factor into the buying
process in order to more effectively serve
targeted content at the most appropriate time.
Independent Research
Increasingly connected buyers now have
unbounded access to information, spurring
more and more prospects to self-educate and
resist engaging sales until much later in the
cycle. Today’s buyers might be up to 90%4 of
the way through their research before ever
reaching out to a salesperson.
Today, 81% of B2B marketers say that at
least two people are typically responsible
for a buying decision6. It’s commonplace for
that number to be even higher, with numerous
stakeholders weighing in prior to a major
purchase’s completion. In tech, media, and
financial service-oriented B2B sales, for example,
both line-of-business stakeholders (e.g. CMO
and team) and corporate stakeholders get
involved (e.g. CIO and team).
Longer Sales Cycles
B2B sales cycles are inherently long because
they require multiple touch points, have higher
price points, and are generally highly technical
in nature. Still, despite the availability of big data
and tools designed to help shorten sales cycles,
the B2B buyers’ journey has continued to
increase in length over the past three years5.
3, 5:
Research suggests that
90% of the decision
making process is complete
before a B2B stakeholder
even engages a salesperson4.
B2B Magazine: “Priming the Pipeline: Driving Awareness & Sales,”
Forrester: “Buyer Behavior Helps B2B Marketers Guide The Buyers’ journey”
6:
B2B Magazine Survey: “The Evolving B2B Purchase Process”
4:
2 The New B2B Buyers’ Journey: A Guide For Data-Driven Marketers
THE OPPORTUNITY FOR B2B MARKETERS
While the state of today’s B2B buyers’ journey
presents challenges for marketers, within these
challenges lies an even greater opportunity.
Marketing is now accountable for a much greater
portion of the sales funnel than ever before. As the
function that owns the relationship with early-stage
prospects, marketers who step-up to the plate can
find ways to more effectively engage and convert
prospects—integrating tools and procedures that
have a significant impact on the revenue cycle.
The traditional B2B sales funnel has evolved from a
predictable linear model to a diverse and entangled
path, while marketers must still find ways to engage
prospects at each step along the way. They draw
from an increasingly large pool of tactics, surfacing
a wide variety of content across any number of
channels.
The following are three tips to ensure that your
company is well equipped to capitalize on an
evolving buyers’ journey:
1
Optimize your content mix
While the path-to-purchase may be intertwined,
the classic buyer stages remain unswerving:
awareness, consideration, and decision. What
has changed is that the awareness stage of the
buyers’ journey now often accounts for more than
we’ve seen previously. While the consideration and
purchase stages should not be neglected, focus on
producing content that helps prospects identify and
understand their pains and opportunities early in the
buying cycle.
Integrated demand generation capabilities are
critical to building awareness for your brand. With
high-quality content—such as webinars, eBooks,
white papers—and optimized delivery timing, you’ll
to help educate prospects in the channels that
matter most.
CONTENT MIX BY BUYER STAGE
INDEPENDENTLY RESEARCH (90%4)
AWARENESS
EVALUATION
Review educational and third
party information to help identify
and understand a problem or
opportunity.
Research all available
approaches and/or methods
to solving defined problem or
opportunity
Examples:
Analyst reports, Research reports,
eBooks, White papers, Blog posts,
Editorial Content, Expert Content
Examples:
Webinars, Videos, Podcasts,
Comparison white papers, expert
guides, live interactions
3 The New B2B Buyers’ Journey: A Guide For Data-Driven Marketers
ENGAGE SALES
DECISION
Research supporting
documentation, benchmarks,
and success stories to make a
final decision.
Examples:
Case studies, Product trials, Vendor
comparisons, Product comparisons,
Integration guides, Live Demo
THE OPPORTUNITY FOR B2B MARKETERS (CONTINUED)
2
Practice high-velocity marketing
For marketing professionals growing high value
enterprises, time is money. Waiting patiently for
leads to trickle in isn’t—by itself—a smart approach.
Awareness is more important than ever before
and, therefore, we recommend practicing highvelocity marketing. High Velocity Marketing (HVM) is
expressed simply as follows:
HVM = Inbound Marketing + Outbound
Demand Generation
Inbound Marketing = blog posts, webinars,
downloadable assets, etc.
Outbound Demand Gen = distribution via
newsletters, display ads, etc.
In other words, rather than creating a high quality
webinar, with a name brand customer advocate,
and waiting for people to find it through search
and word of mouth alone, a high-velocity marketer
needs to proactively get that content promoted to
the right people, quickly, via paid ads and other
distribution channels.
3
Automate and analyze
Today’s buyer demands more personalized
attention, and to be more personal, ironically,
marketers must become more automated.
Marketing automation captures buyer behavior—
giving us insight into how, when, and where
prospects are interacting with our brand. Most
importantly, automation tracks all of the data that
can help marketers serve more targeted, engaging
offers.
But collecting performance data is just half the
battle. Without the ability to interpret campaign
results, understand how they coalesced with other
touches, and ultimately tie marketing efforts to
sales, marketers will never be able to effectively
predict future marketing outcomes. Marketers who
are truly dedicated to data-driven marketing must
develop processes and adopt solutions that will
aide in not only serving and tracking (automation
platforms), but also interpret, plan, and accurately
forecast marketing-driven revenue.
4 The New B2B Buyers’ Journey: A Guide For Data-Driven Marketers
THE BIG PICTURE
While a lengthening, complicated sales cycle presents new challenges for B2B marketers, a huge opportunity
exists. Marketing’s influence on the buying process is bigger than ever and marketing has never been in
better position to reestablish itself as a core, revenue-driving function of the organization.
With added influence comes great responsibility, but new tools and technology are making it increasingly
easier for marketers to accurately attribute, predict, plan, and benchmark campaign performance. The
marketers who are able to correctly attribute campaign influence and ROI—including complex, multi-touch
scenarios—will prosper. Effective attribution will give marketers the ability to identify performance trends by
campaign and channel, isolate gaps, evaluate new investments, and quickly adjust marketing programs to
support business priorities. Most importantly, marketers who adopt new tools and procedures necessary to
arrive at these valuable conclusions will be able to predict the future revenue impact of every marketing dollar
spent.
Marketers with the big picture—full visibility into the efficacy of programs across the buyers’ journey—will be
the ones that succeed, and be able to make smarter marketing decisions and drive ongoing marketing-driven
revenue and growth.
About BrightFunnel
BrightFunnel’s predictive marketing intelligence platform generates actionable revenue insights for B2B
CMOs. By empowering marketers to accurately attribute, predict, plan, and benchmark campaign ROI
across channels, Brightfunnel helps CMOs understand the revenue impact of every marketing decision.
BrightFunnel’s mission is to transform marketing into a revenue function, by taking an approach—unlike
traditional BI and analytics— that is predictive from day one, provides immediate and marketing-specific
revenue insights, and can be set up in hours—not weeks. Early adopters include data-driven marketers such
as HootSuite, ServiceMax, Nimble Storage, and ExactTarget.
Contact us today to find out how Brightfunnel gives you greater visibility into the sales cycle—helping you tie
marketing spend to revenue, once and for all.
5 The New B2B Buyers’ Journey: A Guide For Data-Driven Marketers