With 77% of b2b buyers rating their last purchase as either difficult or complex, it becomes critical for B2B businesses to rethink their marketing and buyer experience strategies. Customer experience will become a critical factor in the future, believe 86% of CMOs in the B2B domain (via Finances Online).
The evolving B2B landscape makes process-oriented transformation imperative for businesses. Businesses of today need to tailor their strategies to meet the needs of the modern buyer and become extremely buyer-centric.
But, how well do you know your modern buyer? This article shares key insights into the dynamic modern buyer.
Your modern b2b buyer group comprises company stakeholders entrusted with the task of making purchase decisions.
Gone are the days when your sales team would guide prospective buyers through solutions deemed beneficial to their organization. Your sales team would be there at every step, guiding them toward the right choice.
But the modern buyer is well-informed and needs no steering at all!
It is a well-published fact that in a B2B environment, there are a minimum of 6 people making a purchase decision. These decision-makers have at least 4 pieces of information obtained through independent research to support their decisions. (via Shopify)
Your b2b buyer group loves to make decisions based on independent research. This segment knows its organization’s pain points and has a well-developed profile of its expectations from prospective vendors. It will consider only those vendors that conform to this profile.
A Key Insight: Topmost factors key to buyers in their vendor-choosing process are the solution’s features (73%), its price (72%), reviews (59%), readiness for use and ease of use (56%), and the vendor’s competence to address a pain point. (via Finances Online)
Millennials form the largest demographic in the b2b buyer segment (via Finances Online). A HubSpot study puts the modern buyer in the age group of 35 to 44. This age group forms the largest buyer group with 38% of them belonging to this segment.
Your b2b buyer segment consists of employees in leadership roles with 47% of them being in managerial roles and 36% of them being C-Suite leaders. 54% of buyers rely on the buy-in of one or two colleagues to make the final purchase decision.
A Key Insight: 75% of your buyers like to do their own research about a product before embarking on the purchase process. Using relevant content assets that speak to the corresponding demographic is key to engaging your modern buyer. (Sources: HubSpot, via Finances Online)
With the modern buyer becoming more aware of market choices and its rising preference for stellar buying experiences, the priorities too have shifted. Buyers of the past were happy being “told to” buy a product/ service by a smart salesperson.
The smarter modern buyer, however, researches vendors, compares reviews, and evaluates them based on the extra value they provide to simplify the purchase process.
Some vital factors that your modern buyer looks for, in sellers, include:
The promptness with which you interact with your buyers can turn the tide in your favor. With 76% of buyers citing timeliness as a key criterion in choosing a seller over another, this is a factor businesses cannot afford to ignore.
B2B purchases typically involve multiple decision-makers, who, in turn rely on influential peer recommendations before purchase. For example, a buyer team can involve executives from the IT, finance, and legal teams to decide a software purchase.
Companies that exhibit competence in addressing disparate concerns with aplomb are most likely to cut a deal.
A Key Insight: 74% of buyers buy from the first company that provides value and offers insights. Your business can deliver this value in the form of sales assets such as hyper-personalized content assets, timely communications, and clear calls-to-action (CTAs).
The transformed modern buyer needs a modern seller. Traditional business-centric approaches will not make the cut for your modern buyer. So, what can you do to appeal to the modern buyer, connect with them, and solidify relationships?
The modern buyer is not interested in sales pitches. They are keener on partnering with service providers that take the time to understand their pain points and address them with hyper-targeted solutions. The modern buyer values honesty and promptness in interactions and leans toward brands that walk the talk with their values and solutions.
With modern buyers staying a step ahead, it becomes the responsibility of smart businesses to adopt a proactive approach. Delivering guided purchase journeys for your buyers is the most powerful outcome of staying proactive.
Monitor your buyers’ purchase journey with insights from buyer personas, intent data, and sales funnel. Data-driven insights enable you to tailor your demand-gen assets to engage buyers effectively and to address their pain points with high precision.
A proactive approach creates a win-win situation for everyone involved in the buyers’ journey, eventually orchestrating splendid purchase experiences.
A deep understanding of your buyers and the motivations driving their choices is key to gaining clarity about their purchase journey.
Your buyer experience teams, including your marketing, sales, and customer service, need to be well-aligned to deliver a crisp and seamless purchase journey.
Imagine a prospective buyer contacting your marketing team to discuss its needs. If your teams are unaligned, the buyer ends up repeating the pain points to your sales team. This low-quality buyer experience discourages purchase and at worse sets a bad reputation.
A solid understanding of your modern buyer and its rapidly-evolving needs is key to your demand generation success. A successful demand-gen strategy generates brand awareness, creates demand, delivers strong leads, drives conversions, and strengthens buyer relationships.
From defining your buyer group accurately to tailoring your strategies individually, demand-gen thrives on high precision data and tailored content assets. As a company forefront on data, technologies and strategies that drive successful demand generation, FinalFunnel can be your ideal growth partner.
Connect with us to know how our b2b demand generation services can help you discover new growth opportunities!