Self-service e-commerce will reign supreme within the next few years as they are expected to replace about one million B2B salespeople. The statistics were put forward by Forrester and there is enough proof to support this claim anecdotally, as well as, statistically. The ones that might survive need to prove their worth to their purchasers.

Explaining Buyer’s Journey

It is a crucial framework to frame the marketing strategy for a business. A buyer usually begins with a product/service they require and finally makes a decision to buy, which either fulfills or aligns with the requirement. To put it simply, it is all that somebody would have to do prior to making a decision on whether they want to buy from you or not.

A majority of your customers typically find the information they are looking for in order to make their buying decisions. All these customers are likely to have already made their decisions seven before reaching out to your business.

Let them feel that you are the person or the entity from where they are receiving all the relevant information to help them in making the right decision. You need to also help them with valuable content which is helpful in their decision-making process. Thus, you can nudge them closer to purchasing from you.

The process starts when you feel that there is a need to re-calibrate your sales process, as well as, what is the significance of being in the sales team. As such, the sales funnel is a mono-filament now. The situation is highly ironical as the potential customer pool is bigger now due to the tremendous enhancements in transportation tech and communications these days.

Earlier, marketing used to dump all the things into their sales funnel. It was the job of Sale to sort the leads into prospects while the ultimate end product was a new customer after passing through several stages. However, the marketing and the sales functions work in a very different manner these days. It is no longer the journey of the business. More importantly, it is a journey of the buyers. Check out these four important stats, which prove that is it not a sales funnel but a buyer’s journey these days and the insights needed by a sales professional to be successful going ahead:

Be there for your potential buyers when they are doing research on their own

It is a popular statistics that about 67% of a buyer’s journey takes place even before sales can get involved. However, this phenomenon need not be necessarily true always. When people are busy in doing their online research prior to getting in touch with the sales, a business should consciously and proactively belong to these people’s decision support group even before that can happen. Being present through content and on the social media are now components of a new buyer’s journey.

Timing of the content is very crucial to drive purchasers along the journey

According to a report by Forrester, about 1/3rd of the Business to Business marketers accept that their biggest issue is to figure out ways of serving the relevant content to certain purchasers while the time is proper. The sales funnel is not relevant in the context of this new fact.

Inbound marketing has emerged as being more productive as compared to outbound marketing in many renowned firms

There was a time when outbound marketing used to dominate when businesses could only interact with large groups only through broadcast. According to a report published by the Aberdeen Group, on an average, the best firms discovered that about 60% of their marketing leads popped up from their outbound marketing initiatives and 40% emerged from inbound and digital channels. However, the conversion of the inbound leads was much higher in comparison to the outbound leads. Being with the purchasers along with their journey and not screaming at them can allure serious buyers.

Buyers are found to rely more on people they trust rather than billboards

The Content ROI Center of the CMO Council found after interacting with senior executives from renowned organizations like NEC, IBM, LexisNexis, and Deloitte that just a meager 9% B2B buyers trust their vendor contents completely. Rather, buyers have been found to trust that information more, which come from their trusted people – network connections, family, and friends. While it is impossible to become a friend of everyone, you can be in touch with a large number of potential purchasers frequently due to automation and social selling.

All departments in a company are viewed as only one entity on a buyer’s journey. Today, everything is moving at such a rapid pace including your purchasers. It is important to understand the source of your potential buyers and be available wherever they plan to go. You need to also walk in your customers’ way as they embark upon their exciting journey and align your sales strategy accordingly.