The buy – sell process has significantly shifted in the past ten years. In the past, the sales person was required to be the primary educator. In the digital transition, we moved this role to the cloud where “content is king”. Buyers now use the Web as their primary tool for solution discovery and analysis. There has been a continued evolution from “content is king” to the newest iteration of “context is king”. It is no longer impactful to simply provide content. Relevancy by meeting the buyer at their stage of need is proving to build lasting digital relationships and accelerate revenue decisions.
The sales process used to be one of the sellers pushing information to the customer. This has dramatically changed as the customer now pulls information as needed. The buyer is now in control. Making sure the buyer has the right content, in the proper context, delivered in the right channel, formatted for the user’s device, and relevant at the right moment has become the new normal. This new digital difference is what drives buying and loyalty today.
To differentiate and provide superior buyer experience, the marketers need to consider the following facets
- Content – the right content
- Context – role and where the buyer is in the journey
- Channel – social, email, website, sales rep, peer
- Format – video, pdf, and how it is delivered mobile
- Time – the right moment to engage
Today’s buyer is educated and has easy access to information via many digital channels. It is vital to understand the most impactful ways to engage buyers when they are actively seeking information along the buyer journey. Tech buyer journey is a series of moments that matter. The high growth solution providers are embracing modern techniques to engage customers in those moments, especially since the majority of B2B buyers are now making purchasing decisions before even talking to a sales rep.
Research shows that the modern tech buyer journey has 6 progressive, non-linear buyer-moments that matter the most.
- Discover Buyer Moment
- Evaluate Buyer Moment
- Purchase Buyer Moment
- Use Buyer Moment
- Expand Buyer Moment
- Advocate Buyer Moment
Each buyer-moment has unique characteristics driving different buyer behaviors. As a solution provider, you must be part of these buyer-moments to grow your business. You must master the art of engaging modern buyers, differentiating to stand-out, driving demand via digital channels, building customer loyalty to increase customer life time value (LTV), modernizing sales to minimize cost of customer acquisition (CAC), and cross-selling/up-selling to improve margins.
