How marketers can speed up B2B buying decisions

Virginia Bray

6 Jan 2021

As consumers we all essentially want the same thing: whether its a new phone or a new car - we want to make a good purchase decision (one that we don't live to regret!) at the right price and with the least possible hassle.  As B2B marketers, we sometimes forget that the pressure is on buyers to get things right and avoid the pitfalls of a bad decision.

Today, perhaps more than ever, good content is the vehicle that can help B2B buyers to get where they need to go. It can be a bumpy road though, and full of traffic - suppliers, ‘experts’, digital channels and content sources – so  marketers’ signposts (in the form of content) need to be bolder, more prescriptive and give buyers a decent road map to help them reach their destination by making good decisions faster.

The long and winding road

With so many platforms and channels, it can be easy for buyers to get caught at the never ending research cycle, investigating new technologies, searching for peer reviews, testimonials and waiting for the next disruptive tech solution to come along.

For marketers to break into this cycle - we need to provide the kind of content that helps buyers to complete the real, tangible jobs they need to accomplish. These 'buying jobs' have been identified by Gartner as:

Problem identification. “We need to do something.”
Solution exploration. “What’s out there to solve our problem?”
Requirements building. “What exactly do we need the purchase to do?”
Supplier selection. “Does this do what we want it to do?”
Validation. “We think we know the right answer, but we need to be sure.”
Consensus creation. “We need to get everyone on board.”

To add further complexity, each job can have multiple stakeholders. According to the Forrester SiriusDecisions 2019 B2B Buying Insights Study, 81% of B2B purchases involve a buying group of three or more people, collectively embodying the buying roles of champion, decision-maker, influencer, ratifier, and user.

Creating content that helps buying groups successfully complete tasks on the buyer’s journey can be a real challenge.

Put your foot down

A marketer’s job is to offer buyers the insight and tools they need check tasks off their list, and to share that through the relevant channels. Gartner has found buyers who encounter this type of information are three times more likely to make a high-quality purchase (a solution more ambitious than they’d planned, at a premium price).

What does enabling content look like? It’s content that performs a useful function - developing a business case with supporting data and research, discovering and narrowing down available solution options, setting out potential paths to capability maturity, recommending solutions to addresses business risk, or providing recommendations on how to successfully transition to new solutions.

Lay down a fast track for the buyer

One of the best ways to enable buyers is by offering a personalised 'success roadmap' in the form of their own personalised report and recommendations, aimed at helping to identify key areas of business risk and develop success strategies to address them.

In order to get a personalised report, buyers provide insight by completing an online assessment that captures the relevant information. In return, they receive insight and help to accomplish key buying tasks. 

This approach benefits both buyers and sellers -  enabling better quality sales conversations based on buyer needs and capabilities, and ultimately leading to better, faster buying decisions. 

However setting up an online assessment tool can be challenging and can require significant investment and resources – sometimes taking months to implement. To support this need, Marketing Fusion is offering a new way to put buyers and sellers on the same page.

Green light, go!

Marketing Fusion has partnered with leading SaaS platform provider CapametriX to deliver a unique and compelling solution - accelerating the timeframe to build, test and roll out a buyer enabling assessment tool, equipping direct and channel sales teams to engage buyers and uncover needs. 

The Fusion Accelerator Toolkit can be branded to suppliers and channel partners, fulfils buyer needs for specific enabling content and drives better quality sales engagement.

Marketers can get up and running quickly and enjoy new, insightful results using a purpose-built, optimised platform, together with accelerator tools and support services.

And sellers?  Well anything that helps buyers speed up the journey and make better faster buying decisions has to be a good thing, right?

Discover the Fusion Accelerator Toolkit