It is no secret that to generate noticeable growth and higher revenues, companies must focus on creating a unique brand narrative. People relate to and are often drawn strongly toward meaningful stories. Brand narratives must, therefore, truly relate and resonate with their target audiences in a manner.

This holds true more so for the B2B market, which is more competitive and complex compared to other categories, thus requiring a more nuanced marketing approach.

Identifying the most effective digital marketing methodologies requires an in-depth analysis of audience behavior patterns. This blog explores all stages of the B2B buyer journey and behavior, emphasizing a crucial, but often overlooked market segment of prospective customers that is vital for business growth.

The Critical Out-Market Buyer

As per a study conducted by LinkedIn’s B2B Institute, almost 95% of potential buyers are not ready to buy today. Companies tend to mistake them as ‘out-market,’ forgetting that they could most likely convert to ‘in-market’ soon. This huge chunk of B2B buyer segment is known to consume content passively to adequately prepare themselves for their incoming purchases.

This presents an excellent opportunity for B2B companies and marketers. While converting the active 5% is critical, nurturing and reaching the remaining 95% is equally essential.

For brand narratives to be successful, B2B marketers must effectively build trust amongst their audience by appropriately educating them to stand apart as a highly credible source of information. This way, when consumers are finally ready to make their purchases, they will know exactly where to go and be very sure of their decisions.

Source: LinkedIn Marketing Solutions: The 95-5 Rule by Ty Heath

The B2B Buyer Journey:

However, this might not be as simple as it sounds. Gartner's research suggests that the B2B buying process is becoming more complex, with an average of 6.8 people involved in the entire decision-making and buying process.

B2B companies must understand the various stages of the B2B buying journey and adjust their digital marketing efforts accordingly. The typical B2B buyer journey consists of four stages: problem recognition, research, vendor selection, and purchase.

• The Problem recognition stage: In this first stage, buyers identify a challenge or opportunity and define their requirements. B2B companies can capitalize on this by:

  • Creating valuable, informative, and credible content in the form of blogs, newsletters, eBooks, and infographics that address their target audience's specific pain points and challenges.
  • Organizations must also focus on improving their visibility as much as possible by optimizing their website and content for search engines.

• Research stage: Once the problems have been duly recognized, we move on to analyzing the next stage, i.e., the ‘Research stage’. During this stage, buyers begin researching to identify potential solutions and evaluate their options. To extract the best out of this stage, companies must focus on providing relevant and credible information to prospective customers through means of targeted social media advertising, email marketing, and interactive webinar sessions.

  • While social media marketing is becoming increasingly important in the B2B space, email marketing remains a powerful tool to carve out effective brand narratives. By sending personalized and relevant content to a targeted list of subscribers, B2B marketers can connect with their audience and build a deeper relationship with them.

• The Vendor selection stage: Once buyers have completed their research and are ready to move forward with their purchases, they narrow down their options by shortlisting appropriate vendors. At this stage, marketers must further streamline their content marketing, email, and other communication strategies to reinforce how they can add genuine value to address all consumer concerns.

• The Purchase stage: In this final stage, buyers go ahead and ultimately buy a solution of their choice. This is where all marketing activities culminate in (hopefully) fruitful results. If organizations can maintain a strategic and engaging narrative during all stages of the buyer journey through their varied marketing efforts, the purchase stage is likely to bring positive results.

Concluding Thoughts:

While it is necessary to focus on driving conversions and targeting “in-market” buyers that help organizations drive short-term revenue, B2B marketers must not ignore the passive 95% which can turn ‘in-market’ at any given point. This is especially critical at a time when buying cycles are noticeably getting longer and more complex.

Thoughtful and well-organized marketing efforts that are aimed at building valuable relationships, credibility, and trust are of paramount importance for B2B companies to emerge as industry leaders.

Driving sales and establishing meaningful engagement and relationships with customers is driven by a strong, reliable, and efficient brand that can truly deliver well-suited and ingenious solutions for its customers.

To learn more about how to effectively strategize your B2B marketing efforts that result in a better understanding of your specific market and audience, meaningful customer relationships, and overall business growth, get in touch!