The buyer’s journey and the selling process terms are often confused.
However, the sales process focuses on how to push the customer to get them to buy from you.
While the buyer’s journey presents the client’s questions and needs that need to be answered and met. They need content and contacts to help them through their journey – at their own pace.
They need content and contacts to help them through their journey – at their own pace.
So, are you creating your business strategy based on the selling process or the buyer’s journey?
It’s important for you to rethink your content marketing and social selling strategy to sherpa the buyer through their decision making process.
Your Customers Are Researching For Answers To Help Them Buy
- 70-90% of the buyer’s journey is complete prior to engaging a vendor, so it’s difficult to sell to someone who is not listening to your sales tactics. (Forrester)
- B2B buyers engage with 11.4 pieces of content prior to making a purchase, indicating it takes multiple types of content are critical to touching your audience base. (Forrester)
- 76% of buyers prefer different content at each stage of their buying research, so content marketers need to (Source: Pardot)
The research suggests that decision makers are self-sherpa their way through their buyer’s journey with content. They have their own content marketing strategy to guide their purchase suggestions, no matter what your selling process.
3 Key Steps To Use The Buyer’s Journey Instead of The Selling Process
1. Focus on Content Development For Each Phase Of The Buying Process. Creating customized content is the key to joining you customer on their buying journey!
2. Deliver Content To Where Your Customers Congregate. Social selling requires more than sending out Tweets and LinkedIn posts. Marketers who map their expertise, content and connection to customers in their watering holes will cross the winners line at the end of the buyers’ journey.
3. Use Your Employee Evangelists To Go Wider and Deeper. Activating your employees and their earned networks will help you consistently connect with an incremental network (to your company’s owned channels) of buyers at the various levels of their research and decision making.
Do you have another way to map your efforts to the buyer’s journey? If so, please share below!
The Big Buying Lesson
Companies need to put themselves in the shoes of the customers. Understanding questions they will ask will help deliver the expertise on their terms vs. trying to sell them something you think they need!
