The Good Old Days Are Gone
Engaging buyers is getting harder. Sending more emails and spinning events may have worked the first 100 times, but not anymore. The modern B2B buying journey has evolved and has created some hard truths for sellers to accept. Buyers need input they trust to keep progressing through their buying cycle. That’s why the world’s leading companies are joining the peer-to-peer selling movement which includes different techniques, communication strategies and marketing solutions.
TRUTH #1
Buyers don’t trust you.
In fact, they trust the barista at Starbucks more than B2B sales and marketers these days!
TRUTH #2
Buyers trust other buyers’ opinions.
With low levels of trust in vendors, buyers are turning to their peers for advice before making purchase decisions.
STATISTICS:
- 49% of B2B buyers rank “Peers and Colleagues” as a top choice impacting purchasing decisions rising from 20% in 2015 (DemandGen, 2016 B2B Buyers Survey Report)
- There is a 50% greater conversion rate when customer advocacy is integrated into the sales process. (Mainstay Partners)
- People are 4x as likely to buy when referred by someone they know. (Nielsen)
TRUTH #3
Buyers have larger groups to work with.
The average B2B buying committee now averages close to 7 people, which was just 2 a few years ago!
STATISTICS:
- The average B2B buying group consists of 6.8 people, which has grown from 5.4 in 2014. (CEB)
- On average, there are 17 buyer interactions in a committee-buying scenario. Nine of those are human. (SiriusDecisions, 2015 B-to-B Buying Study)
TRUTH #4
Buyers are overwhelmed by vendor content.
While creating content for every stage of the buying cycle is necessary, there’s only so much information a buyer can digest before it becomes noise for them to filter.
STATISTICS:
- An average buyer gets 100+ emails a day, opens just 23%, and clicks on just 2% of them. (Tellwise)
- 45% of B2B marketing budgets are devoted to content marketing. 84% of marketers expect their content marketing spend to INCREASE in the next 5 years…YET…67% of marketers cannot articulate a concrete business impact from their content marketing efforts. (CEB, 2016)