Tag: Gartner

Putting the B2B Buyer First and Understanding Their Purchase Journey, Part 1

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A customer’s purchase journey is never an easy process to document and collect data on. Thankfully, Brent Adamson is interviewed on this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite. As Principal Executive Advisor at Gartner (formerly CEB), Brent works to help B2B companies explain to customers why their solution is the best available.

Throughout part 1 of this conversation, Brent and Drew discuss why putting the customer first should be at the heart of any B2B organization. They also explain the 6 non-linear steps in any purchase journey, and Brent shares his #1 tip for any B2B supplier.

Click here to learn what you need to know about B2B marketing.

What You’ll Learn

Putting the buyer first is the #1 step to create a better purchase journey

B2B companies should be focusing on understanding how buying happens. Learning how your ideal customer views the buying process will give you direction when bridging the gap between marketing and sales departments. Brent explains that unfortunately, few brands in the B2B space are doing this well. To learn how to put the buyer first and reorganize your brand’s purchase journey model, be sure to listen.

The 6 main steps in any B2B purchase journey – they’re not linear!

Contrary to what many professionals believe, a purchase journey within B2B industries isn’t linear. And closing a deal isn’t about progression, it’s about completion. Brent outlines the 6 main steps that must be completed before any buying decision is made.

  1. Problem identification
  2. Solution exploration
  3. Requirements building
  4. Supplier selection
  5. Consensus creation (always happening)
  6. Validation of information (always happening)

These steps are far from being linear, especially when multiple decision-makers are involved. Of all the B2B buyers surveyed by Brent and his team at Gartner, 90% reported having to revisit one of the top 4 steps multiple times throughout their purchase journey.

Marketers should be doing THIS, before anything else, to help buyers choose their solution

Given these 6 steps, what is the ideal job of a B2B marketer? Brent believes it’s simple: marketers need to make buying easier. The first step in doing so is ensuring that problem-solving information is available through multiple channels. The answers given to a buyer over the phone from a sales rep should be consistent with information available online and via social media.

Actively solving a customer’s problems, before they even recognize a problem, is the key to making B2B buying easier. By understanding a buyer’s problems, offering them the best solution, and supporting them through their purchase journey, you’re well on your way to closing more deals in your industry.

Timeline

  • [0:30] Brent’s Renegade Rapid Fire segment, and his unique definition of marketing
  • [7:30] The importance of putting the customer first
  • [12:11] Brent explains the traditional customer purchase journey model
  • [17:42] The 6 main steps to a buying process – they’re NOT linear
  • [25:40] B2B buying is incredibly complex, and it’s through a multi-channel approach
  • [33:27] Here are your need-to-know takeaways from part 1 of this conversation with Brent

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Here’s Why Your Brand Must Deliver on a Marketing Promise

Posted on by Drew Neisser

Creating the perfect marketing promise is one of the biggest goals for CMOs. But a marketing promise without a product to back it up will not succeed. On this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite, Drew interviews Jennifer Deutsch, CMO of Park Place Technologies – a company that specializes in third-party data center maintenance. She shares her experiences in pairing the perfect marketing message with a brand-changing product and it’s an episode you don’t want to miss.

Jennifer shares her expert opinion on how your team can identify the “aha moment” for your brand. She and Drew also discuss how sales leads are directly connected to marketing and the importance of simple marketing.

Learn from Jennifer’s recent success with marketing promises – click here to listen now.

What You’ll Learn

A product MUST deliver on your marketing promise, or else it won’t succeed

If your CEO says “we don’t have a new product, but we need a new campaign” – consider finding a new company. Marketing without a deliverable promise isn’t really marketing, and it won’t make an impact on your customers. It’s the CMO’s job to find a position that supports a new product and then deliver on that marketing promise. A stellar new product and a foolproof marketing plan create a 1-2 punch that will fundamentally change perceptions about your brand.

Anticipating your customer’s needs will allow you to crush your competition

Jennifer and her team at Park Place Technologies have created the perfect tagline for their latest product and marketing releases, “Up-time is everything.” They recognized that for data centers and technology companies, “downtime” (where servers and technology aren’t functional because of repairs or unplanned incident) directly equates to lost profit. Jennifer and her team decided to passionately pursue the idea of “up-time” and make it a new cornerstone for Park Place Technologies. That was their “aha brand moment.”

On this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite, Jennifer explains her process for internal and external rollout after identifying customer needs and creating a marketing campaign to support the product. They spent 1 month explaining the “why” and the inspiration behind the new campaign. This allowed internal audiences to buy into the new direction. Then, the global external rollout followed with digital and print marketing efforts. Combining these two rollout plans, just as Park Place Technologies did, will allow your company to see the greatest levels of success when delivering on a marketing promise.

Simplicity in marketing key, but hard to master

Effective marketing begins by simply understanding what makes your audience tick. Jennifer encourages CMOs to speak their customers’ language and identify their needs. After you’ve identified those puzzle pieces you can begin to craft messages that speak to those needs. Drew and Jennifer discuss why simple marketing is as valuable as gold, but why it’s so hard to perform in the right ways. Simplicity in the right places is genius, but simplicity in the wrong marketing places isn’t strong enough to make an impression on your customers. For their solutions on how to simplify your marketing while have it be backed up by a product, don’t miss this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite.

Timeline:

  • [1:12] Jennifer’s diverse experience brings a high level of expertise to this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite
  • [2:35] Jennifer’s Renegade Rapid Fire
  • [12:02] How did Jennifer and her team come up with the idea of anticipating customer needs?
  • [17:46] What percentage of leads are driven by marketing?
  • [19:43] A new product launch delivers on your marketing promise
  • [23:53] How marketing & PR is directly tied to Park Place’s global leads
  • [26:24] Why simple is marketing is hard
  • [28:07] The biggest lessons Jennifer learned while at Park Place Technologies

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Resources & People Mentioned

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