Online searches, vendor websites, and peer recommendations are the top 3 resources for B2B buyers.
As a marketer, it’s not enough to just know about the B2B buyer’s process. Your success rides on your ability to understand how your buyers are getting their information — and, more specifically, where they’re getting the information they need to make a purchasing decision.
So where are they getting most of their information? I can tell you, it’s no longer from sales reps.
In our digital era, buyers are heading straight to the internet to gain valuable insight before making purchases. Thanks in large part to social media, mobile technologies, and the world wide web, buyers are becoming increasingly self-sufficient. In fact, 70% of the buyer’s journey is complete before a buyer even reaches out to sales. This means they have already spent a fair amount of time educating themselves with the enormous amount of information available to them on the internet.
[bctt tweet=”70% of the buyer’s journey is complete before a buyer even reaches out to sales. This means they have already spent a fair amount of time educating themselves with the enormous amount of information available to them on the internet.” username=”Fronetics”]
Is your content marketing meeting buyers where they are? Here are the three most important sources of information for B2B buyers.
Listen, your prospects are forming their opinions about your business and your products based on what they find on the web, and early on.
This new reality may seem daunting, given how much of the purchase decision-making process occurs before you have the opportunity to engage with a potential client. But in reality, this changing climate offers serious opportunities for businesses to demonstrate their expertise, without turning buyers off with overt sales pitches.
To make the most of the potential purchaser’s experience with your business, content is key.
A robust content marketing program builds brand awareness, establishes trust and rapport with prospects, and generates traffic to your website. Thoughtfully generated and curated content catches the attention of buyers and keeps them interested in your business through the time of purchase.
With a well-thought-out, data-driven content marketing strategy, you’ll be ready to meet digital natives where they are.
Today’s B2B buyers are mostly digital natives who get the majority of their purchasing information from online searches, vendor websites, and peer recommendations.
From a content marketing perspective, knowing where your buyers get their information is critical to an effective strategy. So what are most important sources of information for today’s B2B buyers? 20 years ago, you might have named things like product info sheets or sales reps. But not anymore.
B2B buying has completely evolved, thanks in large part to the increasing percentage of digital natives who now make up the B2B purchasing landscape.
Is your content marketing strategy meeting buyers where they are? Here are the three most important sources of information for B2B buyers.
3 top sources of information for B2B buyers
1. Online search
Not only is an online search the first move for 62% of B2B buyers, 94% of buyers report using online research at some point during the purchasing process. And this isn’t a surprise, when you consider that, according to a study of millennial buyers by Merit, “some 73% of 20 to 35 year olds are involved in product or service purchase decision-making at their companies.”
[bctt tweet=”Not only is an online search the first move for 62% of B2B buyers, 94% of buyers report using online research at some point during the purchasing process.” username=”Fronetics”]
So what does this mean for your business? Gone are the days when a simply thinking about keyword rankings was enough to boost your SEO. In our four-part series on writing for SEO, we address how search engines and the search landscape have changed over the past several years. Improving your search ranking can seem like a complex process, but in the end it all boils down to one thing: quality content, presented in a clear and compelling manner.
2. Vendor websites
So buyers conduct their online search. And if you’ve done your content marketing homework, they find your business. How does your website stack up?
According to Bain’s global customer insights chief Eric Almquist, by the time they reach your website, buyers “will have already formed a strong opinion about many aspects of the value expected from a vendor.” For this reason, your website should “provide a wealth of information on these types of value, with details on where… products have been successful.”
Your website should be one of your primary assets. If you don’t give visitors plenty of easy, attractive opportunities to convert on your website, content marketing won’t generate leads for you. Your content should be organized and clear, presented with the goal of helping your potential customers. And opportunities for conversion should be everywhere.
3. Peers and colleagues
As digital natives step into purchasing roles in the supply chain, they’ve “brought their consumer habits to the B2B world,” says Almquist. This means that a big part of the purchasing process involves review sites, where purchasers seek the opinion of their peers and colleagues. “Reviews will tell the buyer how a vendor performs on many ease-of-doing-business elements long before the buyer has actual experience with that vendor.”
This aspect of content marketing can seem daunting for many businesses because of the perception that what’s on these sites is completely out of your control. But with the right strategy in place, review sites are actually a big opportunity for your business.
For a start, vendors “should encourage customers who are advocates of the company to provide reviews on relevant sites.” It’s also important to take an active role on these sites, responding to customer reviews — even the occasionally inevitable bad ones.
Says Almquist, “First impressions matter as much as ever in B2B markets. Today though, that first look comes through websites, user forums, and quick case studies, not flesh-and-blood sales pitches.”
With a well-thought-out, data driven content marketing strategy, you’ll be ready to meet digital natives where they are.
What sources of information for B2B buyers do you focus on?
Here are our thoughts on how often your company should blog, including challenges and ways to overcome them.
Creating valuable, relevant content in a strategic and consistent manner creates demand for your products and services and drives profitable customer action. Blogging is a large part of the foundation of your content marketing strategy. If it’s not, it should be.
Blogging is a great way to attract traffic to your website, build brand awareness, and interact with new visitors. But, a question we get all the time is, “How often should my company blog?”
Blogging: frequency matters.
Blogging every once in awhile isn’t going to get you results. You need to publish quality content on a consistent basis to attract prospects to your site.
[bctt tweet=”Blogging every once and awhile isn’t going to get you results. You need to publish quality content on a consistent basis to attract prospects to your site.” username=”Fronetics”]
The reality is that the more often you blog, the more traffic and leads you’ll get. Search engines consider posting frequency in their rankings. What’s more, every time you post, you create a new opportunity to be found, to be shared, and to be linked to by other sites.
Blogging: the challenge.
The trouble in publishing more posts is balancing resources so that you’re publishing frequently but maintaining value and quality within your content. We’re big advocates of testing to find your personal sweet spot for the amount of posts your organization is able to publish to maximize traffic and leads.
When you start publishing more frequently, make sure to track your KPIs, calculate ROI, and assess whether increasing blogging frequency is right for your business. You may be surprised at the results.
Here’s Elizabeth Hines, creative/editorial director at Fronetics, to discuss how often your company should be posting blogs.
Video: How often should my company blog?
Final thoughts.
Blogging needs to be a central part of your content marketing strategy. And unfortunately, it can take a while to start drawing traffic (and eventually, leads) from your posts. But the benefits of consistent blogging make it worth it.
And don’t forget, blog posts become more credible with age. That is to say, search engines value older content that has had more time to accumulate, like social shares and referrals from other web pages. The more relevant a blog post proves itself to be to readers over time, the higher it will rank in search engine results.
Have you tried blogging more frequently? Coming up with topics can be one of the biggest challenges. But don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.
If you’re looking to generate more leads on your website, you need to create opportunities to capture visitors and implement a strong content strategy to encourage engagement.
Lots of supply chain and logistics companies are catching on to the benefits of content marketing. And of those, many are implementing a content marketing strategy to plan and execute their marketing.
[bctt tweet=”There’s no point in pouring a bunch of time, money, and resources into a robust content marketing program if the website that you’re driving traffic to stinks.” username=”Fronetics”]
But there’s an issue a lot of supply chain and logistics companies are running into: a weak website that doesn’t encourage the generation of leads. Essentially, there’s no point in pouring a bunch of time, money, and resources into a robust content marketing program if the website that you’re driving traffic to stinks.
In a recent post, we talk about what a weak website looks like. If you think you may fall into this category, don’t fret. There is still time to generate more leads on your website.
Consistently producing quality content and making sure you’re utilizing various distribution channels — social media, a blog, etc. — will help draw your target audience to your website. Once they’re on your site, you need to make sure they have a positive user experience. And more importantly, they need ample opportunities to learn more about your products and services.
These opportunities to engage with your content help move users down the sales funnel. You’ll capture leads that have the potential to become sales.
So how do you ensure your website is a lead-generating machine? Here are five tips to generate more leads on your website.
Infographic: 5 tips to generate more leads on your website
Most importantly, remember to be prudent about the role your website plays in the lead-generation process. A strong website with quality content, great visuals, and easily identifiable calls-to-action only works to generate leads and push users down the sales funnel. You’ll still need someone to help close the deal.
If your supply chain company isn’t active on social media, know that your competitors are. Here are three ways social media can help the supply chain, improving processes and expanding your audiences.
I remember my first supply chain job after college. My boss was stuck on the word “social” and didn’t see any value in social media at the time. He believed that you came to work to be productive and that social media was counterproductive. There was no need for a crossroads between social media and the supply chain.
Fast forward a few years — ok, maybe more than a few — and there are still plenty of supply chain companies that aren’t utilizing social media to help grow their brands. Social networking isn’t about being social; it is about facilitating communication and collaboration, distributing content, and engaging with target audiences. It’s about making processes more efficient using innovative technologies, like automation tools.
[bctt tweet=”Social networking isn’t about being social; it is about facilitating communication and collaboration, distributing content, and engaging with target audiences.” username=”Fronetics”]
As part of a comprehensive content marketing strategy, social media can actually help your supply chain company meet ROI benchmarks. Utilizing social media increases your brand’s visibility and promotes transparency. The distribution of high-quality, thought provoking content will help your target audience see you as an industry leader, which will help you boost sales and increase customer engagement.
Here are three ways social media can help the supply chain improve communication, increase information sharing, and engage with new (and current) customers.
Video: 3 ways social media can help the supply chain
Recommendations
Still apprehensive about diving into social media? Try not to focus on the ‘social’ aspect. Instead, focus on using the tools available through social media platforms as a means to get things done.
Looking to increase leads? Increase engagement with potential customers through content? Find innovative ways to grow your target audiences? Find ways to support these goals through social media.
And if you’re not comfortable in the social media world (we think you need to be), find younger professionals on your team that are. Encourage these employees to find new and exciting opportunities to increase visibility and engagement through social media.
What ways do you think social media can help the supply chain?
