Last week NBU towers was host to a fascinating event. Industry experts came together to discuss how the next generation of B2B researchers are influencing the ever-changing B2B buying process.
With insights from Google, marketing industry analysis house Econsultancy, security brand AVG and B2B Marketing magazine, we explored the challenges brands face in aligning communications and sales strategies across the traditional B2B sales cycle.
For those who couldn’t make it, here are the key takeaways:
- The new wave of B2B buyers are young and digitally savvy. In fact, Google says 40% or European researchers are aged between 18 – 34 years old. Despite being young, 50% have a ‘heavy influence’ on purchasing decisions. However, they are hard to reach as 30% only consider one to two suppliers.
- Mobile and video are key to reaching this demographic, and therefore maintaining visibility throughout the consideration phase. B2B brands should look to provide personalised, localised content throughout the entire customer purchase path. Audience data is vital in understanding the type of content that interests your consumers. With this, you can provide the right content at the right time. This will enable you to stand out to buyers.
- Brand and message consistency across all platforms, and at every touchpoint, must be a priority to create an invaluable customer experience. To achieve this consistency, B2B brands need to have a cross-team approach and a collaborative company culture in place.
- At the same time, don’t produce content for the sake of it. B2B marketers must stop selling and start inspiring. They must bring more emotion into content production, rather than just promotion. The key to success is clear communication, both internally and externally. However, technology to unify channels and content strategies is also key.
If you’re interested in reading more we have an in-depth report here and you can also see a short video here.
We hope you find it useful, and if you’d like to have a chat with us about how to communicate to this new breed of buyer give us a call!