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Stop Giving Buyers What They Want

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There's a lot of conventional wisdom out there in B2B marketing. For example:

  • Buyers know what they need and follow clearly defined steps in the buying process.
  • Marketers should develop personas that reflect these needs and then create content that will address questions and issues that arise at discreet stages.
  • Buyers are only looking for marketers to answer their questions so they can make informed buying decisions.
  • If marketers are telling buyers what to do, they are not "customer centric" or "good listeners."

There are a few problems with this line of thinking:

  • The buying process for most organizations is messy — and highly protracted.
  • Organizations might have a clear vision of the end-state they are pursuing, but seldom have a concrete idea of how any particular solution will get them there.
  • Buyer confusion is exacerbated by the fact that, in most markets, solutions seem like commodities and marketing messages harp on the same tired tropes, especially cost savings and efficiency.

Where's the truth in all this noise?

To find answers, PJA Advertising + Marketing and Aberdeen surveyed more than 250 B2B buyers across a range of industries, including technology, professional services, and manufacturing. The survey, conducted in July and August 2017, covered companies from under $50 million in revenue to more than $5 billion, with 60 percent in North America, 21 percent in Europe, 12 percent in Asia/Pacific, and the rest distributed across Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa. More than a third of respondents were CEOs or presidents, with managers, directors, and VPs making up the rest.

Here are some findings from the survey, "Breaking Through to the B2B Buyer: Offer a Vision for Change."

First and most importantly, B2B buyers want change, and they want to be challenged. According to the study, 65 percent of respondents are more likely to work with a vendor that challenges the way they currently do business, whether by highlighting a pain point or an organizational weakness they weren't aware of. When asked how likely they were to work with vendors that change purchasing criteria by addressing a pain point they couldn't solve before, more than half of respondents said, "often" and another 10 percent said, "every time." The net: as many studies before have found, companies want to work with vendors that make a compelling case for change.

Buyers will alter their purchase criteria for companies that address pain points. As previously mentioned, more than half of the study's respondents said they would be more likely to work with a vendor that changed its purchasing criteria by addressing a pain point that couldn't be solved before. This is critical because it highlights the extent to which buyers are uncertain about what they need. It also reveals that buyers are willing to turn to vendors as experts that are able to educate them on the market, the solution space, and even the way they do business.

If buyers don't find compelling reasons to purchase, the process stalls. The two greatest barriers to purchase approval in today's organizations are lack of clarity around what the company needs (32.8 percent) and indecision (27.9 percent). Vendors can play a huge clarifying role here. When the CIO of a multibillion-dollar company feels more confused about the solution she needs as the purchase process goes on, something is wrong.

Buyers want a path to competitive advantage; products are just a means to this end. Strategic marketers and salespeople get this fact; others don't. In fact, nearly 44 percent of companies (a plurality) said they last paid a premium for a product or service when they believed it would generate competitive advantage. Just as interesting, the second most popular factor in making a purchase decision (42 percent) is whether the vendor or solution supported the company's goals. Only total cost of ownership is judged more important.

These findings are consistent with other research, including from The Challenger Customer, which revealed that an average of 5.4 decision-makers are involved in a complex B2B purchase (and often can only agree on one thing — grinding down prices). Buyers need compelling insights to challenge their assumptions and get them off the dime, and vendors must connect with energized, push-back mobilizer types inside organizations who want to change the status quo, as they will drive consensus for a vendor's solution if they can be engaged. Ignore these realities and the prospect often will choose the path of least resistance: namely, doing nothing.

But if there is so much opaqueness and dithering when it comes to potentially transformative solutions, what is important to cutting through?

First, vendors need to help prospects embrace change so they can make the decision to do things differently. In other words, paint a picture of what the product can do beyond a few marketing buzzwords. More than half of respondents to the PJA survey identified this as a priority.

Second, vendors need to have a vision for making the entire category better. More than half of respondents said that this ability would turn their heads.

The survey also looked at purchase triggers and perceived product differentiation. The results are eye-opening:

  • Brand is an important factor in putting together a short list of vendors, but quite a bit less important as the purchasing decision nears (13.3 percent versus 4.3 percent).
  • In two-thirds of cases, buying decisions are triggered by a perceived business strategy need, versus when a solution is outdated or a higher-level executive calls for it.
  • More than a third (37 percent) of respondents reported that products under consideration are infrequently or never seen as superior to each other.
  • The single greatest factor that determines the time horizon for a purchase is not budget review cycles but perceived complexity of implementing a new solution (45.1 percent).

It is not a big surprise, then, that companies have an insatiable appetite for competitive differentiation. Once that's understood, it's clear how rare it is that companies can connect their products to this business need.

The reality that explodes the B2B buyer myth? For vendors looking to stand out among the sea of competitors when buyers decide they're in the market, three things are compellingly clear:

  1. Vendors have to know their prospects well enough to understand their goals and the pain points that prevent those goals from being achieved. Pointing these out may challenge the buyer, but that is increasingly what they want.
  2. The vendor's brand has to play a deeper role in the market (not just the company) by articulating why the market has to change — the buying process, the conditions for victory, the change that matters.
  3. Vendors have to connect what they do to the prospect's competitive advantage. Nothing short of that will do for today's strategic buyers. And as the survey shows, if vendors succeed they're more likely to earn that vanishingly rare thing in B2B — a premium price.

Remember, just because someone claims to want something, it's often not even close to what they really need. Where you take this opportunity is up to you.

 

Hugh Kennedy is a partner and EVP of planning at PJA Advertising + Marketing.


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