| | |  | How2 Bring the B2B Buyer’s Journey In Line with Marketing
B2B marketers are often asked to help with sales tasks like running an event. They should instead focus on “the buyer’s journey”. Find out how to develop strategies whilst being very selective about your involvement in the execution.
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| | | | | | Marketers should take the lead in analysing the buyer’s journey, but they can’t be expected to carry out this task alone. Salespeople have considerable knowledge about B2B buyer behaviour, so input from both sales and marketing departments is essential.
The marketing department can then concentrate on the particular steps where they can make the greatest contribution. Here are some examples: |  1. Positional marketing | This is all about preparing the market by using different B2B positional strategies like eMail marketing; online advertising; PR; and other marketing activities.
First of all, identify the B2B prospects to target, i.e. where you can demonstrate a problem which can be solved by your product or service. Research your customer files and inactive prospect files to find contacts that still need your solution. Determine the differences between the prospects who did place an order and those who didn’t.
Invest in further B2B marketing activity such as focus groups or telemarketing. Find out why one segment was concerned enough to purchase yet another segment wasn’t. Then set out to find more B2B prospects with the same concerns.
Develop marketing plans that position your solutions with the new prospects. They may not be ready to act in the short-term but make sure they contact your company, rather than the competition, when they are finally ready to take the next step along the buyer's journey. | | 2. Prepare the channel | The sales channel needs to be prepared by recruiting both direct sales people and indirect partners. You will need to create collateral for both groups, to train and to motivate them.
An effective B2B channel marketing strategy persuades the B2B buyer that the pain of doing nothing is greater than the pain of researching solutions. The option of doing nothing initially seems like the easy choice until you explain the consequences of procrastination.
Marketers should source third-party data about the results of past procrastination, and use this information in seminars; White Papers; eNewsletters; etc. The sales force should be shown how to use this data to move to the next stage of the buyer's journey. | | 3. Generate Demand | There’s no point in a salesperson meeting with a B2B buyer if the buyer is unconcerned by the problem for which you have the solution. Even worse is the buyer concerned about the "wrong" problem, i.e. one for which the competition has better solutions.
Integrated marketing, using different strategies like seminars; White Papers; eMails; and eNewsletters, can educate the B2B buyer about problems and their relative solutions, so making the way easier for your sales force. It’s the job of marketing to identify prospects with problems that can be solved by your own solutions.
B2B marketers should get in touch with inactive prospects and nurture them until the time is right to re-engage their interest. By keeping their eyes on the prospect at all times, marketing can provide the tools to gain the business. | | | | "Marketers should take the lead in analysing out the buyer’s journey, but they can’t be expected to carry out this task alone" |  | | | | | | "Marketers can take get in touch with inactive prospects and nurture them until the time is right to re-engage their interest. Keep your eyes on the prospect - marketing can provide the tools to capture the business" | | | | |  | 
Lead Nurturing | | | 
Channel Marketing | | | 
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