Buyer expectations for immediacy, relevance, and instant gratification have carried over from B2C to B2B and been amplified with Millennials and Gen Zers comprising more than half of the modern workforce. From their consumer interactions, digitally savvy B2B buyers are aware that they’re signaling their interests through their behavior, content consumption, and social interactions. In a post-digital world, these buyers expect that providers will use that information to deliver relevant content and experiences.
But what’s most relevant to these B2B buyers in the moment is in a state of constant motion, changing with each interaction based on past experiences, new information obtained, and new activity within the buying group. In this dynamic environment, linear tactic sequences are no longer effective. Marketers must choreograph the information requirements, interaction paths, and engagement styles of individual buyers, keeping rhythm with other buying group members as they move together through a purchase decision process, influenced by an almost even mix of digital and human interactions.
Fortunately, B2B buyers continuously transmit signals as they research, evaluate, purchase, adopt, and review solutions to business needs. They’re also responding to signals from the market, competitors, and brands that they do business with. B2B organizations must capture, connect, and contextualize these signals to deliver cohesive, valuable interactions across the customer lifecycle and drive revenue process transformation.
- Customer-obsessed growth requires interdisciplinary signal literacy. To succeed in today’s competitive landscape, B2B organizations need to know their customers inside and out. Signals that illuminate customer needs, preferences, perceptions, sentiment, and influences help go-to-market teams create more meaningful interaction experiences and develop a more accurate assessment of not only propensity to buy but also perception of value realization.
- Signals accelerate revenue process transformation. B2B marketing and sales teams must transition away from the marketing-qualified lead as the only indicator for propensity to buy and leverage as many signals as possible to identify target accounts in the market and engage active buying group members. Signals help revenue teams better anticipate, understand, and respond based on where a buying group may be in their buying process and the Forrester B2B Revenue Waterfall™.
- Lifecyle revenue marketing (LRM) orchestration is fueled by signals. LRM is an outside-in approach that breaks through silos, redefines audience engagement, and better aligns marketing programs to the full lifecycle of revenue opportunities. Signals are critical to supporting a variety of B2B buying motions and scenarios. Sensing and responding to buying signals helps frontline marketing teams better enable their audiences at any stage of the journey through personalized, role-based messaging delivered in context and at the right time.
Joining us at Forrester’s B2B Summit North America in Austin May 5–8? Add these seven sessions to your agenda to learn how you can harness the power of buying signals in B2B marketing and sales.
