The Anonymous B2B Buyer Journey

To increase opportunities that generate more revenue, you need to make your buyer journey as personal and as genuine as possible.

But that’s easier said than done when the buyer journey is so notoriously complex, not to mention highly anonymous.

Today, B2B buyers are defying the traditional sequential progression of buyer stages. They go through the six steps below to successfully make a purchase. However, they often revisit buying tasks that were traditionally executed chronologically.

Where the traditional linear buyer journey once looked like this:

It now resembles something more like this.

Source: Gartner.

What’s the cause of this shift in how B2B buyers execute their buying ‘tasks’?
Two things.

Channels.
There have been so many new and developing digital channels added to the marketing mix, it makes it increasingly difficult for marketers to understand in detail where they are generating demand and thus where the revenue is.

Independent research.
As the buyer journey is now almost exclusively online and information is readily available, it means buyers can research independently, making them anonymous to sales reps. Buyers are no longer spending as much time interacting with Reps, meaning they don’t get the opportunity to influence customer decisions as much as they used to.

In fact, research from Gartner finds that B2B buyers spend only 17% of their time meeting with potential suppliers when considering a purchase. If they’re comparing multiple suppliers, the time spent with one Sales Rep could be as little as 5%.

For marketers and salespeople, the lack of insight about buyers, who’s who in the buying group and where they are in the buying journey makes it difficult to know who to reach out to, when and with what message. It also makes it harder for marketing and sales to provide relevant website content and good customer experiences due to limited transparency.

Ultimately, the complexity of the buying journey and the anonymity of B2B buyers makes it tough for marketers and salespeople to do their job.

To overcome this, you need to find new ways to identify and understand anonymous buyers earlier in their journey, capture demand and create experiences with prospects that invite deeper engagement.