With more than two-thirds of the buyer’s journey conducted covertly, modern buying cycles seem deceptively short. However, the 2024 Buyer Insights & Intelligence Series revealed that marketers have more power to influence decision-making than they know. Although B2B buyers don’t initiate contact with sales until they’re about 70% through their buying journey and, 84% of the time, they already know what vendor they’re going to pick once they surface, the week-long webinar series highlighted the proactive steps practitioners can take to personalize and engage this anonymous buyers.
While the full series is available for on-demand viewing, here are the top eight takeaways from the series!
1. Leverage AI Signals To Find Anonymous Buyers
When leveraging AI, it’s important to acknowledge that even the most advanced algorithms make mistakes. ZoomInfo’s Kayla Prunier and Calen Holbrooks explained that in the world of AI, small errors can turn into big blunders, so the first step to using AI to find anonymous buyers is a deep understanding of the technology. With that in mind, the pair said the two building blocks to efficient AI signal decoding include:
- A strong data foundation of robust, up-to-date and granular information; and
- Identifying the best signal that’s most likely to convert your business.
“Understanding which signals are most predictive to conversion is key to effectively targeting and engaging potential buyers,” said Holbrooks. “These signals can come from a variety of sources. We have intent data that most people are starting to use now, different behavioral cues or things coming out of earning reports or demographic information. It’s these pieces of data that we can use to identify buying signals.”
2. Make Sense Of All Anonymous Signals By Understanding What Customers Value
On the topic of signals, Salesloft’s Lihi Chizik noted that marketers’ issue isn’t a lack of signals, but rather a confusing overabundance. She noted that marketers often have so many signals to sift through they don’t know where to begin, which is often due the evolution of the buyer’s journey.
“The modern buying journey is really complex, and it’s because marketers aren’t dealing with the same buyers from years past,” continued Chizik. “The modern buyer values immediacy, convenience and personalization; they don’t want to receive a ‘one size fits all’ message.”
The solution, according to Chizik, is to personalize content, which tasks leaders with understanding the impact of personalization in their marketing messages and the implications of not providing the messaging buyers crave.
3. Put Yourself In Your Buyers’ Shoes To Frame Messaging
Inbox Insight’s Ross Howard noted that to understand the best way to personalize messaging and outreach is for marketers to flip their perspectives. Instead of focusing on speeding up the sales cycle and determining how to make money from prospects, practitioners need to put themselves in the buyer’s shoes.
“To generate engagement within your demand generation, you need to hook into the emotional need in the buyer’s journey,” said Howard. “The real motivator in the content is fear, whether it’s fear of missing out or fear of something going wrong. Marketers need to think in terms of, ‘How can I hook the audience, motivate them to understand their problems and then provide awareness around my solution?’”
To establish themselves as a thought leader, Howard noted that it’s not about putting a logo in front of prospects and buyers; instead, marketers need to provide valuable information that fosters brand trust.
4. Tap Into Customer Voices & Insights To Inform Future Campaigns
As previously noted, the buyer’s journey is evolving and changing every day — what mattered to prospects and end users changes week-over-week, month-over-month and quarter-over-quarter. According to MarginEdge’s Tara Clever, this requires marketing teams to drill into their value propositions and understand what customers are looking for, which requires companies to engage existing users to inform messaging and outreach.
Clever noted that marketers can generate this information by:
- Running messaging and theme ideas by existing users via a Slack channel;
- Mandating a “customer listening quota” for their team; and
- Being aware of closely held beliefs and challenging their own assumptions.
5. For More Tactical Insights, Leverage Intent Data
To create content that’s distinct, different and discoverable, first- and zero-party data are essential, which is information that marketers already have at their fingertips, OpenSesame’s Sarah Sehgal explained.
“Every marketer has excellent access to zero- and first-party data,” said Sehgal. “Zero-party data, specifically, comes from people raising their hands and intentionally sharing information, while first-party is coming from whatever platforms you have on your website that connect into our CRM or marketing automation tool. To generate more first-party insights, you need to go into those systems to segment and activate your audience by action to unlock that type of engagement.”
6. Leverage Interactive Content To Stand Out
Expanding further on the power of creating distinct content was the Emerald Studio team, which featured a quartet of content experts discussing the power of interactive content. The group explained the obvious reason for adopting interactivity is that it’s more interesting than static content. And while it might not seem obvious from the jump, interactive content formats are ripe for repurposing.
“In the same way you can use a static asset as a ‘big rock pieces of content, you can do it with interactive, too,” said Gina Lipere, in the presentation. Lipere continued that these experiences have a variety of elements throughout that could stand on their own, such as:
- An animated graph can be turned into a social GIF
- A section of a research report can become an interactive infographic
- A small checklist can be turned into a quiz or a static asset
7. Provide A Cohesive Experience From Start To Finish
Buyers are now more informed and demanding than ever before, and they expect a personalized and seamless experience from start to finish. Steve Armenti, VP of Revenue Marketing at Digital Ocean (former global demand gen lead for Chrome Enterprise), shared his insights into why marketers should shift toward an account-based go-to-market (GTM) framework.
“An account-based GTM framework is a strategic, long-term approach to entering a market through advanced targeting with specific, high-value accounts or segments,” Armenti explained. “You need to personalize marketing and sales efforts to the unique needs of the decision-making process at those accounts.”
8. Leverage AI To Fuel That Framework
In today’s AI-driven landscape, the true competitive advantage lies not in the technology itself but in how it’s leveraged to enhance the human experience. During an exclusive first-look at an upcoming B2B Marketing Exchange Podcast episode, Elynox’s Daniel Englebretson set the scene by discussing the top five use cases of AI, which include:
- Quickly analyzing large amounts of data (e.g. website visits, content engagement, social media activity) to surface insights about buyer behaviors, interests and pain points that can inform more personalized outreach and content;
- Leveraging AI-powered natural language processing to automatically analyze customer conversations, emails, and other communications to identify common themes, concerns, and buying signals that can be used to tailor the buyer experience;
- Employing AI-driven lead scoring and predictive analytics to better prioritize and personalize engagement with the most promising buyer accounts and contacts;
- Utilizing AI chatbots and virtual assistants to provide buyers with instant, personalized responses to common questions and provide a more seamless, helpful buying experience; and
- Integrating AI into content creation and optimization to dynamically generate and deliver the most relevant content and messaging for each buyer based on their profile and behaviors.
The 2024 Buyer Insights & Intelligence might have wrapped today, but you can still access the full series on demand now!
