Innovation and the New Buyer's Journey

The modern B2B buyer’s journey has proven to be complex and challenging for many marketers. Innovative leaders are searching for new tools and strategies to engage buyers at the right time and place throughout their journey.

The process has changed dramatically over the past several years, becoming more digital, self-driven, and abstracted from conventional marketing touchpoints. Strategies that simply focus on the traditional steps in the journey – awareness, consideration, and decision – are no longer relevant. These strategies will not only consistently miss the mark but also waste valuable marketing resources.

I won’t attempt to include a comprehensive list of every change in the modern journey (perhaps I will tackle that in another post), but the list below highlights a few critical challenges:

• Nearly 60% of technology buyers are now Millennials, pivoting away from Gen X, especially Boomers.
• These buyers are self-serve and digital-first, avoiding direct contact with vendors during their process/journey.
• Modern buyers want information from various (5-7) third-party sources and often shy away from traditional content such as analyst reports, self-promoting webinars, and product one-pagers.
• Today’s B2B buyers are increasingly collaborative, adding complexity to the process and pressuring marketers to impact different buying personas simultaneously.
• They complete much of their research before landing in your pipeline or speaking to a salesperson. Influencing buyers during the early phase is critical.

Thought leadership (TL) represents a unique and intelligent path to intersecting with today’s buyers as they move through this new journey.

Before diving into the value of TL, I’ll define what it isn’t and what it is. TL is not product evangelism or a selling motion. There is a time and place to talk about how fantastic or competitively positioned your product is, but that’s not the job of a thought leader. Thought leadership is unique in its ability to infuse trust into the early relationship among buyers and vendors. My TL teams consistently avoided mentioning products, thus taking on the role of a trusted advisor.

Thought leaders are experts who leverage deep real-world knowledge coupled with a specific point of view. Most are recognized industry leaders, instructors, authors, and influencers. They act as a multiplier to a go-to-market strategy.

Incorporating TL into an organization allows a vendor to go beyond a product narrative and impact the buyer’s journey from a strategic vision, authority, and trust position.

Comprehensive TL programs amplify an organization’s reach and deliver value across many critical business areas:

• Strategy and Vision. Thought leaders research and identify new trends and technologies and communicate a strategic point of view. Internally, TL influences product innovation and messaging.
• Messaging and Content. Thought leaders are exceptional, respected content creators who write and speak globally, influencing buyers, customers, and partners.
• Enablement. TL organizations support marketing, sales, partners, events, and executive briefing center (EBC) engagements.
• Influencer and Analyst Relations. Thought leaders are company spokespeople who are well-prepared to interact with the press, analysts, industry influencers, social media, and communities.

The return on investment for thought leadership is easily quantifiable: boosting your company’s profile beyond commoditized product feature battles, lifting your brand as a strategic leader, shortening sales cycles, attaining meaningful press coverage, and, most importantly, positioning you to impact the modern buyer’s journey in a unique and valuable way.

If you want to dive deeper into how thought leadership could positively impact your company, please reach out, and let’s talk.