028 - Change is the only constant in B2B decision-making
1* “Change is the only constant in B2B decision-making”
Influencing one person to buy your product or service is no longer enough.
91% of software sellers have seen the decision-maker change during the selection process.
• 20% of B2B decision-makers report that buying committees have increased in size since 2020.
This is important because when you set about marketing, it’s usually built around your key persona.
Whilst fully understanding your core audience remains the priority, understanding how your content and marketing needs to also influence the decision-makers beyond your ICP remains a key factor in what you market.
Some of those key individuals influencing buying decisions will work across procurement, finance and senior management.
Ensure they’re a part of your thinking, content creation and execution.
2* “When companies start with the campaign, they're really starting with Me, rather than starting with the Customer.”
Do you start with the campaign, or do you start with the strategy?
Starting with the campaign usually sets out to deliver a campaign with a blinkered view of the overall impact of your marketing strategy, this means less focus on what your customers really need and how best to engage them on the channel mix based on the wider strategy.
Starting with the strategy really puts the customer at the heart of the direction of the future campaign.
It enables you to think more creatively and intelligently, for example.
What’s the intent of our audience across different channels?
What content resonates across different platforms?
How do they use different social media channels?
What are our target audience trying to accomplish when they engage in different channels?
Start with strategy, it forces you to think beyond campaigns and it will ultimately make the campaign you deliver more effective.
3* Most of the things that influence buying decisions you can’t see in your CRM
Obsessing over attribution and directly tracking every piece of advertising will minimise the effect of your advertising.
Unleashing the shackles of attribution software will enable better and more impactful marketing.
The below illustration is an example of various touchpoints that are influencing buying decisions.
Your CRM is likely attributing these touchpoints to organic or direct.
If you had a measurement framework that helps inform your decision-making vs, just attribution, you will be able to double down on what is influencing buying decisions, and not what has the best click-through rate.
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