The way in which consumers research and buy products has changed. The driving force behind this movement has been the explosion of web, mobile and social networking. This change is important enough to be recognized by marketers and business leaders alike. In this post, we’ll touch on some of the industry’s best insights and tips on succeeding in marketing for the new buying process. In addition, we will share our perspective and provide key takeaways for your business.
In her book, eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale, Ardath Albee tells us that creating an e-marketing strategy to reach, attract and engage buyers through digital content and communication is critical to building trust with today’s buyer. Why should we believe her? For starters, Econsultancy claims 70% of B2B buyers use search engines at the start of the B2B buying process. If you aren’t capturing the attention of your prospects through digital content, chances are, they won’t find you. Once you have their attention, you need to make sure it is relevant to their needs. Pushing out content just to grab someone’s attention won’t work for gaining new business. Albee mentions in her book that we must engage buyers; make them feel as if you are talking only to them. Personalize your content by better understanding your prospects.
Another key in today’s buying process is that time is of the essence; the shift in the buying process has shortened our ability to focus. Marketers used to have 30 seconds to grab the attention of their prospects. Research shows that span has whittled away to less than 10 seconds. Today, marketers need to focus more on capturing interest, where before, the focus was soley on awareness.
As Sally Hogshead outlines in her book, Facsination, there are seven fascination triggers at your disposal to capture your prospect’s interest. These triggers will help jumpstart the buying process and aid in addressing common sales objections. We have taken our own spin on these attention triggers, and define them in greater detail below.
Power – Take command. This is about being confident and being in control. Leaders have power and in order to be better than your competition, you need to become a leader in your industry.
Passion – Invoke emotion. Let your audience feel the desire to want your product or service.
Mystique – Arouse curiosity. You always want a call to action, a chance to provide as much information to your prospects as possible. Pose questions to them; don’t reveal all your secrets and curiosity will prevail.
Prestige – Earn respect. If your prospects and customers envy you and see you as a model for success, your respect and admiration will quickly appeal to the masses.
Alarm – Change urgency. If your buyer feels their time is running out, or the deal won’t last long, they’ll be more likely to buy.
Rebellion—Change the game. Help your prospects think outside the box and challenge their standards. If we never took chances, life would be boring. Your prospects want something new and different.
Trust— Build loyalty. Once your buyer understands your intentions and learns enough about you, trust will follow. People like to feel confident in their choices, especially their purchases. With you as their trusted advisor, they’ll feel better about their decision and most likely keep coming back.
As Jeff Korhan states in his blog, content marketing is “creating useful or desirable content, distributing it to those that can benefit most from it, and personalizing it to encourage engagement.”
Once you have crafted your message to reflect an attention trigger, the content will work for you. A prospect reads your engaging content, feels the need to act upon it, and calls your company for more information. Ta-da! You have just exercised the power of content to convert a prospect to a customer in the new buying process.
Key takeaways
- Know your audience – research your buyers. Invest content where your prospects spend time.
- Create content that appeals to all seven triggers. Make sure you convey the proper emotions for the right buyer persona.
- Focus your content around customer needs, not selling your product. Content without value is considered spam.
- Build trust and add value through your content and interactions. Respond to Twitter messages, Facebook updates and blog comments. You’ll be surprised who’s listening.
For more information on marketing for the new buying process, download our eBook here. Watch for our webinar date to be announced soon!
With 2011 being described as the year of mobile, our first research topic for the 2012 Data Series was easily decided. Smartphone adoption is close to reaching the halfway mark. Consumers have become increasingly reliant on using their mobile devices for a number of functions including mobile shopping. This growing adoption of mobile technology is largely what motivated Mongoose Metrics to research the mobile Web landscape for mobile readiness.
