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In the golden heyday of advertising, art and emotion called the shots. Then the digital wave of internet and informatics rolled in, and now sales and marketing are more scientific than ever: whitewashed in analytics and hightailing it on the sea of precision.
Don’t get us wrong: Numbers are absolutely crucial to tracking marketing ROI and sustaining sales success. But you’ve got to stop letting them dictate your every move. You have to put the person back into your B2B buyer.
Seth Godin tells us that connection is a scarcity in today’s digital economy. And he’s right. There’s an onslaught of information, but a lack of authenticity. That’s why you need to reset the scales and really get to know the person behind those sterile sales analytics: the person keeping your business alive.
Lift your head up from the numbers for a second (you can get back to laser-focus analytics later) and really see the B2B buyer. You may not recognize him. He’s different than he used to be.
Remember that wave of information that capsized the old days of advertising? The B2B buyer got his boat rocked too.Technology has done wonders for your buyers’ information accessibility – so much so that they’re reaching out to your sales team when they’re already 60% through the sales process. Armed with education, a buyer gets dangerous if you don’t acknowledge his knowledge.
Information often leads to impatience, especially when it comes to the buying process. Think about it: When you’re ahead of the game, you don’t feel like waiting for the game to “catch up.”You don’t want to make the buyer wait. With all that knowledge of your industry, offerings and competitors, he’s not going to stand around and beg you to compel him. Bore the B2B buyer, and say goodbye.
This may be hard for all the data-mongers out there to hear: Your buyers make most decisions with their subconscious brains. They unknowingly check in with their eyes, ears, noses, taste buds and feeling centers first … before their pre-frontal cortex has a chance to jump in and rationalize. And then once that logic train pulls in, it takes all the credit.This means that there’s a big difference between 1) what we think and 2) what we think we think. Douglas Van Praet, author of Unconscious Branding, puts it nicely:
“Our conscious minds are designed to think up stories to try to explain and make meaning of the hidden forces and hardwired neural programs that guide our behavior.”
You may be thinking that emotional connections only apply to B2C companies like shoe stores and wineries. It’s true that most of the studies on emotion-laden, sensory-stimulated purchases are focused on consumers, but B2B buyers are people, too. Don’t forget that!
A study conducted by Google and CEB’s Marketing Leadership Council found that B2B buyers are often more emotionally connected to their vendors and service providers than consumers are. Here are some of the findings:
Again, we’ll use numbers to prove it – but remember that there are people behind these numbers:
Your sales success undoubtedly depends on the emotional and educational connections your sales reps and your marketing content make with your buyers.
Help your reps be cognizant of new B2B buyer behavior so they’re able to connect with the authenticity of true sales enablement.
Acknowledge that your buyers have done their research (they know their stuff!), but be prepared to offer them something else: more details, more depth, a compelling argument, a challenging perspective, etc.
Know each buyer persona inside and out, but do so by treating them as actual people – not just demographic outlines with a list of “hooks” (pains) for your sales reps to latch onto.
With buyers placing such high value on information to help them make decisions, you need a library full of emotionally engaging and cognitively compelling marketing content. Remember, though: It’s about quality and quantity. A library full of empty content is like a spread of empty calories – your buyers are going to take their plates elsewhere to satisfy those appetites for hearty content.
Both your marketing and sales teams bring valuable tools to the table. Combine them, and you’ll be more equipped to present your buyer with something truly unique and paradigm-shifting.
That number-crunching is crucial to getting results and tracking results. But you mustn’t lose sight of the person behind the numbers: the person visiting your website, downloading your content and buying your products and services.
“Economies are always based on scarcity (hence the term ‘economize’)." There is no market for humming, for example, because everyone has unlimited humming at their disposal at all times. So, in the abundant digital world, what's scarce? Where is the economy? It's in connection. Who trusts you? Who wants to hear from you? Who will collaborate and support and engage with you? These are things that don't scale to infinity. These are precious resources.
In the connection economy, we reward art and innovation and things worth talking about. We seek out transparency and generosity and the long-term. Sure, there are still people who will profit in the short-run by burning the assets they've got, but as we get ever more connected, that's just not going to scale.
Connection and leadership and trust are going to get ever more valuable. Sure, go ahead and shake your head in agreement, but when you get back to work, are you busy working in the scarce universe or trying to build a place for yourself in the new one?”
– Seth Godin, “Scarcity And Abundance In The Digital Age”
The takeaway: Don’t let your sales team be limited by a scarcity of authentic connection with your buyers.
Fill out the form below to see how the right sales and marketing technology cultivates that critical connection between your reps and your buyers. It’s time to put the person back into the buyer persona with sales enablement tools.
