In a seminar at the 2016 CEB Sales and Marketing Conference Gabriel Tsavaris of Qotient reported that most recent findings indicate . . .
. . . 6.8 People at a Company Are Involved in Every B2B Purchase
Let’s look at that.
This would have to be at larger mid-sized as well as large companies. Smaller companies would normally have less people involved. However, they probably have more than one.
In those companies where multiple people are involved in the purchase of a product or service, all are not involved to the same degree. Probably one or two make the final decision. The others just sign off on the purchase.
That also means if several are not content with the product or service or the vendor, the company probably won’t purchase it.
What Bearing Does That Have On Your Content Marketing Campaigns?
Simply this – you cannot assume one person at any company will have the sole power to buy your product or service. Several people may be involved. You will have to target each of them with your marketing.
What Steps Do You Have to Take When Building Your Campaigns?
The first is to figure out which people at a company will be involved in the decision-making process. What is their actual role in it? Are they key players or do they play a secondary role?
How do you get this information? By doing the necessary research on the company. One good place to start is to get the help of your sales rep who will be in charge of the account or the sales rep most familiar with the company.
If they don’t have this information, ask them to get it. What’s in it for them? The information in your Content Marketing campaign will be familiarizing your prospects with your company and the product or service they need. This will make it much easier for your sales rep to make the sale to the company. Doing this for you will help them.
Know the Roles of Those in the Decision Process
Once you know the people involved in the decision-making process, you have to determine their roles. Are they the ultimate decision makers? Are they secondary players?
Make sure the ultimate decision makers get every piece in your Content Marketing campaign. Send them blog posts. Email them. Get every important article, case study and white paper on the product or service you want them to buy to them. Also invite them to participate in any webinars you might conduct.
Those who will play a secondary role and may just influence the decision makers do not have to receive every marketing piece. They just have to receive the important ones. These people should receive information on your company and the service you provide to customers. They should also receive white papers, case studies and articles on the product or service you are promoting.
Make Sure Each Piece is Interesting to the Person Receiving It
You will also have to make sure the marketing info each person receives is of interest and appeals to them.
If they are big picture people and don’t focus on the details, make sure to focus on the big picture with them
If they are analytical, make sure to focus on the specific details.
You might be concerned about the extra work this entails. Once you get into it, you will find it fairly easy to restructure and reformat each marketing piece to connect with the person receiving it. You will be using the same information – just in a different way.
The Consequence of Failing to Do This
You cannot rely on the one person you may be targeting right now to get the information to the others that they deem important. Some also may not value the person passing along the information. Their company may not buy the product or service they need. So you need to get the information directly to them in the format they desire.
Remember – your objective Is to move a prospective buyer of your product or service from a cold lead to a hot lead ready to buy. If you’re not doing this with everyone at a company involved in the decision-making process, your chance of making the sale and gaining a new customer grows less.
