The buy cycle is the process that B2B sector buyers engage in when purchasing products and services, and one that marketers must pay attention to when planning marketing strategies and crafting messaging.
The buy cycle consists of a methodical and deliberate series of four stages: Needs Awareness, Research, Consideration & Comparison, and Procurement. In each of these stages, buyers engage in different behaviors and use a wide variety of information sources to locate vendors and support their buying decisions.
Online methods dominate the buy cycle
Although the buy cycle has been around for as long as products have been bought and sold, the way purchasers go through the four stages has changed. Today, online methods dominate the four stages—from conducting research on the Internet, to contacting vendors and requesting quotes online, to comparing vendor offerings using content found online, to submitting purchase orders.
Get found early in the buy cycle
Marketers should build their presence across multiple channels to make sure they are visible to buyers in the early stages of the buy cycle, using tactics such as search engine optimization and search ads, enriching own Web site, and marketing on industry Web sites and industry e-newsletters—the exact resources your potential customers rely on.
Marketers should also note that during the buy cycle, buyers want access to content that helps educate them, improves their decision-making capabilities, and increases their confidence level in their final purchase decision. According to a research study conducted by GlobalSpec, during the initial Research stage, 42% of buyers evaluate four or more suppliers, but as buyers move closer to Procurement, only 26% get quotes from four or more suppliers. Those that drop off the list are often those who did not provide the right level of information to buyers or did not meet some other perceived or real need in the buyer.
In addition, the more expensive the purchase, the more content buyers review before making their decision. For example, the GlobalSpec survey also found that 83% of buyers review only three or fewer pieces of content before making a decision on purchases under $1,000, while 70% of buyers review four or more pieces of content on purchases greater than $10,000.
This data suggests that if your company has small average order sizes you may be best served with a few targeted pieces of content to deliver relevant information to buyers. If you typically have larger average order sizes, you may need a broader library of in-depth content including brochures, specification sheets, Webinars, e-newsletters, white papers, case studies and more to help make your case. Providing good content to prospective buyers helps you gain an advantage over competitors.
Every time I write something for my company, I end up resorting to jargon: words and phrases like synergy, leverage, spot on, scalable, best of breed, etc. Is this okay? Or is there a better way to write?
Signed,
Stuck in a Cliche
Dear Stuck:
The reason people use business jargon in their speaking and writing is because it’s easy to do. For example, it’s easier to say or write “The partnership between our two companies will create synergies in how we go to market” than it is to figure out exactly what you mean by “synergies” and “go to market” and then explain those terms clearly.
Sometimes I think the battle against jargon might be a lost cause because so many people use corporate-speak that almost everyone knows what each other is talking about. Or everyone is just immune to idiot words and glosses over when reading them.
Still, I will continue the battle for clarity of communication, and you should too. One of my favorite resources is called Bullfighter. It’s a free utility that installs in Microsoft Word and will check your documents for jargon. It also scores your document on the Flesch reading scale, which measures how clear or obtuse your writing style is. I use Bullfighter all the time. Click here to get it.
With social media you can’t control the conversation, which makes some companies hesitant to get involved. You would think that might be the case with a company like IBM, which isn’t known for being hip. But the “The Office” tribute video below shows just how creative IBM can be. It’s had almost 250,000 views on YouTube.
The good news about social media is that it doesn’t cost anything to have a company Facebook page, or a LinkedIn or YouTube or Twitter account. Free blogging software is also readily available.
The bad news is that social media requires time and effort. And it’s not like you can take people off of other marketing projects and put them on social media projects. Social media is never an “instead of” other marketing; it’s always “in addition to” other marketing efforts. So where do you find the resources?
One place to look is among current employees who are already social media users and enthusiasts. They have a head start on using social media technologies and might be able to spearhead social media efforts on behalf of your company.
Another route to take is to focus on just one or two social media outlets and getting that right, rather than trying to conquer the entire social media world. Perhaps your account managers can use LinkedIn to network. Or if your company engages in community activities, Facebook might be a good way to develop a fan network. Do you have a good writer with expertise and strong opinions? Start a blog.
The point is to carve out what resources you can and start getting acquainted with social media—but not at the expense of your other proven marketing efforts.
Back in 1965, the rock band the Animals recorded the song “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”— way before email existed. But email and the hit song by the Animals share a bond when Eric Burden sings:
“I’m just a soul whose intentions are good, Oh, Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood.”
As email writers, we have good intentions to make our meaning clear. Yet “intended meaning” in this favorite form of business communications can often be misunderstood. Consider the writer who doesn’t take care with language and quickly dashes off an email. Or the email recipient who doesn’t have the benefit of hearing voice inflections or seeing facial expressions, which often provide and clarify the communicator’s meaning.
Here’s an example: A new marketing manager sent an IT manager an email asking how many leads came into the system during the past month. The IT manager replied within moments, “You can find that out yourself.”
The misunderstanding originates because the company installed a new reporting system to track marketing effectiveness. The new marketing manager didn’t know the system’s full capabilities and believed he needed to get the lead information from IT. The IT manager happily reported back that the marketing manager now can run the reports without getting IT involved.
But the marketing manager took offense, thinking the IT manager was blowing him off, in essence saying “don’t bother me, go figure it out on your own.” A more thoughtful email response might have been: “Our new system allows you to run lead reports. If you’re having trouble getting the information you need, let me know and I’ll help.”
While email may be fast and convenient, you still need to take the time to communicate clearly.
Check out this video of the Animals singing “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood.” There’s some humorous miscommunication here as well: the soundtrack is not synched with the singer’s moving lips.
The article made me think in marketing terms, as I tend to do. Companies must be careful that their marketing strengths are not taken to the extreme—until they become weaknesses.
Here’s what I mean:
One of your strengths is the ability to focus on your target market. But don’t wear blinders that cause you to miss opportunities elsewhere.
One of your strengths is nimbleness, the ability to quickly adjust to changing market conditions. But don’t lose your ability to stick to a plan you know is right.
One of your strengths is marketing analysis and measurement. But don’t ignore the benefits of creative inspiration.
HubSpot is a company that offers a platform to manage “inbound marketing” efforts. Inbound as opposed to outbound, which means prospects contact you rather than you reaching out to them. Most inbound marketing is online marketing: search engines, links from blogs, and other social media.
I’m writing not to promote HubSpot—although I have recommended them to clients—but to use one of their videos as an example of effective video marketing. This one compares outbound tactic marketing tactics such as cold calling and direct mail to inbound tactics managed and measured by the HubSpot platform.
An entire value proposition presented in less then three minutes. Entertaining and memorable. (You might recognize the tune from Alanis Morissette.)
And it’s ethical … but only if you’re plagiarizing your company’s own content. Here’s what I mean: if you create good content, re-use it.
Split a white paper into a number of blog entries
Re-purpose a brochure as a web page
Take a video of a company executive speaking at an industry event and put it on your Web site
Re-using good content not only saves time, it helps you maintain consistency in your company’s message and brand.
Below is an example. I wrote the following paragraph for a client white paper about marketing planning during the late stages of an economic downturn:
The important question during a downturn isn’t whether or not the economy will recover. It will; it always does. What’s important to ask is whether your company will be in position to surge as the economy begins to grow. To a large degree, the level of your success will depend on your marketing efforts and capabilities—what you have done during the downturn and what you put in place now to win business during the recovery.
This one paragraph has since appeared in a white paper, a promotional email, an article written by a company executive, a presentation script, and a marketing planning kit.
Okay, so maybe the headline to this article “Plagiarism Saves Time” is a shameless hook, but the point remains the same. And I couldn’t use the tired cliche about “not re-inventing the wheel.”
Social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogs and YouTube can help provide links and content that improve SEO rankings. Social media also can get your company name out there to build brand awareness and visibility. And there are some metrics you can measure with social media: subscribers to your blog or the number of comments on a blog entry, the views of a video, your company fans on Facebook, etc.
But the real business benefit of social media is something called “likeability.” Social media offers your business an opportunity to showcase its people, rather than just its product or services. And in any business, people prefer to buy from people they like. If you use social media to help foster positive relationships, and your fans and followers begin to like you, they will be more inclined to do business with you.
They will like you because you are helpful to them, providing useful and relevant information. They will like you because you can show them a human personality-a face in a video, an opinion in a blog entry, a commitment to a green cause on your Facebook page-that a standard Web site cannot. These softer, social touches can go a long way when potential customers, who have many choices, are deciding which company they want to do business with.
It’s probably unrealistic to get rid of all your bullet points in PowerPoint, but the idea is to make your slides more visual and less text-heavy. The presenter speaks the words, the screen reinforces the key points using visuals, the audience understands and remembers.
PowerPoint is one of the most abused pieces of software. And giving a good presentation is a skill that must be practiced and mastered. Don’t just take my word for it. Here’s a couple of good articles from CIO Magazine:
One reason why the slides of presentations often are weak is that they are created to do double duty: first as the visual support for a live presentation, and second as a handout (i.e. outline) given to the audience. Keeping these two functions separate can help a presenter create more visually supportive slides for a presentation. It’s more work to create both visual aids and an outline, but your audience will be better served—and you’ll be more effective as a presenter.
