B2B Buying Stage 3: The Engaged Buyer
Your suspects have become prospects, and then qualified prospects. They have landed smack in the middle of your sales funnel. They have even met with your account rep and senior executives. You’re on their short list. Does that mean that your work providing marketing content is done?
Hardly.
Your buyer is Engaged. He already knows about your company, your industry, and your competition. But he still needs plenty of information.
Content for the Engaged Buyer must be validating. Now is the time to confirm the Engaged Buyer’s good impression, answer questions and objections, make your offering compelling, and most of all, help him feel safe.
How can you provide content specifically for the Engaged Buyer? Here are a few examples of content that works well at this stage:
Case studies. Help the buyer relate to your current customer—one in their industry, for whom you’ve done a good job. By describing your established success, you relieve feelings of risk the buyer might have.
Third party articles. Outside influencers, such as journalists and analysts, carry more weight than you do. Although many of these materials may be generated by Corporate Communications or PR, there is no reason not to use them for demand generation. Even if an article’s focus is more “corporate” than “solution” based, remember that the Engaged Buyer is researching your company’s vision as well as your product.
Competitive comparisons. This is a good time to break out the detailed spreadsheet comparing speeds and feeds, product features and price/performance versus the competition. Fight the old-fashioned reticence to discuss a competitor’s strengths; your Engaged Buyer will appreciate your candor and confidence.
Customer-friendly legal documents. Sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it? But it doesn’t have to be. Plain English agreements eliminate the win/lose mentality of the typical contract. Doing business well and being easy to do business with don’t have to be mutually exclusive.
ENGAGED Buyer Case Study Manhattan Associates, a world leader in supply chain solutions, has a profitable customer reference and case study program that closes sales. What makes it successful? It’s a process, not a project. They employ full-time staff to enroll existing customers in the reference program, and they get participation by showing customers “what’s in it for them” to serve as references. And, they have a full suite of convincing case studies that we developed with them. Unlike many companies that scramble for referenceable customers and case studies, Manhattan Associates has hundreds. Both marketing and sales use these resources to validate their claims, establish credibility in practice, and move buyers through the buying funnel. |
Some companies make the mistake of using validating content too early in the cycle, when the buyer is Tentative and not yet Engaged. But validating the company and the offering too early is akin to a sales pitch. The Tentative Buyer has her own problems to solve. Assume that she doesn’t care about your company until she suspects you might help solve her problem. Then she is Engaged, and seeks content that portrays you as the safe choice.