In the ever-evolving landscape of B2B marketing, demand generation strategy must adapt to meet the nuanced needs of today’s buyers. Balancing emotional connection and collectively relevant messaging is essential to achieving buying group consensus and driving growth. But first, it’s crucial to engage with buyers early enough to be considered.
Get In Early with Predictive Marketing
Traditional supplier outreach methods put marketers in a double bind. On one hand, attempting to generate demand is often ineffective, as Gartner research shows 98% of buyers already have a shortlist or frontrunner in mind at the start of their purchasing journey. On the other hand, waiting for buyers to show interest before reaching out can be too late, as 60% of buyers avoid suppliers due to unsolicited outreach.
To overcome this challenge, marketers should anticipate customer needs and engage with prospects early in their buying journey. This can be achieved by analyzing business or market context signals that suggest a potential need for your product in the near future. By understanding the buyer’s journey and proactively addressing their concerns, marketers can position their offerings as indispensable solutions.
Appeal to Buyers on a Personal Level
B2B buyers often underestimate how much they are influenced by emotional branding and personal benefits, such as a sense of security. Create a complete B2B value proposition that balances communicating your offerings’ functional and personal benefits.
To uncover these benefits, delve into the emotional impact of your offerings through qualitative research methods like customer interviews and focus groups. Engaging with satisfied customers can reveal the emotional value they gain from your products and how these align with their broader business objectives.
Craft Messages with Collective Relevance
While emotional resonance matters, supplier messages that are overly personalized to individuals risk pulling diverse buying groups apart. Individual-level personalization has a negative effect on group buying, whereas messaging with high collective relevance drives consensus and ultimate deal quality.
By highlighting how a product or service can facilitate collaboration and drive collective success, marketers can foster a sense of unity and purpose among group members. This approach is particularly effective in complex B2B environments where many stakeholders are involved in the decision-making process.
For marketing leaders looking to recalibrate their demand generation strategies, a strategic action plan focuses on enhancing brand commitment and driving growth across the entire sales funnel. Key components include:
- Using Predictive Marketing: Use business and market context signals to anticipate customer needs and deliver messages at the right time to buyers ready to listen.
- Emphasizing Personal Benefits: Tailor messaging to address the personal motivations and values of buyers, creating a deeper connection.
- Crafting Collective Relevance: Develop content that speaks to the shared purpose and objectives of the buying group, encouraging collaboration and consensus.
Recalibrating demand generation strategies to meet the needs of today’s B2B buyers is not just a necessity; it’s an opportunity to drive growth and innovation. By focusing on getting in early, standing out from the competition and winning the group, and implementing a strategic action plan, marketers can achieve their growth goals.
Carlos Guerrero, Martin DeWitt and Sharon Cantor Ceurvorst are experts in the Gartner Marketing Practice, specializing in marketing strategy, brand, organizational structure and demand generation. Carlos Guerrero presented live on this subject and others at the Gartner Marketing Symposium/Xpo, June 2-4 in Denver.
