For years, B2B marketers across EMEA have been told to build demand generation engines and concentrate on Marketing Qualified Leads. But as marketing resources become more constrained and the buying journey becomes more complex, chasing MQLs and concentrating on volume can drain resources without moving deals forward. At the same time, up to 95 percent of B2B companies are not in the market for a solution at any given time, according to research by the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute.
On top of this, modern B2B tech purchase decisions involve more people, more formats, and more friction than ever. So when your prospect customer is in the mood to buy, you suddenly have many more people to communicate with.
To win deals in this environment, marketing and sales teams have to orchestrate their activities more effectively. From a content perspective, that means having the right touchpoints for the right people and real focus on what delivers momentum. So, what does this really look like in practice? And how can you push your team to move beyond leads to drive genuine momentum with buyers even before any process starts?
The evolution of the B2B buying team
B2B purchasing decisions are becoming increasingly collaborative. According to Foundry, 26 people are involved in technology buying decisions, up from 20 two years earlier. A lot of that collaboration takes place internally within companies before they go out to market or speak to vendors. If your first interaction with a prospect is at this point, then you may find it hard to be the first choice.
Our client work has taught us that when influence is mapped properly, the picture is often even bigger than many client teams realise. Sometimes, clients end up doubling the number of relevant and distinct personas that they have to market to and provide relevant content for.
So when this comes up, is the answer “more content”? While you might be tempted to create more material and try to personalise assets to cover everyone, this can actually dilute your messaging and ruin your focus. Instead, you have to understand where each buyer persona genuinely influences the process within each organisation and then concentrate resources there.
In a recent regional campaign, our buyer mapping exercise uncovered 12 relevant roles in a decision that the client’s sales team had previously thought to involve seven decision makers on average. At first, this looked like a huge problem for the marketing team. However, the mapping exercise also showed that three personas out of the twelve were actually responsible for the shortlisting process. If you failed to influence them, you would never be in the running in the first place. This allowed us to concentrate our client’s budget on the biggest rate-limiting factor to success – getting on that shortlist.
Content that connects and cuts waste
With self-directed research now dominant, and so many individuals involved in a purchase decision, content across multiple formats is obviously more critical than ever. But producing more for the sake of it to cover off a matrix of potential personas and content types is not helpful. If anything, it creates overload and adds to the cost and complexity for the marketing team.
While each buyer stakeholder will be consuming content across multiple interactions, not all formats work for all roles. Instead, concentrate on what content you need most and look for where you have problems in your selling process.
Once you’ve narrowed down who to focus on, you can then align your content goals, formats and success rates to the personas and buying stages that you have in your specific customer base.
The funnel model is much derided in modern marketing approaches. And with so much of the potential prospect base either not in the market for a solution right now, or carrying out their own research without directly speaking to you, it doesn’t make sense to align too closely to this approach. However, it is useful to consider how customers find their initial information around a particular technology or business problem, understand the gaps that they have in their own environments, and then implement the right approach based on similar customer experiences.
Different personas within the buying team will need different kinds of content in their work. At the early stage, initial educational content that explains the general need for any technology will be useful to IT analysts and those tasked with actually implementing any solution. They need to know what approaches exist, how they might be used, and what the options are. These technology analysts will also need help with putting together the right business case for any approach.
At this point, IT staff are probably also collaborating with line of business analysts if there is an infrastructure requirement, or if the company needs to meet security and compliance requirements. So, your content may have to bridge both technology and business specifics if you want it to succeed. For some technology companies, these lines of business analysts are the key persona to influence, particularly when it comes to tasks like finance and accounting. There are nuances that these groups understand and care about that more general IT experts won’t understand, but can make the difference between success or failure in your content.
As these IT and business analysts research the market, they will pass information and potential partners back to their bosses. These managers and directors will typically consume a mix of content throughout the buying cycle, both to keep up with the market and to check on their own staff’s recommendations. As plans get finalised and potential vendor or supplier partners are selected, that content diet will change from more general education material to specific challenges and overviews. At this point, third party insights like analyst reports and market comparisons will be of interest, followed by customer case studies and experiences.
At the end, someone will sign off the bill for the investment. Depending on how large the invoice is at the end of the day, this could be a manager or director all the way up to a Chief Technology Officer or Chief Information Officer. These contacts will be time-poor and need the most convincing to sign on the dotted line. Hard facts on return on investment and ways to reduce risk around investments will help, but the biggest impact can be around how other companies have carried out change campaigns and transformed their operations for the better.
With all of these groups, peer to peer insights are the most valuable content to share. Hearing from others that have gone through similar issues and delivered on their goals is the most likely content that will cut through. However, the format for that message can vary greatly, from in-person events and webinar discussions through to more traditional white papers and case studies. What differentiates successful content in these projects is how much the story resonates with those buyers, and how they see themselves in the stories that are featured.
But who wants what?
- IT staff and analysts prefer expert-led content early in the process. Analyst reports, technical advice, and case studies resonate most.
- IT managers and directors consume a mix of content throughout the buying journey, from analyst reports and webinars to technical tips and expert insights.
- Senior IT leaders focus on decision-stage content like case studies, product spec sheets, and expert vendor reviews.
- Business staff and analysts value expert assessments, white papers, and case studies in the early to mid stages.
- Business managers and directors seek analyst reports, webinars, and product specs across the buying cycle.
- C-suite executives prioritise industry-specific content, ROI-driven customer stories, and solution comparisons in the final stages.
Focus reduces waste
Marketing to a single decision-maker is no longer enough. And neither is creating one hero piece of content and hoping it sticks.
Winning in EMEA’s tech market means engaging the full buying team, from junior analysts and mid-level managers through to senior executives that will stake their reputations on the success of a particular project. Each of these personas will need tailored, timely, insight-led content that actually helps them move forward.
At onebite, we help ambitious marketing teams do exactly that – mapping content to the right buying roles, aligning with sales and using insight and technology to scale relevance without scaling headcount.
If you’re ready to turn content focus into a competitive advantage, let’s chat.
Mark Kember, Account Director
Mark has been at onebite for more than 12 years, and has more than twenty years of experience in technology PR, content and communications. Working as an Account Director and as Head of Content, he spends his time on understanding what goes on within technology markets so he can explain or create content that resonates with different audiences. He has led content campaigns and creation for a wide range of publications, from specific sites targeting developers and open source communities through to publications read by millions every week.
