What Makes the B2B Buyer Journey So Complex?

When examining the top challenges facing B2B marketers, the complexity of the buyer journey consistently ranks high. As decision-making processes become more decentralized and influenced by multiple interaction points and stakeholders, gaining a deeper understanding of this journey is critical for marketers looking to effectively tailor their strategies and drive significant conversions.

In this article, we will explore the methods and strategies essential to unraveling the B2B buyer journey—from identifying critical touchpoints to making data-driven decisions. But before we dive into the details, let's first understand why the B2B buyer journey is considered complex and how it differs from its B2C counterpart.

Multiple Decision-Makers

In B2B transactions, decision-making typically involves multiple stakeholders from different departments. You are not selling to individuals but to teams with varying priorities and needs. As a result, it's critical to identify and understand each stakeholder's role, needs, and preferences to effectively tailor messaging.

Longer Sales Cycles

In the B2B sector, larger deal sizes tend to result in longer decision-making processes. The challenge for marketers is to maintain engagement over these extended periods and deliver relevant content and support at each stage.

Complex Buying Processes

The B2B buying journey can be intricate, involving stages such as problem identification, research, evaluation of options, negotiation, and implementation. Marketers need to outline these steps and anticipate the information needs and challenges buyers face at each stage. More details on this are discussed later in this article.

Information Overload

Both B2B and B2C buyers are inundated with information and content from multiple channels, making it challenging for marketers to cut through the clutter and deliver messages that resonate. Marketers must ensure that their content is not only informative but also engaging and tailored to the specific needs and preferences of their target audience.

Understanding the B2B Buyer Journey

While the traditional marketing funnel model (awareness, consideration, purchase) remains relevant, as mentioned above, the B2B buyer journey tends to be more complex. This underscores the need for a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the journey that allows marketers to develop targeted tactics for each stage.

Before we delve into a valuable framework for better understanding B2B customers, it's important to note that 80% of buyers have a shortlist of vendors in mind before they do any research. Furthermore, a staggering 93% of them end up buying from that initial list. So while marketers need to engage with customers who are actively researching, it's equally important to maintain visibility with the 95% of customers who are not actively researching to ensure your brand is on their radar from day one.

Gartner's B2B Buying Jobs framework is an excellent tool for gaining insight into how customers navigate a complex buying process. The framework outlines six essential "jobs" that B2B buyers must complete to their satisfaction before making a purchase.

From identifying the problem to gaining consensus from all stakeholders, B2B buyers, whether in SaaS or manufacturing, follow a similar process. The concept of the "messy middle," originally introduced by Google to illustrate how consumers continually evaluate and compare options until they are ready to make a purchase, is highly relevant in this context.

Who Are the B2B Decision-Makers?

In this article, we have focused on discussing the "buyer." However, to fully understand the buying process, we must recognize that the buyer—whether an individual or a team responsible for making the purchase decision—is only one aspect of a larger process involving multiple entities. Often, different individuals and teams play multiple roles.

In addition to buyers, we must consider the needs and preferences of several other stakeholders, including:

1. End Users: Those who will directly use the product or service.
2. Initiators: Individuals or teams who identify a problem and champion a new solution, such as operations personnel.
3. Influencers: Individuals within an organization whose opinions can influence the decision maker's choice, such as HR or IT professionals.
4. Decision-Makers: Individuals responsible for making the final decision, approving the purchase, and allocating the budget, such as finance personnel or C-level executives.

9 Tactics for Gaining Insight into the B2B Buyer Journey

Where do we start to gain a deep understanding of customer needs at every stage of the journey? Here are effective ways to understand the behaviors, preferences, and pain points of your target audience:

1. Customer Interviews and Surveys: Talk to existing customers, prospects, and stakeholders to gain qualitative and quantitative insights into their buying process. Ask about their decision criteria, the challenges they face, and the factors that influence their choices.
2. Third-Party Research: Explore overarching themes and trends to understand the context in which customers make decisions. Use this broad research to guide deeper investigation through first-party methods such as interviews.
3. CRM Data Analysis: A well-organized CRM contains valuable data about customer interactions and behaviors. Analyze this data to uncover patterns, trends, and common touchpoints throughout the buyer journey.
4. Web Analytics: Use web analytics tools to track visitor behavior on your website. Monitor page visits, time spent on each page, and conversion abandonment to gain insight into buyer interests and preferences.
5. Marketing Automation: Use marketing automation platforms to track and analyze customer interactions across channels such as email, social media, and your website. Segment your audience, deliver personalized content, and monitor engagement throughout the buyer journey.
6. Social Media Monitoring: Monitor social platforms for valuable insights into customer conversations, preferences, and sentiment. Keep an eye on brand mentions, industry trends, and competitor activity to better understand your audience.
7. Gather Sales Team Insights: Work with sales teams to gather feedback on common objections, frequently asked questions, and areas where prospects need additional support or information.
8. Competitive Analysis: Analyze competitors' tactics, messaging, and customer interactions to identify gaps in your approach and effectively differentiate your offerings.
9. Attend Industry Events: Attend industry events, conferences, and networking opportunities to connect with potential buyers and gain first-hand insight into their challenges and priorities. Engage in conversations, attend workshops, and gather feedback to inform your marketing strategies.

In today's B2B landscape, it's not enough to rely on generic product messaging and overlook stakeholders beyond the buyer. Improving sales effectiveness requires creating a cohesive process that starts with successfully aligning sales and marketing efforts. Understanding your offering is critical, but so is understanding where buyers and other stakeholders are in their journey and strategically moving them forward.