4 Questions to Help B2B Marketers Understand the Mindset of A Buyer’s Journey

Apr 6

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If you’re a B2B marketer, you know that marketing to another business is a unique process that tends to be high-touch and discovery-driven.

When you’re selling to another business, you’re selling products or services that are priced higher, take longer to sell, and have a more intricate purchase process. And that’s precisely why B2B marketers have to adopt a more long-term mindset.

In order to be a successful B2B marketer, you must first learn how to adopt the mindset of the businesses you want to engage with.

There are 4 questions to ask yourself about how your business customers buy:

Who is making the decision to buy?
Why do they buy?
Where are they in their buying timeline?
How does the company first learn about you?

By answering these four questions, you will be able to understand your customers' challenges, create meaningful solutions, and let them know in your marketing that you understand them.

#1. Who is making the decision to buy?

There’s a mindset shift here.

Instead of just selling to one ideal customer avatar, we’re actually selling to many decision-makers in a longer value chain, each with different goals and objectives. For example, let’s say we’re selling a piece of software to a company.

Let’s take a moment to visualize all the players involved in the sales process:

Perhaps the sales process starts with a mid-level marketing manager you make initial contact with.
After that, there are several other groups of people—all with different perspectives and goals.
Then, there's a small committee from marketing involved
Followed by a larger group from different departments.
Eventually, the decision to buy your software goes to an executive for sign-off.

Now this is a simple example, but imagine a sales process 12-18 months long, all with different players weaving in and out of the buying journey. It can be very helpful to map out all the players!

#2. Why do they buy?

Second, B2B marketers need to know the why.

Business sales take a long time, and we need to know what’s most important to every player involved in purchasing, so we can hit the nail on the head when it comes to long-term lead nurturing—meaning, reminding your customers that you’re here for them when they need you.

In my experience, a B2B sale is almost never about the price, but more about an easy and convenient solution.

Business decision-makers choose B2B products for two reasons: Push-Button (easy) Gains or Easily-Avoidable Pain

As a B2B marketer, you’ll need to identify which of these to speak to by learning what your customers care most about during different parts in their journey.

How to speak to a gain-

I could talk about how identifying your key customers will help you develop products they really want and need, meaning you can charge more. Packaging your offering as something easy (like a done-for-you service or SaaS subscription) frames a gain as effortless—push a button, and it’s done for them.

How to speak to avoidance of pain-

I tell stories of how I have seen companies waste hundreds of thousands of dollars on paid ad trial-and-error because they didn’t do their up-front research. By investing in market research, a company can avoid that pain point.

#3. Where are they in their buying timeline?

Next, we need to know about the timing—where a company is in their decision-making process.

This question is critical because business buyers tend to face similar obstacles as they go through a buying cycle. That means that as a smart B2B marketer, you can anticipate and remove these barriers.

Obstacles buyers face during different stages of the buying process:

Beginning: Business buyers struggle with information overload—distilling the mountain of information down to what’s relevant for them.
Middle: Shift to people! This is where different buyers in the decision-making tree have varying views, hidden concerns, and competing priorities.
End: it’s all about the options presented and the implementation plan. At this point, eliminating confusion is essential.

#4. How does the company first learn about you?

The last question to ask yourself is how you get into the company—what’s the sequence of events or things that are needed to kickstart you off on the decision-making process?

A key mindset shift here is a focus on repeat business. Since B2B marketers invest so much time and energy to close a deal, we have to make sure that our marketing is not a one-and-done interaction.

Lead nurturing guides prospects through a long-term funnel so that when they are ready to take action, you’ll be top of mind.

Let’s say you have a lead magnet like an ebook or a report. Your content may have piqued their interest enough to give you their email. NOW, your job is to keep their interest.

Learning how to qualify leads and when to make contact is key to winning over the right people at the right time.

Today’s best B2B marketers consider not just what to sell but how to sell it. They tightly align their sales and marketing processes to support buyers from start to finish. They speak directly to the right people, at the right time, simplifying the purchase journey to drive sales and create loyalty.

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Recent Blog Post on 5 Qualitative Research Methods + When to Use Them

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InstaBrain : The New Rules for Marketing to Gen Z (grab your free chapter here)

Sarah Weise is the CEO of award-winning marketing research agency Bixa and the bestselling author of InstaBrain: The New Rules for Marketing to Generation Z. For 15 years, Sarah has been a guide to hundreds of leading brands including Google, IBM, Capital One, Mikimoto, PBS, and U.S. Army, to name a few. Sarah helps brands achieve a laser-focus on their customers and build experiences that are downright addictive. She lectures at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business and speaks at conferences and corporate events worldwide.

Sarah Weise