FIVE BIG TAKEAWAYS
We asked a lot of questions and had a ton of data to sift through when coming up with the results of this research. We’ve been both surprised by some realisations and not shocked by others, but feel we’ve gained a lot of insight that we can use to provide our customers as well as our customers’ customer with the best solutions.
Here are five of our biggest takeaways from the research.
01.
Art AND Science, not versus.
- One of the stand-out points for us is the fact that the vast majority state that vendors need to recognise that there is both an art and a science to creating a positive buyer experience. Technology decisions are as much about managing risk as creating value and driving growth.
- We believe that people buy from other people, and the more complex the deal the greater the need for human interaction. Buyers look for validation of their decisions from other people so people with credibility and who understand that experience is important. If we accept this, we accept B2B buyers are human and humans respond to creativity and innovation as much as they do facts, features and benefits.
- Creativity should sit at the heart of what we do. As communicators, our focus can often steer too much towards the tactical activities we will employ to get messages in front of people, whereas we should start with the creative idea that solves the problem we are faced with.
02.
Relevance, relevance, relevance.
- Whichever data dynamic we look at, there is a clear message – the way you communicate, and what you communicate with needs to be as relevant as possible to the people you are targeting it with.
- It seems like an obvious thing to say, but still, there is too much generic content/approaches, or communications that either just aren’t being thought through enough or aren’t backed with enough relevant insight.
- Customers want transparent, clear and focused content that will inform them, teach them or help them validate the decisions they need to make throughout the buying process.
03.
Old vs. new: it's not that straightforward.
- Despite a clear indication that customers want more interactive, engaging content, and a definitive lean towards digital communications, they still seek the tried and tested content types and channels for consumption.
- Case study style content features high because, again, they are seeking validation that the decisions they are making are correct, and the channels they prefer to source information from are those that are human-led and add to the credibility of the information.
- Other content types lean towards those that inform and educate specifically around the subjects that they want to know more about (e.g. webinars, video, in-person events, conferences and even data sheets) – newer content types that may seem hugely popular such as podcasts, are in fact, the least preferred type.
- So, just because the content type or channel may be new or popular in your view, it doesn’t mean it will always resonate with your customer.
04.
ABM needs more action, less talk.
- For the avoidance of doubt, your customers know what ABM is and expect to be targeted with it – and they don’t mind that, in fact, they quite like the approach.
- Remember though that nearly everybody wants to be treated as a high-value account with personalised attention – and whilst it isn’t practical to deploy ABM to everybody, this desire mustn’t be forgotten and suggests that you need to be careful of all engagement touchpoints, irrelevant of the perceived value of the customer to you.
- However, there’s a contrasting view in our data that suggests ABM isn’t actually happening enough, or if it is, not well enough – because too many people still feel they are being targeted with information that isn’t for them, or targeted without enough consideration.
- So, we think it’s time we moved our focus away from the conversation of ABM to the action of communicating within ABM principles – no methodology will last, irrelevant of its potential value, if it is not used.
05.
And finally.
- There’s one statistic we haven’t really mentioned, although the majority of the data leads to this sentiment: 86% say vendors can better build trust by treating them with empathy as a human, rather than a buyer or sales target.
- This sums it up for us – you achieve this by mastering the balance between art and science, by considering the communication needs of your audience and meeting them, and by actually communicating with them in the best possible way.
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