Navigating the B2B buyer’s journey
Targeting the right audience at the right time is a challenge for every advertiser – and there’s a good reason why. Only 3%-5% of accounts corresponding to your Ideal Customer Profile are in-market (i.e., ready to buy). That means a lot of resources and effort are often wasted on accounts who simply aren’t ready to buy.
However, there is a way to increase your chances to appeal to specific accounts even when they are not yet ready to buy. The best way to do this is by being present throughout your target buying committee’s buying journey.
Navigating the buyer’s journey in B2B advertising requires a strategic approach tailored to your audience’s evolving needs and expectations. A first step towards understanding these needs is buyer insights research and the creation of buyer personas, which represent the different types members of your target audience’s buying committees. These personas must encapsulate key characteristics such as:
- Demographics
- Psychographics
- Pain points
- Goals and values
- Preferences
- Purchasing behaviors.
Once B2B marketers get a full picture of their buyer personas, they can craft targeted campaigns that resonate with each persona at various stages of the buyer journey. This enables them to engage and stay top-of-mind during and even before buyers are ready to commit. However, it’s important to note that marketers need to appeal to the entire buying committee, and thus should create content at each stage for each persona in the committee.
Let's explore some effective B2B advertisements for each phase.
Awareness and Education Stages
Every buying committee will go through different stages as they evaluate their pain points, examine solutions and consider alternatives. The first stage is known as the awareness phase, where relevant personas become aware of a challenge that they have in their organisation. If this issue is deemed important enough to be prioritised, they will move onto the education phase, where they will consider change, increase their level of awareness, and align the problem with wider business issues.
B2B advertisements targeting this stage should focus on capturing attention and set the groundwork to remain the “top of mind” brand. Content should be concise, visually appealing, and designed to spark interest. This is the opportunity to share thought leadership content, which will highlight your audience’s challenge, the need for it to be resolved, and what benefits come from the challenge being overcome.
Suitable Advertisements for Various Buyer Personas
- Educational Infographics: Visual representations of industry trends or statistics can be effective to seize attention and offer valuable insights, appealing to personas who prefer bite-sized information. They are not too demanding, easily sharable, and quick to digest. This makes them excellent for this first stage.
- Engaging Videos: Communicating complex concepts or showcasing your expertise can effectively be done via short explainer videos or animated clips. These resonate particularly with personas who prefer visual content. Again, this should not go too deep into your product, and should remain educational at heart.
- Industry News Updates: Positioning your brand as a thought leader by sharing insights or news items related to the industry can attract the attention of personas seeking the latest information.
By positioning your brand early while buying committees are evaluating their options, you have a much higher chance of becoming noticed and remembered for the next stage, consideration.
Consideration Stage
Once buying committees are aware of their challenges and the potential a solution may unlock for them, they will begin to consider their options. This is known as the consideration stage, where they begin to evaluate various solutions to their challenges and problems.
B2B advertisements during this phase should provide detailed information about your offerings and highlight the unique value proposition. The goal is to differentiate your brand from competitors and nurture leads through the decision-making process.
Suitable Advertisements for Various Buyer Personas
- Product Showcasing with Carousel Ads: Carousel ads make it possible to showcase multiple products or features in one single ad, especially relevant for personas who prefer comprehensive information. The key is to outline the features that solve the challenges your ICP faces.
- Interactive Polls or Quizzes: Engaging polls or quizzes related to industry topics or pain points can boost interaction and provide valuable insights for both parties. These might be appealing to those personas seeking engagement.
- Case studies: Showcasing real-world examples of your product or service successfully resolving comparable challenges faced by others, can provide valuable credibility to prospects considering their options. This might particularly be appealing to personas who are comparing how different vendors or suppliers work with and support their clients. Consider using recognisable customers, stand-out quotes or impressive statistics.
Decision Stage
During the decision stage is where the majority of marketer efforts are traditionally focused, however, if you’ve done your work in the consideration, awareness and education stages you should have a head start on the competition.
In this phase, prospects are ready to make a purchase decision, so make sure your B2B advertisements are focused on driving sales and encouraging action. It’s time to highlight the benefits of choosing your solution and offer incentives to seal the deal.
Suitable Advertisements for Various Buyer Personas
- Interactive Demos or Free Trials: At the end of the consideration phase or in the very beginning of the decision stage, offering interactive demos or free trials directly within social media platforms can remove friction by simplifying the conversion process for personas who prefer hands-on experiences.
- Customer Testimonials: Sharing video testimonials or reviews from satisfied customers can provide social proof and alleviate concerns, resonating with personas who value peer recommendations.
- Limited-Time Offers: You can create a sense of urgency and drive conversions by promoting special offers or exclusive discounts for a limited time, which is particularly appealing to personas who respond well to incentives.
General Key Considerations
Whether you’re appealing to the initial stages of the buyer’s journey or trying to hone in on the final sale in the decision stage, it’s critical that your advertisements follow best practices in order to gain the most traction.
Below are a few of the key elements of an advertisement to consider:
- Visual Appeal: Capture attention and stand out in packed social media feeds by leveraging eye-catching visuals and multimedia content.
- Targeted Messaging: Tailor your advertisements to address the specific pain points and preferences of each buyer persona. Use language and imagery that aligns with their unique needs.
- Call-to-Action (CTA): Be clear about the next steps and encourage prospects to take action with persuasive CTAs that drive engagement and conversions.
- Key Message Brevity: Where possible, try to get your key value across as quickly as possible and intertwine that message throughout your advertisements.
- Use Hot Spots: Always position your advertisements where your buying committee members congregate. Remember, not every committee member will use the same channels, and not all content will appeal to every member.
Conclusion
In conclusion, effective B2B advertising aligns with each phase of the buyer journey and ensures that the right ads reach the right audience at the relevant journey stage.
By delivering relevant, visually appealing content at each stage, businesses can nurture relationships, build trust, and ultimately drive conversions with their distinct customer segments.
The examples given in this blog are not a golden rule that cannot be deviated from. It all depends on the message you offer, the type of business you have and the industry you’re in. Use this blog and the examples as a starting point for your own plan on which you can build further and tailor to your own business.
Finally – this isn’t the end of your B2B journey. Once your campaigns are live, it’s vital to monitor their performance and possible changes as well in the market and industry to not only improve, but also keep the ads relevant. As long as your advertisements remain mapped to your personas and their journeys, you will soon see results and gain traction over time.
Want to put the above into practice, but not sure how? Contact us to learn more.
