As a reminder, the 3 stages of the Buyer’s Journey work like this:
The Awareness Stage
During the Awareness Stage, a potential Buyer has recognized symptoms of a problem or challenge, and are trying to understand how to identify the issue — and where to begin to solve it. Perhaps their search engine rankings have fallen, there has been a decrease in incoming leads, or all of a sudden a normally busy month shows a decrease in sales.
The Consideration Stage
During the Consideration Stage, potential Buyers have now identified the source of their issue or pain-point and some possible resolutions to the problem, which moves them into the next phase of the Buyer’s Journey. They are now considering different solution options, which may include your products and/or services. At this stage, the Buyer is still in an educational frame of mind, and will be looking for information that will make them more confident and intelligent about their potential purchase.
The Decision Stage
Now that the prospective Buyer knows what their problem is and how they need to resolve it, it comes down to the Decision Stage, where they will be making a vendor selection (hopefully in your favour!). Buyers in the Decision Stage are qualified leads who will now look for the opportunity to speak with a sales representative, try a demo, or request a quote in order to make their final purchase decision.
Due to modern day technology, and the vast amount of information available online, HubSpot’s State of Inbound report shows that only 18% of respondants rely on a salesperson for help when making a B2B purchase decision. If this is the case, then how are your sales reps supposed to understand where potential buyers are in the Buyer’s Journey when they visit your website?
Thanks to analytics data, you have the ability to track visitors’ activity on your website and can break that activity down into the 3 stages of the Buyer’s Journey.
Where are your website visitors in the stages of the Buyer’s Journey?
Awareness Stage
Visitors in the Awareness Stage will be interested in content such as social media, blog posts, research reports or eBooks because those types of content provides answers, education, and opinions — basically any data that can help them understand the issue they are facing, and where to begin to start trying to solve it.
Using your website analytics, you can track your website visitor’s activity to see which pages or sections of your site they are spending time on, and the number of interactions they have. Knowing this data can help you to define just how interested or engaged they might be, and you can then define which specific event occurance will push you to reach out to them. For example, if a potential Buyer comments on a blog post, this is a perfect time for your sales rep to connnect with him, thank him for his comment, comment on his comment, and potentally provide additional information to continue to help him with his research.
Consideration Stage
Visitors in the Consideration Stage will be wanting more information about your products or services, or your company in general. Your analytics should show them purusing your products and services pages, maybe your “About Us” company page, or any content that showcases your your expertise or how your company is different than the competition.
For example, a visitor may register for an upcoming Webinar, or submit a request to download a Product Comparison Guide or Whitepaper. These content offers will help Buyers “consider” their solution options with as much information as is available, and submitting their information to you in a form will allow you to be able to schedule your next interaction (like an email campaign) via marketing automation.
Decision Stage
Visitors in the Decision Stage are at the final step of their purchase decision, and at this point will want to know your company’s pricing model, or will want to review testimonials or case studies. Website visitors already in the Decision Stage are the easiest targets for your sales reps to focus on, since they are likely pretty close to making a purchase.
At this point, your sales team should be all over quick and personalized responses to requests for demos, consultations, free trials or downloads, analyst reports or case studies. These types of content offers will add value to the overall sales process, leading the Buyer to make their final purchase “decision”. It’s more important at this point than ever for your sales reps to be actively involved with any visitors who are viewing these types of pages or content, and following up proactively.
Segmenting your website traffic into each of these stages of the Buyer’s Journey will help you in defining and creating your sales funnel, and optimizing each stage to turn your MQLs into SQLs. It will also help you to specifically tailor your content and email marketing campaigns to be more effective to Buyers in each stage of their journey, and will increase your accuracy in forecasting your average sales cycle, since you’ll start to understand better how long it takes potential Buyers to move through each phase.
For more insight into the Buyer’s Journey and the Inbound Marketing process in general, contact us to request a free Inbound Marketing Assessment by one of our certified Inbound Specialists.
