Pull the trigger. How your customers’ decisions affect your speed of growth

“If marketing has one goal, it’s to reach customers at the moments that most influence their decisions.”

Growing your company to a deadline means there is no capacity for wasting marketing resources or customer attention. It is imperative that your marketing appears when and where the need is recognised and your customer is looking for partners or suppliers.

One of the biggest disconnects in companies is between sales and marketing teams. Often the sales team understands how their customers buy, but the marketing team doesn’t have the journey mapped and therefore cannot provide support to customers through said decision journey. There are also the instances where marketing are delivering leads and sales are not converting ‘the golden opportunity’; there’s always something.

In reality each department faces an increasing number of challenges as the world digitises and customers morph and change behaviours. Focusing these often friction-filled departments on a single growth goal is therefore essential.

With so much B2B customer research and decision making conducted away from your organisation – usually before your sales and marketing teams are even aware an opportunity exists – it’s vital to understand the paths customers take in your market sector.

Your brand plays a significant part in the first instance as your prospects’ initial searches will include your organisation’s reputation and reviews, as well as feedback from other like-minded organisations which will prospects determine how well you fit with their organisation. Other than through all of the investment you’ve put into your brand (and therefore your reputation in the marketplace), these are all factors you’ll have no influence over.

If the prospect has decided you might be the right fit for their need(s) at that particular time, you’ll find out first-hand that relying on the old methods and B2B decision funnels is increasingly challenging and will often not produce the desired results. What’s needed is a new B2B customer journey, one where customers are prompted by a trigger (one of their own, not one of your company’s making) to take action and start looking more deeply at your company, products and/or services.

Following their research and initial contact with you, your understanding of their triggers is the best driver for building a successful strategy. It ensures that the customer is at the centre of the communication, allowing you to tailor your approach to his/her needs, rather than relentlessly pushing products which may or may not be relevant. Demand triggers like software becoming non-compliant, missed sales targets and staff shortages following a contract win all deliver immediate and quantifiable demand.

Part of any accelerated marketing programme must be to ensure that sales and marketing work seamlessly, that the brand establishes and shapes your reputation, and that the correct triggers and compelling value propositions work to move prospects closer to your business with every interaction. This journey can move backwards, forwards and sideways before a successful contract is achieved, therefore clear goals and exceptional integration is key to success.

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