We’re in the midst of the biggest shift every in B2B business. B2C too for that matter.
Welcome to the world of digitally empowered buyers.
Today’s buyers can research, select and purchase their products without getting you involved in the decision. You won’t even know they were buying.
Our choices? Shift how we think about our business, markets and buyers or get left in the dust.
Buyer perceptions define buying decisions.
Today’s buyers first decide what they believe through information gathered on the Internet and through word of mouth. They create their own perceptions – based on their digital interaction with information about us on the internet; through our websites, social media, communities, research and more.
In today’s world we have less than five seconds to get our audience’s attention. If we don’t get them in five seconds, they are gone. Off to another article, webinar, video, website—off to a competitor who grabbed their interest.
The good news is that when we focus on what’s relevant to them – we can and will attract prospects and customers to our door and keep them coming back. We simply have to think like today’s buyers instead of yesterdays’s vendors. Think about it.
When was the last time you trusted vendors to guide a personal buying decision?
- Do you believe what the manufacturer says about that computer, that electric car, that hot new gadget you want to buy?
- Or do you go ask your friends about their likes and dislikes, options and their thoughts? I bet you go to the internet and do research too.
- If you’re like me you don’t listen to all the marketing propoganda anymore. Thanks to the Internet you don’t have to listen. You’re empowered.
Why would you expect your own customers to be think or act differently?
Relevance is in the Eye of your Buyer
To engage our buyers over time – not just in one off chats – we must focus on creating long term conversations based on our buyer’s perceptions and interests – by engaging about what’s relevant to them.
The truth and path to success is out there… not in our internal meetings. We need to spend more time listening, getting to know our audiences. Learn what they need, what they care about, what they think about their business, markets and challenges.
Then, we can create and share stories of our qualitative value—the intangibles that matter to them.
- Focus your stories on how others like them have created success with your help
- Speak to your audiences about your expertise that helped others, then share that expertise freely
- Speak to them as individual people, not as mass personas or markets. Everyone likes to be recognized here in our digital world.
Above all, shift your brain to follow a different rule. It’s not about what you think….
It’s all about what they perceive, what’s relevant to them.
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To learn more about how you can shift your marketing to attract and engage today’s digitally empowered buyers, check out my upcoming webinar for the Association of Strategic Marketing.
