Why B2B marketers must pay attention to buying signals
Following our recent HIVE LIVE with George Gilmore and Paul Murphy, our Marketing Bee Associates heard more about their lessons learnt in 2021 and predictions for 2022. In this blog, we’ll explore why B2B marketers must prioritise paying attention to buying signals.
“That’s not the buyer”
“That lead is not a good use of my time “
“Have you seen their job title?”
How many times have you been disappointed with this response from sales colleagues?
In most B2B technology purchases there is almost never one buyer (if only it were that simple!) And many businesses also look for 3rd party insights and validation. The buying process these days requires marketing to adopt the listening skills of a sonar submariner.
“Clearly, the CTO does not spend their time researching at the early stages of a technology decision,” said Georgina. “That’s why they have a team of people to do that for them. Any maybe it’s a job that’s been given to an intern or graduate to look into”
Remember all those form fills that you scored based upon job title and discounted them……And that same intern attended webinars, shared your content with others in the business, followed your company on LinkedIn and even completed a ‘contact us’ form. Their lead score got higher and higher. The next thing you know they’ve been sent back to nurture or disqualified. But why?
“That’s not the buyer”
“That lead is not a good use of my time “
“Have you seen their job title?”
“Look at the collective account and not individual leads,” said Georgina. “I recently delved into Salesforce and discovered that a target account actually had 18 different individuals across the organisation displaying intent behaviours over the previous 45 days” she explained. “But as the system had focussed on an individual lead and job title (which wasn’t deemed senior enough), the account name was ignored and unfortunately it was not followed up “
Would an ABM approach solve this?
“I’ve recently been trialling a new tool at a client that integrates into LinkedIn,” said Paul. “I’m using it for some account opportunities further down the pipeline. I start by uploading those target accounts into the tool and it starts identifying buying intent based upon an account level. Meaning that LinkedIn will only target those people in those accounts that are actively searching or buying in the market” he explained.
“Sounds like a great example of where marketing can really help sales further down the funnel” Georgina said. “Absolutely right and I think sales know that we’re now able to start to automate what would have been a time-consuming job for them previously” Paul responded. “And as we’ve discussed previously, buyers are now doing way more research and making decisions before speaking with a salesperson, this sounds like the kind of approach that will help engage with lots of different contacts within an account” Georgina continued.
“But to really be successful you’ve got to put the time in upfront together with sales on agreeing target accounts and customer personas within those accounts” Paul explained. “As when you are ready to bring sales into the opportunity, there must be a firm agreement that sales recognise the value, whatever the job role. “He concluded. “Let’s hope then that we start to hear ‘this opportunity is brilliant, thank you! “