The Three-Stage Buying Journey
According to market research, manufacturing marketers value customer retention more than typical B2B marketers.
Here's the deal: Being customer-centric and a next-generation B2B marketer are intrinsically linked. Predictable revenue comes from organic growth and net-new business. But in
This may suggest that those in the industry prefer to pour their energies into serving and growing current customers than wooing and winning new ones.
This due diligence is actually the first in a series of three stages for successfully orchestrating account engagement. Let’s take a closer look.
Stage 1: Capture Revenue Moments
Uncover Demand
Firstly, you need clarity on the market your offerings can serve. And in a modern account-based model, this doesn’t just mean lifting some stat from an analyst report.
It means having some dynamic modeling in place that gives you a regularly refreshed read on category fit, and a firm grasp on the market’s appetite for what you offer, where you offer it, and how much you offer it for.
Gauging appetite isn’t easy. As discussed, internet anonymity is the norm and buyers seldom arrive at your doorstep broadcasting where they’re at in their purchase processes.
Therefore, manufacturing sellers must use advanced technologies to capture buyer intent signals and the corresponding insights they reveal.
Armed with the right account engagement platform, you can easily access buyer intent signals from your first-party channels.
How Can You Identify Buyer Intent Signals?
This means you can glean informative details from your website’s visitation and engagement metrics. This doesn’t just mean the number of visits, time on page, and form-fill contact information. It also means the patterns associated with visitors’ content consumption.
Where things get really interesting, however, is de-anonymizing data hailing from third-party sources such as industry publications, blogs, social networks, product review sites and more.
With the right account engagement technology, this invisible information — hidden in what we call the Dark Funnel™ — can be illuminated, analyzed, and used to revolutionize the way your revenue team markets and sells.
6sense’s platform gathers these invisible intent signals, makes them visible, and applies powerful insights on individual accounts. This provides:
Predictive insights in the form of buying stage and account reach scores
Deep firmographic and technographic data
Predictive insights in the form of ideal customer profile (ICP) fit
When you match this intent data to your previously established criteria for priority accounts, you’re able to better define the size and characteristics of your addressable market.
Intent signals also help you understand which topics your accounts' buying teams care most about. This empowers your revenue team to personalize campaigns, digital experiences, and interactions for maximum impact.
Prioritization Actions
Best-in-class revenue technologies can apply machine learning to help make valuable decisions about grouping your audiences (by interests, buying stage, fit, location, and more).
Knowing where your targets are in the buying journey is an absolute game-changer. For starters, it eliminates the possibility of passing around time-wasting MQLs generated by curious (or bored) tire-kickers.
These segments can be analyzed for insights that inform your campaigns and actions to deepen brand engagement. Start the process by categorizing your target accounts into phases of:
Pre-awareness
Awareness
Consideration
Decision
Purchase
awareness to decision-readiness in short order — great tools and technologies will alert you accordingly.
And this process is totally dynamic. If an account rapidly accelerates its interest level — perhaps graduating from
At any point in time, you can see where contacts are in their buying journeys and devise game plans to facilitate the next best action for them to take.
Armed with more firmographic, demographic, and intent data, you can now devise and deploy campaigns aimed at progressing buying groups that aren't quite ready to buy.
This kind of targeting allows for highly personalized messages that can be pushed out through an orchestrated omnichannel marketing effort that involves various touch points such as…
Google Ads
LinkedIn
Outbound emails
Channels like direct mail
and more
...and can point to certain calls-to-action (such as visiting a custom landing page or joining a webinar) to ensure your custom message lands how you want it to.
Examples of Segment-Based Engagement
Let's say your typical buyers are conducting product on third-party websites and resources. You could activate a programmatic ad campaign with some top-of-funnel messaging to direct them to your on-site educational resources.
Try launching social or field marketing efforts (and complement them with retargeting campaigns) for buyers that have some — but not full — awareness of your offerings.
For accounts entering a purchase position, try messaging related to pricing, followed by an email nurturing effort. You could have your website’s chatbot assertively direct them to sales.
Collaborate as a Revenue Team
Stage 3: Boost Revenue Performance
So much of this account-based approach relies on data. That’s why it’s imperative that sales and marketing stay on the same page and be super-clear about which data matters most.
Incubate prospects from pre-awareness to purchase readiness
Compile a dossier of rich information that streamlines sales team members’ time on the accounts that matter most
Equip sales to secure deals when targets enter into buying positions
It's marketing's job to:
Close like all-stars
It's sales' job to:
Be clear and communicative about the direct dealings they have with prospects
Communicate the data they need relating to pipeline reporting, account penetration, etc.
Truly successful revenue teams have an integrated game plan and a single source of informational truth.
Measure Results
Manufacturers that leverage next-generation account orchestration must track success with granularity. This means having metrics for individual campaigns and the treetop data points that the CEO wants to cite. (Probably in a highly consequential board meeting or investor call.)
Marketers must come to understand what activities best increase account engagement and best support prospects’ progression through the funnel. Campaign engagement statistics like impressions, stage progressions, and click-throughs are mission-critical.
However, it’s imperative that this data ties together with a clear and transparent connection to revenue realization in cold, hard terms that can’t be mistaken or challenged.
Content Marketing Institute research revealed that when it comes to prioritized organizational goals:
...While only 57% of typical B2B marketers listed it as such.
68% of manufacturers cite customer loyalty as a prioritized goal...
Based on data from our own platform, we know that our customers:
Double their average deal value
Close new business 25% faster
See a 10% improvement in
win rates of new accounts
Can see the % of accounts flagged as strong, moderate, or weak that converted into sales
1x
2x
after using 6sense
before using 6sense
10%
after using 6sense
before using 6sense
weak
moderate
strong
(accounts that hopefully will be your customers, but just don’t know it yet)
Engage Buying Teams
Stage 2: Target Revenue Opportunities
either instance, you can’t embark upon predictive revenue generation without having a clear sense of your customers and the criteria that make them a good fit for your solution.
Click on the nearby image to learn more about buyer intent signals.
Account engagement platforms can provide a robust amount of data and analysis, which you can leverage in many ways. Here’s an example of the kind of info you can glean, based on our own findings:
Click the nearby image to discover the insights you can glean, based on our own findings:
Click the nearby image to discover ways to deploy these omnichannel campaigns.
Here's the deal: Being customer-centric and a next-generation B2B marketer are intrinsically linked. Predictable revenue comes from organic growth and net-new business. But in either instance, you can’t embark upon predictive revenue generation without having a clear sense of your customers and the criteria that make them a good fit for your solution.
And this process is totally dynamic. If an account rapidly accelerates its interest level — perhaps graduating from awareness to decision-readiness in short order — great tools and technologies will alert you accordingly.