New opportunities await in
every stage of the journey.
1. Awareness Stage
In the awareness stage of the B2B buyer’s journey, a potential buyer becomes aware of a business problem they’re facing (one that you can solve) and begins their journey to solve it.
These buyers often haven’t heard about a solution like yours, haven’t heard of your company, or are just discovering these things through independent research.
Who Do You Sell to & Why Are They Buying?
Ideal Customer Profile
The specific types of companies you will target with your B2B efforts. An ideal customer profile includes information such as industry, verticals, company size, revenue, and average deal size.
Buyer Personas
The individuals within a company that you will need to convince in order to make the sale. Buyer persona information may include demographic details, decision drivers, challenges and fears, and their role in the purchase decision.
10 Components of a Well-Defined B2B Buyer Persona
Generate Awareness with Outbound Sales
Is an SDR Team Right for Your Organization?
In the awareness stage, outbound sales involves cold calling leads who have not made contact with your company and who might not even be aware they have a problem you can solve.
B2B sales often have higher deal values and, as a result, longer sales cycles and more involved buying processes. Many B2B companies use sales development reps to handle all the prospecting and lead qualification for their closing sales reps.
2. Consideration Stage
In the consideration stage of the B2B buyer’s journey, your buyers are now well-aware of their business challenge and begin to evaluate the available solutions.
Nurturing leads during the consideration stage involves answering the question “why do I need a product like yours?” as well as “why is your product the best one?”
Lead Qualification Tactics
To set a sales meeting, SDRs only need to know that they’re talking to the right person at the right company. Your closing rep can take care of the rest. Discovery questions help SDRs qualify leads:
Where do you run into obstacles with your current solution?
How are you currently handling
[enter business challenge]?
What is your company’s
decision-making process?
Discovery Call Questions
How Do You Measure Up Against Competitors?
At this point in their journey, buyers are weighing the pros and cons of your offering and the alternatives. Your marketing should show them why your offering is the best solution to the challenge they face.
Instructional content
Create guides that demonstrate step-by-step how a solution like yours can be implemented to improve business.
Competitor comparisons
Compare your offering with its competitors, right on your website, positioning your company as an authoritative resource.
Create Alignment with a Lead Rating System.
Using a lead rating system keeps both sales and marketing on the same page by tracking how ready a lead is to buy. We use an incremental lead rating system we’ve dubbed EBRating to determine interest, prioritize outreach, and establish a call cadence.
Download the full B2B Buyer’s Journey Guide.
Learn how to grow your business and increase customer value in every stage.
3. Decision Stage
In the decision stage, prospects are ready to make a choice about whether they will purchase your product or service. The goal at this stage in the buyer’s journey should be obvious: convince the prospect to buy.
If you did a good job nurturing them through the awareness and consideration stages, you’ve already established trust by the time they get to the decision stage.
Specialization & Its Effect on the Sales Process
Assigning different functions of the sales process to separate roles provides the most value and best experience to both customers and employees. Improve performance by channeling each team’s time and effort into one specific area.
Sales Development
Handles the top and middle of the sales funnel to save your closers timeDeal Closers
Should be hyper-focused on the bottom of the funnel and winning new customers
Customer Success
Onboards and supports customers to maximize utility and valueBuilding a Successful Inside Sales Team
Value-Based Selling Influences B2B Decisions.
This is the sales team’s time to shine. Your reps should be well-prepared to address prospect needs and overcome objections.
Decision Factors
Help prospects navigate organizational barriers. B2B buyers must stay within budget, combat internal objections, and plan an implementation strategy.
Product Demos
Give prospects a preview of what your product or service can do. Explain all the features that will be most beneficial for their individual needs.
Case Studies
Prove that your product or service has helped clients in the past. Case studies about the prospect’s industry or a similar challenge are especially effective.
4. Growth Stage
Customers experience the growth stage of the buyer’s journey during the process of onboarding and implementing your product.
Your goal in this stage is to help customers get the most out of your solution, improving retention and increasing customer lifetime value.
Proactive Customer Enablement
Personalize your approach and reach out to new customers directly to teach them how to make your solution fit their needs. If a hands-on onboarding process isn’t feasible, try these other tactics for proactive enablement:
Email Automation
Send timely instructional content straight to customers’ email inboxesBuilt-in Tutorials
Software sellers can place tutorials within the interface to teach users about its featuresKnowledge hub
Help customers succeed with a library of educational articles right on your websiteHow Important is Customer Retention?
Helpful onboarding is the first step for retention. Prioritize this lucrative market—your existing customers—and unlock potential for increased revenue, brand advocacy, and long-term success for your company.
Retaining a customer costs 5x - 25x less than acquiring a new one
5. Delight Stage
Your goal in the delight stage is to nurture meaningful customer relationships. Create long-lasting loyalty and encourage your customers to become evangelists for your brand.
From the first interaction, emphasize the benefit of a collaborative relationship. You facilitate your customers’ success, and they, in turn, facilitate yours.
Outbound Customer Care
Provide continuous product education and use these conversations as opportunities for up-selling and cross-selling. Try these outbound tactics in the delight stage:
Monthly Newsletter
Keep customers up-to-speed on your solution and talk about what’s new at your company.Customer appreciation emails
Thank customers for doing business with you, ask for feedback, and request testimonials or reviews.Knowledge hub
Nurture customer relationships and provide value-added information relevant to the customers’ needs.How to Increase Sales Revenue with Customer Service
What happens when every function of your company works in alignment?
38% Higher rate of deals won
36% Improvement in customer retention
27% Faster profit growth
Download the full B2B Buyer’s Journey Guide.
Learn how to grow your business and increase customer value in every stage.