ROCHESTER, N.Y., Dec. 5, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- B2B prospects'
journeys are not fully understood by both the sales and marketing
teams at sellers' organizations. This was one of several findings
revealed through new research conducted by Catalyst, a marketing
agency that helps businesses develop compelling ways to engage
their customers at every stage of the pipeline.
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"Our findings validated that prospects' journeys were very
complex, involved many parties, were often exhaustively
time-consuming, and were rarely linear," said Jeff Cleary, managing director, who led the
research study.
The study also showed that, for vendor research, key decision
makers were rarely the C-suite. In most cases, it was a subject
matter expert. In particular, larger-scale purchases were
designated to research teams.
"This finding is significant," said Cleary, "because it is
critical to understand the full landscape of all those involved in
the purchasing process. If your communications are aimed primarily
at the C-suite, they may fail. It is simply too early in the buying
cycle to engage senior decision makers."
Cleary also said that understanding prospects' sense of urgency
was critical. "This is an important distinction for sales and
marketing teams, because it should dictate the amount of effort
expended on the prospect," he said.
Because B2B sales cycles are long, the research aimed to uncover
insights about the process prospects go through prior to engaging
with potential sellers. Panelists were asked these questions:
- How do you choose a prospective vendor for your consideration
set?
- What is your pre-engagement research process like? What
successes and challenges do you have?
- What information do you need during this time and is it readily
available?
- How do you obtain this information?
- Who is involved?
- Why would you eliminate a prospective vendor from
consideration?
- At what point do you engage a potential vendor? Why then?
"It's today's conventional wisdom that prospects conduct around
two-thirds of vendor research online and through referrals," Cleary
said. "Our mission was to find out what happened before vendors
were contacted: what the buying journey was like, who was involved,
and how vendors could insert themselves into the buying process
earlier in the cycle."
To read an executive summary of the research, visit
http://www.catalystinc.com/demand-generation/cracking-code-pre-sales-engagement/.
To obtain the full research report at no charge, and to discuss
how its findings can impact an organization, email
Jeff Cleary: jcleary@catalystinc.com
or call 585.453.8309.
About Catalyst
Catalyst (www.catalystinc.com) is a marketing agency that helps
businesses develop compelling ways to engage their customers at
every stage of the pipeline. This is done by using analytics to
identify best customer targets and empowering the sales force to
focus on those customers. Intellectual curiosity and
inquisitiveness is applied to create the right content and
messaging to drive customers toward purchase. It is called Science
+ Soul.
It's a powerful combination that improves clients' marketing,
because it aligns the company's sales process with the customer's
buying needs and measurably increases revenue.
Headquartered in Rochester, New
York, B2B clients have included Kodak, Kodak Alaris, Océ
Business Systems (now a Canon company), Hewlett-Packard, Heraeus
Kulzer, Ricoh, Sanofi, Xerox, Xeikon, Johnson & Johnson
Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Pitney Bowes,
Carestream Health, and many others.
Press Contact:
Robyn Kahn Federman
Catalyst
585.453.8358
Robyn.Federman@catalystinc.com
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Cracking the Code
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SOURCE Catalyst