Buyer Journey B2B: A Complete Guide to Optimization



The B2B buyer journey is a detailed process that has many parts and significantly affects a company’s sales. In many ways, the B2B buyer journey is the opposite of the B2C buyer journey. B2C purchases are usually individual decisions made in the moment, but B2B purchases are made by committees over long periods of time with lots of discussions and sometimes even arguments. With more people involved and so much time spent, B2B buyers have to be pretty certain that what they’re buying will pay off and provide value over the long term. Because of this, B2B marketing and sales teams have to understand the buyer’s journey and its many layers if they want to optimize their processes and be more successful in reaching and converting buyers.

A Look at the B2B Buyer Journey

At its most basic level, the B2B buyer journey is about how businesses come to purchase certain goods or services. They start with a recognized need and end with a purchase. Sometimes, businesses will need certain goods or services only once or for a limited time, so the sales cycle can be relatively quick. But when businesses make larger or longer-term investments, the purchase decision can take months (or longer) and involve many different people across various parts of an organization. A comparatively small number of B2B purchases can add up to a huge total.

Why the B2B Buyer Journey Differs from B2C

In B2B, we cannot limit our concept of a buyer to just one individual. Research shows the typical buying group involves six to ten decision-makers. These stakeholders, from top to bottom, have different preferences, pain points, and goals. This makes for a “difficult to read” buying group that can delay the process. Yes, this can be a pain, but it gives us time and space to build layered and deeper organizational relationships—installing us, if you will, in the moments that matter.

Larger deals and prolonged sales processes are the hallmarks of B2B buying. When businesses buy, they tend to buy in large quantities, and when they sell, they tend to sell in large quantities. The same holds true for the opposite side of the business equation: when companies sell to businesses, they tend to close large deals. But even large deals take a long time to close. B2B sales cycles often last six months to a year or more.

The Emotional Aspect of B2B Purchases

It is a common misconception that B2B purchases are made on the basis of logic. In truth, when B2B buyers make purchasing decisions, emotions are a big part of the process. Trust, for instance, is a must-have. B2B buyers need to feel assured that the vendor they are choosing is reliable, that the vendor’s goals align with their own organizational goals, and that, on the whole, they are not making a decision that they (or their company) will come to regret.

The B2B buyer journey consists of three main stages: Awareness, Consideration, and Decision. These stages are traditionally well known and understood in marketing circles, yet many fail to see the intimate relationship between each stage and our content performance. It’s not enough to have content that just exists in a stage; it has to perform its intended purpose by leading prospects to the next stage and ultimately to a purchase.

Reach Out and Educate Potential Customers

Enlightening Prospects Means Better Business

In the Awareness Stage, a potential buyer has not yet settled on a specific problem. They are only starting to realize there is something in their business or life that needs addressing. In this very new stage, the potential buyer is wide open to influence. They may know nothing at all about your field and only a little about the problem they might eventually solve. With a little nudging and plenty of content and conversation, you can help lead them to the path of recognizing what the problem really is and the dimension of the problem that makes it worth solving.

Collaboration with Target Audiences in the Content Domain

In the Awareness stage, companies can ensure their active participation by strategically creating and disseminating educational materials aimed squarely at the potential problems and pain points that their ideal prospects are struggling with. Blogs, whitepapers, and even “how-to” guides can serve a dual function in this regard. They can establish companies as the go-to resources in their niches while also gently nudging potential buyers in the direction of seeing the value in their offerings.

The Consideration Stage

Appraising Remedies

With the issue satisfactorily delimited, the purchaser plunges into solution research, investigating what might work for them. They begin to trim down the vendor list, using a seemingly endless array of materials—case studies, product guides, expert reviews, and the like—to assist in the decision-making process.

Sales and marketing collaboration is crucial in this context. Now it is on marketing’s shoulders to give sales the power they need to close deals. The way to do this is to make sales the recipient of lead intelligence—knowledge about leads gained from the way leads behave and interact with content. Still better, marketing can give sales conversation-enhancing tools that essentially lead the prospect to the next logical step in the discussion. Two prime examples of such tools are interactive product selectors and ROI calculators.

The Decision Stage

Choosing the Right Vendor

In the Decision stage, buyers contrast and compare their chosen vendors along key dimensions like price, specified delivery timeline, ease of implementation, and post-sales support. And at this moment, across all buying centers, the strict orders of “don’t screw up” and “ensure you’re all-in for the right reasons” rule the day.

Making Dreams Come True: Tailoring Demos. Stay Transparent; Pricing Isn’t Magic. Even When You’re Not Proselytizing, Be a Manifester. Real-World Testimonials. Knock Down Objections Before They Even Happen. No Implementation Obstacle Course. Rinse and Repeat.

Having a non-linear nature, the B2B buyer journey requires an exercise in strategy to not only understand it but also to map it accurately. This is because the B2B buyer journey is a collective, collaborative process that involves many individuals and digital touchpoints across a lengthy timeframe.

Insights From Data

Monitoring Client Actions

Employing analytical tools to decipher customer behavior can yield revelations about prospects and already converted clients. For even more useful insights, track interaction across multiple channels. Behaviors in one space often illuminate the motivations behind actions in another.

Behavioral Segmentation

Segment leads by their behaviors, interests, and needs for precise and effective communication. Messaging becomes much more impactful when it is directed at the subgroup to which it truly pertains. There are three main approaches to behavioral segmentation: occasion-based, benefit-based, and loyalty-based.

Ongoing Refinement

Needing to Clarify the Journey

When we identify instances in which prospective customers exit the funnel, then optimize our content or even just clarify our touchpoints in the funnel, we create a significantly enhanced buying experience.

Being Agile

The B2B buyer journey is affected by market dynamics and technology. Flexibility and real-time data allow you to update your policies and playbooks from the path to purchase just-in-time. The result? Sustainable success.

Blending Digital and Human Interactions

One of the most noticeable aspects of the current buyer journey is the hybrid model that merges digital self-service with human interaction.

Digital Self-Service Tools

Enabling Powerful Buyers

By providing tools like cost calculators, AI-driven chatbots, and interactive guides, we allow buyers to verify and validate our solutions. Fewer buyers seem to be using sales reps for this purpose now that we have these tools. But that’s a good thing, because not only is buyer satisfaction up with these tools, but they also give an opportunity for the buyer to be that much more powerful.

Digital tools can help sales and marketing teams do their jobs more efficiently. One of these tools is WoopSocial, a leading platform for managing social media. WoopSocial and its competitors allow companies not only to post to various social media sites but also to schedule those posts for future times and dates. Of course, posting and scheduling are nothing without the next step: tracking. WoopSocial also allows companies to track the engagement of customers with every post made to every platform.

When Digital Is Not Enough

For buyers in need of high-value or intricate solutions, there’s no substitute for direct human interaction. Even with our powerful digital tools, we couldn’t begin to adequately serve these buyers without hands-on assistance from our trained experts. Their complex inquiries require not only comprehension of our offerings but also an understanding of the buyers’ unique contexts and needs.

Establishing Connections

Interacting with potential customers during key moments in the buyer’s journey—such as when they are asking for product demonstrations or when they are in the final negotiation stages—does not just help you close deals; it also establishes a post-sale relationship built on trust.

What Happens After the Purchase?

Continuing with the B2B client journey doesn’t end with a purchase. Retention and upselling are just as important in the B2B side of business as they are in B2C.

Onboarding and Initial Engagement

A successful implementation requires not only that the system work as intended but also that the users trust and understand the system. We’ve had customers for many years who believe in our product for just those reasons. They’ve had the chance to see it work well in their instances and meet their needs even beyond what they initially expected.

Capitalizing on the Success of Your Customers

Contentment in the customer realm is the number one way to further engage a brand. Content customers serve as supercharged spokespeople—after all, what’s better than a satisfied customer? Use the content your current customers provide to further goad along the companies that might engage with you in the near future.

Grasping the subtleties of the B2B buyer journey and ensuring your sales and marketing energies are directed toward its complexities allows your organization to secure more clients and drive measurable, responsible growth. The WoopSocial platform can play a basic, auxiliary role in this process—one that involves post automation, content scheduling, and audience engagement, all of which serve to clear the path toward more direct, effective, and targeted outreach. Still, the true, first-order teaching of the B2B buyer journey is this: It’s about your buyers, not you.

Your journey continues here as you refine your buyer journey b2b strategies with enhanced understanding and improved tools.