If you are familiar with Google ZMOT or just generally observant, you will know that the path to purchase for a consumer has dramatically changed with the influence of social and mobile technology. However, consumers are people, people work in businesses, so of course there is a natural knock on effect as to the way a B2B decision maker goes about his daily tasks.
A recent report from the Marketing Leadership Council in partnership with Google states that the average B2B decision maker completes 57% of the sales cycle without engaging a sales representative. Essentially, they are doing their own research, and potentially making up their mind long before they make contact with the supplier.
Content marketing and the switch to inbound are vital yes, but what about the sales professionals? At the end of the day people buy from people and taking the stats above, it is these people who have to do the hard yards and nurture their prospect through the remaining 40% of the sales cycle. But, whilst the principles of using social media as part of developing business relationships come naturally to some, it doesn’t to others, and this is a significant shift that will need to be made in the B2B space.
Here are 3 Tweetable stats from the infographic above (courtesy of Gerry Moran and Marketing Think) which help to paint the picture about how a B2B decision maker navigates to a purchase decision:
– 81% of #B2B decision makers use communities & blogs to help with a purchase decision #socialselling
– 74% of #B2B decision makers use #LinkedIn to help with a purchase decision #socialselling
– 42% of #B2B decision makers use #Twitter to help with a purchase decision #socialselling
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