The old ways of B2B marketing just don’t work anymore…we’ve come a long way in the past decade in demand generation and there is no turning back. Today’s buyers are sophisticated, savvy and expect a great deal from the organizations marketing to them. Batch and blast email sends are a thing of the past. Try that today and you may get slapped with fines for CAN-SPAM violations, get your IP blocked and perhaps even more importantly, immediately lose all chance of communicating with your buyers as they unsubscribe, due to lack of personalization or relevance of content. Marketing automation is a powerful tool for marketers, but it needs to be used wisely and requires a solid demand generation strategy, a deep understanding of your buyer and content that aligns to every stage of the buyer’s journey and speaks to buying committees.
Buying committees in B2B organizations are the new norm. Marketers no longer market to just one individual, there are many buyers involved in today’s B2B purchases and generally speaking, the higher the price tag, the more individuals involved in the buying committees. Each member of the buying committee has a unique role in the purchase process including the advocate, influencer, decision maker and more. Marketers today can’t underestimate the importance of the various roles of the buying committee, and can’t neglect them when designing content, as each buyer seeks different information to help them with their unique challenges as well as selecting the right solution.
This infographic shows some of the major milestones in demand generation over the past ten years and marketing automation and content marketing are just a few.
Infographic by ANNUITAS.
