A Guide to the B2B Buying Process

In a post for Inbound Sales, the staff provides a guide to understanding the B2B buying process.

They say the buying process represents a set of steps your prospects need to go through in order to make a purchase, including Awareness, Evaluation, and Decision:

These days, they say, buyers are being inundated with more marketing messages over even more channels than ever before, leading to information overload, confusion, and stalled decision-making cycles.

“Better content targeting and personalization is required to end “carpet bombing” B2B marketing techniques,” they write. “Instead, you need to create a dialogue with buyers that guides them through the decision making process.”

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In the first phase of the buying process, decision makers need to be convinced that the status quo should/must change.

“It’s at this pivotal time when buyers define strong provider preferences,” they write.

In the evaluation stage, they say, prospects are looking for leading experts on the subject and the potential outcomes they can realistically plan to accomplish.

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“Discuss risks and how your expertise helps mitigate it proactively,” they writes. “Help them enlarge their thinking in strategic ways and make sure you consider the needs of the project influencers, various stakeholders, and colleagues.”

In the final stage of the buying process, your prospects buying team must reach consensus on a particular proposal.

“This is the opportune time to highlight customer success stories and demonstrate how your customers have achieved successful project implementation and business value,” they write.

For more on the B2B buying process, read the entire post here.

Photo by: Ian Collins