B2B Buying Cycle – Stage 2: Aware

The b2b buying cycle has reached stage 2 – Aware…..The cycle itself has six phases – Unaware, Aware, Comparing, Validating, Action and Advocates. So the behaviour of prospects will change and develop as they move through these six phases. Speed of completion is important.  But more important is the ability to define the position of prospects. As a result, prospects move from being ill-informed and unaware to being effective and supportive long-term advocates for your business.

Stage 2: Aware:

In stage two your prospects are aware of your business, so the challenge is to cut through the noise. There has never been more noise. It is difficult to make yourself heard. Moreover, the buying process can be all but over before any direct contact may be made between prospect and supplier. So, the danger is that you are discounted without even knowing you were being considered.

The Digital Footprint

Your digital footprint will be just one of the mechanisms that B2B buyers are likely to research. They will consider a range of potential solutions before developing a shortlist of industry leaders and outside disruptors.

The full range of ATL and BTL marketing will play a part to help position your brand. This may be above or outside industry standards or as a true innovator with distinctive USPs.

Track your customer journey objectively

However, with the potential for so little direct contact – the challenge is to understand exactly where prospects are within the buying cycle. CRM systems will help to track contact, responsibility and the level of information being provided but Sonar can take this further.

By tracking the level of interaction with your digital tools a picture can be created.  A route can be developed that begins to plot a network of interactions – when this happens, then we’ll do that; if this and that happens then we’ll do this.

It sounds complex and marketing automation is still developing but the allocation of points for prospects means the buying cycle journey becomes an objective, numerical process.    

Communications

In stage 2 – the communications tools to develop the position of your brand are similar to those from stage 1 – email, social media, direct marketing, content, video, blogs and advertising. Successes can be relayed and used to prove the capability of your business.

We can help at every stage of the process. More importantly we can work with you to develop the tools to accurately track the buying cycle of your prospects objectively.