Buyer Journey | Tony Zambito Founder of Buyer Personas and Buyer Insights Research

Buyer Journey

The Buyer’s Journey Will Transform Into The Buyer’s Quest By 2020

Funnels, stages, paths, journeys, and more labels that suggest some form of a linear line of thinking has dominated marketing and sales for decades. Whereby the notion of awareness, evaluation or consideration, and purchase decision is built-in to these views. In reality, whatever labels have been applied, there are more similarities than differences. As forward-thinking marketing and sales leaders prepare for 2020 and continuous digital disruption, it is time to alter this line of thinking. In vogue the last few years is the idea that the buyer’s journey is the best way to view how buyer’s get to a decision. …

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3 Forces Shaping The Future Of B2B Marketing

Many executives, particularly Chief Marketing Officers, are in constant pursuit of understanding changing buyer behaviors and markets. Which, for the most part, remains an elusive and challenging endeavor. In the past ten plus years, we have seen a tumultuous upheaval in both the world of buyers and how marketing is adapting. As business leaders and marketing leaders look ahead to the future, the ever-expanding global digital economy will undoubtedly cause further disruption. Charting a course for future growth becoming increasingly difficult. Despite the advent of an overflowing introduction of new marketing approaches, acronyms, and concepts in the past decade, the…

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Reboot Buyer Insights To Drive B2B Growth

B2B companies are faced with the most transformative era in business history. On a greater scale than that of the first Industrial Revolution over a century ago, we are witnessing a technological and digital revolution that will disrupt business-to-business profoundly in the next 10 years. The scale of which is still unpredictable and undoubtedly will continue to have more disruption in store for businesses over the next decade. The scale of disruption will mean the B2B buyer and seller dynamic will continue to be rocked. We are seeing many industries feel the impact of new technologies upending previously accepted norms of…

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New Buyer Insights Needed To Unlock Growth In An Era Of B2B Digital Transformation

The digitization of the global business economy has been taking place at an unprecedented rate. Consider this. Approximately forty years ago, 83% of the market value of the S&P 500 were tied to tangible assets – physical products. Today, the complete reverse has happened. Intangible assets, such as copyrights, patents, training, procedures, data, digital innovations, and intellectual property, now comprise 84% of the market value of the S&P 500. This startling transformation of the S&P 500 is just one snapshot of what is taking place globally. A new era of business will develop in the next 10 years that will…

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How The Content Illusion Is Leading Marketing Astray In The Era Of Digital Transformation

In the past five years, the often-unquestioned hymnal has been that to succeed in today’s digital world, businesses must produce content. Produce high-quality content, yes. But, produce massive amounts of it to get in front of customers. According to various statistics on the Internet, we are living in a world where every minute over 200 million items of online content is produced. Where nearly 1500 blog posts are posted every minute. Whereby over 200 million email message are sent every minute. The amount of content exploding online is staggering. Leaving the content dilemma facing many organizations – how to stand…

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Pursuit Of Goals Drive Buyer’s Journey

One of my favorite apps is the Starbuck’s app. Being a coffee lover, the app is a major convenience for getting coffee at the nearest Starbuck’s location. Admittedly, the app serves very well as a motivator to stop at Starbuck’s versus elsewhere. So that I continue to reach the goal of enough stars to get the occasional free drink plus other offers. It has long been established in the disciplines of the social sciences that individual and team motivation to achieve a goal or set of goals are powerful drivers influencing choices and decisions. For example, the Starbuck’s app definitely…

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Why Context Is More Important Than Content In Marketing

The transformation to a digital economy has shifted behaviors considerably in the past decade. Meaning marketers today must account for how to adapt to behavioral shifts caused by the omnipresence of digital and online information. As a for instance, people today have no more than a 7 to 10-second span of attention when online. Even more compelling is the greater influence of mobile and digital social platforms on reducing attention span and creating filtering behaviors in purchases. The digital transformation is causing many CMOs today to reevaluate exactly what content marketing may mean to their overall marketing strategy. Marketing Campaigns:…

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Are Your Buyer Personas Data Overkill?

As the concept of buyer personas has crept into the conscious of both B2C and B2B Marketing, so has misguided representations of buyer personas become prevalent. With many touted frameworks and processes being representative of buyer personas in name only. These misrepresentations have also led to a tendency to throw everything, including the kitchen sink, into crafting buyer personas. For example, an organization I helped recently had previously utilized a framework, labeled buyer persona in name only, which consisted of a matrix of 15 plus categories. Why do I say labeled in name only? This approach of having 15 plus…

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How Understanding The Goals And Intent Of Buyers Can Transform Marketing

People and professionals in organizations can have different intentions while working towards the accomplishment of organizational, as well as, individual goals. Understanding the difference between intent-driven and goal-driven behaviors allows for deeper levels of understanding buyers (customers). Leading to more effective online engagement, content design, and sales conversations. The relationship between intent and goals is a very important one. Understanding this relationship allows for a deeper analysis of buying behavior and what truly is driving purchase decisions. Primarily, it helps with making sense of the tasks and activities buyers perform. Tasks Versus Goals This is also an important principle behind…

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Overcoming The Content Personalization Challenge With Buyer Persona Research

It is clear that one of the top challenges facing marketing, especially B2B marketing, is the ability to connect with potential buyers on a personal level. Recent surveys of marketing professionals by Rapt Media, Forrester, Seismic, SAP, IBM, and others all indicate that content personalization remains the biggest challenge for marketers this year and for the foreseeable future. The percentages of marketers indicating this as their top challenge are not measly either. For example, in a survey of 500 marketing professionals by Rapt Media, over 80% stated content personalization as their biggest challenge. This coincides with previous studies and surveys…

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