Which of the following is the first stage of the buying process group of answer choices?

Awareness

The first stage of the B2B buying process is when a customer realizes there is a problem. They become aware of a business need. For example, a small business has aggressive growth goals. The Marketing Director recognizes to keep up with demand and continue to grow and generate leads, they need help automating their marketing processes. In this scenario the Director has identified a problem and acknowledges a need to fix it.

Commitment to Change

After recognizing a problem, the next stage of the B2B buying process is when the customer commits to fixing the problem. The customer now starts considering:

• What’s the budget necessary to fully address the issue,
• How making a change to the business process would impact other areas of the organization
• Whether the problem can be addressed in stages or all at once.

Understanding the questions your prospect will ask at this stage helps you understand how they are moving through the decision process.

Considering Options

During this stage, the customer researches the various options to solve the problem. Going back to the example with the Marketing Director, she may be asking herself questions like what type of marketing automation platform would best suit our needs? Is this something that could be managed in house by one of the marketing team members? Is it better to hire an outside agency to manage the transition and oversight? What impact would marketing automation have on our current website and databases?

Commitment to the Solution

After researching the different options a customer will decide on the best solution for their business. This could mean the customer decides on a specific platform like HubSpot or agency like Measured Results Marketing to help them implement the desired marketing automation tasks.

Decision Time

We are closing in on the end of the B2B buying process. At this stage of the game, the customer needs to justify the decision they are making to themselves and any upper management. Referring back to our example, the Marketing Director decided the best option and smoothest transition for implementing a marketing automation process meant hiring an agency. She narrowed it down, but wants to make sure she’s making the right decision. This typically means meeting with a sales rep and asking specific questions about why they should choose your agency to solve their problem. This is when the tough questions can get asked, and you must prove to the customer that choosing your business is the best solution for their problem.

Final Selection

The final stage of the B2B buying process is when the Marketing Director makes a decision and purchases the services and/or product. From this point forward, excellent customer service should be the focus. Happy customers lead to repeat customers and referrals.

Put the Six Steps of the B2B Buying Process to Work at Your Company

Do you want to facilitate your prospects’ buying process? Read how Measured Results Marketing can partner with you in marketing and sales alignment.

Tags: lead generation, marketing automation, marketing automation tools

Category

What is the Buyer’s Journey? It is the journey or buying process that consumers go through to become aware of, evaluate, and purchase a new product or service, and it consists of three stages that make up the inbound marketing framework: awareness, consideration, and decision.

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Analyzing the Buyer’s Journey through the inbound marketing lens allows marketers to conceptualize the path of a prospect as a framework. The result? Persona-targeted content for each stage of the Buyer’s Journey. (Of course, this means you need to have buyer personas in place to begin. Click here if you haven’t defined your buyer personas.)

To start, let’s review what you as a marketer can include in each of the three stages to move potential buyers closer to a potential purchase:

Awareness

In the awareness stage of the Buyer’s Journey, a potential buyer is just realizing a want or need for a product and/or service. They are most likely entering search terms in Google to understand more about what they are looking for. This is where an effective SEO strategy plays a key role in your marketing plan. If you can answer questions for your personas and position your awareness content appropriately, you’re putting your organization’s content in a great position to convert. Ask yourself about where your buyers go to educate themselves and what questions they typically ask.

Most potential buyers in the awareness stage are seeking information to answer questions or resolve pain points. It is important to note that at this stage of the journey, the information should be fairly neutral with limited (if any) sales jargon or positioning of the specific organization.

To be an effective marketer, it is important to recognize this type of consumer mentality and cater your marketing communications to provide solutions, ideas, and purpose related to what they’re interested in. A few top-of-the-funnel, awareness stage content offers to consider include:

• Educational content in blog posts
• E-guides and e-books
• White papers
• Industry research/analyst reports

Additionally, you should consider using keywords such as prevent, troubleshoot, or improve within your awareness stage content. This will help attract more leads by providing valuable content that is positioned to address their specific pain point.

Consideration

With a clearly defined goal or challenge and a commitment to address it, the consideration phase is about a buyer’s evaluation of different methods that are available to them. At this stage, you are still delivering critical information to help your buyer make the best possible decision. Here are some examples of consideration content offers you should provide to qualify your lead for the decision stage:

• Product comparison guides
• Expert guides
• Live interactions (podcast or video)

Within these communications, use keywords like provider, service, and tool. Ask yourself what categories of solutions your buyers investigate and how they typically educate themselves on these subjects. Then, use this information to craft content offers.

Decision

At this point in the journey, a buyer has decided on a solution category. They have a strategy in place to address their pain point, but are still deciding on a specific tool to purchase or vendor to work with. A buyer may spend significant time researching documentation, data, vendor reviews, and other materials to gain confidence in their decision.

Content offers at this stage may include vendor/product comparisons, case studies, and free trials. Key terms to include are compare, pros and cons, review, and test. These align with the decision-making process and position your content as a resource, not a hard sales pitch.

Don’t Overcomplicate Things

Understanding the buying process that your various personas go through is critical for any marketer. However, overcomplicating your B2B or B2C content offers is a mistake that I see a lot of organizations making. Put yourself in the position of the consumer you want to speak to and ask yourself if the content is truly a resource or if it is a hard sales pitch. If the content doesn’t offer value and help them reach a potential resolution, you’re putting yourself in a difficult position to succeed. 

With proper inbound marketing tactics applied to each of the three Buyer’s Journey stages, you’ll be able to make content available through the appropriate channels and map each piece of content to the right stage in the funnel. When you are building your Buyer’s Journey, make a point to speak to your sales team. They have a unique perspective because they are speaking to prospects and customers every single day. 

Remember: The main goal of the Buyer’s Journey is to take advantage of a more customer-centric philosophy to better position your company for addressing the needs of your target audience.

Originally written on June 10, 2016. Content was updated August 6, 2019.

Refine your inbound marketing efforts with:

The Ultimate Guide to Inbound Marketing Personas

Place the right content in front of the right people with:

Mapping Content For Different Buyer Personas

About the author

Drew Cohen was formerly a Senior Director of Revenue Operations. Drew developed strategies for organizations in both B2C and B2B verticals. He has unique experience in private-equity owned organizations, early-stage technology startups, sports & entertainment and healthcare. When not marketing, you can find Drew yelling at his television during any Philadelphia team's sporting event. Read more articles by Drew Cohen.

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