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BUYER’S JOURNEYTrends Influencing Demand Generation Investments

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Professionals are self-educating online more

than ever before.

67% of the buyer’s journey is done digitally.

So, how are the best marketers getting their products and solutions in front of prospects to influence them throughout the entire sales cycle?

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This guide delves into our research findings and reveals promotional tactics that will get your message in front of the right buyers - at the right time - to help you successfully engage buyers throughout the lifecycle.

We teamed up with Lightspeed GMI, a global market research firm, to conduct a series of studies about the digital buyer’s journey. We surveyed over 300 professionals online and conducted in depth 90 minute panel discussions to learn directly from the source how decision makers and influencers prefer to research and learn online. These insights identified key initiatives you can implement to target your best buyers.

Survey responder profiles:

● >1,000 employees (43.1%)

● 101-1000 employees (37.8%)

● 2-100 employees (17.2%)

● Other (1.9%)

Mostly Gen Y

Mostly Gen X and some baby boomers

Mostly Gen X and some Gen Y

Exec21%

Junior27%

Mid Mgmt.52%

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Buyers are continuously researching online to solve project-related problemsProfessionals seek out content and experts to solve their project-related challenges and improve performance. Your goal as a marketer is to drive demand by crafting messages and stories that solve your potential buyers’ problems.

TREND 1

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Top motivators driving research

● Solve project-related challenges● Gain technical and soft skills quickly● Lead in broad + technical areas● Become an established expert● Get promoted● Mentor early and mid-career talent● Deepen expertise in defined areas

Common content types buyers are seeking from experts online

● Introductory● How-to● Soft skills● Thought leadership● Industry news● Product demos

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Through digital self-education, more junior team members are being empowered to research, identify and short-list the best solutions to help address their business challenges.

Juniors have more purchasing power than before

TREND 2

Executive Level48.4% approve12.9% influence

38.7% no involvement

Mid-Management Level48.1% approve19% influence

32.9% no involvement

Junior Level 48.8% approve17.1% influence

34.1% no involvement

of junior level employees have final approval power to make short-list recommendations

48%

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Marketers need to earn the trust of prospects through providing resourceful content that is genuinely helpful and relevant. By helping your prospects solve their challenges, you’re laying the foundation for them to advocate that they need you and your solution as a strategic priority to purchase. Buyers want to see the ROI of your offerings and the ROI of solving specific project-related or performance challenges.

Earn the trust of your audience through value providing content

TREND 3

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● Deliver proof of value through communicating the benefits and ROI customers have experienced after resolving the specific challenges.

- Ex: How Salesforce Uses Pardot to Drive Demand and Close Deals

● Compare potential new strategies and procedures with current ones.

- Ex: 451 Research: The Problem with SIEM, and Who’s Solving It Better than Others

● Weigh the advantages of solving the problem with the disadvantages of inactivity, and how and why those factors could change in the future.- Ex: Simplify Your Data Protection & Backup

Strategy● Explain how your solution will bring about new opportunities to increase revenue, decrease cost, or diminish risk.- Ex: Green IT: Save Money & the Environment

Help influencers understand your value

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Persuasive campaigns and content must demonstrate

● How you will strategically meet each demand

● How your claims are supported through data and proof points

● Why your solution surpasses that of competitors

Professionals are engaging with rich media such as video and webinars on a weekly basis

TREND 4

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Modern marketers understand the importance of webinars and videos throughout the buyer’s lifecycle.

How often are buyers consuming this type of content?

Junior Level 51% weekly26% daily

Mid-Management Level46% weekly29% daily

Senior Executive Level44% weekly38% daily

Either daily or weekly across the board (majority on office desktop or home tablet).

Long-form video content now accounts for a majority of video views online. — Ooyala Research Report

TREND 5

The more you prioritize video and webinar content, the more interest you’ll drive. Video content is consistently showing up in Google’s top 5 results. Page one on Google drives roughly 90% of the traffic, with the majority of this traffic coming through the top 5 results.

Prioritizing short 5-15 minute long videos as a top of funnel strategy to drive engagement with your story through search is highly effective. Using the serialized, long-to-short form content approach pulls in prospects and then reengages them.

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Where should you be investing your demand gen budget?The way you deliver your message to buyers can be more important than the content itself. The most common element amongst the top preference for professionals was that it had to be interactive with the experts.

● Webinars and video● PDF or PPT● Community websites, discussion

boards● Classroom, meetups● Books (Targets C-Suite primarily)[BrightTALK & LightSpeed GMI]

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Top content types used to research B2B purchasing decisions:

● White papers: 83%● Case studies: 67%● Webinars: 75%● Ebooks: 68%● Videos: 63%● Blog posts: 56%● Infographics: 52%[Demand Gen Report 2015]

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Driving demand at every stage of the buyer’s journey

With around the clock online access to a world of information, buyers expect free access to quality, interactive, to-the-point rich media content with experts.

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Source1

What does this mean for your demand gen investments? At the awareness level (when the buyer is trying to grasp the basics) short-form, snackable content works. In the consideration and decision phases, buyers want to dive deeper with longer form content. Plan your budget accordingly to maximize exposure and success.

Awareness stageIntro-to guides and videos

Short how-to videosIndustry news commentary

blog postsOnline summits

sponsorship with keynote

Consideration stageWebinar series on

actionable best practicesHow-to webinars & videos

Case studies

Decision stageProduct demo webinars

and videoseBooks illustrating

solutionsProduct value clips

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How can BrightTALK help scale your demand gen?

BrightTALK provides what buyers expect: Free access to quality, interactive, to-the-point video and webinar content with experts. With a Net Promoter Score of 29, BrightTALK is where professionals go to improve their performance and advance their careers.

BrightTALK Provides:1000s of experts50,000+ free, interactive live and on-demand videos

BrightTALK’s Audience:4+ million global professionals researching on the platform

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Average viewing of 36 minutes

Manage $7B in budget

Prefer interactive video and webinar content

Seek out experts to research and learn

Viewers are 2x more engaged than industry averages

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Why BrightTALK leads are more qualified

Viewers are 2x more engaged than industry averages

Key takeaways for your demand generation and awareness campaigns

Boost engagement. Create more videos and webinars, produce content decision makers need, take an episodic approach, and distribute via mobile friendly video destinations and embeds.

Improve lead quality. Professionals often want to go deeper fast. Use intent signals from other relevant videos and webinars to increase lead scores and improve database quality. Partner with relevant internal teams for closed-loop demand generation.

Measure success. Track average views vs. competitors. Measure video and webinar numbers per month vs. competitors. Track impact on conversion to MQL/SQL and marketing-sourced pipeline.

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For more resources on running effective webinars, visit the BrightTALK Academy.

The key to a successful demand gen program is investing in methods and technology that puts you in front of your target buyers.

Strategic marketers prioritize webinar and video content for consideration and decision stages and leverage long-form

rich media to effectively generate demand for their business and drive better revenue.