The informed B2B buyer - a series by Jon Reed of diginomica

B2B sales teams ran into the mack truck of the pandemic economy. Amidst the adversity, lessons on the digital future of B2B sales are emerging. But how do you sell when budgets are frozen? Bring on an ROI selling discussion with Mediafly.

Gartner's Hank Barnes regularly shares provocative ideas and research on enterprise buyers. Our first-ever podcast brought the question of how buyers are changing to a head. Here's the highlights.

A provocative series of content marketing presentations has forced me back into content strategy. The only problem: I'm queasy from "content experience" buzzwords. And is context more important than content? What?

In part one of his first-ever podcast with Hank Barnes of Gartner, Reed and Barnes revisit their multi-year dialogue on the dilemmas of the modern enterprise buyer. Barnes has fresh research on modern buyers, including unsettling updates on project failures and buyer complacency. He also has fresh buzzwords for Jon to call out and break down, including "continuous buying" and "continuous customer behaviors."

In part two of their talk on the dilemmas of the modern enterprise buyer, Jon Reed and Hank Barnes of Gartner dive right into Barnes' latest research on reaching enterprise buyers, and the strengths and flaws of reaching buyers with content. Other surprising Gartner data is discussed, including the surprising role of vendor responsiveness and why that is overlooked. The guys also hit on peer reviews and the problem of attempting to game buyers with positive reviews. The conversation is framed with this question: how we can serve buyers better, and reduce the amount of flawed and troubled projects? The final section includes advice for customers on navigating buying complexity.

New ideas have advanced the conversation about the B2B buyer and the so-called buyer’s journey, but something’s still missing.

My last piece on informed buyers ruffled a feather or two. Still, B2B buyers need more than over-branded and tone deaf content. Here’s a fresh response and dialogue.

Calling BS on "content experiences" and "contexual experience" paid off. A fun debate was joined, and the conversation advanced. Here's what I think B2B content marketers can apply from these discussions.

Recently I put my content strategy for the B2B buyer to the live test. The audience had some terrific questions. Here’s a rundown of the event and the top questions asked – with links to audio.

My last post on B2B buyers stoked readers’ fires. The debate: are social networks an effective channel for reaching B2B buyers? Here’s some reader views – and my reactions.

Customer reviews are a huge factor in B2C buying. But can B2B peer reviews reach the same level of relevance? TrustRadius says yes – here’s how they’re doing it.

My last debate with TrustRadius on the impact of peer reviews on B2B buyers was certainly interesting. But their data raised a question we need to answer: how can vendors make their sales and marketing more transparent – and relevant to buyers?

You can’t build subscribers if you don’t earn attention. But now more than ever, the desire for attention poses a fundamental problem. Here’s how to pull it off in B2B markets.

In this interactive live discussion from Western Mass Podcamp 2018, Jon shares his views on researching the so-called informed buyer, and why marketing and sales must change. Participants from the session share their own challenges, and Jon hits on the dynamics of winning (and sustaining) attention, and why topic authority and opt-in audiences are essential. He explains why social media is useless without content, and why content is useless without a clear business identity. The role of subscription and curation is discussed

A no-slides, no-notes talk on content strategy put my views to the test. Here’s twenty quick hit points from the talk – and some closing tips for B2B content producers.

Influencer marketing is spreading like influenza. Fortunately there is a cure to the problems raised by crowdsourced e-books and other guru festivals. As usual, it goes back to transparency

"It’s Friday, it’s raining sludge, and I’m a wee bit cranky. What better topic than how to screw up a vendor analyst day? It’s all in satirical fun, but the events here are pulled from real-life. Repeat at your own risk."

Once or twice a year, enterprise media are gather at your user event, eager to write about truly inspiring stories and unexpected news. What could go wrong? A lot, actually. Here’s 13 ways to botch it up, presented as satire with snark on the house.

What better way to debate a new ERP buyer report than with the author itself? That’s exactly what I did with a new SelectHub report written by analyst Gabriel Gheorghiu. There are several surprises we must consider.

In our line of work, there’s nothing more awkward than the phrase “Can I review this before publication?” We all need more customer use cases. Here’s ten tips to avoid the gotchas – and ensure a great experience for the customer.

Hank Barnes of Gartner is conducting in-depth research on the enterprise buyer. Some of his findings, including the role of influencers in the buying process, are eye opening.

Enterprise events aren’t completely broken, but they do need a rethink. I turned to two customers for their views on what works – and what needs to change.

As if content marketing ROI wasn’t hard enough, the informed buyer has come along and ruined the content party. Social media isn’t faring much better, with broadcast binges of content brandware having – at best – minimal impact on the B2B buying process. Why?

How do you mess up customer case study? Let us count the ways, nine to be exact – and learn from the winners.

Enterprise buyers are changing. For solution providers, the ramifications change the sales process – and how trust is established. Here’s some surprising research about purchasing risk, sales interactions, and the flaws of peer references.

To contrast with Gartner’s findings. I did a sweep of other recent insights on B2B buyer personas. What I found was a buying sensibility that favors some tech companies but punishes others. Issues are also raised about the value of content in research and evaluation.

“Put your putter down and start blogging” – sounds like a great tagline for my motivational blog workshops. OK, it’s catchy, but is it good advice?

The notion that companies must cater to a Twitter pajama party is depressing – and intellectually vacant to boot. Maybe that’s why companies tend to struggle with influencer programs. But there are potent benefits to getting it right.

In my last content marketing missive, I took issue with a Forrester post that companies have (largely) solved the content problem but are struggling with the distribution of that content. My position hasn’t changed but I missed something critical along the way.

B2B content strategy is useless without building trust through high-value free content and without putting the willing exchange of data for content in the center. So many content mistakes come from mapping content to the wrong point in the sales cycle,

Still, these adoption tactics matter. Vendors that ignore them do so at their peril. At the least, they are heavily impacting how buyers research and select software – something I have already hit on. If the informed buyer can’t find you, you aren’t winning. Not for much longer. Thoughts?

When I was approached about Influitive’s new funding round, I wasn’t super-interested – VC funding ain’t my beat. Instead, I issued a challenge to Influitive Founder and CEO to Mark Organ: let’s get real about advocate marketing. He accepted – and we’re off.

When it comes to turning references into true customer advocates, many enterprises come up short. I asked Influitive CEO Mark Organ to share his research on how to energize customer communities, and better understand what truly motivates different personality types.

I used to scoff at the case study. I viewed case studies as glossy marketing ploys, nothing that a keeping-it-real blogger like myself needed to trouble my cool self with. Then I started writing them, and all that changed.