The journey from “problem-unaware” to “decision-to-buy” stages of a B2B buyer is non-linear, sometimes full of twists and turns, and often uncharted.
If you want to streamline that journey and potentially lead buyers to your solution, you’ll need to provide the right navigation along the way. To do this, first understand the triggers: Those circumstances, events, and frustrations buyers face that expose gaps, challenges or risks that prevent them from reaching certain objectives. This might be anything from an inefficient internal process to market and competitive trends that are negatively disrupting their business.
Assume nothing!
One of the pitfalls of trying to understand buyers’ journeys and trigger points is focusing too much on internal assumptions and limited data points.
It’s perfectly okay and encouraged to consult with sales teams, industry experts and secondary research when trying to understand how prospects approach purchase decisions specific to your solutions. But that information is only a collection of best guesses and assumptions until VALIDATED by customers and prospects.
The only way to successfully validate these triggers is by talking with customers and prospects. Ask them open-ended questions about their path to purchase. What got them to acknowledge they had a problem or challenge? What influenced their decisions along the way? Ask them to elaborate. Listen to the emotions in their voices as well as the words they use.
Once you have a clear understanding of their path along the way you can develop informative and helpful content to help prospects along their journey.
What questions should you include?
Your questions need to be open ended. Draw out more in-depth insights by following up with “can you elaborate?” or “why?” Here are some open-ended questions to get you started:
What was the event that got you to begin looking for a solution?
What were the risks associated with not addressing the challenges?
How did you begin the process of exploring a solution?
What information and answers did you need along the way?
Where did you go for advice, information, and answers?
What criteria did you develop for finding the right solution?
What were your top concerns as you explored solutions?
What factors most influenced your final decision: Price, quality, reputation, word of mouth, specific capabilities, social proof?
What type of information did you wish you had early on that would have made this process faster or easier?
Once you know the key triggers and what buyers needed to move to the next stage in the decision process, you can create the right content, resources, and channels to help buyers along the way.
Include key triggers in your Core Messaging Framework
Incorporate buyers’ trigger points in your internal Messaging Framework, along with your value proposition, key benefits, and proof points. For each trigger point or groupings of triggers, provide answers and resources that will enable your internal teams – particularly Sales and Marketing – to have ready answers for prospects at any step of their journey.
If your company is challenged with uncovering your target buyers' key trigger points and how to create compelling messaging to address these, we may be able to help. Get a 30 minute, no obligation strategy session to learn more.