Introduction
Firstly, let’s talk about the Buyer Journey. The journey your customers go through when they interact with you as a vendor.
If you're going to create great content, you'll want to make sure it connects with the viewer in the right way. Of course, the buying group these days consists of a large number of people, so the content you make needs to deliver the right message for each, at different times and for different outcomes.
In this section, we'll be looking at the path buyers go through in their journey as they realize a need for change, learn what's possible, and move forward with a vendor to help and deliver value to their stakeholders.
Here, we see these stages aligned to Demo Types, which we'll cover in a future lesson. For now, focus on the main NEED, LEARN, BUY and VALUE stages.
Source: Kevin F Davis: The Sales Manager's Guide to Greatness, and Garin Hess: Selling is Hard, Buying is Harder.
The first thing they do is they have a NEED. Now, that’s often helped by marketing. Perhaps, for example, you see a movie poster on the side of a bus and realize, “I can change – I can go and see that movie.” Then comes the discontent of the fact you’re not currently seeing that movie. Well, just with software, no one wakes up and decides, “I want to buy software.” Usually, they feel the need to change for some reason. Now Marketing can help there, but we’ve seen demo automation also help.
After that, people have to research to LEARN what to change. Maybe there are 20 things they would love to change, 10 they could change, and maybe 5 that they’ve decided to change. You can help in this research phase to uncover other ideas that they might find able to change at the same time very easily, especially with your help.
Then, they can compare the different vendors who can help make that change. Afterward, they have to BUY into whoever can help with that change, and it often involves software and services. There’s a definite fear – a personal fear and a professional fear to ensure they’ve taken the right step. So helping them through that and the commitment stage is also very important.
Last is VALUE, expectations, and satisfaction. The value stage is post-sale, but it is certainly something that presales can provide since they can help there as well, making sure the expectations are met and satisfaction is ultimately the result.
Jump to the other articles in this series: