As sales enablement is to sellers, buyer enablement is to buyers.
According to Gartner, Buyer enablement is the provisioning of information to support the completion of critical activities required to complete a purchase.
In simple words, it is a process to offer prescriptive advice and practical support to the buyers with an aim to ease the buying process and help them navigate all the stages of buying hassle-free.
Buyer Enablement is a broad concept and it encapsulates many things that we will discuss in the following section. Keep reading…
Buyer enablement is a crucial element of your buyer’s journey you never considered
Buyer enablement is about creating an unforgettable journey for the buyer. It is an experience fabricated by marketers to take the view of their customers. As every buyer is unique, the B2B buying process can be categorized into the following phases:
1. Awareness:
It is a stage where buyers face some problems and are experiencing pain. Buyers are searching in the market and looking for guidance on how to solve their problems.
2. Consideration:
After the research, buyers have a clear idea of what their ideal problem is and they start understanding how a solution could help solve their problems. Buyers take decisions depending on their future priorities and needs based on their evaluation of the market.
3. Interests:
In this phase, buyers have already found many vendors, researched their products, and talked to them probably. At this point, they are looking for detailed information on how your solution is the best of all.
4. Preference:
As soon as the evaluation of all the vendors is completed, buyers will select their vendor of choice. At this stage, buyers are more focused to narrow down their choices and pick up one vendor. Some additional stakeholders may also help to move the deal forward or backward depending upon various circumstances.
5. Validation:
In this stage, the decision is already taken but the buyers are looking for some external validation that can justify their decision. They might check reviews, and community groups to find out the reviews of your products. Buyers are looking for ROI data to support their selection.
6. Purchase:
It is the final stage, and buyers are confident in their choice of vendor and they are ready to purchase.
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Best Practices To Boost Buyer Enablement
Map the buyer’s journey
A purchase decision is not just one step, it is a series of steps, different roads, and pathways that a buyer takes to reach the final destination of purchase. As a marketer, you should map the journey of your buyer. Put the buyers’ needs first and think about the kind of questions your buyers will have in mind while buying the product.
Note down every question that comes to your mind, and these questions will help you curate content to cater to the needs of your buyers. You must align your buyer’s journey throughout the stages of the sales cycle and the internal personas involved.
Remember that every interaction you have with your buyer is a reflection of how their life will be when they put your product to use. Always aim to help your buyers buy.
Buyer enablement Content
Mapping the buyer’s journey is the first step of buyer enablement. According to Gartner, buyer enablement content should be designed like this:
At every step of the journey, you must create relevant content to inform your buyers about your products. Thus, while building buyer enablement content and mapping it across various stages of the buying cycle, keep the above content principles in mind.
For example, when you create brand awareness for your brand, you can educate users with the help of blog posts, marketing videos, and webinars. Similarly, you can create a series of content to push your buyers through the sales funnel and bring them to the final stage of purchase.
Buyer Enablement Tools to Rescue
Automation is a necessary check when starting with your buyer enablement journey. For every phase of the buyer’s journey, you will find tools to boost your efforts. For example, Intercom and Chilipiper helps to schedule the content, and Zoom helps in video sharing.
Research conducted by Gartner on buyer enablement found that customers who receive information from their suppliers across their buyer journey are 2.8 times more likely to experience a high degree of purchase ease and three times more likely to buy a bigger deal with minimum regret.
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Wrapping Up
More information about the product to be purchased helps customers to close high-quality deals with less regret. We all know that B2B buying and selling landscape is changing, and to win high-quality deals, marketers must focus on improving buyers’ experiences throughout their buying journey.
Organizations must focus on helping buyers to buy and create processes that enable them to make quick decision.