B2B: Buyer behaviour shifts towards extended lead phases

During Covid-19-related confinement, companies change how and when they make buying decisions.

These days it’s hard for many B2B companies to sign new clients and convert opportunities into deals: The confinement and working from home have changed the usual processes of their prospects’ buying centres, and with their own worries about budgets and cash flow, they postpone purchasing decisions until whenever the crisis is over – or until they can’t avoid purchases any longer due to urgent needs.

So what can marketers, business developers and sales people do? Seize the moment and leverage your prospects’ and customers’ need for information and educational content! Buyers are still around, looking for solutions – and they are currently doing that more extensively than before. High quality, educational, informative content sees a lot of engagement now.

But as I always say: “Clicks and likes won’t pay your bills”, so how can you turn such content into revenue? Make your target group want to hear from you and therefor allow you to contact them: Offer relevant information in regular newsletters, premium (!) gated content, webinars on demand, and non-obligational remote 1-to-1 information sessions in exchange for their sign-up. And then: Stay visible, show your expertise, and answer questions. Keep up a meaningful (!) dialog with clients and prospects, so that they will trustingly turn to you when they become ready to buy.

This means changes in your usual lead and sales cycle times: While the lead nurturing phase gets extended, the pre-sales, offer and negotiation phases can benefit from well-educated prospects who know what they need and want.

If you need further advice on how to adapt your lead generation tactics to this situation – or have ideas you’d like to vet – please get in touch.