Can You Predict When Your Customers Will Buy?

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time for CHANGE … …
(Photo credit: marsmet546)

During the past two to three years, there has been much focus on understanding the buying process, buying cycles, or as some call it – buyer’s journey – of buyers. Due to shifts in buyer behavior towards research and evaluation before sales interactions, we have seen the idea of mapping content to buying stages and buying journeys. I am not so sure this gets us where we need to go.

Mass Confusion

There have been many attempts to depict the buyer’s journey and buying process. We have circles, arches, straight vertical lines, wavy lines, and more. My hunch is buyers read these depictions. What they may think is this – we are not all that well in the head. For marketers and sellers, confusion must exist on which of these many depictions should be followed.

While attempting to understand how buying processes takes place is important, it is only one aspect of many when it comes to understanding buying. A narrow focus on “how” is not very predictive. Nor does it give us perspective on the W’s. The 4 W’s of who, what, where, when, and why.

At Stake

The aim of understanding buying processes and other similar views is to be more effective – when – the actual process of interest and buying is underway. What is at stake in today’s turbulent markets is this question of – when? Having a narrow focus on buying processes or as some prefer – buying journey puts the “when” question in the wrong context. What we really seek is the ability to predict “when” customers and prospect buyers most likely need to buy.

Buyer Predictability

Having the ability to predict as well as have foresight into how buyers will have unfulfilled goals is the new manifesto. It is what buyers expect. Staying in the “when” of buying process alone does not get you there. Buyer predictability will be what separates leaders from contenders.

This response from a recent interview is a case in point, which illustrates buyer expectations:

“What we really want is to work with a company who can give us a roadmap, 5 years out if you will, of what to expect in the future. We need this. We need to know their plans and what they see on the horizon. And that what they offer is adaptable to changes. Because it is a significant investment, we need to not be stuck with something that is old as soon as we implement it.” VP, Business Planning

This case in point has nothing to do with buying process. It has a plenty to do with being in synch with buyers on anticipating the “when” of new needs they will have. And, whether you can be the organization in synch and positioned with buyers to help them anticipate what they will need. The problem many B2B marketers and sellers have today is related to being out of synch with buyers. A way of putting it is this: your “when” is out of synch with their “when”.

What If

Synching up with buyers takes some pre-work. It involves three areas of understanding in order to help customers and prospect buyers:

Understand Buyer Stories

Within organizations today, there are multiple stories taking place. Not understanding these stories and how they relate can leave you out of the Big Story. The Big Story being how a company decides to move forward and transform. For B2B marketers and sellers, you need to be a collector of buyer stories and make sense out of them in order to help customers and prospects accomplish their goals. And, by this I do not mean knowing your buyers “pain” points. This is an old school product marketing reference, which simply needs to go.

Current Buying Scenarios

Companies are being faced with unique situations and dynamics, which equate to a scenario. Do we understand these? A narrow focus on buying process and pain points alone misses what these situations and scenarios are. If you seek a long term and nurturing relationship with a customer or prospect, should you not invest in understanding how these collections of stories, situations, and scenarios are currently affecting customers and prospect buyers?

Future Buying Scenarios

As the quoted case in point demonstrates, buyers can be eager to be in a position to anticipate both technology and market changes. The company who can bring these perspectives will be leaders as oppose to contenders. Only by understanding the first two steps mentioned could you then gain a future perspective. You will be able to plot out potential what if buying scenarios for marketing and sales. And, plot out for your customers and buyers future scenarios they can begin to anticipate and plan for.

These three steps gets you beyond the narrow “how” view of just the buying process or buying journey to the broader perspective of anticipating scenarios buyers are most likely to face. Thus, synching up with buyers when they can anticipate changes in the status quo must be made.

To answer the question of “Can you predict when your customers will buy?” with an approximate yes – building predictability and foresight into your planning as well as relationship with customers and prospects is how you can.

(Schedule time with me and a conversation to help you understand how to gain the ability to predict future buying scenarios. I am very interested in getting your thoughts and perspectives on how this can help you plan. Please share widely – your peers and colleagues are trying to predict what next year will look like.)

Republished with author's permission from original post.

Tony Zambito
Tony is the founder and leading authority in buyer insights for B2B Marketing and Sales. In 2001, Tony founded the concept of "buyer persona" and established the first buyer persona development methodology. This innovation has helped leading companies gain a deeper understanding of their buyers resulting in revenue performance. Tony has empowered Fortune 100 organizations with operationalizing buyer personas to communicate deep buyer insights that tell the story of their buyer. He holds a B.S. in Business and an M.B.A. in Marketing Management.

1 COMMENT

  1. ….and, yes, with the right information – degree of advocacy and brand bonding (which correlates closely to buyer behavior), and other key behavioral elements you’ve cited, such as frequency and amount of purchase, timing of last purchase, etc. – models and algorithms can be created. These frameworks will identify, with a fair amount of accuracy and at a granular (micro segment and even individual customer), when purchases will be made, as well as the amounts and types of purchase by customer. To take it a step further, this can also be extended to competitive set.

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