The Key Moments Leading Up to a Purchase

Shownotes

Customers are now being empowered to the point where they can walk into a dealership and know more about the product than the salesperson. How does this affect marketing strategies; how should revenue leaders approach this? Today’s episode with Jay McBain is about the changing revenue cycle and how companies must consider new partnerships and strategies to keep customers engaged. He mentions that the key to success in this environment is to be cross-functional and think about your company in terms of the channels it operates. He also emphasizes the importance of being present in every channel to remain competitive.

About the Guest

Jay McBain is one of the global channel’s most visible and respected thought leaders. Named 2021 Channel Influencer of the Year by Channel Partners Magazine, Top 40 Under Forty by the Business Review, and numerous channel magazines’ top influencer lists, he is often sought out for industry guidance and future trends. He has spent his 28-year career in various executive channel sales, marketing, and strategy roles within IBM, Lenovo, Autotask, ChannelEyes, and Forrester. Jay is a Chief Analyst at Canalys – the world’s leading research firm with a distinct focus on channels, partnerships, alliances, and ecosystems.

Connect with Jay McBain

Key Takeaways

• The spheres of influence that customers engage with are opportunities for marketers to initiate partnerships to educate, co-market, and co-sell.
• Subscription consumption is the future of business, and B2B sales and marketing must be prepared for this change.
• Getting a customer on the dance floor used to be the entire goal of sales, but now it’s not as important. B2B sales and marketing must focus on driving adoption and integration, upselling, and cross-selling to keep customers engaged.
• There are multiple preferences that buyers have, and you cannot afford to cut any channels out of your communication strategy.
• Managing, monitoring, and measuring framework is essential for sales and marketing professionals to keep track of customer engagement and conversion rates.

Quote

“We know more about customers now because we’re forced to. You know, we’re going into the end of cookies where we can just go grab a piece of the market or ad tech and pay for those early moments… Companies are now looking at these 28 moments, which is the average of a considered purchase.” – Jay McBain

Highlights from the Episode

Can you tell us about the 28 moments in a considered purchase?

Companies are looking for ways to get involved in the 28 moments leading up to a considered purchase to understand and influence customers deeper. This is a shift from traditional marketing and sales methods focused on the transaction to a more partnership-based approach that looks at the overall customer journey.

What are your thoughts about being open to partnerships across the revenue cycle?

To be successful in today’s market, being open to partnerships across the revenue cycle is essential. Marketers must understand the 14 spheres of influence that affect a b2b buyer’s decision-making. We must identify the key players in each sphere and ensure they know the company’s offer. The average customer has seven partners that overlay the revenue cycle, and sales and marketing professionals need to know at least a few of those seven to drive adoption, integration, stickiness, upsell, cross-sell, and enrichment every 30 days.

How do we deal with communication channels as revenue leaders?

To deal with communication channels as revenue leaders, we need to take into account the preferences of our target audience. Face-to-face interactions, the telephone, and email are still ranked highly by most people, but we cannot neglect the 12% who prefer podcasts or the 2% who prefer Twitter. By taking a massively parallel approach to marketing and sales, we can reach the widest audience possible and maximize our chances of success.

Talk to us about the Manage, Monitor, and Measure Framework.

The Manage, Monitor, and Measure Framework is a tool that helps businesses measure their progress in achieving specific goals. It includes seven partnerships, attribution, data sharing, and moments. The framework can be used by sales and marketing to predict and provide prescriptive advice on what to do next.