The Most Useful B2B Buyer Behavior Insights Differ Between Marketing and Sales

November 14, 2019

Alignment between marketing and sales is a critical topic in B2B marketing. A recent report [download page] from Turtl and Forrester Consulting finds another area of disconnect between these two groups, and it relates to what are perceived to be the most useful buyer behavior insights.

It’s understandable of course that marketers and salespeople – with their different goals – would find various insights to be more useful than others. However structuring content campaigns and resulting insights could be helped when understanding what works for each party.

For marketers, the most important insight (as cited by 54% of respondents), is knowing the products or solutions of greatest interest to the buyer. Just more than half (52%) of marketers also feel that knowing the role of the buyer in the buying organization’s decision-making process is very useful.

Marketers also say that the motivations that drive the buyer’s research process (49%) and the relative interest of the buyer in their business proposition (48%) are useful buyer behavior insights.

By comparison, sales ranked these latter two insights much higher in usefulness when it comes to closing a deal, concluding that the relative interest of the buyer in their business proposition is the most helpful piece of buyer behavior insight.

Gaining these buyer behavior insights from marketing-created content can be a challenge. Some 46% of the marketing and sales decision-makers surveyed say that, while they get plenty of insights from their content, they still struggle to structure them appropriately.

Previous research by D&B shows that a lack of data expertise is a thorn in the side of many B2B marketers; this is a challenge that the respondents to Turtl and Forrester’s survey are not immune to. More than one-third (36%) say they don’t have the time or expertise to go through the buyer insights adequately, and another 43% report they are unable to design experiences that give buyer feedback without the help of developers.

Perhaps in an effort to alleviate these challenges, 4 in 5 of businesses have implemented some type of content marketing platform. Of those businesses that have implemented such a platform, respondents have achieved or expect to achieve benefits such as improved content performance (61%), an improved ability to tie content assets to business outcomes (57%), an improved ability to tie content assets to high-quality leads (51%) and the ability to track content performance in real-time (46%).

The full report can be downloaded here.

About the Data: Results are based on a survey of 214 B2B marketing and sales decision-makers in the UK and US who are knowledgeable about or responsible for their firm’s content needs and strategy.

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