The old, Linear buyer’s journey doesn’t exist anymore!
The old buyer’s journey was linear, with each stage clearly demarcated and one starting after the other finished. This meant marketing and sales processes were simple and closing deal was fairly easy. But not anymore.
The new buyer’s journey is anything but linear. It is chaotic, doesn’t follow any specific route and is heavily impacting the partner’s ability to sell. Leading research firm, Gartner has identified 4 key stages in the new buyer’s journey, namely:
- Problem identification
- Solution exploration
- Requirement building
- Supplier selection
source: Gartner
However, the buyer’s behavior at each of these stages is extremely non-linear. The new buyer’s journey is all about empowered buyers. The buyer is usually about 70% through with the purchase process before the seller comes into the picture. This leaves the seller with very little opportunity to influence customer decisions. Moreover, partners lack visibility into lead behavior, for example, When buyers at the top of the funnel conduct their own research, partners have no visibility into their activities — even if it happens on OEM (Vendor) domains.
As a result, even if corporate and partner marketing efforts are able to help partners with lead-gen, partners struggle with lead closure, thus reducing the overall partner marketing ROI.
