The 4 B’s of

Buyer Experience Innovation

By Tony Zambito, President & CEO , Goal Centric

www.goalcentric.com

www.thebuyerexperience.om

Copyright 2010 Goal Centric Management, Inc.

Buyer Experience Innovation

Introduction

Many executives, in particular those of B2B and service

oriented organizations, are faced with the challenge of having

to rethink how to succeed in today’s digital age. This

rethinking raises questions as well as the dialogue today on

the effectiveness of the traditional functions of sales,

marketing, support, and customer service. Perplexingmarketing, support, and customer service. Perplexing

executives as well is the rapid infusion of digital and social

media that buyers are engaging with at an increasing rate yet

with no clear discerning picture of what the future holds.

Harmony

An inherent issue is that the necessary rethinking can fall prey

to the traditional function-based approaches organizations

have done over the past quarter-century. Viewing what each

function is capable of in isolation and missing the

harmonizing around the buyer experience. Buyer Experience

Innovation offers a framework for executives to rethink and

discover insightful means of creating memorable buyerdiscover insightful means of creating memorable buyer

experiences that its organization can deliver on. Leading their

organization like an orchestra to understand how, in perfect

harmony, they can create the sweeping composition that

rivets the attention of buyers.

Such a composition can be written and designed when

executives can harmonize around the 4 B’s of Buyer

Experience Innovation. Creating a new way of thinking that

transforms the company that is in harmony with its buyers.

The 4 B’s

Buyer Insight

The fact that the buyer-seller relationship is undergoing

transformative reshaping is backed by many quantitative

oriented survey and studies. However, gaining true insight

into buyer behaviors, attitudes, perceptions, patterns, and

etc. can be gained via qualitative efforts that are grounded in

ethnographic and anthropological principles. Buying todayethnographic and anthropological principles. Buying today

has become more sophisticated and has a multitude of

variables that did not exist even a decade ago. It is fair to say

that many organizations are adopting specific buying

strategies whereby decisions are often made well ahead of

any sales involvement and the decisions are more about who

to purchase from versus what to purchase. Without investing

in informing buyer insight, executives will be in the dark on

how to craft buyer experiences that makes them part of an

organization’s buying strategies.

Buyer Personas

Buyer Personas, archetypal representations of real buyers,

have enjoyed increasing attention over the past few

years. Buyer personas, if constructed in the framework of

profiles only, fall far short of their potential for executives to

utilize as a resource for understanding who their target

buyers truly are and for using buyer personas as an executivebuyers truly are and for using buyer personas as an executive

communications tool to harmonize the organization around

buyer experience. Buyer personas have their roots in design

principles and are of immense value when they are built on

the foundation of qualitative research and put into action

contextually through scenarios, narrative stories, and

mapping. Executives can use buyer personas to bring the

focus on buyers and the experiences that will endear them to

the organizations.

Buyer Journey Mapping

Buying processes and buying decisions are being restructured

many times over. This is contrary to prevailing conventional

perspectives that buyers, in general, take a similar linear path

to making buying decisions. There has been much realization

that the traditional “funnel” as we know it has been radically

changed yet what a new modified funnel may look likechanged yet what a new modified funnel may look like

continues to be applied to the general as opposed to the one-

to-one necessary. Buyer Journey Mapping, when conducted

on the basis of qualitative research, can provide tremendous

insight into not only the paths buyers take but also highlight

the critical moments of truths that are relevant. Buyer

Journey Mapping, when done for specific markets and/or

solutions, provides a critical integrated view of the buying

process and how building blocks can be formed to create a

harmonized buyer experience.

Buyer Experience Design

Integrated design thinking will be critical to designing buyer

experiences that resonates with buyers on an individual level

but also creates alignment with organizations creating buying

strategies. Informed with buyer insights, buyer personas, and

buyer journey mappings, executives can lead their teams

through initiatives of designing and innovating unique buyerthrough initiatives of designing and innovating unique buyer

experiences. We’ve seen new approaches and services arise

out of the rapidly changing buyer landscape such as demand

generation, marketing automation, content marketing, and

sales enablement to name just a few. Buyer Experience

Design can provides the guidance needed by executives to

design the right composition of these new approaches that

will help their organization deliver extraordinary buyer

experiences.

Conclusion

Organizations can focus on the 4 B’s of Buyer Experience

innovation and create harmonized buyer experiences that

aligns their efforts with specific buying strategies. Executives

who can shift the thinking of their teams to integrated buyerwho can shift the thinking of their teams to integrated buyer

experiences will have their buyers listening because they will

have proven a simple fact – they cared enough to listen.

Produced By:

Tony Zambito

President & CEO

Goal Centric

www.goalcentric.com

The 4 B’s

of

Buyer www.thebuyerexperience.com

Copyright 2010

Goal Centric Management, Inc.

Buyer

Experience

Innovation