Presented at the Marketing Research Associations - Corporate Researcher's Conference in 2015. Session Description: Depending on which study you read, 50 percent or more of the sales cycle now takes place in the marketing funnel. And where the nature of a sale has changed, research needs to change as a result. In this session, you’ll gain knowledge about a set of inexpensive (and, in some cases, free!) tools and best practices to handle this shift. Understand the marketing funnel that proceeds the sales funnel in order to produce complete studies that look at the buyer's journey from end-to-end.

1. Problem:
We Win 90%
of our Deals

2. Problem:
They
can’t
compete
with us…

3. Problem: Marketing = Lead Gen

4. Customers are
now on their
own Journey….
The
Buyer’s
Journey…

5. 57%
Today…the
Buyer’s
Journey is
Digital
Corporate Executive
Board Study
1M
By 2020, 1M
B2B “Product”
Sales Jobs will
be gone…
Forrester Study
$380/$50
Today…Cost
of an outside
vs. an inside
sales call
Point Clear Study
B2B Sales & Marketing is Changing…
MR Needs to Adapt…

6. 82%
Today…buyers
viewed at least 5
pieces of content
from the winning
vendor
Forrester Study
90%
Today….Business
Buyers say when
they are ready to
buy they will find
you…
DemandGen Report
85%
By 2020, 85% of
customers will manage
all of their interactions
with the enterprise
without human to
human contact….
Gartner
B2B Sales & Marketing is Changing…
MR Needs to Adapt…

7. Your stakeholders are being told…
http://blogs.forrester.com/lori_wizdo/12-10-04-buyer_behavior_helps_b2b_marketers_guide_the_buyers_journey

8.  1.1M active daily users
 300,000 paid users
 Users as of February 2014:
16,000
 Amount of time people are on
Slack (weekday): 2 hours and
15 minutes
 Retention Rate for Paid Users:
98%
 Number of Slack Employees:
180
A Case Study: Slack Stats

9.  Jason Lemkin (Interviewer): I go to Slack Plus yesterday to buy
it. I’m like, “Where can I talk to a sales rep?” [laughs] I’m clicking
around the “Contact Me,” “Talk to Me,” so obviously we’ve gotten from
nominal to double to eight figures in revenue without a sales rep.
 Stewart Butterfield (Slack CEO): We can have no outbound sales
forever.
 Jason Lemkin: When I’m from… pick your company, Dow, and I
want to buy 1,000 or 2,000 seats of Slack next year, I’m not going to
talk to a sales rep, and I’m going to pay a list price?
 Stewart Butterfield: You’ll talk to one of these account managers.
The difference is, we won’t be approaching you, and the reason you’ll
want to talk to us is because like most large companies today, even
now, there’s already multiple teams using Slack at the company.
“Sales” in the New World is Marketing
Interview with Slack CEO – Steward Butterfield

10. What to do?
Now that we know that things have changed?

11. What to Ask…
3 Modern questions to ask Buyers Questions for your stakeholders
Did they learn about a competitor – content analysis.
Blogs Articles Landing Pages Community Discussion
Did they engage with a competitor – social analysis
Example.Twitter Example. LinkedIn
How did they develop their vendor list?
Search Position LongTail Keywords Paid Search
Buyer’s Journey Research in B2B
How your research might evolve…
“90% of business buyers say when they’re ready to buy,
they’ll find you.” - Source: DemandGen Report
“By 2020, customers will manage 85% of their interaction
with the enterprise without interacting with a human.”
(Gartner)

12.  How did they find the competitor?
 Demo: Positionly, Google Trends, Follow.Net, Compete.com
 Other Tools to Consider: Cyfe, SEMRush, WhatRunsWhere,
Keywordtool.Io, Majestic SEO, Keyword Density Tool,
iSpinoage, Spyfu, Google Keyword Planner
 Did they engage?
 Demos: FollowerWonk, Topsy, SuperMetrics
 Other Tools to Consider: GeoFeedia, HootSuite, Hashtagify.me, HootSuite,
Moz (Top Pages), Grytics, FanPageKarma, Mention, TwitterCounter, LikeExplorer,
Compare Facebook Analytics, Compare Page Engagement – Facebook, Tweepsmap,
Twitonomy
 Did they learn?
 Demo: BuzzSumo
 Other Tools to Consider: Ahrefs Content Explorer, Open Site Explorer – Top Pages,
SocialCrawlytics, Quicksprout
 Did they Buy?
 Indeed Job Trends Tool, LinkedIn – Premium or Recruiter Light
A Few – Standout Tools

13. <real world alert slide as a
primer to this one – good
graphic, etc.>
Okay I’m on the bus…
But I need an example
of the End Product…
I believe in the grapes…now show me…
The Bottle…

14. Real World Example – Fortune 500 Client
Emerging Competitors

15.  Stakeholder Impacted: Sales
 Outcome: New Opportunities (& Threats) Prioritized
 Stakeholder Impacted: Marketing
 Outcome: Go-To-Market Positioned Tuned to Deal with
New Threats
 Stakeholder Impacted: Product
Engineering
 Outcome: Feature Segmentation – Spanning Free to
Premium SKU’s
Decisions Impacted

16.  A Fortune 1000’s Market Research & Strategy team asked me:
 “Does Marketing Have These Tools?”
 “What are they (marketing) doing to probe the buyer’s journey?”
 How are they analyzing competitors and market shifts in buying?”
 What can we (market research) do to help?
 A meeting was scheduled between MR and Marketing
 I described the problem and highlighted a few tools for 15 to 20 minutes.
 Marketing and Market Research talked (happily and excitedly) without
vendor involvement for 45 minutes.
 Plans were made, actions are being taken.
 But Marketing did not have all the answers or the tools already in their
toolbox.
Case Study: When Marketing and MR Met….
Why you need to ask about the Buyer’s Journey…

17.  Marketing brings:
 Understanding of the Buyer’s Journey
 Social / SEO Metrics on You
 Social / SEO Metrics on the Competition
 Market Research brings:
 Research “Chops”
 Detailed Qual (IDI’s with Buyers, etc.)
 Detailed Quant (Survey’s with Buyers, etc.)
 The company…
 Benefits as a Result
So here’s the point…

18. So what questions
should you ask?

19. Why did you start looking?
Gives you a proper
taxonomy (LTK’s)
– for tool usage..

20. First Step?
What was the
customer’s “first step”
on the Buyer’s Journey?

21. What were the other steps (57%)?
Analyst Commentary
Blog Posts
Influencer Commentary
Data from Web Searches
Industry Forum / Group
Commentary
Information gathered
from Social Networks

22. Who did they drop in the 57%?

23.  “If you were going to look for a solution like this in Google –
what would you type in?”
 “When you land on a company’s website what are you going to
look for (what type of content marketing)?”
 Blogs, Videos, Case Studies, Podcasts, Q/A, Forums, Whitepapers, Training,
etc.
 How many times after your initial search do you go back to a
resource (company website, forum, etc.)?
 How long (days, weeks, months) do you spend looking at /
reviewing what’s on the web before you make a call or email a
vendor?
 “Can you think of an example of something you saw that made
you disqualify the vendor at that point – what generates a
“Digital” NO?”
More - Example Questions
First Step and 56.3% Questions

24. Podcast
 Over 100 episodes…
 Available on iTunes, Stitcher,
etc.
 Show Transcripts posted on
our site.
Blog
 Articles and Best Practices for
Market Research Teams,
Competitive Intelligence Teams
and Stakeholders.
Resources – Podcast / Blog
www.cascadeinsights.com