Afternoon Keynote: Steven Casey

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Getting Real
About the Modern B2B Buyer
Steven Casey, Principal Analyst
April 2018

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ABM is an old strategy

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Extended by new tools

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Source: Forrester
2011: Age of the Customer
Source

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2018
Research for
seven-figure
RFP

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Source: “B2B Report Millennials” Sacunas, Inc. March, 2016
By 2025, Millennials will
comprise 44% of the US
workforce.
44%

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2018
Designed and
purchased
online

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B2B buyers act like consumers

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B2B
Known
Rational
Interdependent
Considered
Loyal
Source: Forrester

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B2C
Anonymous
Emotional
Independent
Transactional
Fickle
Source: Forrester

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B2B consumer
Anonymous
Emotional
Interdependent
Considered
Fickle
Source: Forrester

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Brand experience
Sales engagement
Purchase influence
Post-sale presence

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Brand experience
Sales engagement
Purchase influence
Post-sale presence

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Disintermediation of sellers accelerates
Base: 224 US B2B buyers and sellers
*Base: 162 US B2B buyers
Source: Forrester/Internet Retailer Q1 2015 US B2B Buyer Channel Preferences Online Survey
*Source: Forrester/Internet Retailer Q1 2017 Global B2B Buy-Side Online Survey
21%
53%
16%
68%
I prefer gathering
information online
on my own
I find interacting with a sales
rep superior to gathering
information on my own
2015 2017*

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Involved in more of the lifecycle

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Conversation not capture

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Traditional
› A series of individual,
disconnected
conversations across the
customer journey
› Hard hand-offs at each
stage
Marketing
Sales
Support
Owned

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Modern
› Create coordinated,
account-centric
conversations throughout
the entire customer
lifecycle
Involved
Marketing
Sales
CS

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Orchestration model
› Responsibility matrix for
project management
› RASI
› Responsible
› Accountable
› Supporting
› Informed
Responsible
Supporting Marketing
Sales
CS

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Contact-for-
content model
is broken

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B2B consumers bounce – or lie

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Millennials and Gen-Xers
Decided not to
download because
they didn’t want to fill
out the form
Source: 2016 LinkedIn survey of Millenial/GenX IT committee members (Global data)
81%

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Younger Millennials
Entered false info in
the form to download
the content
Source: 2016 LinkedIn survey of Millenial/GenX IT committee members (Global data)
50%

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Source: “Unlock Content Gates to Support Self-Educating Buyers” Forrester Report
“Our experience has shown that gating
tends to deflect buyers from continuing
their journeys and ungating more
content allows us to have a closer
relationship with the customer.”
– Lee Ho, Head of Digital Marketing, Avaya

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$OC = (B x CR) x ASP

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Get comfortable
with anonymity

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Binge not drip
Data augmentation
Retargeting

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Source: Netflix

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Content preferences are changing

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Content needs: discover stage
Return on
investment/total
cost of ownership
Source: Forrester Business Technographics Global Priorities and Journey Survey, 2016
23%

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Sales
Site
Advertising

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Personalization is the key variable in the ABM equation

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B2B consumers
expect to get
what they want

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in context and
moment of need

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ABM and AI-powered marketing

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ABM and AI-powered marketing

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ABM and AI-powered marketing
Leverage AI to
populate dynamic Tier
2 account list based
on fit and behavior
Leverage AI for
content assembly,
supporting automated
engagement

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Learn to
let go

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Give away
your best
content

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Trust the
machine

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Thank you
© 2018 FORRESTER. REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED.
Steve Casey
+1 617-613-5775
scasey@forrester.com
Twitter: @caseysteve