The AI Platform to Convert More Inbound Leads

Intent data tools allow you to identify these signals and prioritize accounts that are showing early-stage buying behavior. The three-stage model is a useful starting point, but it leaves significant gaps for B2B teams operating in complex sales environments. Winning at the decision stage requires removing obstacles, not adding features. They are comparing approaches, researching vendors, sitting in on webinars, and starting to build an internal business case.

The platform's ability to integrate with your digital CX strategy means you're always one step ahead, personalizing experiences and capturing real-time data to inform your next move. From the initial spark of recognition to the final stages of decision and purchase, each step is critical and requires careful navigation. Companies should create structured systems that reward referrals and make it easy for customers to provide testimonials. Satisfied customers serve as brand ambassadors who can provide credible endorsements. In the later stages of the B2B buyer journey, companies focus on leveraging existing relationships to drive additional value and growth. Integrating value at every step of the digital journey helps move buyers toward a decision.

When prospects see actual results from real people, the value proposition becomes obvious without feeling like a sales pitch. The brand does a good job highlighting its products in a fun, non-promotional way. Take the following example, which has over 370K views and highlights how user @emilesam used Adobe After Effects to create a fight sequence against himself. Adobe succeeds on the app because it creates engaging content specifically catered to TikTok’s audience.

Beyond that, Buscemi recommends each sales rep create a mutual success plan with their prospect. You might also leverage past customer reviews to share stories with your prospects about how other customers in the industry implemented your product or service. For starters, you’ll need to know which areas of the implementation process are the biggest roadblocks for past customers. He told me, “Everyone’s responsible for taking marketing courses so we can speak our prospects’ language right off the bat. Given the data, it’s vital you use reviews to build trust with prospects in 2025.

These video marketing roi statistics demonstrate why B2B companies keep increasing their video budgets year over year. For B2B companies evaluating where to implement video marketing, this confidence signal from peers is telling. The remaining 31% use a hybrid approach — producing some videos in-house while partnering with agencies for higher-stakes projects like explainer videos and brand campaigns. The outsourcing figure dropped from 24% in 2024, likely driven by AI video tools making video creation more accessible. 55% of video marketers create video content in-house, while 14% outsource to external vendors.

Groups Involved in the B2B Buyer’s Journey

A proper LLM brand audit starts with 10 to 20 prompts a buyer in your category would type. Once you've figured out how to segment your audience, the next step is to digitize and visualize the results by creating B2B buyer personas based on your segments. This suggests that tools can help uncover insights faster and help prospects make smarter decisions. Tailored expertise and trust play a significant role in turning prospects into clients in this industry. About two-thirds of a B2B buyer’s purchasing journey starts with a broad search based on problem-focused queries, not brand names.

Step 3: Evaluation: Vendor Comparison

• In other words, the current state of the B2B buyer’s journey funnel allows prospects to roam freely while companies leave a tray of treats for them to follow.
• This article has given you the tools to understand the modern buying journey, and to map out the triggers, steps and informational needs your best customers take when acquiring, implementation and expanding your product.
• It is also important to include other players in the value chain who play a role as buyers navigate the path to purchase.
• However, nurturing and helping the prospects through demand generation until they feel ready to leap is vital for a long-lasting relationship when they decide to become clients.

Luckily, there is a way to work with, not fight against, this hard truth (and your customers); it starts with a lead-scoring system. B2B purchasing decisions often involve multiple big-shot stakeholders with different concerns and priorities. Again, this requires businesses need to take a more intentional, data-driven approach to connecting with potential customers, ensuring that every touchpoint aligns with a buyer’s decisions.

When AI makes a mistake at the brand level, peer reviews are a buyer's gut-check.

If you can develop these trend reports or influence those who create them, that’s a great win for you and your brand. And since 78% of buyers start their research on Google, it’s clear why brand-led growth (BLG) companies with strong brand recognition and solid SEO consistently outperform in the B2B space. Understanding the intricacies of the B2B buyer's journey positions companies to create targeted strategies that can greatly influence the outcome of the purchase process.

Alternative Frameworks to Gartner’s B2B Buying Journey

While genAI searches are the starting point for B2B buyers, leaders are increasingly relying on their internal and external buying networks — comprising colleagues and external influencers, respectively — to justify and de-risk purchasing decisions. buyers journey b2b The B2B buying process starts with problem recognition, which involves a difficulty or an opportunity in the organization's business operations. It is important because it allows you to align your sales and marketing efforts with the needs and expectations of your prospects. Visualizing the buyer journey allows businesses to identify key touchpoints and interactions that potential customers have with the brand. The decision stage is the final phase of the B2B buyer journey, where potential customers are ready to make a purchase decision. For example, identifying new business priorities informs revised messaging.

I’ll then guide you through the steps to create a buyer-centric approach that we use to land qualified, in-the-market, five and six-figure opportunities with 20%+ of target accounts. “A broken B2B buying process is creating mayhem for buyers and providers,” said Amy Hayes, VP and research director at Forrester. Currently, 86% of B2B purchases stall during the buying process and 81% of buyers express dissatisfaction with their chosen providers. Once you have enough resources and data, you can start splitting it into separate personas. But once we move one step up the ladder, the number of stakeholders starts to grow. Although there is no gold standard for creating a customer journey map, we’ll try to create a somewhat generalized map.

Of the marketers who haven’t yet embraced video, 67% plan to start this year. At Vidico, we’ve produced 2,000+ video marketing campaigns for 450+ tech brands — including TikTok, Square, Spotify, and Airtable — generating 1.5 billion+ views. “Success will hinge on investing in AI governance, balancing human expertise with AI tools, and empowering teams to deliver clear, validated outcomes.

Over the last few centuries, there have been three major compressions in the buying journey. Everything you need to know to get started with digital marketing. Marketing isn’t effective unless brands keep the audience in mind, and no other audience is as fickle and critical as business customers. Remove friction from the referral process, and brands see more participation. When customers share experiences, the brand will reward them with benefits. Activating them as brand advocates extends brand reach without increasing ad spend.

This is down to basic psychology, and it works by simply creating a familiarity with the brand. Rather than starting your buyer journey aiming at all potential customers in a particular segment, it’s better to narrow down your focus to those who will find your business relevant and useful. In this step, you’re collating all the market research data you might need on potential customers. Your B2B buyer journey is the complete process a buyer will go through, starting from initial awareness of your brand, to the evaluation of your products and services, to finally taking the decision to make a purchase. However, with larger buying groups, buying journeys longer, and expectations higher, missteps can quickly erode trust and stall revenue growth. The Role of Social Media in the B2B Buying Process Explore how B2B marketers use social media to boost discoverability, influence decision-making, and drive conversions across the buying journey.