The B2B Buyer Journey Has Changed. These Sales and Marketing Technologies Are Riding the Wave.

“B2B buyers are leaving behind a massive digital footprint as they research and consume content prior to engaging with salespeople, and vendors that can help organizations recognize, interpret and act on this data will likely become indispensable.”

The way B2B buyers procure products and services has seen a decisive shift from a salesperson-led model to a digital, self-serve journey, and it’s changing the way companies identify, target, qualify and engage leads. We believe three segments in the sales and marketing ecosystem will be instrumental in helping companies adapt and thrive in this new reality. Here’s our take on why.

The B2C revolution up-ends B2B sales

Ecommerce transformed the B2C sales and marketing tech stack by changing the way consumers explore and evaluate their buying options. Consumers spend significant time engaging in digital research via blogs, product reviews and peer reviews before buying. With a wealth of digital information and content specific to B2B products and services now available (including product demo videos, whitepapers and comparisons), enterprise buyers are following suit.

According to Gartner, 80% of B2B sales interactions will occur on digital channels by 2025.¹ We have found that the traditional sales model has become obsolete and the sellers who rely on it are being left in the dark as savvy buyers put off engaging with sales until they have narrowed down their options and are ready to buy.

And this trend is accelerating as demographics change. Together, millennials and Gen Z now constitute 64% of business buyers,² and, in our view, each successive generation is more likely to use self-serve channels and gather info across more sources and channels.

This has triggered an operational upheaval, with B2B sales and marketing organizations converging in an effort to identify potential customers during the new buyer journey. Marketing is being pulled into sales to leverage the content buyers are consuming while sales is focusing more than ever on marketing to get to buyers before they make decisions about which products or services to include or exclude from consideration.

A major opportunity is emerging

The way people search for and interact with digital content sends powerful signals about their intent. B2B brands that pick up on those signals can identify and qualify more potential leads, reach them sooner and engage them more knowledgeably, all of which may have a significant effect on revenue.

By 2026, Gartner estimates that 65% of B2B sales organizations will transition from intuition-based to data-driven decision making.³ LLR’s Value Creation Team is already seeing this in action as our portfolio companies seek help in exploring technologies that can help them collect and use the digital breadcrumbs left by the buyer journey. As businesses rush to embrace the opportunity, it has the potential to supercharge the growth of B2B sales and marketing solutions. The vendors that help B2B organizations recognize, interpret and act on this data will likely become indispensable.

We are already seeing compelling tailwinds in three areas that focus on the earliest part of the buyer journey, from identifying potential buyers to activating the communication channels that influence and accelerate the buying decision.

Three sector standouts

Sales and marketing technologies have always existed in complicated ecosystems, and the speed with which buyer preferences are changing has only added to the complexity. But while the sector is still young and fragmented, we are already seeing compelling tailwinds in three areas that focus on the earliest part of the buyer journey, from identifying potential buyers to activating the communication channels that influence and accelerate the buying decision.

Account-Based Marketing (ABM)
ABM technologies are helping organizations identify high-value opportunities within existing accounts and engage them with highly relevant, programmatic outreach. Although ABM is not a new methodology, the way it’s being leveraged by both sales and marketing makes it a critical part of their tech stack. However, ABM vendors cannot identify net new accounts or leads at the individual level, making it just one part of the larger strategy.

Performance Marketing
Performance marketing is a fully outsourced model providing organizations with new leads, including name, title, and contact information for someone showing an intent to buy. The advantage over other solutions is activation of net new leads, especially at the individual level. The downside is that the way this information is collected and activated is typically opaque, leaving the organization with no way to verify the quality of the leads purchased.

Information Services
Subscription services include contact databases and intent solutions that identify potential buyers early in the funnel based on their behaviors. Depending on the model, they may track the articles prospects read online, the competitor sites they visit or the actions they take on the company’s own site. While this data is invaluable, contact info and intent are just two pieces of a puzzle that ultimately requires sales and marketing teams to have the processes in place to further activate and make use of the information.

The future of sales and marketing technology

This is an exciting time to be in sales and marketing tech, with technologies moving quickly in promising directions. However, it’s still early in the sector’s evolution. The sales and marketing technology ecosystem is complex and highly fragmented, without a clear leader that can capture the digital trail, hone in on promising accounts, establish one-to-one attribution at the individual level, and activate each lead to open a communication channel with the B2B brand.

We believe that this integrated capability will enable companies to collect deeper market insights, influence buyers throughout their digital journey and use that influence to close more deals. Our market analysis and what we’re seeing directly tells us that ABM, performance marketing and information services vendors have the greatest likelihood of cracking the code and being among the first components of an all-in-one solution. We are seeing remarkable progress and will continue to actively monitor solutions in the B2B sales and marketing ecosystem and seek out opportunities to partner with vendors in this space.

Here’s the bottom line.

The way businesses buy from other businesses has changed dramatically and permanently, and B2B organizations are seeing it not as a problem to be solved but an opportunity to be seized. We don’t know what that end-to-end solution looks like yet – no one does – but we are actively monitoring and focusing on this space. Vendors that understand the new B2B buyer’s journey and adapt their products and growth strategies to enable this new, data-driven and less siloed way of selling will point the industry in the right direction, and those who focus on the earliest journey stages are leading the way.