At the right moment in time

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Unless you sell gum, your product is likely not purchased immediately. The customer needs to go through a certain path from the formation of a need to the moment when he gives you his money. This path is called the stages of decision-making. At different stages, people solve different problems, which means they need to be shown different messages.

The customer journey may be longer or shorter for different markets and niches, but in most cases it will look something like this:



The first stage is the formation of needs.
That very stage when a person (or a company, if we are talkin hong kong consumer email list g about B2B) begins to feel discomfort. It is at this stage that ruthless marketing begins to work – smart companies help to form the necessary needs. Business coaches replicate the image of an entrepreneur running a company from an azure beach, and the fashion industry forms complexes in girls because of their appearance.

We do not consider unethical marketing practices acceptable, but it is extremely important for companies to highlight hidden problems and needs of their target audience at the earliest stages. This is especially true for B2B.

The fundamental need of any business is to make more money. But it is very common for your potential client to not see the connection between their money and your product. “Why should I make a corporate style for presentations?”. “Why should I spend money on information security?”. Practice shows that in B2B markets, selling a problem is more important than selling a solution .

So the main task for a B2B company at the early stage of decision-making is to convey to the client that he is losing money due to a certain problem. Headlines like “Find out how much money you are losing due to a slow website” will work well here.



The second stage is finding a solution.
Once the problem is defined, your future client starts looking for a solution. In most cases, the same problem can be solved in different ways – you can get from point A to point B by taxi or bus, and you can automate sales via CRM or Excel. That is, the client chooses from various strategic alternatives – products that you don’t even consider your competitors. But they are.