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Prospect self-education is making up more and more of the B2B (and high-value B2C) purchase journey. It used to account for perhaps 10% of the buying journey; now, depending on which research you trust, it forms 50-70% of the process. And in a few years it might be 90% for many categories.

Regardless of the ongoing debate about the actual numbers (which of course vary by industry), the trend is directionally correct, and we can safely assert that we are have entered the era of the "Self-Educated Buyer."

The Rise of the Self-Educated Buyer

The Web now provides a vast array of sources of information to prospective customers: discussion groups, user groups, LinkedIn, Facebook, and simple Google queries all provide endless sources of information to customers who let their fingers do the walking on a keyboard.

Organizations are themselves contributing to this phenomenon via demand-generation efforts that are powered by content that engages and informs prospects about their various topics of interest.

Businesses are well aware that if they don't "join the conversation" by creating relevant content that meets buyer needs, they risk becoming obsolete in an online world of full of contrary or more-compelling voices.

The Changing Cost of Marketing and Sales

The classic B2B model is for Marketing to get the prospect's name and contact information into the hands of a salesperson as quickly as possible.

The subsequent process is arduous and inefficient: Qualification and education may have to occur over several phone calls and face-to-face meetings. Each of those actions carries a cost—further exacerbated by the fact that a salesperson can focus only on one prospect at a time.

In the new paradigm, the self-educated buyer prefers not to engage with sales too soon. They want to engage at their own pace through Web-based channels to self-educate as individual buyers or as buying teams.


Image data source: CEB

In response, world-class organizations are developing digital engagement strategies, pipeline development programs, and costly content marketing activity to ensure that prospects and customers are educated earlier in their buying decision—without "forcing" a salesperson on them.

As well as creating a process that is better aligned with the behavior of the self-educated buyer, the positive cost/benefit of this arrangement should also be clear: Since Marketing deals one-to-many, Marketing's cost per engagement is much lower than that of Sales.

If Marketing serves more of the customer decision process, it also saves cost of sales.

Marketing: From Cost Center to Cost-Saver

With its new toolkit and increasing budgets, Marketing is moving down the funnel, eager to prove its worth before salespeople. In doing so, many marketing departments are also acting in the sales enablement arena.

So, with the caveat that the following suggestions include marketing and sales enablement, here are a few ways you can prove marketing value by saving sales costs.

1. Learn from Sales

The feedback loop between Sales and Marketing is crucial to optimizing and accelerating the purchase journey of the self-educated buyer. Sales has the best information on what problems and recurrent questions appear in the conversations with prospects. A strong marketing function listens to Sales, and ensures that recurrent or significant questions are addressed earlier in the purchase journey through quality content.

In our recent interview with the global content director of Emarsys, we learned that every content marketing initiative at the company is accompanied by a Sales briefing process that includes talking pieces, intelligent insights, though-provoking questions, and relevant customer anecdotes.

Opening and maintaining such open lines of communication means that Marketing is constantly in a position to be learning from Sales' frontline engagements with the customer.

2. Tightly define lead qualification

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Five Ways to Prove Marketing's Value by Saving Sales Costs

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

image of Andrew Davies

Andrew Davies is a co-founder and the CMO of Idio, a demand orchestration platform that learns from each buyer interaction to improve engagement and accelerate demand at large B2B enterprises.

LinkedIn: Andrew Davies

Twitter: @andjdavies