B2B Marketing’s Big Blindspot: PathFactory VP Shares Inside Look At How To Uncover And Address Disconnects In Buyer Experiences

Published: August 13, 2018

Elle Woulfe HeadshotNothing turns off a buyer more than a disjointed, complex experience with a B2B brand. According to our own research shows that, when buyers are selecting a vendor in a purchase decision, two-thirds (66%) of buyers said the timeliness of a vendor’s response to inquiries was vital to their purchase decision, while 73% said the winning vendor demonstrated a stronger knowledge of their needs. Other research shows that more than half (51%) find themselves overwhelmed by the amount of content available.

In today’s competitive B2B landscape, vendors must leverage the right insights into how current and potential customers engage with their content to provide streamlined buyer experiences that exceed expectations. This topic will be discussed thoroughly at an upcoming webinar, titled: B2B Marketing’s Big Blindspot — The Data That Can Unlock Better Results For Every Marketing Function, taking place on August 15 at 1pm ET (10am PT).

I had the pleasure to have a quick-hitting Q&A with Elle Woulfe, VP of Marketing at PathFactory, to get a sneak peek into what she’ll discuss during her presentation.

Demand Gen Report: Your webinar presentation is titled “B2B Marketing’s Big Blindspot.” What is that big blindspot and how is it impacting performance?

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Elle Woulfe: You want me to giveaway the punchline? No way! I will say that it has a lot to do with how buyers engage with content. Marketers today have very little insight into what that engagement really looks like. Without some truly objective insight into how buyers consume content — not just click on it or download it, but really consume it — you can’t optimize much of anything. Marketing performance will stagnate if you don’t really know what’s working. It also has huge implications for giving buyers the kinds of relevant, personalized experiences they want and need.

DGR: Part of the problem this blind spot causes is a disjointed experience for prospects. Can you talk about what that often looks like?

Woulfe: We’ve seen a massive consumerization of the B2B buying process. It’s an on-demand world and buyer expectations have changed rapidly. They expect speed, convenience and hyper relevance in all aspects of their lives. B2B marketing misses the mark and makes it too hard and slow for them to learn about the products and solutions they are trying to buy. Again, without knowing where your buyer really is on their journey and what they’re interested in, it’s very difficult to serve them a relevant, personalized experience. The result is an incredibly fragmented and frustrating buyer’s journey that is riddled with dead ends, gaps and walls.

DGR: What are some of the benefits marketers can expect from overcoming this hurdle and gaining insight into how buyers consume their content?

Woulfe: The major benefit is an optimized customer experience that is always on and moves at the speed the buyer wants. When you remove the hurdles from the buyer’s journey and create an experience that is fast, easy and responsive to the buyers’ needs, they will buy faster and won’t be lost to a competitor with a more streamlined buying process.

DGR: Are there any B2B brands that have addressed this and are seeing positive results you can share?

Woulfe: We’ve seen lots of B2B brands adopt a more active content strategy with incredibly positive results. One great example is TIBCO, where they have put this insight to work to create more relevant, personalized journeys for their buyers. The result has been a huge increase in engagement with content that shows up in increased funnel conversion and opportunity creation. Cisco, Nimble Storage, Epicor and Invoca are just a few of the brands that have adopted this approach and seen great gains.


 Are you looking to better understand your buyers’ content consumption habits to better measure and optimize your programs? Be sure to save your seat for this upcoming webinar to learn how high-performing marketers are using these insights to drive better results.

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