More than 40% of B2B deals are abandoned before completion, with the abandonment rate reaching as high as 60% in some industries. This is not because buyers prefer a competitor, but because the buyer group – composed of both target and hidden buyers – fails to reach a consensus. This means that we as suppliers need to present why our solution is better, but also provide arguments that makes us easy to agree upon.
B2B decisions are complex and often include 15+ people in a company. Today, we are good at reaching our target buyers through digital advertising. They typical functions to include from LinkedIn, the ones that download whitepapers, attend webinars, click on ads, engage with content and can sometimes be found in our CRM system, since they leave a clear digital trail of signals in their wake. In average 81% of target buyers already knows us when the buying journey starts.
The problem is that we often overlook a crucial group of “hidden buyers,”. These are the process experts from departments like procurement, finance, legal and operations – who evaluate vendors on criteria that are not about product performance at all, but are about risk mitigation and whether a vendor can be trusted. One challenge is that only 4% of this group in average knows us when the buying journey starts.
Recent research from LinkedIn Institute and Bain & Company show that target buyers only are half the true story. We often overlook a crucial group we can call the “Hidden buyers,”. These are the process experts from departments like procurement, finance, legal and operations – who evaluate vendors on criteria that are not about product performance at all, but are about risk mitigation and whether a vendor can be trusted.
Hidden buyers are harder to reach since they don’t leave the same digital footprints as the target buyers since their role in the decision-making process does not require them to be product experts. But just because we cannot “see” hidden buyers does not mean they do not exist. They have huge power. As the research showed, half of all shortlisted vendors fall through the “Hidden Buyer Gap.”
Listing of suppliers and functional evaluation are usually controlled by target buyers – the product experts. But then comes a veto/validation stage that is controlled by hidden buyers alone. This means there is one stage in the buying process where all the technical and product information in the world does not influence the decision-making.
The solution is to include the hidden buyers in our marketing but use other arguments. Hidden Buyers are ‘process experts,’ and their values are entirely different from the target ‘product experts.’
The value props for hidden buyers are risk mitigation and reputation, not technical knowledge. Hidden buyers care about whether vendors are “reliable brands,” “trusted by their peers,” and safe to do business with. They are primarily concerned with risk mitigation, legal compliance, financial stability, and the overall reputation of the vendor.
Provide this, and the road towards winning the deal is opening up.
And if you want to discuss business-driving communication, you are always welcome to contact ulf@sfinxconsulting.se
