Steven Woods, CTO of Eloqua, explains key concepts from his new book Digital Body Language.

In today’s digital age, the behavior of prospective buyers – the way they identify, understand, evaluate, and buy products – has fundamentally changed. In the past decade, buyers have achieved new capabilities to understand an industry’s trends, translate that into business pain/opportunity that can be addressed, assemble a list of potential vendors, and analyze the best solution for their specific needs – all without the involvement of a sales professional.

Buyers are leveraging these new information sources, rendering the salesperson to a secondary role (or even a non-presence) – particularly early in the process.  As the professional salesperson somewhat fades from view, so, too, does his ability to observe and understand the buyer. 

In this environment, it is far more challenging to align the prospect’s buying process with the company’s selling process – which are no longer synonymous.  And that carries significant implications for lead qualification and hand-off.  When a prospect appears on the corporate Web site – perhaps to download a white paper – he is most likely merely “kicking the tires” and is not ready to buy.  As a result, the sales rep disqualifies the lead and ejects the prospect from the funnel.  It’s not that the prospect isn’t going to buy – he’s just not going to buy right now.

This creates the “leaky funnel” with which most marketers are painfully familiar.  They devote huge efforts to generating raw leads, but if those leads aren’t in a perfectly synchronized phase of their buying process, the sales team will waste marketing’s efforts by ignoring the lead. Sirius Decisions found that, of the leads passed over to sales, a shockingly low 20 percent actually received follow-up from the rep. Of that 20 percent, the rep sets aside 70 percent of them as “disqualified” – even though subsequent objective analysis shows that 80 percent of them eventually buy a solution (usually from another company). They were good leads – just early leads.

So what should we, as marketers, do to meet these growing challenges?  The answer requires understanding the buyers’ web activity – their digital body language — in context of how you are communicating with them.  Here are a few key things to look for and how you can respond.

1. Know where the prospect is in the buying process.  By looking at downloads, areas of interest, and search terms, you can understand whether they are in an education phase, selecting potential short-list vendors, or validating a vendor choice.  Once you understand this you can tailor your email marketing messages to match each buyer’s interest stage.

2. Understand the prospect’s level of interest.  Research shows that many email recipients will think of an email as spam, even if they legitimately subscribed, if they are no longer interested in the company or products behind it.  By watching recipients’ web activity, you can determine their interest level and identify those who have “emotionally unsubscribed,” even if they have not explicitly clicked an unsubscribe link.  Catering your messaging content and frequency to this awareness will keep you more engaged with your audience.

3. Determine their area of interest.  By understanding which product line, what industry, or what type of information a prospective buyer finds interesting, you can match the content of your email marketing to their interest area.  Dynamic content capabilities are available in most leading email and marketing automation platforms.  By leveraging the insights available in a prospect’s web activity, you can make dynamic content even more powerful.

The complex, consultative process is experiencing dramatic shifts that are transforming the very way in which buyers conduct transactions as they accrue and exercise new power.  Marketers who adapt to this new buying reality will thrive.  Those who don’t will find themselves consigned to a steady erosion of relevance, influence, and value.

Steve Woods is cofounder and CTO of Eloqua, a leading provider of marketing automation technology. He is the author of a forthcoming book, “Digital Body Language,” and also writes on the topic at his blog.