The B2B Buyer's Online Journey: From Awareness to Consideration to Conversion

How often have you wondered how your business-to-business (B2B) buyers embark on their journey towards making big buying decisions? This is a worthwhile thought because the B2B buyer’s online journey isn’t as simple as adding an item to a shopping cart and checking out. It’s one that requires research, data, strategy, content, and reporting—while engaging, nurturing, and converting. Understanding the B2B buyer's journey is essential to identify where your customers are, where they’re headed, and how to guide them through their buying process effectively. By considering the various stages B2B buyers experience, you can tailor your digital marketing strategies to lead your prospects from their first ‘hello’ to the final ‘handshake’. 

Dive into our blog post to explore the three key stages of the B2B buyer’s online journey: awareness, consideration, and conversion. We’ll discuss the decision-making process at each stage and provide actionable tips to help move your buyers forward from one stage to the next. Let’s go!

Who are we? Smartcore is your best-in-class B2B food and nutrition marketing solutions partner for smarter digital campaigns that drive business growth. We help suppliers in the B2B food and nutraceutical ingredients industries reach their buyers based in key regions around the globe. Our invaluable first-party data of over 400,000 ingredients buyers, data-driven insights, and specialised digital content channels in the B2B food and nutrition industry set us apart. Download our Digital Media Kit to discover our products and packages designed for your digital marketing needs. 

Creating a structured digital marketing funnel ensures that each step of your buyer’s journey is crucial for attracting, nurturing, and converting leads into loyal customers. Our expert guide explains how to create a digital marketing funnel for B2B success. 

3. The Conversion Stage: During the Conversion stage, potential buyers might be comparing final offers and ready to make their final decision. They weigh their options and choose a solution that meets their needs. At this point, it’s important to provide support and reassurance to help them feel confident in their choice.

Key Tactics for the Conversion Stage

• Incentives and Urgency: Deliver special offers, discounts, or limited-time promotions that create a sense of urgency. By highlighting last-chance opportunities, you encourage immediate conversions and drive buyer action.

• Strong Converting Channels: Utilise targeted digital channels such as email marketing, telemarketing, and WhatsApp to engage potential buyers.

• Clear Call to Actions (CTAs): Use strong, action-oriented language to direct buyers toward making a purchase. Personalised CTAs in emails or SMS, featuring proven keywords, resonate deeply and can prompt faster responses. 

• Simplified Conversion Process: Ensure that the buying process is straightforward and user-friendly, minimising barriers to conversion. Make it easy for buyers to say yes and provide your sales teams with the necessary resources, tools, and support they need to ‘seal the deal’.

If you’re a supplier of food, beverage, or nutraceutical ingredients, and interested in reaching your buyers through webinar marketing, we can help. Our webinars serve as a smarter digital marketing solution for brands looking to nurture trust among the right target audience in a more personalised way; simultaneously achieving maximum brand awareness, generating high-quality leads, and establishing thought leadership in the industry. Browse through one of our success stories to see how Gencor, the renowned nutraceutical ingredients specialist, ran a successful webinar marketing campaign with us to amplify their brand visibility and industry thought leadership.

Successfully transitioning buyers smoothly between one stage to the next is key to an effective B2B digital marketing strategy. Each stage – awareness, consideration, and conversion – requires compelling content and tailored interactions that speak directly to the buyer’s needs and mindset at that specific point in the journey. By strategically guiding buyers through each stage, you can maximise engagement, increase lead quality, and reduce the risk of leads falling through the cracks, ultimately increasing conversions. 

When buyers move from the awareness stage to consideration, they’ve already identified a need and are actively looking for solutions. The goal here is to make your brand their top choice as they explore different options. To do this, reinforce brand credibility and showcase your expertise. As buyers shift from considering options to making a conversion, they seek reassurance and validation. At this point, they need compelling reasons to choose your brand over others. Here, it’s all about demonstrating the tangible benefits and removing any obstacles to a conversion. 

Remember, the online B2B buying journey isn't always a straight line. Prospects might bounce between stages as they gather more information and changes arise. Your job is to provide the right content, assurance, and support at each stage, gently guiding them towards that final ‘yes’. 

Remember, meeting B2B buyers where they are – whether they’re just discovering your brand or ready to make a decision – is key to building trust and driving conversions. By consistently providing stage-appropriate support, insights, and valuable content, you’ll keep buyers engaged and confident in choosing you.

If you’re a food and nutraceutical ingredient supplier looking reach your target buyers based in key global markets, partner with us. No matter the stage of their online B2B buying journey, we can help you move them from one stage to next, ultimately converting them into loyal customers. Two such ways to do so, with us, is from gated content—yours or ours. Choose our tailored, hassle-free Lead Generation Digital Marketing Package to turn your compelling content into lead magnets (we handle the complete promotion for you) and our Light Lead Generation Digital Marketing Package that utilises our insightful industry reports to generate leads for you. Explore them here.

Discover our success stories featuring industry players like you including WACKER BIOSOLUTIONS, Uelzena Ingredients, and IMCD Food & Nutrition, and learn all about their smarter digital marketing campaigns. If you’d like to experience the power of data-driven content tailored to your specific needs and goals, don’t hesitate to contact us to learn more about the smarter solutions we can offer you.