Latest headlines: Anthony Coppedge on the vertical market customer buying journey, plus news from Christie, Extron, PK Sound and more
October 25, 2018 | Volume: 7 | Issue: 10.2
In AV, and probably most B2B markets, sales have always been relationship-driven. That’s a good thing of course… but how many integrators, or even small manufacturers, have CEOs or salespeople that have been around for decades and have all their sales relationships living in a haphazard combination of their brain and their email inboxes? Probably too many. (I hope they all have key man insurance.)
While sales in industries like ours will probably always be relationship based, that doesn’t mean there isn’t tremendous value in using data and automation, even for the smallest of companies. This month Anthony Coppedge has some high level but insightful things to say about customers and automating their buying journey. He even has an actual “vertical market customer journey map” for you to take a look at. How streamlined and data driven are your sales and marketing processes? Read both his columns below and let us know what you think.
Automation isn’t new to the audiovisual industry, but a new kind of automation for this technology-focused trade will be centered around automating the customer’s buying journey. As innovation has led the consumer markets to automate the discovery process for buyers, so too has the time come for the long-established AV industry to adapt and embrace the future of vertical market content automation for sales and marketing.
Helping prospects and clients inform themselves during their customer buying journey is not a one-size-fits-most process due to the exponential growth of online search. Instead of manufacturers and systems integrators publishing generic product features, benefits and specifications, today’s influencers and decision-makers are searching for how products work in their unique vertical markets and applications. To land high in search results, AV industry vendors must create unique vertical market customer buying journey maps to position well in relevant search results.