Convert More, Hustle Less: The Buying Stage Segmentation Advantage

Introduction

It can make a big difference in winning deals to understanding your prospects' buying stages. This comprehensive guide will show you how to harness the power of predictive buying stages to revolutionize your sales and marketing efforts. By the end, you'll be better equipped with the knowledge and tools to both segment your audience effectively and engage them at the right moment.

What You'll Learn

• How to use the Sona Platform to understand predictive buying stages for your prospects
• Techniques for creating stage-specific marketing strategies
• Methods to re-engage dropped leads and address content gaps
• Steps to sync your segmented data with other marketing tools
• Strategies to maximize your marketing ROI

Understanding Predictive Buying Stages

What are Predictive Buying Stages?

Predictive buying stages are assigned for account and visitor profiles, aiming to estimate the readiness to purchase. These stages include:

1. Awareness: Indicates an initial interest or need for your product
2. Consideration: Prospects are actively searching for solutions to their problem
3. Decision: Prospects are shortlisting and evaluating their available options
4. Purchase: Prospects are on the verge of making a purchase decision

By leveraging these stages, you can:

• Group prospects and leads into different audience segments
• Target each segment with tailored campaigns
• Identify and re-engage leads that might have dropped off
• Maximize progression to subsequent buying stages

Implementing Buying Stage Segmentation with Sona

Sona helps go-to-market teams leverage predictive buying stages for more effective sales and marketing executing.

You can leverage buying stages to group prospects and leads into different audience segments. You can then target each segment with campaigns that are tailored to address their specific needs and influence them to move to the next stage.

For B2B marketing and sales where sales cycles tend to be longer, predictive buying stages make it possible to identify and re-engage leads that might have dropped off or that might be stuck at a particular funnel stage.  With an understanding of the buying stage, content and outreach can be tailored to maximize the progression to a subsequent buying stage or ultimately a closed deal.

Let’s take a quick look at how this all works using the Sona Platform.

Here's a step-by-step guide:

Step 1: Add Filters

• Configure a new filter for the Buying Stage for which you want to segment. The Buying Stage filter is available in the Web Visitors, Accounts, and People pages.
• Add more filters to refine the dataset to only list qualified leads
• Experiment with filter combinations to understand attributes for leads found in each buying stage, which can help guide your go-to-market strategy.

Step 2: Create an Audience

• Save your filtered dataset as an Audience segment
• Create multiple audience segments for each buying stage, allowing you to target audiences with more personalized marketing and sales messaging
• Audience datasets update automatically as new matches occur

Step 3: Activate Data by Synching to Destinations 

• Use Destinations to sync buying stage audience segments to other platforms

• Analyze or enrich synced audience segments for more actionable lead data
• Build targeted campaigns using your marketing automation tools, email sequencers, or ad platforms

Best Practices for Buying Stage Segmentation

1. Tailor Content: Create and share content that addresses the specific needs of each buying stage
2. Multi-Channel Approach: Implement strategies across various channels based on buying stage data
3. Progressive Profiling: Build a more complete picture of your prospects over time
4. Continuous Optimization: Regularly analyze performance and refine your approach
5. Compliance: Ensure your use of buying stage data complies with relevant privacy regulations

Overcoming Common Challenges

• Data Overload: Start with a few key buying stages and gradually expand
• False Categorization: Combine multiple data points to increase accuracy in stage identification
• Team Adoption: Provide training and showcase early wins to encourage widespread use
• Integration Issues: Work closely with your IT team to ensure smooth integration between Sona and your existing tech stack
• Maintaining Authenticity: Despite the data-driven approach, ensure your outreach still feels personal and genuine

Conclusion

Predictive buying stages are a powerful aspect of Sona's platform which can reveal insights that are often hidden in data. By understanding and acting on your prospects' buying stages, you can execute precise, stage-appropriate strategies to communicate more effectively, address needs more accurately, and ultimately convert more leads into deals and revenue.