What the Buyer‘s Journey Looks Like in 2023 [+3 Data-Driven Ways Sales Can Keep Up]

As a sales or marketing leader, understanding the buyer‘s journey is absolutely essential to driving revenue growth. But the way customers discover, evaluate, and purchase solutions is evolving quickly in the digital-first era.

What does the buyer‘s journey look like in 2023, and how can your sales team adapt? Let‘s dive into the data to find out.

The Awareness Stage Has Gone Almost Entirely Digital

Long gone are the days when buyers first learned about new products and services primarily through TV commercials, billboards, cold calls, or other outbound channels. Today, the large majority of initial brand and product discovery takes place online.

Just how digital has the awareness stage become? Here are some of the most telling statistics:

• 68% of B2B buyers prefer to research products online on their own, up from 53% in 2019 (Source)
• 87% of retail shoppers begin their searches on digital channels, up from 71% in 2017 (Source)
• 89% of consumers use search engines to inform their purchase decisions (Source)
• 83% of consumers visit a brand‘s website before making a purchase (Source)

Clearly, having a strong online presence across search, social media, and your own website is non-negotiable for getting on buyers‘ radars today. And brands are responding accordingly, with digital channels now accounting for over 60% of total advertising spend globally (Source).

However, the specific digital channels driving the most product awareness vary significantly based on buyer demographics. For example:

Generation	Most Impactful Awareness Channel
Baby Boomers	Search engines (71%)
Gen X	Search engines (68%)
Millennials	Social media (62%)
Gen Z	Social media (69%)

(Source)

For younger consumers, social media has become the dominant source of product discovery, even surpassing search. 78% of Millennials and Gen Z say they have bought a product after seeing it on social media (Source).

This gives brands a clear mandate to invest in targeted social selling and influencer partnerships to get in front of these high-lifetime-value audiences. Authenticity is key though – 85% of Gen Z say user-generated content is more influential than brand-created content (Source).

The Consideration Stage Blends Digital & Physical Touchpoints

Once a buyer becomes problem- or solution-aware, the process of evaluating options has also largely shifted online. Digital interactions now make up the majority of the consideration stage.

Consider these findings on how buyers research and compare solutions today:

• B2B buyers complete 57% of their decision-making process before ever speaking with a sales rep, up from just 37% in 2017 (Source)
• 41% of B2B buyers say the length of their purchasing process has increased significantly in the last year as they conduct more due diligence online (Source)
• 95% of shoppers read online reviews before making a purchase (Source)
• 65% of B2B buyers say vendor websites are the most influential information source for making purchase decisions (Source)

While digital touchpoints dominate the middle stages, in-person engagement still plays a vital role for considered purchases. 58% of B2B buyers say they always or often prefer to interact with a salesperson when evaluating and comparing complex solutions (Source).

And for big-ticket consumer purchases like cars, furniture, and electronics, most shoppers still visit physical stores during the consideration process. 78% of Gen Z consumers, for example, prefer shopping in stores so they can discover new products (Source).

The key is providing a seamless omnichannel experience that empowers buyers to easily move between digital and real-world touchpoints. Research from Google shows that 98% of Americans switch between devices and platforms in the same day (Source).

The Purchase Stage is Quickly Moving Online

While e-commerce adoption has been rising steadily for over two decades, the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically accelerated the shift to digital purchasing. Over $1 out of every $5 is now spent online globally (Source).

But just how prevalent has online buying become in 2023? The data speaks for itself:

• In 2023, over 2.14 billion people worldwide are expected to buy goods and services online, up from 1.66 billion in 2016 (Source)
• E-commerce sales are projected to make up 24% of total global retail sales in 2023, up from just 10% in 2017 (Source)
• 73% of consumers use multiple channels during their shopping journey (Source)
• Mobile commerce will make up nearly 45% of the total US e-commerce market by 2025 (Source)

Interestingly, the products and services consumers are willing to purchase online continues to expand. 60% of US digital buyers are now comfortable purchasing groceries online, up from just 36% in 2017 (Source). Even big-ticket items like vehicles are increasingly being bought via digital channels.

However, B2B digital commerce is where the most explosive growth is happening. B2B e-commerce site sales are expected to reach $1.77 trillion in 2023, accounting for over 17% of all B2B sales in the US (Source). The majority of B2B buyers now prefer remote or digital self-serve purchasing over traditional rep-driven sales interactions.

To enable this shift to self-service, B2B sellers are taking inspiration from B2C e-commerce leaders. 91% of B2B decision makers say they would choose suppliers with consumer-like digital experiences over competitors (Source).

How Sales Teams Can Adapt to the Digital-First Buyer‘s Journey

With the overwhelming majority of the buyer‘s journey now happening via digital touchpoints, sales organizations must evolve their go-to-market playbooks to stay relevant and win. Here are three data-backed strategies to modernize your sales efforts:

1. Align Sales & Marketing Around Digital-First Customer Engagement

The lines between sales and marketing continue to blur as more of the buyer‘s journey takes place before direct rep involvement. To provide a seamless experience, sales teams need to work in lockstep with their marketing counterparts on digital strategy and execution.

Some key ways to drive tighter sales and marketing alignment:

• Collaboratively map out your digital buyer‘s journey across marketing and sales-owned touchpoints
• Work together on account-based plays that orchestrate personalized digital content for key decision makers
• Have sales reps curate marketing content in their social media posts and email outreach
• Implement a lead scoring model that qualifies digital buying signals for sales follow-up
• Report on shared pipeline and revenue KPIs that ladder up to company-wide growth goals

Organizations with tightly-aligned sales and marketing teams see 36% higher customer retention rates and 38% higher sales win rates (Source).

2. Build Relationships with Buyers Via Digital Channels

Even in the digital-first world, sales is still fundamentally a human-to-human business. What‘s changing are the channels reps use to discover, connect, and engage potential buyers.

Social media and digital communities have become the new relationship-building platforms for sales professionals. 78% of social sellers outsell peers who don‘t use social media (Source).

To stand out and earn trust in an increasingly noisy digital world, modern sellers need to take an educate-first approach rather than pushing their products. 75% of B2B buyers say they only engage with vendors who demonstrate a clear understanding of their business problems and needs (Source).

Some best practices for social selling:

• Optimize your social media profiles to build credibility and make it easy for buyers to learn more
• Share informative, non-promotional content that helps your target audience solve their challenges
• Jump into relevant conversations and answer questions in LinkedIn groups, Quora, Reddit, etc.
• Reach out 1:1 to provide personalized content and insights to potential buyers
• Partner with marketing on account-based social media campaigns to key decision makers

The goal is to build authentic relationships and earn the right to start a sales conversation by providing upfront value. 65% of B2B buyers say they‘re more likely to engage with vendors who offer new perspectives on their business (Source).

3. Enable Fast & Flexible Digital Purchasing Options

B2B buyers now expect the same seamless purchasing experiences they enjoy as consumers. 80% of business buyers say they prefer digital self-service for simple, low-touch sales cycles (Source).

To convert more of the digital demand you generate, sales teams must enable fast and flexible online purchasing options like:

• Self-service e-commerce buying

• Digital sales rooms

• Automated proposal & contract workflows

• 1-click reordering

• Integrated payment options

• Mobile responsive ordering

With an effective digital commerce engine in place, sales reps can focus on more strategic activities that accelerate deals and expand customer relationships. According to Gartner, B2B sales reps only spend 33% of their time actually selling (Source.

Investing in digital selling tools and capabilities has become table stakes for modern sales organizations. Companies that provide outstanding digital experiences are 2.9x more likely to achieve double digit revenue growth versus their peers (Source).

The Future of Selling is Digital-First

In 2023, there‘s no denying that the large majority of the buyer‘s journey has shifted to digital channels. And this trend shows no signs of slowing down. By 2025, 80% of all B2B sales interactions will occur via digital channels (Source).

The most successful sales teams will be those that fully embrace this digital transformation and adapt their strategies to serve the needs of the modern, digitally-empowered buyer.

While virtual selling will never completely replace the value of in-person relationship building, digital channels and capabilities must be the foundation of how you reach, engage, and win customers today and in the future.

The digital-first buyer‘s journey is here to stay. Is your sales team ready?