LinkedIn has launched a new reel feature. Companies like SAP and Hubspot are on TikTok. The world as we B2B marketers know it is changing and one of the main reasons is that the Decision Making Unit (DMU) is changing. With Gen Z becoming part of the DMU, the way we look at marketing funnels, and purchase journeys, in short, the entire B2B marketing lifecycle, needs to evolve.
How Does Gen Z Look at Decision-Making?
Gen Z is at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, with self-actualization being extremely important to them. They are well-informed and care about political, social, and environmental issues. Consequently, the main focal point of their decision-making process is self-reflection. Their decision-making cycle commences with reflection on their own needs and then once done, they move down their journey drawing on personal connections, experts, and online research. When it comes to organizational decision-making, Gen Zers want to be as closely involved as possible. They prefer a fast decision velocity and a collaborative decision-making process.
What Does it Mean for B2B Marketers?
The Funnel is Irrevocably Broken
The B2B funnel hasn’t been linear for the longest and the coming of Gen Z broke it completely. The purchase journey for a Gen Zer is “an infinite loop of inspiration, exploration, community and loyalty.” What this transformation means for B2B marketers is an infinite number of touch points, which while providing an open playing field also creates the challenge of ensuring all of these touch points are continuously covered.
Creating a Personalized Digital Experience
Gone are the days of creating cookie-cutter content such as e-books, white papers, webinars, and infographics – the new B2B consumer demands personalization. They are self-aware and not afraid to demand experiences tailored to their specific needs. What this translates into is creating content that resonates with their personal values and is served to them in an authentic manner through the right medium. With 80% of the Gen Zers agreeing that they are shown more content than anyone else, the job of the B2B marketer becomes even more challenging.
What Can B2B Marketers Do?
Become the Algorithm
With so much noise on social media, Gen Zers curate their content more carefully than Marie Kondo. They understand social media algorithms and tweak them according to their content needs. For a B2B marketer, creating target personas is insufficient – we now need to become the algorithm.
Understand What’s Cool
If you are a millennial B2B marketer, understand what is trending and/or seems cool to you might not hold true for a Gen Zer. Metaverse, as an example, and NFTs are something Gen Z has experimented with but it doesn’t actively affect their purchase decisions or brand outlook. Having a Gen Zer as part of your marketing team hence makes immense sense.
Think of Social Media as a Search Engine
Social media has become a means to an end. The Gen Zers are using it as a search engine and a B2B marketer needs to ensure the Gen Zers find the content they are looking for provided to them by the right source. The E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) concept, previously used specifically for search engines like Google and Bing, is now applicable to social media as well. While researching Gen Z will be looking for trustworthy experts that are delivering them genuine content in an authentic manner hence the one-size-fits-all approach that marketers were using to curate influencers is no longer applicable.
Believe in Your Brand
Gen Zers need to know that a brand is not merely revenue-driven to be able to resonate with it. Companies like ClickUp and SEMrush are creating extremely engaging content that not only reflects their brand values but is also very relatable for their target audience. By leveraging their team members for content creation, these brands are showing their vulnerable, human side, which helps in building a meaningful relationship with their audience.
The Last Stand
While many millennials like me label Gen Zers harshly, I think that Gen Z’s realization of their self-worth has made us all take a more introspective approach toward how we market our brand. Gen Zers are hyper-aware, well-informed, and quite jaded – so to convince them to purchase what you are selling will only be possible when they see the passion and authenticity behind your spiel. You cannot sell to them something you don’t believe in yourself – thus forcing brands to build better products and services and work on continuously improving them in accordance with the customer’s needs.
