It’s easy to drown in a sea of measurable metrics. So, this piece helps highlight how choosing the right ones ultimately depends on the campaign goals.

HubSpot defines content performance metrics as –

“Numbers that can help you determine if what you’re doing is making an impact as is, if you’ll need to tweak your approach, or if you’ll need to abandon it altogether in exchange for something else.”

Across the crowded digital space, content has continued to be marketing’s magnum opus – but the game is changing.

Modern buyers are skeptical of recycled messages that stem from traditional playbooks. And are actively tuning them out.

Amid these shifts in consumption patterns, content marketing has become the only way out. Especially when it helps deliver unique, targeted, and valuable content in an age where the power has tilted back toward buyers.

But, it’s easier said than done.

Content marketing demands patience, consistency, and a copious investment in resources. How do marketers know their efforts are bearing fruit?

This is where content performance metrics come in.

What Are Content Performance Metrics?

Content performance metrics are simply numbers or data illustrating your content’s impact and performance. The answer to: Is your content influencing the bottom line?

However, not all metrics are equal or used for the same purpose.

Cue: vanity metrics. They used to play an integral role in the old content playbooks. But marketing realized these could be directional indicators of brand visibility and reach. Otherwise, the vanity metrics didn’t capture demand or indicate a shift in market perception.

So, in a landscape where CMOs are held accountable for revenue, impactful marketing demands actionable metrics that demonstrate tangible business outcomes.

Why should you measure content marketing metrics?

Measuring the performance of your content isn’t only beneficial for the bottom line. It ensures that your strategies are updated and aligned with the broader business goals.

1. Visibility

Without any optimization, it’s possible that your content won’t be visible to the right audience. And just gathering digital cobwebs. So, tracking content performance metrics allows marketing to ensure that the right content is reaching the ICPs at the right time.

Search engines only rank relevant, high-quality content for users searching for solutions similar to your brand offerings. But if your content strategy is loose at the ends, your content doesn’t even appear to prospects.

2. Strategy

Content marketing metrics illustrate the effectiveness of your content strategy from the bottom up, tying directly to your brand visibility and its overall growth.

Through a robust content strategy, it becomes easier for potential buyers to find your brand amidst the competition and elevate conversion possibilities.

3. Quality

But this is significantly dependent on whether you’re creating the right content in the first place.

Measuring content marketing metrics ensures this is the actual case. It allows you to assess the content quality and change the content or its type to what drives impact.

4. Impact

Content performance metrics also help gauge audience behavior: Are they really hooked or leaving a page too quickly? Does it fit your audience’s preferences?

You can optimize your channels and segment audiences by understanding who is interacting with your content and how. Both help underscore whether your content reaches your ICP and drives them to action.

And if it doesn’t, the metrics outline where your strategy is lacking.

Overall, measuring content performance metrics is a key driver of your brand’s growth and expansion. And offers a comprehensive understanding of your content marketing ROI.

So, the primary step for tracking these is to ensure the chosen metrics align with your business goals. And in turn, the goal you’re attempting to achieve underlines the content marketing metrics you should track.

How Do Your Business Goals Define Your Content Metrics

Not all content is curated for the same reason, which means not every metric is measured the same way.

From attempting to fill your sales pipeline, elevate brand awareness, or retain customers, your performance metrics should align with the goal your business hopes to achieve.

1. If your priority is lead generation:

One of the commonplace goals of marketers is generating quality leads through their content marketing KPIs efforts. After all, the leads that convert into customers are the honest indicators of your business’s success.

So, it’s not just about traffic but about qualified traffic because you’re capturing demand that transforms into action.

The warmer your leads are, the higher the chances that your content marketing strategies are set in the right direction. So, it is significant to underline the number of leads your content has generated.

The key metrics to calculate –

• Lead quality
• Lead volume,
• Cost-per-lead (CPL)
• Traffic-to-lead ratio
• Conversion rates

What not to focus on –

Think: A lead downloads a whitepaper, which marketing forwards to sales. When contacted, the lead illustrates no interest in the brand, resulting in a waste of time and resources.

Just because a lead downloaded a whitepaper, it doesn’t mean they are always a potential buyer. Most often, third parties who hold no interest in your solutions also undertake specific actions for their research.

This missing piece here is intent.

So, page views, impressions, or shares without content don’t carry weight here. High engagement doesn’t equate to high intent. And often signals marketing towards low-quality, irrelevant leads.

2. If your priority is brand awareness:

Brand recognition is one of the most crucial indicators of growth – How well does your ICP really know your brand?

And content that provides real value can help build your brand awareness. A crucial aspect of this is thought leadership content that leverages your brand’s top voice to establish credibility across the industry.

Here, the focus isn’t on driving immediate action but on building trust and visibility. The final goal is to stay on top of the buyer’s mind – as the best possible solution to their pain points.

The key performance metrics to improve this –

• Social media metrics: Engagement, mentions, and shares
• Brand search volume
• Unique page views
• Backlinks
• Time on page
• Scroll depth
• Impressions

What not to focus on –

Conversion rates.

This particular metric has a lot to offer. But this isn’t always a business’s objective, especially when it comes to elevating brand recognition and awareness.

Imagine a company planning to introduce new services or even itself in an already crowded and unfamiliar market. And its sole priority is to get on the radar.

How else will they engage leads if the market doesn’t know the company exists in the first place while building trust?

Brand awareness here becomes the company’s strategic moat.

It might be too early to sell, so driving action isn’t even the first step. And lead generation doesn’t add much value here, not before the company has penetrated the new territory and established itself as a credible source.

3. If your priority is customer retention:

Content marketing efforts aren’t merely meant to capture prospects. As much as it’s crucial to engage new customers, it’s also vital to nurture existing ones.

Marketers seamlessly forget that it’s not the first buy that matters. It’s truly the second one. A customer who buys from your brand again means taking a step forward to become a brand advocate.

It should also be your content marketing’s focus.

Imagine a customer making purchases from you repeatedly over the years and also referring you to their peers. This customer has a high CLTV compared to a one-time buyer.

That’s why your efforts should also prioritize nurturing and retaining these customers.

Retaining an existing customer is far simpler than converting a new one – valuable, relevant, and unique content can ascertain this.

Your marketing team can ensure that there’s specific content that elevates the CLTV of these customers while simultaneously boosting your bottom line. The only concern here: Do you know if it’s working?

Track the relevant metrics –

• Repeat purchase rate (RPR)
• Customer churn rate
• Customer lifetime value (CLTV)
• Customer satisfaction score (CSAT)
• Net Promoter Score (NPS)
• Upsell conversion rate
• Repeat logins

What not to focus on –

Traffic volume.

Customer retention means nurturing existing customers with high LTV. This means you aren’t marketing to the broader public.

Your audience for all your content marketing efforts is directed towards a concise, familiar, and segmented pool. For SaaS companies, the bottom line is dependent on churn rates. Once a customer signs up, one of the priorities is to keep them engaged and upgraded.

So, content marketing metrics, from pageviews to the number of users, don’t offer depth. To elevate customer retention, you don’t need eyes on irrelevant bots or new leads.

But focus on the specific and finite existing customer base.

Accurately tracking and analyzing content performance metrics.

We’ve briefly established the content performance metrics you should track in line with different business goals.

Do you measure these manually? No.

Leverage marketing tools and software for accurate data. There are a vast number of content reporting tools available to help businesses collect and track website data.

These help marketers collate and analyze user behavior, make sense of insights, and track conversions – most often, across a single dashboard.

Some of the known effective and robust tools that offer integrated content measurement along with seamless user experience are:

1. Google Analytics 4
2. HubSpot
3. SEMrush/Ahrefs
4. Attribution tools, such as Dreamdata and HockeyStack

These tools are significant for tracking, measuring, and analyzing your chosen content performance metrics.

But not all data sets are the goldmines, you’re searching for. With a data-driven approach at the base of most of their tactics, marketers should realize that more data isn’t synonymous with more insight.

Especially when it concerns measuring the performance of your content.

What Can Marketers Get Wrong About Content Metrics: The Common Pitfalls

Without a clear strategic roadmap, the numbers rarely mean anything:

1. What do the metrics on your dashboards mean?
2. Why are you particularly tracking these?
3. How do they influence the bottom line?
4. Do they align with your broader business goals?
5. Do these metrics demonstrate content’s impact for the long term?

But without an answer to any of these questions, your marketing team is moving in the dark. And your plans lack any scope.

Without the basic know-how, i.e., the why, which, and how of your performance metrics, it’s easy to face a setback. Some of which could stem specifically from:

• A knowledge gap regarding which metrics to measure at each funnel stage – This is particularly demonstrated by non-marketing leadership. Not all stakeholders entirely gauge the importance of content across the funnel, resulting in a constricted understanding that success looks different at each stage of the funnel.
• Pressure to prove the marketing ROI – Stakeholders want proof of their investment – they want content to work within a short period. To prove its worth, marketers chase measurable metrics that are easy to gauge.

So, they end up over-indexing short-term metrics such as impressions and visitors and skip long-term investments, like SEO and thought leadership – ones that build brand equity.

But what they forget is that vanity metrics are ineffective. They offer a false sense of success but rarely translate into active customers.

• Attribution gaps – Even with the relevant attribution tools, it’s hard to assess if the insights are down to the number. There are so many intangible channels through which leads interact with content – not all of it’s graspable through quantitative data.

Many visitors read blogs anonymously or are engaged through podcasts. There’s a lack of clarity in attribution.

So, marketers dive into the extremes with less to see and more to prove. They either overvalue what is measurable (traffic and impressions) or don’t end up measuring at all.

Additionally, marketers could fall into blind spots, miss insights, prioritize the last touch, rely only on attribution tools, focus only on numbers, or expect content to work within a short period (say, 2 weeks).

It’s simple – any of these pitfalls could prove detrimental to your content marketing efforts.

Keeping a to-the-point track of your content performance metrics isn’t straightforward even with the right tools and software. Marketers bend backward with the most limited resources while attempting to prove the content marketing ROI.

This feeds into the existing rupture between stakeholder expectations and actual outcomes, widening the gap.

But it’s not the end of your content marketing journey. Although each business might choose to measure a different set of metrics, the underlying basis should remain the same.

There are particular strategies, the fundamental building blocks, that can help improve your content marketing metrics and refine the overall measuring process.

Improving Content Performance Metrics: Optimize Based on Data

A/B test for headlines and CTAs

Churning out content pieces constantly is a waste of both time and resources, especially if you don’t know whether it’ll move customers. For your content to translate into tangible outcomes, you need to assess what works and what doesn’t.

The best path to do this is A/B testing.

Not only will it highlight the headline that engages your audiences the most, but also the placement of the CTAs. It shouldn’t overwhelm visitors but also be compelling enough to drive immediate action.

So, test using alternatives.

There are multiple variations of a single content that can appeal to different customers. But your priority should be to drive the maximum number of leads to action. And headlines that instill curiosity within them to know more and read through the content.

So, experimenting with different CTAs – the subject and placement – will outline an idea that aligns with the brand requirements and ICP.

Update underperforming content

Most content is published and then forgotten. But a potential client browsing through your website is looking only for solutions. And often, they merely skim through the written content for the relevant bits.

What if the information they’re looking for doesn’t align with the latest market conditions? It can harm your brand’s reputation.

So, update your content periodically, especially statistics and market problems at the crux of your piece. This little piece of advice isn’t limited to blogs – it’s for infographics, content carousels, and whitepapers.

Your potential buyers depend on you to act as a guide, helping make informed decisions.

So, it’s paramount to update the information you’re offering – at least the irrelevant statistics.

Repurpose the content that’s working.

At the heart of content marketing is quality, not quantity. And one of the most effective channels to gauge the most out of your pieces and elevate their quality is repurposing them.

Content repurposing boosts impact without multiplying the effort. Now, instead of waiting for your audience to visit your website, your content reaches them through infographics, LinkedIn carousels, newsletters, podcast snippets, etc.

This methodology will elevate your reach and impression while improving SEO and organic traffic.

It’s a harsh reality that most content expires. However, by keeping the core message alive through short-form formats, you’re increasing its lifecycle.

And keeping your brand’s core message alive.

Set content strategy goals

What is it that you’re aiming for with your content?

From driving conversion to instilling awareness – your content should entail an intention, i.e., a purpose. Once the goals are set, it becomes easier to gauge the direction you’re moving in.

A directionless strategy might catch a few stray prospects here and there in the long term. It’s ineffective. So, build a roadmap and outline what you want your content to do – close sales or inform?

Accordingly, your own goals can help underscore the kind of content you should focus on.

Consider different channels and formats.

Marketing has had one motto, and in all these years, it has remained constant – experimentation. It’s applicable to content formats and your campaign channels.

It might be perceived as a ‘let’s see what sticks’ formula, but it isn’t.

Experimentation is about diving into innovation without the fear of failure. Not all channels you first camp on will offer the same outcomes – some might work, while others mightn’t. The same applies to various content formats.

Your ICP might interact highly with some, while others may fall flat. But you wouldn’t know this unless you experiment. Think out of the box.

Customers want unique content and to be caught off-guard – how can your marketing team offer this to them? Deliver your story (content) in the relevant box (format) through the right medium (channel) to maximize its impact.

Even if you fail, remember you can rethink your strategies and trace your initial steps. Your content marketing metrics will spotlight your missteps from the get-go, a crucial advantage.

Content Performance Metrics: The Goldmine Beyond Datasets

Measuring the performance of your content marketing efforts can be daunting. It’s like opening a can of worms or being uncertain about the number of potholes you’ll encounter.

But marketing offers you the space to learn and grow.

It’s limiting to underscore marketing as a chore. Instead, it should function as your business’s extension in overcoming its pain points – whether it’s lead generation or building brand equity.

By tracking and analyzing content performance metrics, you’re allowing your team to pinpoint its gaps – why is your marketing campaign not generating the expected results? And how to overcome similar dilemmas.

The right content performance metrics open up a treasure box – a roadmap for how your campaigns generate better results without the need to multiply efforts.

What if there was one thing that could help you understand the buyers completely? And no- it’s not mind-reading. All you need is customer journey mapping.

The past few years have proved overwhelming for businesses and customers. Given the rapid changes digital transformation has prompted, marketplace patterns and demands have taken a 180-degree turn.

And there’s been one significant casualty: customer experience (CX).

Every marketing campaign is curated to capture prospective buyers, but the bull’s eye is the experience. It’s oftentimes the main selling point.

But the gaps are more vivid than ever before due to digitization.

Digital transformations proved to be both a bane and a boon for businesses. On one hand, these help businesses optimize customer interaction. On the other hand, it’s a means for customers to hold companies accountable.

The cracks in customer experiences are all too visible, and many business leaders are aware of why they exist in the first place.

It’s the lack of customer understanding.

Modelling a solution or a marketing message based on a customer base isn’t complex. It’s the questions that precede it. On what basis is an offering personalized? Are there any prerequisites for a ‘resonating’ message?

Data could help answer these particular types of marketing queries, especially when it comes to understanding or engaging a potential customer.

And technology has granted marketers crucial access to it. Not only has modern tech become an avenue to gauge clean and accurate data, but afforded the means to leverage it smartly.

But most businesses fail to do so successfully. The frequent error they make is misaligning data-powered solutions with customer-focused ones.

This is why customer journey mapping is paramount.

According to HBR, a customer journey map is:

“A diagram that illustrates the steps your customer(s) go through in engaging with your company, whether it be a product, an online experience, a retail experience, a service, or any combination.”

Think about this: The nucleus of marketing is storytelling. Across B2B marketing, stories are propagated through data, but most strategies prioritize alignment with tech infrastructure. It’s the customers who should occupy the front seat, not only as data points but as humans infused with diverse emotions.

A customer-centric approach is more about building confidence that they, the customers, are making the right choice. What do they think as they engage with the brand, partners, employees, and products?

A conventional framework would work through the following components:

• Actions/Behavior: What actions is the customer undertaking to move to the next stage?
• Underlying motivations: Why does the customer care enough to go on to the next step? What emotions are they feeling, and if it’s inclined towards delight or frustration?
• Uncertainties: What prevents the customer from moving on to the next step?
• Obstacles: Do any external factors stand in the way of progressing further – cost or structural process?

The customer journey, however, is not linear.

Owing to digital transformation, customer journeys haven’t retained their linearity. Instead, it’s become unpredictable, non-linear, and complex.

Imagine the difference. One customer goes through extensive research and convincing, while the other jumps directly from awareness to purchase due to a strong recommendation.

To pierce the cacophony of noise, marketers are meeting prospective buyers at multiple touchpoints. They have more opportunities to influence the consumers. And consumers themselves wade through distinct paths as they progress down the multitouch marketing funnel.

No two customer journeys are similar.

But, outlining a “typical” customer journey offers insight into the current interaction points and a potential roadmap. From breaking down organizational silos, the map administers customer-centric communication, from sales to logistics. It’s not just advantageous for marketing but also influences cross-departmental functions.

Modern marketers have drastically come to understand the complexity of the buyer’s journey.

It’s not about what’s on paper but about reading between the lines. Customer journey mapping doesn’t always require a storyboard, but visualizing each stage is a good way to begin.

But customer journey maps have to be comprehensive.

A customer’s journey isn’t merely a business offering a product, and a consumer buys it. It’s way more nuanced and intricate.

Every touchpoint the consumer interacts with, even competitors, impacts how they perceive a brand.

“Your customer doesn’t care how much you know until they know how much you care,” says the customer service expert, Daniel Richardson.

And this is quite true- 80% of customers don’t just value the offering but also the experience.

Marketing teams make a severe mistake in understanding the customer- they think the customer fits in a tidy little box. This force-fitting has marred the efficacy of marketing strategies and misconstrued the messaging.

However, through customer journey mapping, effective marketers have outlined a more flexible approach.

Customer journey maps consider that each consumer behavior isn’t confined to just one funnel stage. These behaviors are often overlapping and affect multiple stages.

For a 360-degree customer journey mapping, specific ingredients have to have a central space in the recipe, or it’s insipid. These are:

1. What is the user’s story? The historical and behavioral data will reveal this, so build a user persona for all the accounts.
2. A journey could extend from days to years, so what’s the timeline chosen for this specific map?
3. Highlight the active touchpoints and channels to gauge what the customers are actually doing.
4. Figure out if any external stimuli influence how the customers feel about the brand.
5. Find out how your customers feel and think at every touchpoint and build an empathy map of relevant emotions.
6. Regroup categories and aspects that affect each other and influence customer experience together.
7. Sketch the journey through a timeline, video, or any other diagram style. The point is pinning down the motion of the customers through the journey, irrespective of the canvas.
8. Leverage the journey map. What’s the use of the file remaining on your hard drive? Understand why the mapping was significant in the first place and use it to modify customer experiences.
9. Define relevant KPIs, and as you modify the touchpoints and channels, update the metrics. This will potentially help mark the road for the business’s potential growth.

It’s sort of a story crafted by marketers on where the customers are in their journey. This outlines a ‘day-in-the-life’ approach to customer journey mapping.

It accounts for every little interaction and influence the customers would have felt or had – from their own to stakeholders and employees.

Journey mapping means stepping into the customers’ shoes.

The core purpose behind this tactic is – these maps help modulate the marketing funnel through the customer’s perspective.

Brands understand at what point in the journey customers desire what sort of experience and how. It’s about gauging which specific interaction delights or frustrates them and why.

Spotlighting this starts with leaning towards more customer listening.

As customer needs and patterns constantly evolve, marketing is experimenting with multiple innovative software, especially AI-driven ones. But more than jumping on the AI bandwagon, adapting to customer needs should be given more heed. Many preach, but few have actually incorporated this strategy into their core marketing functions.

Building customer journey maps is the fundamental step. Although tech plays an integral role here, it’s a customer-first and technology-second approach.

It provides a view of the necessary balance between customer situation, intent, and objective, and how it aligns with the organization’s goals.

From a marketer’s perspective, data is a true reflection of this.

It pinpoints where the customers are in the funnel and offers a 360-degree view of their progression.

Even if paired with the most advanced technology, any approach is ineffective unless rooted in customer understanding.

It’s paramount for a compelling CX.

Journey maps are the best methodology to translate marketers’ empathy into a structured and comprehensive design. It’ll not only accommodate users’ needs but also remove as many pain points as possible.

Each brand understands how significant customers are to them. They develop digital and physical communication channels to offer panoramic experiences.

What they are missing out on is, rather than perceiving the customer journey as a whole, looking at it as an amalgamation of atoms (journey points).

B2B buying isn’t linear or predictable. But brands can grasp the nuances by dissecting consuming decision-making. Decode the nitty-gritty.

Studying consumer behavior, especially the psychological factors behind a purchase, is crucial to a business’s success. Selling to potential customers isn’t as easy as exposing them to products and services and hoping this ends in a purchase.

Businesses need to know how and why consumers buy particular solutions against others. While psychological factors are inherent in B2C and B2B buying structures, the motivations significantly differ. B2B buying decisions comprise companies with groups of individuals (buying committees) from different backgrounds and motivations.

However, understanding fundamental factors that drive decisions in the buying landscape can offer a better base for exploring purchasing motivations.

Sales-Free Experience and Buyer Challenges

According to a Gartner study, over 75% of buyers prefer a sales-free experience. These are the new-age consumers – highly aware and self-driven. But, Gartner’s research also asserts that self-service purchases online are also most likely to turn into regrets.

So, what is the actual root cause? A hiccup on the sellers’ part or the buyer’s difficulty in making a purchase?

“As hard as it has become to sell in today’s world, it has become that much more difficult to buy. The single biggest challenge of selling today is not selling, it’s actually our customers’ struggle to buy,” states Brent Adamson, the Distinguished VP at Advisory, Gartner.

The underlying motivation for a purchasing decision is – buyers want value.

However, complex and lengthy buying processes, uncertainty, and other disruptions overshadow potential customers from seeing it. These end up undermining buyers’ confidence and clarity.

Complexity of B2B Buying Committees

And in B2B, marketers sell to a whole group of decision-makers rather than individuals. There are so many layers to break down here. Even the group of decision-makers entails distinct levels of expertise, influence, and authority.

Thus, they influence the purchasing process differently. B2B buyers reflect a complex set of needs as compared to B2C ones. There are emotional and rational requirements that operate on two different levels – personal and organizational.

Even the alternatives available that buying committees can consider are increasing, owing to the fast pace with which the market is expanding. From new tech and startups to suppliers and services – the market has become an overflowing basket saturated with options.

How can a buying decision be simple when the choices aren’t?

As humans, we make conscious choices every step of our lives. We intuitively understand that we are making a choice, but psychologically, it’s not a straight road. It’s a cluster of decisions.

Making a decision or a choice is an amalgamation of alternative courses of action – ones preceding the final choice and carrying a sense of conflict and uncertainty.

This is prevalent in B2B buying processes.

Meanwhile, for B2B buyers, this decision-making process is a loop where they revisit certain decisions again. It comprises a lot of back-and-forth discussions, convincing decision-makers, re-strategizing, etc.

So, to say it’s unidirectional would be untrue.

The Six Buying “Jobs” in B2B Decision-Making

According to Gartner, there are six buying “jobs” in a decision-making process. Unlike “stages,” these don’t need a sequence or a fixed order.

Source: https://www.gartner.com.au/en/sales/insights/b2b-buying-journey

Gartner uses the term “jobs” to demonstrate the B2B buying process where each job has to be completed before moving on to the next one, irrespective of the order.

Identifying the problem:

The buying committee recognizes the pain points that lead to several online searches. During independent research, it’s easy to disagree on the actual concerns. Hence, regrouping and discussions become necessary.

Exploring different solutions: 

What could be the possible solutions? The buying group then surfs the net for whitepaper downloads, supplier website visits, form fill-ups, outreach, etc. During this stage, buyers may also consult external experts.

Building requirements:

What would the ideal solution look like? Here, the buying committee aligns its expectations and develops criteria for the solutions it seeks. From requesting proposals to scheduling meetings with potential suppliers, data is integral to deciding on a solution.

Selecting the solution:

Evaluating between sellers that ideally fit their defined criteria. It often includes buying committee discussions, requests for more sales information (such as case studies), legal flats, and capital review boards.

Validation or confirmation:

Is this the right choice for our business?

Creating a consensus:

A buying group has different stakeholders with their own expectations. Hence, an alignment between them is vital to finalize a decision. This is requisite at all stages because every decision requires approvals.

Decision-making is non-sequential and complex. So, the sequence of these six “buying jobs” isn’t set in stone. As disagreements or new information arises, the decision-makers visit each job numerous times.

It highly depends on the buyer’s satisfaction in completing each job so that they can move closer to making a purchase.

The Nature of Consumer Decision-Making

Overall, consumer decision-making isn’t about choosing between objects but specific behaviors or attitudes. From selecting a particular information source in their research phase and “when to make the purchase” to “from which business” and payment channels – every decision involves choice alternatives, as mentioned before.

These choice alternatives have transformed into a dizzying array. Market congestion has coerced buyers into extensive research and information processing so they could make informed decisions.

Decision-making is a paradox.

On one hand, buyers wish for control over their challenges, but they also want simplicity. In the age of tech paralysis, these two rarely go hand-in-hand. Every option is an added benefit to the buyers – if one doesn’t meet their requirements, the other might.

It’s still another choice buyers have to consider making. But how often do buyers know what they want?

Every decision is a series of behaviors that rely on contextual influences, such as economic factors, peer pressure, social roles, or cultural attributes. This underlying theory mirrors how every marketing strategy is a chain of actions intended toward a specific outcome.

In short, the choices are directly reliant on the context within which it takes place.

The ‘context’

The psychoanalytical consumer decision-making model asserts that buyers have underlying motives for a purchase – unconscious and conscious. They are driven by a mix of conscious and subconscious desires, which is why buyers might be drawn to specific products or brands without entirely understanding why.

Decision-making is rudimentarily influenced by external factors known as contextual influences. They highlight the information available to consumers and how they process it to make decisions.

In B2B, one of the crucial contexts required for purchasing decisions is collating necessary information.

Think of whitepaper downloads or case studies. Why are case studies such a vital step in sales? It’s value-proof, detailing how reliable, authentic, or an ideal fit a brand’s solution is. Additionally, such pieces of information are a support for decision-making.

Information is crucial at every step of B2B decision-making. This varies from tangible ones, such as pricing structure and meeting ethical standards, to intangible ones, such as brand awareness and reputation.

More often, a brand’s reputation is likely to take priority over price in high-risk purchasing situations. But if a decision is low-risk, cost and convenience take the front seat.

The ‘risk’ factor

In the B2B landscape, buyers are assumed to be more objective and focus on the purchase risk before making any decisions. Risk is a crucial determinant in choice decisions.

What will the business risk losing (adverse consequences) if it makes an incorrect decision?

Predicting the outcome of a decision or a choice is not easy – it’s never accurate. So, how can the buying committee navigate significant purchasing risks?

They focus on the importance and complexity of a purchase. Mapping the importance of a purchase for the organization helps ascertain its impact on the business goals. This facilitates buyers to focus on the brand with a positive reputation in sailing through potential problems.

Whereas, with the lesser complexity and higher sophistication of the purchasing process, the decision-makers are likely to oblige. In complex or excruciatingly long sales cycles, buyers find it tasking to weigh the choices or even predict the offerings’ performance.

This increase in ambiguity might also lead to significant risks, compelling the buyers to move on.

Today, B2B is commoditized. This has embedded specific tangible (price and scalability) and intangible (cultural fit and aesthetics) elements in brand offerings, fostering choice paralysis.

Thus, B2B buyers must engage in complex decision-making processes to grasp brand offerings. Subsequently, it’s the brand’s responsibility to offer sufficient cues that highlight the intangible attributes.

In simpler terms, decision-making crucially depends on the brand information communicated to the buying centers. It permeates the overall process, but to what extent? This is questionable.

With market saturation, complexity in decision-making has become the norm.

It’s about predicting what, as buyers, we truly want from weighing the choice alternatives and evaluating the information in our hands.

But, the truth of organizational buying is that even the most thought-out decision-making processes are susceptible to errors.

For example, too much information can derail the purchase, overwhelming the decision-makers. This overload could result in poorer decisions or purchases by increasing deliberation, complicating the processes further.

In B2B, every decision-making process involves six to 10 decision-makers. These hold their own sets of information and contextual cues for the different solutions available in the market.

While the modern buyer is self-driven, they still require brand support. Instead, this disjointed and fragmented buying environment demands a shift to a more relationship-focused alignment between prospective buyers, sales, and marketing.

Organizations need to keep up with the times. Adopt parallel and channel-agnostic roadmaps and execute buyer enablement strategies.  

With businesses scaling up and expanding across nations, there is more demand for evolved international transactions. Which solution is best for you?

Cross-border payments have introduced winds of change in the financial exchange between businesses. You can now skip the sluggish bank transfers and geographical restrictions. The entire purpose of this payment cycle is to promote the adoption of a global strategy and offer customers diverse payment options. It is a perfect gateway to align with rapid digitization, supporting a global marketplace. By opting for cross-border payment options, you embrace the opportunity to enter new markets and access new customer bases.

Cross-border payments are comprised of payers and payees in different countries, allowing hassle-free exchange of money between business entities. Studies indicate that B2B cross-border payments are valued at $186.2 trillion. And by 2027, its value is expected to cross $250 trillion within the global business ecosystem.

While using these advanced payment channels, you need to keep their efficiency levels in check. Based on various criteria, such as speed, costs, success rates, and security, select the platform that is best for you.

Since cross-border payments are in the picture, your brands can deliver personalized customer experiences by presenting them with popular regional methods.  You will find that most of these channels are mobile-enabled, making it convenient for you to schedule payments and invoices from anywhere. The flexibility that these cross-border payments offer allows you to expand your reach and business networks.

Which cross-border payment solutions should you choose?

While cross-border payment channels offer flexibility and an opportunity to grow your business across miles, choosing a channel that works for you is our recommendation. Depending on the countries you are transacting with and their government regulations, you may be unable to avail of all these options. Yet, these are among the top picks to consider for your international money transfers.

Top cross-border payment solutions

Airwallex

Integrating Airwallex allows you to experience a seamless and cost-effective way of performing international transactions. It simplifies the process while providing access to multi-currency accounts, real-time exchange rates, and competitive foreign exchange services.

You can incorporate strong compliance measures that promote secure and efficient cross-border payments for B2B brands. Aiwallex’s seamless platform enables you to apply current business tools, providing a smooth experience for managing foreign transactions. The platform is equipped with advanced security features and compliance that make it a choice you can rely on for efficient financial transactions.

Wise 

Wise, earlier TransferWise, offers cost-effective alternatives for brands to participate in overseas money transfers. You can rely on this solution— trusted by millions of customers worldwide due to its user-friendly interface and robust technology.

Since this payment network implements financial inclusivity, you are able to perform cross-border transactions that are accessible to all.

Nium

Nium helps you move around finances while keeping risks at bay. It is a good accelerator for brand growth operating on real-time payment infrastructure. When using this channel, collect, convert, and disburse funds to accounts, wallets, or cards and collect locally in 35 markets. Since it holds licenses and authorizations in over 40 countries, it is a good option for seamless transactions and compliance. And the best part is it is not location-bound.

Corpay

Take your brand to great heights by choosing Corpay. Its vast payment capabilities tap into new revenue streams, giving you more options to expand your business network. Corpay’s dedicated team of subject matter experts is a doorway of opportunities for international clients. By opting for this platform, you sign up for seamless services and 24/6 support available in over 200 countries.

Rapyd

Rapyd’s all-in-one payments platform propels your brand to tap into diverse capabilities such as bank transfers, cash payments, and card acquiring. Its comprehensive solution is embedded with integrated tools, including fraud management, compliance, and reconciliation. Your payment exchange offers a seamless and secure experience.

TransferMate

The best feature of this global fintech provider is its user-friendly platform, allowing you to process international transactions effortlessly. You can leverage it to overcome the complexities of international transfers while delivering transparency.

Spanning across 170 countries, TransferMate will not disappoint you with its robust customer service and streamlined global payment processes.

PPRO

PPRO offers access to an extensive network of alternative payment options. It allows you to accept payments promptly and securely. PPRO specializes in localized payment infrastructure and services, which helps you skip the complexities of international payments and compliance regulations. You can easily expand your client reach throughout the world and tap into new markets.

SWIFT                                                                          

This cross-border payment solution has become a dominant method preferred by several global brands. The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) offers you a vast resource of information messaging networks. With SWIFT, you can experience a seamless transfer with bands and other financial institutions. All you need are the details of the payer, payee, and the SWIFT code of relevant locations.

Ripple

Ripple is the majority holder of the XRP cryptocurrency operating on a blockchain platform to facilitate international payments. This platform is ideal if you are looking for cryptocurrency liquidity, digital asset management, and private ledger insurance. When these products are enabled with RippleNet, you increase your reach to a network of financial partners across the globe. It allows connection with banks and various financial institutions as an alternative system to move funds across geographical boundaries.

Salt.pe

Salt.pe is a neo-banking solution stitched together to ease payments and documentation by shifting to a digital-first and automated end-to-end platform. Choosing Salt as a platform for international transactions simplifies and streamlines financial transfers. You get access to services connected with cross-border payments, currency exchanges, and fintech solutions.

Wrapping up

Digitization has introduced tools that have drastically transformed the business dynamics. This revolution extends to payments and invoice processing. Transitioning from a time where international transactions would be complex and a real hassle, we have delved into a world where it can happen in a matter of hours. Staying tuned to the trending cross-border payment channels serves as a guide to opting for the best platforms. Whether you prefer transparency and low fees for cross-border payments, you have various options. With these channels, you can rest assured that your transactions are executed successfully and securely.