How Digital Natives Are Changing B2B Purchasing

Research suggests that millennials are the sole decision-maker for their department in one out of three instances and about half of all B2B product researchers are digital natives. Are you catering to their needs?

- Eric Almquist

First impressions matter as much as ever in B2B markets. Today, though, that first look comes through websites, user forums and quick case studies, not flesh-and-blood sales pitches.

The cartoon of business-to-business (B2B) buyers depicts gray-haired executives and purchasing agents in meetings, on the phone and lunching with their vendors.

Conversations focus mainly on negotiating price and payment terms.

But along with fax machines and long golf games, these features of B2B life have all but disappeared due to the astonishing change in technology over the past two decades.

Digital natives who grew up with the Internet and smartphones have transformed the way B2B buyers research purchases, qualify vendors and make purchases — changing the rules of the game for marketers and product managers.

DIGITAL SALES DECISIONS

Some 73% of 20 to 35-year-olds are involved in product or service purchase decision-making at their companies, according to a study by Merit of ‘millennial’ buyers. One-third report that they are the sole decision-maker for their department and about half of all B2B product researchers are digital natives, a number that increases every year, according to a Google/Millward Brown digital survey of buyers.