The product demo
Software developers like to get their hands dirty and try new software out. Your buyers are different, though. They want to talk to someone.
- 42% say that once they have a list of options, the immediate next step is to speak to a representative and get a live product demo.
- 66% say they ALWAYS speak to software sales reps or request live demos at some point before they make a sizable software purchase. (Sizeable in this case was defined as more than $3,000 per year.)
Serious buyers from larger companies want to talk to someone who really knows their stuff. They need to quickly get into the weeds and try to understand whether the software has the features their team needs and how hard it might be to implement.
These are not questions a junior sales rep can often answer
It might make more sense to funnel unqualified prospects to a video that teaches them the basics of your software. Then, funnel highly qualified buyers to a group of trained sales technicians.
We have seen many other data points that back this up. Buyers have spoken. Do not skimp on product demos. Make sure to match high quality sales technicians with high quality prospects.
Decision time
Once the options have been narrowed down, on average three people need to sign off on any software purchase of more than $3,000 per year.
Reminder: This survey was conducted on small to medium-sized businesses that have 10 to 200 employees.
You are selling to a team
If you are selling software with a significant price tag, remember that you are not just selling to one person.
- You may be selling to as many as 20 different people. Each of these folks has their own needs and motivations. Make sure you have a good understanding of how this works for your particular software tool.
It would be wise to create sales tools that speak to the needs of each stakeholder. If you need help with that, please reach out to me. This is what my agency does.
Implementation
The last data point we collected in this survey talks about the barriers to implementing a new software tool.
In previous surveys, we have seen that ease of implementation is one of the key steps in the software buyer journey. Here again, we see that time and resources are harder to come by than budget.
42% of respondents say they lack the time and resources to implement the software they are interested in. To compare, 36% say they do not have the budget.
Consider increasing your price point and using that revenue to help new users implement your software.
More resources
That wraps up our survey of the software buyer’s journey. I hope this was helpful. There’s a lot more in the data itself. Grab your copy of it in the link below.
If you are a growing software company looking for help with research or content marketing, I’d love to chat and see if I can help!
Software Buyer's Journey
Here’s how 200+ software decision-makers say you can win their business. This study explores how to attract and convert buyers from many different industries. It covers how to get their attention, how they select which software tools will get serious consideration and how the final decision is made.
Since then my team and I have published over 2,500 long-form articles for SaaS and HR Technology companies all over the world and engaged with over 20K influencers to promote this content.
I’d be happy to chat with you about anything and everything we have learned along that journey. Please don’t hesitate to reach out!
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