The Impact Of Analyst And Advisor Relations In The Buyer’s Journey

The Impact Of Analyst And Advisor Relations In The Buyer’s Journey

By Robert Kramer - August 9, 2023

I have spent the last 30 years as a business owner and marketing executive in the high-tech industries. It is exciting to say that I am now working as an industry analyst. Learning from my past experiences, especially with independent and large firm analysts and advisors, I can share my unique perspective on the impact of analysts and advisors. 

Before we talk about analysts and advisors, let’s start with an observation that many people in the B2B world should agree with: Understanding the customer and establishing a solid connection with them is paramount for any business's success. True, sometimes our vision can be skewed, so it’s not customer-focused, but when we’re thinking straight, we know that being customer-centric is critical to success—and should be the core motivation for why we are all in business.

When I think about my experiences trying to understand my customers as a high-tech executive and business owner, I keep returning to the buyer’s journey. This is a crucial concept within sales and marketing that requires understanding the various stages a customer goes through before making a purchase decision.

Across many years as a business owner and marketing executive, I have always relied on the viewpoints of analysts and advisors, in no small part because both can be significant influences on customers’ buying journeys. In fact, forming solid relationships within the analyst and advisory communities has significantly improved my business and marketing strategies, company branding, product recognition, and focus, directly and indirectly resulting in higher sales revenue —plus a strong ROI.

As you can see below, analysts and advisors are creative, impactful, and credible; they provide trust for buyers to make substantial purchase decisions. I also want to mention how noticeable it is when engaged with independent analysts and advisors, as they have a unique value proposition to the buyer’s journey. Specifically, strategic advisory centered on the four stages of the buyer’s journey provides customers with market education while demonstrating an impact on vendors’ pipeline growth. In sum, independent advising firms have a broad market educational reach for their enterprise customers. 

Let's examine the importance of the customer connection more specifically and discuss how analysts and advisors play a unique role in this process.

1.     Building Trust and Emotional Connection: Customers buy from companies they trust and are emotionally connected to. Building trust involves understanding the customer's needs, pain points, and preferences, plus aligning your offering accordingly. Establishing an emotional connection with the customer demonstrates that your business wants to solve their problems and cares about getting it right. Analysts and advisors, building from their existing relationships with the customer, can help create this trusted connection influencing all stages of the buyer’s journey. 

2.     Key Influencers — Analysts and Advisors: Analysts and advisors usually specialize in specific industries or technologies; in this context, they may be able to drive awareness and familiarity of a company's offerings. Their expert opinions carry weight with potential buyers because they are perceived as unbiased third parties. Positive assessments from reputable analysts and advisors influence a buyer's decision-making process and increase confidence in buyers choosing a particular product or service, affecting the awareness and consideration stages of the buyer’s journey.

3.     Industry Expertise and Credibility: Analysts and advisors apply their specialized industry knowledge to bring invaluable insights and credibility to their clients. When customers see a company endorsed by specific experts who understand their industry, they are more likely to trust its capabilities and solutions, which is essential for all stages of the buyer’s journey.

4.     Go-to-market Messaging: Supporting the buyer's journey through insights from analysts and advisors enables consistent marketing messaging that aligns with your overall go-to-market strategy. Many stages of the buyer's journey require a focus on business impact and competitive advantages. In the awareness stage, educating the audience and highlighting the company's expertise is foundational,while emphasizing analyst endorsements and testimonials is effective in the decision stage.

5.     Sales Cycle Leveraging Analysts and Advisors: Many companies work with analysts and advisors to gain insights into market trends, competitors, and customer preferences. From the vendor’s perspective, you can work with analysts and advisors to understand your potential customers' perspectives so you can align your marketing and sales strategies. From the buyer’s perspective, positive reviews from analysts and advisors will likely bolster your company's reputation and differentiate it from competitors. Understanding the buyer’s journey and the stages they go through is helpful.

In summary, trusted analysts and advisors can lead businesses to be recognized as reliable and knowledgeable partners in their customers' decision-making processes. 

In one of my previous roles working with a prominent analyst/advisory firm, our team made the usual presentation to cover our company, branding, product offerings, services, and customer relations. In this briefing, we showed our business and marketing acumen. During the meeting, I said, “If we are going to show you everything we stand for, we’d like to be matched up with some of the top clients you represent.” It was a bold suggestion, but if you don’t ask, you’ll never know what might happen, right? In this case, the advisory firm’s connections proved invaluable, leading to introductions to a couple of household-name manufacturers in our target market. Hard work from our sales team led to two deals that totaled more than $100 million. That’s the potential power of strong analyst and advisor relationships.

Stay tuned for further installments in this series, where I look closer at the analyst's and advisor's role within the buyer's journey. A focus on understanding the buyer through the buyer's gold standard, uncovering customer needs, validations, research, influences, and how this all plays a role in the customer's buying outcome. In addition, I will examine independent vs. large firm analysts and advisors and how they influence the decision-making processes of buyers, including all their offerings.

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