Your Buyers Start Their Journey in the Dark Funnel, and You Need to Be There When It Happens

The buyer's journey and a seller's funnel are two different constructs that are often misaligned, leading to inconsistent revenue team performance. A buyer's journey is a label applied to a buying team's internal state as they progress toward a purchase, while a funnel describes a provider organization's progress in recognizing, engaging, and converting potential buyers. Most organizations discover buyer journeys at random times, often when buyers have already shortlisted providers. Illuminating the Dark Funnel with modern data science is the key to aligning funnels with buyer journeys. Through intent signals, technographic data, financial performance data, regulatory and firmographic data, organizations can anticipate buyer needs and shape their preferences.

To bring consistency and predictability to the revenue generation process, organizations must tap into the Dark Funnel to see and align their marketing and selling processes to the beginning of the buyer's journey. By accessing evidence of research activity from the Dark Funnel, sellers can begin to see virtually all relevant buyer journeys as they are beginning.

Rather than looking at anonymous data as a failure to convert visitors, organizations can work with a provider to de-anonymize that traffic and illuminate the part of the Dark Funnel that is closest to home. Doing so allows organizations to understand and shape buyer needs, establish their brands as desirable partners, and execute consistent buyer enablement and selling practices for more predictable revenue outcomes.