With the rise of self-service buying, sales and marketing teams must adopt new customer engagement techniques: Fortunately, awareness of this need is high. Sales leaders participating in Forrester’s B2B Sales Survey, 2024, most frequently cited “transforming to support buyer preferences for self-service and e-commerce” as a priority. Regrettably, buyer enablement priorities and practices are far apart.

Our latest report, Buyer Enablement: A Vital New Discipline For B2B Sales And Marketing, shows how to help buyers complete more tasks on their own. If you think that seems counterintuitive to selling, you’d be right: It defies most sales motions and the personal touchpoints upon which they are built. But the resulting hybrid approach works better for both buyer and seller.

Buyer Enablement Examples

There are many buyer enablement tools and resources, such as buying guides, on-demand scheduling, self-service demos, free trials, or shopping carts. Add these to prospect workflows. With so many digital tools available, there’s never been a better time to enable buyers than now. Below are five examples of companies that help prospects complete self-service buying tasks:

  • Wistia, a video marketing platform provider, offers a product demo on its website that engages visitors as they move through it at their own pace (see image).
  • Grainger, an industry supply company, enhances website interactions by allowing visitors to browse digital catalogs, click on a product, and then view details or add it to their cart.
  • Oyster, a global employment solution provider, publishes more than 50 country hiring guides that document labor requirements and calculate employment costs.
  • Notion, a note-taking and productivity platform provider, features work submitted by members of its creator community in a gallery of more than 10,000 templates.
  • GE HealthCare, a medical systems and solutions company, allows site visitors to shop on its website for equipment and parts — at prices that can start at more than $15,000.

 

Example of buyer enablement: a screenshot showing a self-service demo on the website of Wistia
To enable buyers, Wistia offers a self-service demo on its website.

 

Putting Practices Into Action

To enable buyers, map prospect journeys and purchasing tasks. In the workflow, publish a purchasing promise that spells out how you will interact with customers. Then, meet buyer education needs with content related to your industry, category, company, and products. Link tasks and help buyers progress. As you build new enablement practices, redefining roles, responsibilities, and processes might become an obstacle. But developing the courage to self-disrupt might be the greatest obstacle of all.

Read the Buyer Enablement: A Vital New Discipline For B2B Sales And Marketing report (client access required) and schedule a guidance session to discuss how you can implement these new practices into your go-to-market approach.