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Stages in Buying Cycle
Today’s buyer is more informed and aware than their counterparts a decade ago. So, today B2B buyers go through an elaborate buying cycle before making a purchase decision. When there are repeat visits from the same IP address, it indicates interest in different types of content on a website. Based on this, the buying cycle can be divided as:

• Research,
• Awareness,
• Evaluation
• Purchase

Content marketing automation can be leveraged to nurture leads at different stages of the buying cycle. Timely nurturing by understand buying cycle can help in accelerating the selling process.

Lead Purchasing Stage
In B2B, purchasing decision is a collective one. So, it is essential to understand at what purchasing stage the prospect is. There are three types of prospects,

• Researcher (research analysts, managers etc.),
• Influencers (Senior managers, Directors),
• Decision makers (Vice Presidents, C-level executives).

This can be determined by the type of content researched/downloaded or the time spent on a specific link.

Deducing Intent
Lead intent can be deduced based on the following assumptions.

• Research stage -Prospects spend more time reading company overview page, about us page, leadership team page, etc. They also check out Solutions, Customers, Industries section during their repeat visits.
• Awareness stage – Prospects spend time trying to understand the product/service by downloading case studies, whitepapers, tutorials, videos, podcasts, infographics, etc.
• Evaluation stage – At this stage prospects subscribe to newsletters, take up offers for free e-book, research reports, etc.

Purchase stage – At this stage, prospects reach out to sales reps or reply to demo offers.

In a lead generation system, analyzing leads and their behavior on the corporate site can help assess effectiveness of website content and design as well.  By keeping websites intuitive and engaging, one can expect to drive more traffic to them. This also includes planning on creating engaging landing pages with call-to-action buttons that provoke desired action. Marketing automation solutions help in deducing lead intent for lead generation.