It should come as no surprise that anything that we humans do online these days can be data gathered, analysed, and spat out again to provide insight into our behaviours. Even previously non quantifiable, amorphous, and very personal elements of your voice or body language – things like sentiment and tone – can now be sliced and diced to reveal varying levels of ‘feeling’ around a brand or company. We’ve talked this month about body language, or lack thereof, and how the loss of those subtle nuances when you are engaging online can affect your conversation. But there’s a new body language developing, body language that you might not even be aware you are projecting, and yes, as mentioned above, it’s gone digital. Steven Woods wrote the book on digital body language, appropriately titled “Digital Body Language – Deciphering Customer Intentions in an Online World” and he’s here today to share his thoughts on DBL with all of us.

Hi Steven, thanks so much for taking the time to chat with us. Can you share a bit about yourself with our community?

Sure thing, I live in Toronto, and have been here for almost 20 years. I’m the CTO with Eloqua, a SaaS company where we help organizations drive faster growth through a discipline called revenue performance management. Given the profound transitions that are happening with how buyers buy, I spend my working time understanding what our customers need from us over the next two to five years, and how we can best deliver that.

Toronto is a bit of a different technology scene than Silicon Valley, but one that I enjoy tremendously. My wife and I have a 16 month old daughter, so when I’m not travelling for work or out on the road talking about the book, we’re out exploring the parks and playgrounds in the neighborhood.

Your company, Eloqua, helps marketers ‘automate’ the science of marketing, and you’ve been quoted as saying that marketers who have succeeded in the last decade have understood one key thing – what is that “key” thing?

The big trend that has really changed the overall landscape in the last decade is that buyers now have full control over the information they need to gather to make a buying decision. This seems trivial at first, but it’s fundamental in so many ways.  So much of selling a product or service has been based on the idea that buyers needed to “call in the vendors” to learn about it.  Now, that has completely changed. You don’t need to “call in the vendors” at all, now that all the information you need is available online.

As that change has taken place, marketers and sales people have struggled to deepen their understanding of what buyers are truly interested in. While, in previous days, they might watch for signs of interest and curiosity in how a person reacted, smiled, frowned, leaned forward, or leaned back, now without a conversation, people are blind to that buyer insight.

And that brings us back to your book. What is Digital Body Language?

Digital Body Language is really the online version of body language – the hints and clues that you get from understanding a person’s actions and what they mean about that person’s intentions.

By looking at everything a potential buyer does online, marketers can begin to understand when they are just self-educating, what they might be interested in more information on, and when they would likely want to engage with a sales person for deeper discussions.

How does that differ from other forms of online consumer digital information gathering?

Collecting data is great, but until it turns into actionable insight, it’s of limited use. The first step in understanding buyers based on their digital body language is, of course, collecting data, but to really make it something that changes actions, we need to make it usable.

For marketing teams, that means using digital body language to understand how to personalize content, guide nurture campaigns, and target messages. For sales, it means rich visualization tools that allow a company or a buyer to be understood at a glance.

How can digital body language be used to help today’s businesses with sales, marketing and lead gen?

The first thing we can do once we understand buyer behavior based on their digital body language, is to better align sales and marketing. If marketing is working with buyers who are not yet ready to buy, and then alerting sales when a person’s digital body language indicates a buying interest, sales spends far less time cold calling people with no purchase interest. It’s better for both seller and buyer.

The second thing, with that basic sales and marketing alignment in place, is focusing on common metrics and a common funnel between marketing and sales. With a common language between sales and marketing, we can see one view of the truth across a full funnel. This provides better, longer-term insight into what buying processes are happening now and what buying processes can be anticipated to start in the coming few quarters.

With one view of the truth, across marketing and sales, we then have the foundation for what we call revenue performance management – the ability to understand and influence buyer behavior all the way from the earliest stages of interest to deal close. Knowing where to invest, and where not to invest, lets you drive more revenue at lower cost.

We are exploring Social Media Etiquette this month, and have talked about the difficulties in missing real body language cues in an online world. Is there digital body language etiquette?

Absolutely, one of the most important things in interacting with buyers is understanding when they are best left alone. A buyer doing some light early stage exploration and self-education may not want to be called by a sales person, and might find it to be an intrusion. Conversely, if a buyer is observed to be clearly struggling trying to find later stage, more detailed information regarding pricing, contractual terms, etc, a conversation with sales is often welcomed and productive.

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We want to thank Steven for taking the time to chat with us today, and sharing his insights. What do you think about Digital Body Language? Will it help or hinder your sales and marketing department in achieving their goals? Please share your thoughts and comments below.

Tags: body language, digital body language, Digital Marketing, Eloqua, Silicon Valley, Social Media, social media marketing