Research: What Marketing Content Matters Most to B2B Technology Buyers?

We surveyed a segment of our 30,000+ community members, all business technology buyers worldwide, to find out what content they want during the Evaluation phase. The results may surprise you!

We received more than 300 fully completed responses from senior technology buyers. When asked to choose “Which educational content do you prefer to receive from technology vendors?” the results were in order of preference:

1.      Free trials

2.      Demos

3.      Videos

4.      Calculators (ROI, TCO, etc)

5.      How-to Guides

6.      E-Books

7.      Case Studies

8.      Independent Research

9.      White Papers

The question was deliberately aimed at understanding the “Middle-of-the-funnel” i.e. the “Evaluation” phase in the Buyers Journey. The results show a clear preference for practical tools to help inform and evaluate.

When asked for general feedback on what other content would be useful for business technology buyers to shortlist vendors, responses included:

·      Comparison sheets versus other vendors and solutions

·      Cloud environments for testing

·      Proof of concept workshops on real use cases, and VM workshops

·      Customer results statements

·      Implementation history. What was easy, what was difficult, how did we overcome the difficulties?

·      Free and independent assessments

·      Webinars

·      Online buyer reviews

A recurring theme from the research was the skepticism that B2B technology buyers have in relation to vendor content and claims. This may be summed up by one respondent’s request for “The truth! Not the marketing angles where everything out there will reduce costs and improve revenues and profit".

It is clear from the survey that credibility of content is top of mind for B2B technology buyers. Independence of source for marketing content is important, which is why they look to third party communities like CIOshared.com to find content and discuss both content and solutions with their peers.

The research also uncovered further insights into how long the Evaluation phase lasts, and what content is most effective in progressing a solution or vendor from Evaluation onto the final shortlist. Read the full results here: http://bit.ly/2uI7FYs

Conclusions

The survey results will add to the growing library of data for the B2B Buyers Journey, especially for the technology marketing sector. Those involved in IT sales lead generation may wish to use this data to redefine the content they use in the different phases of the Buyers Journey.

The results are particularly important for IT channel marketing managers that are tasked with helping channel resellers with digital, social and content marketing. Channel partners are typically less sophisticated than vendors in marketing techniques and also have much less resources. Channel marketing teams will need to find simpler ways for channel partners to implement marketing campaigns that better meet their buyer’s needs.

In particular, marketers need to build better stories and more compelling content around tools such as ROI and TCO calculators, vendor comparison tools, and workshops that combine use-specific demos with free software trials.

What do you think of these results? Do they match what you are doing or can they help you refine your content marketing strategy? I would be interested in hearing your thoughts, as well as your suggestions for further research.