Recently IDG put out a customer survey designed to show what B2B technology buyers are looking for when considering IT purchases. As one of the largest online media and marketing organizations focused on technology, IDG has a vested interest in staying on top of what IT decision-makers want. So does StoryTech, so I’ve reviewed their latest IT marketing trends report and share my takeaways below.
IDG frames the current IT marketing situation as one of ongoing digital transformation. This transformation has put more responsibility in the hands of IT decision-makers. While internal business owners are getting more involved in IT decisions, it’s still the responsibility of IT leadership to adapt to (and of course capitalize on) seismic trends such as cloud computing, big data and mobility first. While the technology is disruptive, IDG reports that buyers research their options in familiar ways.
Quality content – Obviously this one is near and dear to me. When evaluating options, 77 percent of respondents said they were more likely to do business with a vendor who provides educational information, opposed to those that do not. However, nearly two-third of IT respondents said vendors need to do a better job of providing educational resources for non-technical users, presumably their business-side colleagues. Most concerning from a quality perspective, only 40 percent of IT decision-makers said material they downloaded had value, meaning 60 percent of the marketing investment at those vendor companies is being wasted!
This disconnect relates to the abandonment percentages shown above. Over one half of decision-makers will bail on a vendor candidate if they content presented is too promotional and self-serving. Companies need to focus outwards with their marketing, focusing not on themselves but on customer pain points. I found the gated content percentage interesting as well at 35 percent. In the quest for qualified leads, companies need to resist the temptation to put everything of value behind a registration screen.
Types of content – I’ve written previously on the most popular types of content in the B2G market. See below for what IDG found for B2B. The average number of downloads prior to purchase – five – is also interesting:
Social media – It’s no surprise that social media use by IT decision-makers has gone fully mainstream. 93 percent of respondents said they use it for business purposes. Also predictably LinkedIn was the most popular, with 78 percent using it and 40 percent posting content to it. Less obvious and more interesting are the jumps in popularity of other social media platforms.
The study showed that YouTube use grew to 67 percent, Twitter to 46 percent and Facebook to 52 percent. For Facebook and Twitter, those numbers have doubled since 2017. At StoryTech we’ve seen this kind of movement to other social media platforms happening in B2G as well, but not as quickly as these numbers indicate.
Understanding your target audience is an ongoing process. You can’t execute an effective content marketing program without understanding the kind information your customers and prospects are interested in getting from you. The full report can be downloaded here.