Interesting Graph: Which B2B Marketing Techniques Influence Purchase of an IT Solution?
The science of B2B marketing has come a long way in the past 10 years. We can track a whole host of marketing measurables these days to discover which B2B marketing techniques are truly effective. As marketers though, we are often left to wonder which piece of marketing had the most impact on a buyer’s decision process – more specifically, their buying psyche. Sure, we can see that Mr. Prospect went to one of our lunch seminars, downloaded a couple whitepapers, and visited our website 27 times… but which part of that equation was most impactful.
Gartner is known for their research into the IT industry and in November 2010 they issued a survey of US-based IT buyers at Midmarket and Large companies; one of the questions asked:
How effective are the following types of marketing activity in influencing your preference to purchase from one type of IT provider over another?
It’s a genius question, in my opinion, because it gives us some insight into the buyer’s mind. For instance, it tells us not how many times they visited an IT provider website on average per se, but how important is the provider web site to their purchase preference in general. Take a look at the results:
A few points of interest:
- As usual, nothing is more powerful than a strong reference from an existing customer. Make sure your references are in order and updated regularly.
- Outreach from the provider comes in at #3. It is important to have touch points at various stages in the sales cycle. For touch points at the top-end of the sales funnel, consider a firm like SalesStaff to secure a qualified sales meeting and properly transition it to your team.
- Newsletters and direct mail bring up the rear as far as their influence on buying decision. Perhaps it’s time to retract some budget from these efforts and redistribute to more effective B2B marketing techniques – like filling your sales event with attendees.
