Here’s the good news: The enterprise technology market is expected to rebound in 2014, growing by 5% and reaching $2.14 billion.
The not-so-good news: The buyers of tech are bombarded with ads while spending increasing amounts of time online, where there are now 634 million websites.
Reaching your buyer is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Before diving into the haystack, you need to know the buyer – from the type of content they digest, where they find it, and how they make purchase decisions. And according to the 2013 Global Media Consumption study, convincing a tech buyer requires connecting with multiple stakeholders and having a rich content strategy.
There are seven particularly salient stats marketers need to know about the content habits of today’s technology buyer.
1. 61% of buying teams include five or more people (88% for companies with more than 1,000 employees). Tweet this stat.
Your buyers aren’t working alone; neither can your content. Account for buying teams and roles in the purchase process when determining (or optimizing) your personas and developing associated content.
2. More than 50% of buying teams cross borders. Tweet this stat.
Je parle français. Do you? Apply translation tactics where and when it makes sense. Not having content in the right language for the right market is frustrating to buyers.
3. 68% of technology purchasing timeframes are six months or less. Tweet this stat.
While buy cycles are dependent on the type of solution, the average has dropped 50% over the past 2 years, which means buyers are making decisions faster. Create and distribute more, targeted and relevant content to drive mindshare and guide these accelerating decisions.
4. 65% of buyers require 4+ pieces of content for shortlisting. Tweet this stat.
While there’s clearly more pressure for more content, the good news is, it works- 87% of B2B researchers say the content they encounter online influences vendor selection. Cover the buy cycle, by persona, with content. It’s a lot of work, but it pays off.
5. Webcasts (a.k.a. webinars) are 2.4x more effective as consideration content than awareness. Tweet this stat.
Consider building webcasts to cover the consideration phase of the buy cycle (pun intended). But, keep them short, and on-demand (64% of researchers want webcasts to run between 10 and 30 minutes and only 20% prefer live.)
6. IT publisher websites are considered the most effective source in the awareness phase. Tweet this finding.
Buyers want the vendor-neutral perspective when figuring out their tech challenges. Align with, and leverage, independent experts to build credibility and brand awareness with buyers kicking off their research and finding the right technical approach to solving the problem.
7. On a first call, prospects want a sales rep to know how their company can implement your solution (90%). Tweet this stat.
Sounds straight forward enough, that is until you consider company size, industry regulations, geographic distribution, installed systems, infrastructure… you get the point. Arm sales teams with pertinent prospect intel and consider tagging and communicating content touches to fill in the gaps.
To checkout the full report and learn more about today’s global technology buyer, download the full report today 2013 Global Media Consumption study,