Illuminating the Future:

Who Do Your Prospects Trust?

Technology buyers don't trust sellers. In a recent study of business technology buyers, SiriusDecisions found that the most trusted sources are analysts, peers and trade publications. Vendors and their partners/resellers, by contrast, finished low in the ranking.

"There is a significant trust gap between you and your prospects," explains Tom Juros, vice president of research at Sirius. "This makes pairing with more trusted sources mandatory. Third party sources can bridge the trust gap betweeen vendor and prospect."

This is an interesting finding. It suggests that sellers should invest more diligently -- and perhaps, invest more money altogether -- in activities such as analyst relations, media relations and customer reference intitiatives. These are the credible sources who will frame the thinking and whisper in the ears of your prospective buyers.

But that isn't to suggest that there isn't more that sellers could be doing to build trust. In fact, I suspect that the research is somewhat skewed by the stark choices that the survey respondents are forced to make. Sure, you are going to trust an executive peer more than a vendor sales person. But the seller can develop extraordinary trust by guiding the buyer through an effective decision that creates heroes all around.

Sirius even notes the value and successful impact of certain approaches at certain stages of the buying cycle. In the early stage (when there's a "loosening of the status quo and a commitment to change"), white papers are ranked as the single most effective single tactic that business technology companies can employ -- followed by demos, analyst reports and webinars.

Later in the buying cycle, other tactics become more important. Consultants, for instance, play a key role in the middle stage (which involves "an exploration of possible solutions and a commitment to solving the problem") by helping the buyer to develop a vision, while industry analysts are rated high in the late stage (which involves "a justification of the decision and a vendor selection") by providing confirmation of the decision.

Unfortunately, an ongoing war between marketing and sales seems to be standing in the way of greater customer success. When it looked at the vendor's perspective of the situation, Sirus found that 58% of technology executives consider their  marketing department's lead development capabilities to be "fair" or "poor" (and only 6% consider it "excellent'). According to the research firm, more than 90% of leads are not followed up on by field sales.

One problem: marketers tend to ignore leads once they've been initially generated -- not only failing to nurture prospects that are not yet prepared to decide, but failing to support prospective buyers and sales people in the later stages of the buying cycle. The key is to enable sales people through every stage of the cycle with "appropriate sales tools and collateral."

The research suggests there are ways to address this coordination problem. If marketing and sales are to come into alignment, marketing must send only its most advanced leads to sales, while carefully nurturing the rest over time. It's also going to have involve itself more actively in the later stages of the buying cycle. The end of the war is the beginning of prosperity.

Content, Evangelism & Touchpoints

In its new benchmarking report on business technology marketing, Marketing Sherpa offers some insightful perspectives to help us cut through the noise, hype and distractions now assaulting the marketing profession. 

What the research suggests is that sales cycles are lengthening. However, companies that smartly manage an integrated mix of marketing media are in a better position to defy that trend than competitors who rely on a single, isolated medium.

I was also intrigued by a data point showing that, in terms of online marketing, companies reaching out to large, Fortune 500 buyers benefit most from tactics such as white paper syndication (with companies like CNET, Tech Target and KnowledgeStorm), online ads on general business sites and paid search with Google, Yahoo and others. Companies reaching out to small business buyers, by contrast, benefit most from ads in third party newsletters and emails.

This is explained in the report by noting that larger companies have formal research processes prior to technology buying decisions that encourage them to download white papers and gather research, while small company buyers, who often have many functional responsibilities, have "no time to go trolling for information" and are more inclined to respond to marketing offers and content that are "pushed out to them." 

In addition, the report offered some interesting perspectives on the growing use of "personas" in B2B technology marketing. Personas relate to a set of theoretical buyers. It is a means of profiling them and presenting content that matches the traits, interests, concerns, demands and roles of the prospective customer. "That way you can deeply investigate the motivations and pain points of a range of key individuals rather than relying on one single 'average' that represents no one in particular," according to the study, suggesting that marketing creative that revolves around personas can be expected to outperform creative based on product features and buzzwords.

Anne Holland, president of Marketing Sherpa, summed up the findings in a webinar last week with three key points about what you need to market successfully:

• Compelling Content. "[Y]ou need to have fabulous content, content that may be built around personas or for personas, content that’s written by someone who is truly passionate in your organization about your technology, about what it can do."
• Customer Evangelism: "You need to focus on getting your own customers to be wonderful word-of-mouth people, whether it’s forwarding your email, whether it’s forwarding your [marketing] campaign, whether it’s just telling their friends, "Yes, I trust this company.'"  Indeed, the report points out that "word of mouth" is the biggest influence on business technology purchasing decisions.
• Multiple Touchpoints: "You’ve got to be out there at trade shows. You’ve got to be in email newsletters. You've got to be in search. You’re got to be in magazines. You’ve got to get the PR going."

Holland also offered an inspiring note for B2B marketers that must often feel overwhelmed by the enormity of the challenge. Looked at through Anne's eyes, it's the maddening complexity of the job that makes it interesting. "It is, to me, the joy and excitement of being a business marketer," she says. "Unlike mass consumer marketers who often find themselves slotted into these little niche jobs,... business marketers are doing all media often and they’re doing campaigns of every possible type. I mean you may be doing direct mail. You may be doing a podcast. You may suddenly be going off for the trade show. It’s a very exciting career to be in. I’m just thrilled to death by it."