Survey Reveals How B2B Purchasers Buy

A survey of 1000 B2B buyers, asked how they research B2B buying decisions online and how this varies by role within a company, and purchase phase. The report provides valuable information on how to market to B2B companies and the individuals who work for them.

The survey identified roles that the respondents played in, in respect to organizational buying decisions. They identified 4 major roles that are typical, the economic buyer, the technical buyer, the user buyer and the coach buyer.

• The economic buyer is the person who ultimately makes the buying decisions and signs the check.
• The technical buyer is a person tasked with ensuring that whatever solution that is purchased needs the technical requirements of the company. For technology purchases this would often be an IT professional. For accounting software you would typically be a controller or financial officer. And for sales relationship management software it would be sales manager. While these people usually don't have final financial approval they are integral to the purchase process as they are the ones that ensure the potential solution is the right match with the organization’s needs and requirements.
• The user buyer is the person who will actually use the product. Often this person identifies the need and is responsible for implementing what is ultimately purchased.
• The coach buyer is the internal champion who helps move the sales process along and usually has a stake in the purchase of the solution.
  

The report then focuses on how people navigate from awareness, through research and negotiation phases to the actual purchasing decision. The use of search engines, vendor’s sites, what do they look for specifically, etc.

A surprisingly high number of respondents indicated they made their $1000 - $10,000 purchase online after conducting online researchPublish Post. Almost 47% indicated this as the outcome of their research online. 40% did their online research 1-4 months before the purchase.

Here are my take-a-ways:

• In all stages of the purchase cycle, weather it be an online of off-line conversion, search engines had the most influence, with the company website coming in a close second.
• In all purchasing stages the process started with a search engine almost twice as much as the second highest approach, going directly to a company website.
  

It's a well done report, with lots of segmented graphs. You can download the free b2b buying influence report from Enquiro.

eMarketing Spending to Reach $61 Billion by 2012

According to a new Forrester Research report, interactive marketing spending in the United States will triple over the next 5 years, reaching $61 billion by 2012. The growth is expected to be 27 percent annually. The catagory interactive marketing, 8 percent of all ad spending, is expected to grow to 18 percent of total ad budgets by 2012.

Forrester Research Principal Analyst Shar VanBoskirk, said "As firms continue to make customer centricity a higher priority, they will recognize that maintaining separate marketing teams to manage different sets of channels that all target the same customers makes no sense," ... (as) interactive technologies gradually infiltrate... such traditional paragons as television, billboards, and direct mail... the concept of a separate interactive mark eting organization will disappear."

The survey included 344 interactive marketing professionals and was highlighted decisions affecting display ads, search, email marketing, online video, and emerging media (social, mobile, and advergaming).

The report's highlights include:

• Search engine marketing will triple in five years. The aggressive use of search marketing will grow the category 26 percent to $25 billion by 2012 due to the increasing paid search costs, new tools and services, and international expansion.
• Display advertising (Banners & Sponsorships) will reach $14 billion by 2012. As branding being more accepted online, display ads will an important role for all interactive campaigns
• Online video ads will significantly increase 72 percent to $7.1 billion by 2012 as viddeos become consumed at an increasing rate.
• Social media and SM optimization will drive emerging channels to $10, a $6.9 billion increase. Emerging uses of social media, mobile, game marketing, widgets, podcasts, were included in this figure.
• Little is spent today, but mobile marketing is expected to grow to $2.8 billion. People are becoming more familar with hand held mobile devices, and local search intent and proximity will allow targeted local advertising to off line businesses.

57% of People say Search Engines are More Important than Ever

and 67% of the online search population is driven to search by offline channels.

In June 2007, iProspect partnered with JupiterResearch to conduct a study of online users about the influence of search titled "iProspect Offline Channel Influence on Online Search Behavior Study".

The report shows that a majority of internet users depend more on search engine listings to find information they are looking for then they did a year ago, even if they know a companies name.

More interesting is that offline events that generated the thought to learn more, are driving people to search engines instead of following the ad's call to action. As an example 30% of people that responded to a magazine ad did a search instead of using the ads URL. That means that your landing pages need to be indexed and/or linked to from the the resulting search page in order to continue the initial ads conversation.

Sometimes a picture is wort a thousand words.

A Search Illustrated post in Search Engine Land called Search Engine Click-Thru Behavior; You've Got To Be In The Top Ten! by Elliance got me thinking -- so what, then I started thinking how could I use this to get more attention internally about the value of search.

We all know the value of being above the fold when viewing the first search engine results page, but it's been my inhouse SEO experience that if you can get 70% of all targeted terms in the top 10 positions people are happy. How can I get more mind share! What if I applied the percentage of top of fold positions for a tight group of terms, against the total number of searches per time period. But instead of focusing on the visibility, focus on the missed opportunity. That would raise fear in the hearts of Product Managers, and get their attention.

I call it, the Missed Search Opportunities Per Month (MSOPM).

(100% - % Number of search terms in the top 5 positions) * the total number of monthly searches = MSOPM

The Saboteurs Of Search - Forbes.com

I love this article in Forbes from Andy Greenberg, but when has trying to win become being a bad looser.... or Negative SEO?

Reputation management is a profession. Tweaking content to rise to the top of SERPs naturally pushes down the others. Dominating the top listings is similar to to taking market share.

Yes, link bowling is Black Hat, but it should be pretty easy to figure out who was doing it, and I would expect to see some retaliation. Great for SEOs, bad for their customers. Spend time providing content and the links and external listings will come naturally.

The article mentions a quote from Matt Cutts, senior software engineer for Google, that while spamming other sites is possible, but they make algorithms to prevent these techniques.

eMarketer.com - Online Ad Spending Hits New Record

"US Internet ad revenues totaled $16.9 billion in 2006, up 35% from 2005, according to the "Internet Advertising Revenue Report" from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). "

It is notes that display ad advertising grew at a higher rate than paid search and 2007 projections are $19.5 billion.

Search is where BtoB gets done.

Patricia Hursh of SmartSearch Marketing posed a good article over in Search Engine Land “Solving B-to-B Marketers' Problems”.

She discusses the all the things we battle on a daily basis but also reminds us that search is where BtoB awareness and consideration gets done. She wites:

"Do executives and senior managers use search engines? The answer is an unequivocal YES. Several years ago Forbes published a survey entitled A Day in the Life of CEOs Online. The survey looked at Web usage of CEOs and senior-level managers at enterprise companies with 1,000 or more employees. More than one thousand executives participated in the survey. The survey results point to strong C-level use of the Internet and search engines.

• 49 percent consider the Internet the single most important source of information on business
• 54 percent conduct online researches
• 34 percent say they go to the Web first to find information on a product or service
• 86 percent use search engines "

26% of Large Advertisers to Increase Spending on SEM by more than 25%

found in a Media Post Article by Gavin O'Malley, Wednesday, Apr 11, 2007 6:00 AM ET

"A FULL QUARTER--26%--OF LARGE ADVERTISERS in companies with annual revenues of $50 million or more plan to increase spending on search engine marketing by more than 25% this year, according to new findings from Jupiter Research.

An additional 28% of large advertisers anticipate spending increases between 11% and 25%, based on the expectation that keyword prices will continue to rise, Jupiter found.

"Because marketers with large companies anticipate including major search engines as part of their branding campaigns, they realize this tactic could result in additional expenses and are planning accordingly," says Kevin Heisler, Jupiter Research analyst and lead author of the report. "But the additional cost is just one of the challenges faced by marketers today."

In addition to keyword inflation, complex campaign management and methods of tracking the success of search engine marketing activity continue to elude marketers, according to Heisler. More collaboration among company CEOs, CMOs, and CTOs could change that, the report states. "

E-commerce not meeting customer expectations

Eighty thousand online shoppers responded to a Millard Group’s Decision Direct Research - Customer Insight Survey that focused on holiday online shopping experiences.

Only 39% of respondents to the postholiday 2006 survey said they felt that “products met or exceeded expectations.” Thirty-nine percent felt that the item they purchased was “a good value for the money.”

It just goes to show how important it is to communicate thru good descriptions and images, or you can damage your shopping cart brand.

Faster Page Loading only 2nd to Better Prices

AdWords Retail Newsletter - January 2007

Here are some stat's sited from a Questus survey found in the GoogleRetailer Newsletter:

Questus asked respondents what could have made their Valentine’s Day online shopping experience even better. The answer:

• Better prices (including shipping costs): 46%
• Faster page download speeds: 30%
• Easier to locate products: 26%
• Better product photos: 24%
• Faster/easier checkout: 23%
• Better product descriptions: 22%

I think this would also translate to B2B so start reviewing your product photos and descriptions, and streamlining your site code.