- March 23, 2015
- Sales and Marketing Alignment
The Number One Mistake Marketers Will Make in 2015
Have you seen the feature on LinkedIn lately that suggests you “re-connect” with people?
Lately it’s been telling me to “re-connect” with my boss. For me, this painted a clear picture of a common trap that marketers often fall into:
It’s easy to think that if an activity didn’t happen on our site, or in our direct view, it didn’t happen at all.
Sure, I have to give it to LinkedIn, I have never messaged my boss via their platform. BUT I do email my boss every day, I call her at least once a week, and we stay connected regularly. The need to “re-connect” simply isn’t there, because we connect all the time.
This problem can be translated to the B2B technology marketing world easily. All too often, technology marketers see activity on our platforms (via inbound or outbound tactics) and assume that is the user’s total universe of activity on this pain point or topic.
The truth is that you (ANY BRAND) are just a small part of the research cycle. IT buyers are consuming a TON of content as they navigate through the buy cycle. It’s proven that they going to engage editorial (publisher produced), 3rd party content (analyst produced), other competing vendors’ content, their peers, etc. as they navigate the buy cycle/research process.
Supporting research
As found in the TechTarget 2015 Media consumption study:
- When researching for an IT project, 74% of buyers spend the majority of the time comparing specific technology solutions and vendors
- Almost 50% of IT buyers researching large IT purchases needed 8+ content pieces to make an informed decision and purchase.
The IT buying team’s job is to research the best solution and vendor options – this inherently means a considerable amount of time will be spent looking at 3rd party, un-biased content, and also looking at competing vendors solution areas.
The reality
When we looked at over 4,000 confirmed IT Buying projects and their content consumption journeys we saw:
- 70% of their content consumption journey was with Editorial content (Tips, news, eGuides, eZines, etc.) on the TechTarget network
- Only 30% of their content consumption journey was with Vendor content on the TechTarget network
- That 30% is then split between multiple vendors as they work on a short-list
The takeaway
Don’t make this marketing mistake. Don’t, like LinkedIn, assume that your direct line of sight is the only activity a prospect has during their research.
Just because you don’t see an activity, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. For example, a prospect might not engage with the Magic Quadrant you have posted on your site, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t already download it from another vendor or off a publishers site.
It’s up to us as marketers to identify trusted partners that can help us fill in account level journeys based on their 1st party data. The more complete a journey we can visualize the better we can enable our automation efforts and thus our sales teams. Doing this gives us the ability to expand our vision outside our small box and think holistically about our buyer’s journey.
Interested in learning more? Please feel free to leave a comment or connect with me on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Google+.
B2B marketing, data intelligence, global technology marketing
