Business technology buyers have a thirst for information at all stages of their journey – from recognition of a problem to the evaluation of vendors to the need for support information after the sale.
Marketers have many vehicles available for distributing their content to technology buyers – websites, directories, portals, and search engines.
But technology buyers have limited time and marketers have limited resources. In the interest of delivering the most useful information, it makes sense to ask buyers what information they want, what form of information works best for them, and where they expect to find this information.
KnowledgeStorm and MarketingSherpa have been asking technology buyers these questions and have published their results in a three-part Connecting Through Content series (available at no charge).
The first two issues in the series focused on what types of content that buyers find most useful, where they expect to find it, how they use content at various stages of the buying cycle, and which types of content are most likely to cause them to submit a registration.
The third issue in the series focuses on what happens after the registration is submitted. This issue is worth reading if you are making decisions about content and your registration process, especially since there were some differences between marketers and buyers when it comes to post-registration activity.
Some of the results were not surprising. When it comes to entering registration information into a CRM application, less than half enter it right away, one fourth don’t follow up immediately to engage and nurture the prospect. Clearly there’s room for improvement for many of us, and opportunity for competitive advantage for those who actively follow up on registrations.
With regard to registrations and usage policies, there was a real disconnect between marketers and technology buyers. Most marketers place more faith in registrations that occur on their own site than registrations from other sites. Consequently nearly all marketers rely on their own website as the primary source of registrations.
Technology buyers have a very different view. They say they provide valid information wherever they register as long as they are confident the site isn’t misusing the data. If buyers are asked to register to receive content, they put much more trust in IT Directories and Analyst sites than vendor websites and online IT publications. However, vendors can significantly increase the trust in their sites by clearly posting their privacy and usage policies.
Here are the key take-aways:
1. Experiment with providing valuable content and registrations on other sites in addition to your own site. This will increase the number of registrations you get and also ensure that buyers are more likely to see your content at various stages of the buying cycle.
2. Increase registrations on your site by explaining your policies before you ask someone to register. Clearly describe how you will use the information the visitor is providing and how you will protect their privacy.
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