B2B buyer survey: we want more information!

Download Buyersphere Report 2011 here

Search for the term "information overload" on Google and you get over 6 million results. It's a pretty common problem and nowhere, you might have guessed, would this problem manifest itself more readily than in the world of business.

The web is awash with articles, webinars, blogs and guides all designed to offer information to buyers who are wondering what product to buy. But, incredibly, it seems that buyers are hungry for more.

The recently released Buyersphere Report 2011 surveyed over 1,000 business buyers about the information sources they used when researching purchases. Not their opinions, mind - the survey was specifically designed to find out what buyers actually did, rather than what they thought - and the results show that the hunger for information shows no sign of being satisfied as yet. A year is a long time in marketing
Comparing results from last year shows a significant growth in the number of information channels used by buyers. This is a clear sign that we are moving from the traditional outbound marketing model [where we used to broadcast information in the hope that some of it would stick] to an inbound model [where buyers choose what information they need and go and find it themselves online].

This is a clear indication of a greater appetite for information - and therefore a greater burden on the brands to create more content of all kinds, in order to satisfy this hunger. It is clear that companies with a structured, considered programme for creating whitepapers, videos, blogs and the like are going to be the ones more likely to appear on buyers' radar as they do their online research.

But which information channels do buyers prefer?
One of the reasons the Buyersphere Report is so popular is that it details the relative popularity and influence of the various channels used by buyers at three different stages of the buying process. And despite the rising popularity of social media, it was the 'traditional online' channels of supplier websites, search and emails that were most used by buyers. 68% of buyers said they consulted supplier websites, while 65% used search engines to find the information they needed to support their purchase decision.

The use of social media channels such as Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs and Facebook all grew [Facebook, in fact, doubled in popularity from 2010 to 2011] but they are still much less frequently used than the 'traditional online' methods. Of course, this does not prove that social media is on the wane. A Google search frequently leads to a link provided by a social media network even if the buyer does not start there.

In addition, splitting the data between under-30s and over-30s shows the inevitable tendency of younger buyers to use the newer channels [the under-30s were three times more likely to use blogs to help them select suppliers, for example] suggesting that social media usage will only increase as one generation gradually succeeds the other. But in the short term, it would appear that investing in SEO and websites should still command the lion's share of the marketing budget.

Download the Buyersphere Report free
There are many more findings in the Buyersphere Report 2011, which we will feature in a series of blogs and tweets, but if you would like to download the whole report for yourself, you can do so here - completely free of course.

It's a great piece of research that B2B marketers can use to persuade bosses, defend decisions and look for trends that will help advise the ongoing customer communications. And of course, at 50-odd pages, we're doing our bit to help correct the information underload...

Download Buyersphere 2011 Report here