Building Trust with Tech Buyers Throughout Their Digital Journey: Awareness
Spiceworks Ziff Davis
The trusted global marketplace for connecting technology buyers and sellers.
Today, B2B buyers are more informed and discerning than ever, conducting extensive research online before engaging with sales representatives. In fact, management consulting firm, Bain & Company, determined that 80% of tech buyers form their vendor shortlists before they even start a formal purchase cycle, making it essential for marketers to build brand awareness and trust early, particularly through digital channels.??
With increasingly complex and non-linear buyer journeys, recent Aberdeen research on Tech Buying Habits provides insights for tech marketers about buying committees, content preferences, and trusted online sources. Below is the first in a three-part series exploring tech buying needs at each stage of the journey: awareness, consideration, and decision-making.
The Importance of Engaging Buyers Early (BEFORE they enter a purchase cycle)
Early engagement is not a marketing luxury; As we found earlier this year in our State of IT report,? 87% of Tech buyers are thinking about switching tech vendors in the next year.? They are actively evaluating a variety of solutions to address their business needs to ensure they make the best choice. This presents both a challenge and an opportunity for tech marketers: To retain existing customers and attract those from competitors.??
At the same time, 78% of tech buyers ultimately want to engage directly with vendors' product experts before purchasing an IT solution, underscoring the need for expertise and personalized interactions.
So how do you ensure your brand is top-of-mind before the buyer's journey even begins? The answer lies in building "digital trust" over time, creating user journeys that ultimately connect the buyers with vendor product experts at the right time.
Let’s take a deeper look at how to build this journey.?
Building Trust with Tech Buyers
Tech buyers are increasingly overwhelmed by the massive volume of information available online; not all are objective, accurate, or valuable. The proliferation of unreliable AI-generated content has only exacerbated this challenge, making it harder for buyers to discern trustworthy sources from the noise.?
To build trust, tech marketers must leverage this knowledge to build authentic connections in the early stages of product evaluation:
Who is Involved: Truly Knowing Your Personas
According to our most recent data, as many as 7 people are involved in the awareness/discovery stage of tech purchase decisions at any single company. This number can fluctuate by company size, the type of technology, the implementation's complexity, and the investment's size.
The composition of these committees may include a cross-departmental mix of technical, financial, and line of business leaders from different backgrounds and generations.? Developing actionable personas is critical for marketers.
The good news is that the vast majority of tech buyers (87%) want help from outside parties during the awareness/discovery stage because they (63%) actively want to learn as much as they can about the topic before considering specific solutions.
Truly understanding each of your buyers is the first building block for building audience connections. If you have these mapped out, you’re well on your way. Here at Spiceworks, we have product marketing experts and recently launched an AI tool that generates detailed personas for our customers’ marketing campaigns.
How to Best Engage: Guiding Buyers with Trusted Content
On average, tech buyers interact with about eight pieces of content during the awareness/discovery stage; this number will be even higher for newer technologies and/or complex AI implementations. Tech buyers typically have the subject-matter expertise to understand a problem and build a short list of solutions but often struggle to make a business case to get budget approvals.
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This emphasizes the need for marketers to create diverse, trustworthy, and educational content that connects business outcomes with product features. Many marketers focus heavily on technical aspects without adequately explaining how they benefit the buyer's business. Content should go beyond showcasing technical details to clearly demonstrate how solutions deliver business value, addressing the real-world challenges that buyers face.??
Marketers must also produce informative and credible content to effectively guide buyers. To improve content marketing strategies and sustain customer engagement, organizations should focus on creating targeted, data-driven assets in various formats. Among the top preferred formats are articles, webinars, hands-on demos, and videos.
Having a mix of asset types also helps marketers engage different generations involved with the buying process*.
Trusted, relevant content is the second pillar of building audience connection.? Understanding buyers, their business needs, and content preferences empowers marketers to craft tailored strategies that engage diverse buyer personas and build lasting trust.
Where to Reach Them: 3rd Party Sources & The Role of Community in Building Trust
To effectively guide tech buyers, marketers must create memorable digital experiences that establish credibility and foster authentic connections. Today this often results in the use of multiple digital and offline channels simultaneously, trying to deliver short-form content across media and native placements, emails, targeted display ads, social and influencer channels–even streaming, TV, and radio placements. In most cases, marketers hope to lead buyers to longer-form content (and initiate engagement) on their platforms.
But trust in mass media has declined to 34% in 2022 (down from 45% in 2017).? So, which sources do tech buyers now find credible? During the early stages of the buyer journey, tech buyers place their trust in third-party sources such as industry publications, community forums, and, to a lesser extent, vendor websites. Additionally, there are notable generational differences in these preferences*.
Online community forums, like Spiceworks.com, have become a crucial source of information and validation for tech buyers. These community discussions are valued for their depth and authenticity, providing users with greater confidence in their decisions. Aberdeen's research* reveals that buyers active in online communities are more likely to influence IT budgets and prefer digital channels throughout their journey.
Community users are also more inclined to advocate for brands that offer a personalized, one-on-one experience. These forums foster meaningful interactions and a sense of belonging, making them a powerful tool for building trust and brand advocacy.
Key Takeaways from the first phase of our Tech Buyer research:
Conclusion
The landscape of B2B buying continues to evolve, driven by economic factors, technological advancements, and shifting buyer priorities. Each interaction with a prospect is a chance to understand and engage, fostering long-term relationships. Focusing on the multiple personas, aligning content to the buyer journey, and delivering valued content can enhance brand awareness, and customer loyalty and drive additional sales of your product portfolio.?
Don’t miss out on the next articles and Aberdeen analyst perspectives in this three-part series, where we’ll uncover critical insights into the Consideration and Decision-making stages of the tech buying journey. These insights could be the difference between winning over tech buyers or losing them to competitors. Stay ahead—make sure you catch every part of this journey.
CTA: Stay ahead in a dynamic market by diving deeper into these points and more in our latest Tech Buyer research.? Or let us help you tailor your content and digital marketing strategies to meet the needs of today's technology buyers. Contact us today!
*Source: Aberdeen, Tech Buying Habits: Awareness, 2024