Making ETAs Easier for Marketers

This post?originally appeared?on the Gartner Blog Network. This version may have minor updates and edits.

No, this is not a blog post about air traffic control.

Regular readers are used to seeing ideas and facts related to Gartner’s Enterprise Technology Adoption Profiles, ETAs for short.?As with?any new idea, they take a bit of time to understand and appreciate.?But the evidence of their value and insights continue to grow.

Even as understanding grows, a common concern we hear is that there are seven different profiles.?Seven is a lot to deal with and integrate with other segmentation approaches.??My colleague, Christy Ferguson, who is one of our top ABM and Demand Generation analysts, would say to me “We have to make it easier for marketing, no matter how cool you think ETAs are (or how cool they really are).”

So, we started looking at things more closely.??And we, Christy in particular, started seeing some patterns repeat over and over in different studies.??It turns out that pairs of our ETA profiles groups take quite similar approaches in terms of how they buy.??The timing of when they buy may be quite different, but the approach is similar.??This opens the door for marketers to choose which of 4 groupings to focus on, rather than seven.

Source: Gartner, Inc.

We call these marketing clusters.?The four clusters are:

• The Catalysts – The Catalyst cluster includes one ETA profile:?FID (Flexible, IT-Led, Dynamic).??Catalysts are the best target for early stage technology innovations that enable competitive advantage.?Catalysts are very clear on what matters to them, expect a lot from their vendors, but will are very collaborative in their vendor relationships.
• The Strict Planners – The Strict Planner cluster includes SCD (Strict, Collaborative/Cooperative, Dynamic) and SIR (Strict, IT-Led, Responsive).?For both of these ETAs groups, their approach to creating a well-defined technology strategy shapes their buying approach.?They take that disciplined approach to strategy and extend that into their buying efforts, conducting thorough research to assess fit and value.
• The Business Leds – The Business Led cluster includes ABD (Accommodating, Business Led, Dynamic) and ABM (Accommodating, Business Led, Measured).??Both of these ETA groups’ behaviors are driven by the business centric approach.?This can lead to them putting less emphasis on traditional, non-functional requirements that may come back and bite them later, but are very clear about a connection to business value.??Timing is most dispersed for this group as ABDs are much more open to innovation and rapid change than ABMs.
• The Cooperatives –?The Cooperative cluster is the largest target group, but also the most challenging.?It includes ACR (Accommodating, Cooperative/Collaborative, Responsive) and FCM (Flexible, Cooperative/Collaborative, Measured).??These are groups that are trying to work with business and IT, but still finding their way.??They are more likely to be skeptical and frustrated by technology and are often unclear about their most critical criteria.

Christy has created a rich base of content using these marketing clusters.?From the overview document (client link) to innovation insights for each cluster that look at go-to-market strategies, complemented by infographics that lay out the specific channel and content preferences visually, there is a deep research base for clients ready to dive into ETAs.

And, ETAs are having an impact. Let me share another client anecdote.?We analyzed the ETAs of the customers of one our our accounts concurrent with working with them on some messaging efforts.?The ETAs reveals a heavy dose of Strict Planners and Cooperatives in their customer base–but the messaging was heavily focused on innovation and products.??The end result was low interest or interest that basically was “how low can you go on price.”??Using the ETAs, we helped them craft a story that was built around strategic alignment, reduced risk,?and managed innovation.??Their team has tested this style messaging with 100 accounts.???Every single one of them has been interested in follow up discussions.?Even better, they focus has shifted from price to strategic partnering.?The results are coming in.

I can’t promise a 100% hit rate for everything, but I feel very comfortable promising valuable improvements in your efforts. ETAs--an idea whose time has clearly come.