B2B Buyers Appreciate Succinct Content When Researching Purchases
B2B
October 29, 2013 -- New research from business-to-business marketing automation software provider Pardot presents insights into B2B buyers and their research habits and preferences.
A few findings from the survey of 400 B2B buyers:
- Roughly three-quarters (76%) of B2B customers surveyed prefer to receive personalized digital content unique to the stage they are at in the buying process.
- For 72%, product research for a future business purchase begins on Google, followed by personal networks (word-of-mouth) at 16%. Other resources used: Yahoo (5.5%), Bing (2.8%), and LinkedIn (2.5%).
- When asked about the length of written informational content (e.g., whitepapers, case studies), the majority -- 70% -- prefer less than 5 pages of content; Nearly 3 in 10 (28%) are fine with the content being as long as it takes to inform them.
- One in 5 respondents said they do all of their subsequent online research for a purchase in one sitting. Seven in 10 go online 2-3 times to do their research, while 12% research online more than 3 times.
About: The data is based on a survey of 400 B2B buyers: 53% work for a small business; 22% work for a mid-market company; 25% work for an enterprise company; and 75% are non-marketers. The survey was purposefully skewed towards non-marketers for past studies have shown they act differently than marketers tend to predict they will.
Source: Pardot, State of Demand Generation Study, accessed Nov. 12, 2013.
