Marketing Sherpa posted an interesting article today entitled New Research Helps Marketers Predict Which Business Technology Prospects Will Buy (and Which Won't).
The article discusses behavioral-buying research for IT professionals conducted by Indaba, a newly formed division of Info-Tech Research Group. Indaba studied the purchasing behavior of IT buyers and found that traditional demographic factors such as company size, location, and industry vertical aren't always accurate in predicting which leads will close. According to Michael O'Neil author of Indaba's research report, every organization has an IT buying personality you can track through its behavioral patterns. This in turn helps marketing and sales better understand their buyers and subsequently, implement more effective campaigns and selling tactics.
Last week, a similar article was published by Media Posts Behaviorial Insider entitled Car Marketers Ask “Why?”. This article discusses how car manufacturers and their agencies use sophisticated behavioral research to profile and segment consumers (12 different segments for car buyers), which in turn influences the marketing campaigns targeted at each segment.
Studying the psychology of how consumers purchase products isn't new - companies have been doing it for generations although sadly, little of this research has been done in the B2B space, which is why I find Indaba's research so refreshing. There is more research available on how and why people buy certain brands of toothpaste than on how and why companies buy multi-million-dollar IT products. Understanding how your customers make buying decisions is critical and will impact how you allocate your marketing dollars. Yet, in our experience, most HR suppliers spend little if any time studying the buying behavior of their customers.
HRmarketer.com hopes to change that. This Fall, HRmarketer will be releasing research results on the purchasing behavior of human resource professionals. Our research will answer questions like where HR buyers go to research or learn about new products (e.g., Internet, peers, etc.) and how various marketing tactics (print ads, direct email marketing, pay-per-click ads, etc.) influence the purchasing decisions of HR professionals. We will also study the differences in buying behavior across various HR products and services. For example, while pay-per-click advertising may make a lot of sense for a company marketing background checking services, it may make no sense for a seller of high-end talent management software or BPO services. We'll keep you posted when this report will be available. In the meantime, read the great articles referenced above.
For more HR marketplace research, go to http://www.hrmarketer.com/home/whitepaper_main2.htm