Social media, economic uncertainty and an increased appetite for information have had a profound effect on today’s buyer behaviour. John Bottom at Base One reveals key insight from The Buyersphere Report 2011 – a unique survey of the actual behaviour [rather than just the opinions] of over 1,000 UK and European B2B buyers involved in purchases of over £20,000
Despite the rising popularity of social media, ‘traditional online’ channels of supplier websites, search and emails are those most used by buyers. Sixty eight per cent of buyers said they consulted supplier websites, while 65 per cent 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.
Are webinars coming of age?
The most dramatic change in behaviour will interest marketers who run their own events, whether online or physical. Because this is the second year of the Buyersphere Report, some clear trends emerge – and these are particularly revealing since we are observing the actions related to a large B2B purchase, not just the opinions of the buyers. The biggest change from 2010 to 2011 was in the event space, where the proportion of buyers who used offline events when seeking purchase information fell dramatically. This was accompanied by – although not necessarily caused by – an equally marked rise in the use of online events or webinars.
There could be many reasons. But it is reasonable to assume that buyers are getting more used to webinars and so brands are creating many more of them. Perhaps the most interesting observation is that this is a classic case of ‘digitisation’; of digital technology creating a version of something that is utterly distinct from its offline counterpart.
But this is only part of the picture. In terms of influence, webinars do not come close to real events, which were rated as the most influential information source across all buying stages.
A two-tier Europe
One of the improvements of this year’s Buyersphere Report was to include the responses of 500 B2B buyers in France, Germany, Benelux and Italy. B2B brands are increasingly operating on a pan-European basis and we need to understand cultural and behavioural differences.
These differences emerged most strongly when we looked at the social media information sources used. In Germany and the UK, 48 per cent and 46 per cent of buyers respectively used social media tools during the buying process; this compared to just 22 per cent, 26 per cent and 35 per cent of French, Benelux and Italian respondents. The use of traditional online, by contrast, was consistent across all five, varying only between 88 per cent and 93 per cent. In the UK, 16 per cent of buyers used Facebook at some point in their research, compared with only five per cent of Benelux buyers.
Attitudes to sharing
Another fascinating insight was the attitude towards forwarding information. While tools like Twitter and Facebook are efficient at quickly spreading information through friend networks, they are not the preferred options for businesses. Only nine per cent said they used Facebook “very often” to share professional information, while 27 per cent used the company intranet and 44 per cent used email with the same level of frequency.
But how willing are users to share their own data? Marketers often agonise over whether to allow their content to spread freely or to use it to generate leads by insisting on a data capture form. The Report suggests we should tread carefully, with 55 per cent of buyers discouraged “very” or “fairly” often from downloading content by the content owner’s insistence on data capture. There were geographical differences here too: 22 per cent of UK buyers said they were discouraged ‘very’ often, compared to 10–12 per cent in Germany, France and Belgium.
Understanding the patterns
Jonathan Pickup, research manager at McCallum Layton – the agency responsible for conducting the Buyersphere Report’s market research – discusses the findings
From a market research agency’s perspective, this survey throws up some interesting points to consider in the context of designing and delivering insightful research projects. Recent years have seen marketing specialists look to harness the high levels of interest in social media tools to the benefit of the brands they represent. Naturally an onus has been placed on research agencies to follow suit, both in indirect ways (mining the vast array of existing user content to gauge opinions) or more directly (actively seeking feedback via the sites themselves, or using them to recruit people for more traditional research projects).
While these innovations are undoubtedly appealing, it’s also important to remember the overall context, which is what this piece of work offers. Results suggest that when B2B buyers need information during a purchase process there is still a heavy reliance on more traditional methods; no individual social media source of information was being used by over 15 per cent of buyers, which suggests that as a group, these people may still need convincing of the usefulness of these channels in their business context. However, the findings from those who do use social media reveal that blogs and Twitter were among the sources most likely to be given a high influence rating, so there clearly is a group of strong advocates here, even if they still form a minority.
An increased understanding of these patterns in the B2B market could help research agencies to make the most effective use of social media resources in our own work. While there is scope to elicit useful information from these tools that can feed into a wider programme of research, care should be taken not to overlook more traditional methods, particularly if this is still where the client organisation is placing a considerable amount of their focus.
The Buyersphere Report interviewed over 500 business decision makers from five European countries/areas (UK, France, Germany, Italy and Benelux) on their use of information sources as part of the B2B
purchasing process.
The project was devised by B2B Marketing and Base One, with survey design and analysis by market research agency McCallum Layton. Survey participants were drawn from Toluna’s online research panel.
Download the full results for free
For more insight into the findings, join the webcast featuring a summary of results plus interactive discussion on key conclusions, at www.b2bmarketing.net/buyersphere-webcast11
