Research unveiled by Google at last month’s iProspect Enterprise launch event provided a startling wake-up call to B2B marketers. The age of the millennial has arrived in a hurry and is asserting its influence over whole businesses, right up to the c-suite. The findings, based on an examination of the trends in B2B research roles in the EU, show a dramatic and rapid demographic shift: in 2012, the age of researchers was fairly evenly distributed across age groups. But by last year, 18 to 34 year-olds accounted for almost half of all researchers, an increase of 70 per cent. And this trend is only going in one direction.
This is huge news for B2B marketers. The millennial generation – those who have never known a professional world without the internet, without search engines, without mobile – are digital natives and need to be marketed to accordingly. When marketers are writing their content plans and assessing their media channels, it’s increasingly millennials they’re trying to target.
Millennials and the c-suite
There is an abiding sense that B2B marketing strategies need to ultimately focus on the c-suite or other senior executives – these are the people who will make the final decisions, it is assumed. Well, as the research shows, such strategies will be far less effective now than before the upsurge in millennial researchers. This is because the influence model in B2B research has significantly changed: while 64 per cent of the c-suite has final sign off, almost a quarter (24 per cent) of the non-c-suite also have sign-off power. Crucially, it’s the second group, increasingly comprised of millennials, that actually has the most influence, with 81 per cent of non-c-suite company members having a role in purchasing decisions.
This means that if you’re only marketing to the highest level, you’re hiding from the people who you most need to notice you. This was a problem identified by Renee Richardson, global marketing services manager at Caterpillar: “Everything was being done at c-suite level, but then we found out that new engineers coming on board were just going online and placing orders.”
This purchasing process impacts hugely on marketing strategy in relation to search. Whereas a member of the c-suite may have a preconceived notion of the brands in an industry – and thus a formed idea of who they should be buying from – millennial researchers are far more likely to think product first. New research from Google shows that for millennial researchers, search is the number one research tool. Ninety per cent of B2B researchers who are online use search specifically to research business purchases. More importantly, the way this search is being conducted is quickly changing. Compared to 2012, the same percentage of people are using search; however, the time spent searching is increasing to the point that, on average, B2B researchers now conduct 12 searches before engaging with a specific brand’s site.
In other words, if your search strategy is based on brand searches, you might be harming your relevance. It’s well documented that those involved in the B2B buying process are anywhere from 60 to 90 per cent of the way down the path to a decision before they’ll get in touch with a company. For B2B brands seeking new customers, it is vital to get a handle on what is happening during this time, hence the crucial role search must play in any marketing strategy.
Concomitantly, for marketers, knowing what millennials are searching for is vital to achieving higher engagement. This is where the divide between branded and generic search is key: millennials don’t search by brand names, they search by product. In fact, 71 per cent start with a generic query for a product or service. Data from the Google Customer Journey tool shows that for large and medium enterprises, generic paid search is a crucial factor in the earlier stages of the business path to purchase.
Getting your brand right and your online content in place is useless unless people can find it. Because influence and decision making are happening much earlier in the purchasing path, even before brand awareness, the predominance of millennial researchers means marketers must identify where and how they can be part of the conversation early on and throughout the search process.
Mobile matters
According to the study, 42 per cent of researchers use a mobile device during the B2B purchasing process. Alongside this increase, there has also been a startling 91 per cent growth over the past two years in the use of mobile throughout the entire buying journey rather than just the primary research period. As a result, there has been a threefold growth in mobile queries for B2B organisations.
Importantly, millennial researchers are not just using mobile when outside the office – almost half (49 per cent) use their mobile devices for product research while at work. This activity runs the gamut for research activity and includes comparing prices, reading about products, comparing feature sets, and contacting retailers. On top of this, they’re also purchasing. Purchase rates on mobile are up 22 per cent since 2012. This use of mobile for actions that would have been previously left to desktops, coupled with the growing amount of time spent on smartphones, means it’s vital that marketers provide millennials with rich mobile experiences.
This is a particularly key issue when it comes to online video. This is where there is most growth in terms of research and influence. Seventy per cent of B2B buyers and researchers watch videos throughout the path to purchase, a 52 per cent jump in a mere two years. What’s more, nearly half of researchers now view 30 minutes or more of B2B-related videos during their research process and almost one in five watch over an hour of content. And this isn’t just at work desktops: more than 50 per cent of total YouTube traffic now comes from mobile devices. According to US YouTube data, over 895,000 hours of the top B2B videos from brands were watched in 2014 – marketers must be aware that a large proportion of these videos will now be watched on mobile devices.
In terms of the content they are viewing, videos about product features are at the top of the list, followed by how-to guides and professional reviews. These videos are a huge opportunity for marketers to extend the conversation: when asked what they did after watching, B2B researchers stated they talked to colleagues, looked for more information, visited a brand’s website or store, or shared the video. Across all stages of the funnel, videos are playing an increasingly important role for B2B researchers – which means they are an increasingly important factor for B2B marketers. All content strategies should be starting to think about video that enables researchers to learn about, compare, and research B2B purchases.
The future is now
The millennials have arrived. It is crucial that B2B marketers acknowledge the importance of millennials as influencers at once. B2B influencers are likely to be younger than in previous times, and marketers need to ensure they are promoting their content where the influencers are, and that the content is of the style and format they are seeking. If marketers aren’t doing so already, they need to step up the intensity of their search, mobile and video efforts. Delivering high-quality mobile and video experiences is absolutely critical to reaching B2B customers and moving them down the funnel towards purchase.
