Survey Says: Vendors Don’t Understand Enterprise Buyers

Posted by Mary Van Zandt

The IT industry never ceases to amaze me!  During the dot-com era I was working at Sterling Commerce and my charter was to market the company’s first security products.   At that time, many believed that if you were perceived by your buyers as a brick and mortar company you had no future, especially if you were in ecommerce.  The company did not abandon its brick and mortar roots, but successfully positioned itself in this market and survived.  Why?  We talked to customers and prospects, listened to what they had to say, and responded accordingly.

During this economic crisis and the collapse of the print industry, vendors are once again challenged to understand their buyers.  This time, it is not about how a company is positioned, it is about marketing budgets being slashed, increasingly fierce competition and too few buyers with money to spend.  As an agency (Trainer Communications) it is our responsibility to stay on top of the market to maximize precious marketing dollars while ensuring that product information is delivered at the right time and through the right channels so our clients survive.  How do we do this?  This time we surveyed vendors and companies about how the economy is impacting marketing and buying decisions.  Two of the responses propelled me back to my days at Sterling and why you should not assume you understand buyers.  The survey revealed that:

–59 percent of enterprise buyers will rely on online security publications to learn about threats, products and services, while only 30 percent of the vendors will rely on this communication channel to educate buyers.

–25 percent of vendors will rely on the Internet and Google/Yahoo ads to attract buyers to their website to learn about new products and services, but only 12 percent of enterprise buyers will rely on the Internet and Google/Yahoo to gather product and service information.

Once again, there is a gap between perception and reality and a communications gap exists between buyers and sellers. Security vendors and enterprise buyers are not on the same page. With a gap in communications, vendors will be spending precious marketing dollars in the wrong place. This not only will result in lower revenues but also limits the information available to enterprises when making buying decisions.

For years, we have relied on the Internet and vendors have spent billions of dollars optimizing content to reach buyers.  Unfortunately the Internet that we know and love often provides too much information and leaves buyers confused and wondering which sources to trust. As a result, overburdened security teams are turning to learning sources, specifically online publications, to help them sort through the maze of information to short list products for consideration.

Don’t count on buyers being able to find you on the Internet. Make sure your company and offerings are covered by online publications that are relevant to your buyers. We aren’t advocating that you abandon your Google/Yahoo ads, we just want to you to understand that online IT and security publications and business news sources can’t be neglected or you will miss out on an opportunity to promote your products to 59% of your target customers.

So where does social networking fit into this equation?  Not a surprise, our survey revealed that the use of the social media darling, Twitter is on the rise for both vendors and enterprise buyers.  33 percent of vendors and 24 percent of enterprise buyers will rely on Twitter to share information about products and services.  In our opinion, Twitter will fill in the communications gap and take on a more critical role as the community network for enterprise buyers and vendors in 2009. If you are not on board with social media, jump in with both feet!

(Disclosure – In addition to being a Security Heavy contributor, Mary is also VP of Trainer Communications’ Security Practice)