Tech Professionals are Searching for Shortcuts

The customer journey of the B2B technology buyer has grown increasingly more complex in recent years. To stay ahead of the competition and achieve crucial business outcomes, companies know they need to invest in the best technology innovations, from powerful software to transformative hardware.

However, defining which solutions to purchase and implement can be complex. As budgets continue to dwindle in an uncertain economy, companies are being forced to invest in extensive market research, to ensure each purchase can deliver a clear ROI.

Unfortunately, as the landscape continues to evolve, every moment wasted on unhelpful content pushes brands further behind their competitors. As a result, technology buyers are relying on tech brands to give them the shortcuts they need to make intelligent purchasing decisions quickly.

By understanding and responding to this need, technology companies can not only improve their position as a thought leader in the tech market, but deliver more value to their customers, increasing opportunities for brand loyalty and retention.

What Do Tech Buyers Need from Marketing Content?

Understanding the customer journey, and the intent driving buyer behaviour has become essential for technology companies in recent years. Around 70% of B2B businesses are now utilizing intent analysis to guide their promotional strategy.

As the marketing landscape continues to shift, with buyers prioritizing more personalized, data-driven, and useful content, it’s the companies that understand their audience’s goals and pain points that will benefit from measurable ROI improvements.

To better understand the needs of today’s tech buyers, we conducted a survey asking industry professionals to share how technology companies can assist in making their professional lives easier. Here’s what today’s buyers are asking for:

1.      Ways to Save Time (Shortcuts)

26% of our respondents said they want help saving time on technology research, assessment, and implementation. An increasing number of suppliers and solutions in the tech market is leading to a more complex research process for today’s tech professionals.

To assist buyers with this issue, technology companies need to focus on creating concise, informative, and well-structured marketing content that effectively provides insights into market trends, advancements, and solutions.

While articles and educational content can be helpful from an educational perspective, other forms of marketing collateral, such as short-form videos could also make it easier for companies to consume information quickly and effectively during the initial research process.

A diverse content strategy, combining educational, thought-leadership content, with entertaining and thought-provoking pieces could also help technology brands to earn trust among the 6% of our respondents who said they need help finding the right tech suppliers for their business.

2.      Inspiration and confidence

Navigating a market that evolves as quickly and consistently as the tech industry can be complicated, even for educated B2B buyers. Around 8% of our respondents said they need help preparing their technology stack for the future, highlighting an opportunity for technology brands to inspire buyers, and educate them on the benefits of new solutions.

How-to guides and informative webinars could provide business leaders with a unique opportunity to demonstrate their thought leadership in the technology space, while also giving business buyers the inspiration they need to make intelligent purchasing decisions.

Using insights into customer challenges and goals, companies can create content that responds to key issues businesses face during digital transformation projects. For instance, videos and articles can cover topics like how to implement new features in a software stack, or compare competing tools.

Notably, 14% of our respondents also said they want to be inspired by what companies like theirs are doing with technology. This suggests that case studies, whitepapers, and authentic customer stories could be particularly useful in modern marketing strategies.

In today’s influencer-driven world, user-generated content, and content inspired by user experience is extremely valuable. 90% of customers say UGC is useful, and authoritative.

3.      Educational resources and support

Notably, today’s technology buyers aren’t just looking for help navigating the market and making the right purchasing decisions. They also want the companies they work with to assist them in implementing new tools into their ecosystem as quickly as possible, to accelerate ROI results.

Around 11% of our respondents said they want tech businesses to help them educate their users on how to utilize technology, and 4% said they wanted to access content which assisted them in using their current solutions more effectively.

This suggests companies may need to focus more of their attention on creating educational resources. Onboarding videos, guides, and how-to articles which answer common customer queries could help to inspire confidence in today’s buyers.

Additionally, since 7% of our respondents said they want help diagnosing and solving technology problems, the creation of content that assists businesses in overcoming common roadblocks could be useful. Using insights collected by sales, marketing, and customer success teams, companies can create FAQs and instructional tools that not only improve the customer experience and strengthen audience retention, but reduce the strain on customer service teams too.

Giving Time-Pressed Tech Buyers the Tools They Need

Once again, our research demonstrates that personalizing content and marketing strategies based on customer preferences and intent is crucial in today’s technology world. In a rapidly evolving landscape, technology buyers are struggling to effectively research, asses, and implement the technology they need in a limited time span.

It’s up to technology vendors, and their marketing teams, to adapt their content strategies to suit the evolving trends of the buyer journey. This means taking more time to assess the specific challenges facing customers, and create resources that effectively address those pain points.

Once business leaders have access to the customer journey data they need, they can begin experimenting with different kinds of content, capable of offering genuine value, from comprehensive and easily-accessible guides to new technology innovations, to intuitive how-to videos, webinars, and training sessions.

By leveraging the right data insights, business leaders can ensure they’re creating resources that empower buyers throughout the full purchasing journey, paving the way for happier customers, greater brand loyalty, and consistent revenue.