B2B Web Strategy Blog - eMagine

How Your Prospects Decide to Buy From You (It’s an i-Opener!)

January 17th, 2008 Posted by: Bill Gadless

The folks at Enquiro Search Solutions have released an update of their landmark 2004 survey of how companies use online vehicles in researching their purchase decisions. With responses from over 1,000 people involved in their companies’ buying decisions, it has a confidence level of +/- 2.5%. Because the study has obvious implications for every B2B, we’ve briefly summarized its major conclusions here; but we highly recommend your own review of both reports.

Online is pervasive… and search engines rule
Virtually everyone (93+%) said they would use the Web to research a B2B purchase decision. Most of those (64%) said they would begin with a search engine; of the rest, 87% said they would still use a search engine at some point in the cycle.

Further, an amazing 78% said Google was their engine of choice; and its popularity increases with income and education level. Say the authors, “Google’s domination in B2B online purchase research makes it a critical part of any B2B marketing strategy.”
Organic trumps PPC
74% of respondents chose an organic link and 19% a sponsored link. The top four organic listings captured 53% of all the click-throughs, with the number one position netting 27%. Interestingly, the higher the income or education level, the more likely it is that the user will look first at the organic results.

Your site matters, too …a lot
Perhaps not surprisingly, the importance of vendor websites as a research resource increases with both budget (“ticket” size) and stage of the buying transaction. Overall, vendor website tied with “colleague word of mouth” as the two top influence factors; and it’s the top online influencer across all phases of the buying decision.

What do your prospects want to find when they visit your site? Per the survey authors, “If you want to influence the B2B purchaser, provide lots of information in an easily accessible, text-based format that can be passed from individual to individual within the organization.” The three most important pieces of information: price, straightforward product info, and the vendor’s approach to customer service.

The moral(s) of the story…

• You need to be doing absolutely everything possible to maintain/improve your site’s visibility to the major search engines (and especially Google). As the authors put it: “As awareness is formed, a large percentage of prospects will turn online to find out more and will use search to locate the vendor’s site. Search visibility is essential in intersecting with the prospect at this point.” While not abandoning PPC, B2Bs should be aggressively using SEO to improve their search-engine rankings for typical queries.
• Prospects clearly value your website in deciding to buy …so you need to, too. It should be perpetually up-to-date, attractive, informative and engaging.

If you’d unsure of how to implement those recommendations, it may be time to engage a professional Web marketing consultancy …like eMagine. It just might help you grow your business.

Entry Filed under: B2B Web Strategy, Driving Traffic, Engaging Visitors, Lead generation, Search Engine Marketing