Do B2B buyers use social media in their purchasing decision? The results may surprise you.

Condensed...

I’ve outlined a few of these ‘guilty secrets’ below, along with my explanation of why I think they happened and what they mean.

 

A)     B2B buyers: Social media curmudgeons?

The findings revealed an interesting polarization in terms of social media usage. Half of B2B buyers are distributed normally in terms of their use of social media: some more, some less enthusiastic about its value.

 

47% of buyers, however, do not claim to use it at all. When invited to offer advice to a colleague considering using social media to support the buying process, a third said “don’t do it.”

Embedded within this statistic is a warning to brands to be selective and careful – not so much about their use of social media, but their emphasis on it. These are very different points.

 

B)      Buyers are less rational than they believe

The idea was to find out what the initial driver was, so that marketers might be better placed to understand how to empathize with the buyer during the process. We offered a number of reasons for deciding to invest a large amount of money, ranging from “increased productivity” to “business expansion.” But we also threw in the option “because it was the kind of thing we should have.” A fairly arbitrary, emotional reason like this surely has no place in boardroom. Surely no hard-nosed business person would ever invest money on this premise – more to the point, surely they wouldn’t admit it.

 

But they did. It was in fact the fifth most popular reason for starting the buying process. More important than “keeping up with competitors,” it had the same mean score among respondents as “the need to cut costs.”

 

C)      Don’t be dazzled by video marketing

If you believe certain people out there, video is the most powerful marketing tool on the planet. Prospects love to see videos on our websites. They show the personal side of the brand. They showcase our in-house expertise. They are rich media, and everyone loves shiny, rich media, right?

 

Not necessarily. We get a more realistic picture of the influence and popularity of video as a format is we compare it to the format of the slide deck. We know those clunky old Powerpoint files don’t look as slick, but the Buyersphere Report shows that buyers are TWICE as likely to use presentation decks as they are a video. 21% of buyers downloaded a presentation deck to support in their information gathering. But only half that number watched a video.