I know I talked about this before on this blog but when I saw the data from RainToday’s Benchmark Survey of How Buyer Identify Professional Services Providers, I couldn’t help myself.
According to the chart which shows the results of over 200 surveys taken by services buyers …. the top 3 ways buyers become Aware of services is:
- Word of mouth from Colleagues
- Word of mouth from other Service Providers
- General Awareness of the Brand
Most services providers aspire to generate referrals and many do, as well as establish a well-known, well-respected brand. But these are long term goals and take many years of work. It’s a little like social networking in the sense that …. success breeds success!
But what is really interesting to me is the fact that beyond Tier 3 tactics (according to the chart) you start to see the social media tactics. Don’t forget this survey question was about “How did Buyers Identify and Learn about Service Providers” …. which is the Awareness stage. For the Consideration stage any of these tactics would be great for further consideration.
So try to map your tactics more to the buying cycle when you deploy them. Don’t think this next podcast is going to drive our awareness through the roof …. it might …. but the goal should be to feed those that are already in your long sales cycle with more good quality content on what your company can deliver.
Tags: Buying Cycle, Social Media
It’s a brief post Paul, but offers some very insightful information. Thank you for bringing this to our attention and for uploading the bar graph which is a great illustration of what people are taking notice of in the Awareness stage.
I am re-launching my Atlanta, GA Web Design Firm next week and will be paying close attention to the information you have highlighted in this post because as you quite rightly say any of these tactics would be great for the Consideration stage as well.
Thanks.
Jason D. Coles
3 Dogs Marketing
Paul:
On the one hand, I am grateful you let us see that chart from this expensive study. Thanks.
On the other hand, I don’t agree on a couple of your points:
a) That this is about Awareness only. “Identify” yes, but “Learn about” takes you into Consideration, and the list of tactics on the chart proves that (events, mail, etc.)
[PS would be interesting to know what the researchers were trying to prove with the "tiers" - seems like a simple grouping of data ranges, nothing more]
b) Why does every other blog post and article on here have to be about Social Media? Seems like a force-fit to apply that to this roster of well-traveled marketing tactics.
A nice title would have been “Are You Focused on the Winning Tactics for B2B Lead Generation?”
Wow. Super timely post. I’m just headed to a meeting with a client to discuss this precise issue. Does creating social media content generate leads directly, and if so does it do it cost-effectively?
I really appreciate you segmenting awareness and consideration, as they are so often lumped together as inbound marketing or social media.
As to Kevin’s question about the social media focus on this blog, as a contributor here myself I’ll offer that it’s a reaction to what people want to read and the subsequent keyword inclusion.