IT purchasers change their search terms as they move through a multi-month purchasing process.
TechTarget reached this conclusion after undertaking an extensive study with Google of 2,200 professionals who play decision-making roles in IT purchases.
Phase I: Awareness
TechTarget and Google found that IT purchasers begin by searching for information about an issue or problem (e.g., data leak protection or VoIP quality).
Searches might include keywords such as "risk," "troubleshoot," and "optimize."
Phase II: Consideration
Once IT purchasers are familiar with the nature of the problem and the types of products available to address it, they begin searching for information about specific products and solutions.
Keywords might include the word "solution," as well as specific brand names.
Phase III: Decision
Finally, as they focus on a few key vendors in preparation for making their final purchase decision, they search for information comparing one product to another. They no longer search for general information about the problem; they understand the problem well and want detailed information about product capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses.
Searches will likely include product names and the word "comparison."
The Changing Prevalence of Search Keywords in IT Purchasing Cycles
The chart below shows how keyword searches evolve across the three phases of the purchasing cycle: Awareness (of a problem), Consideration (of various approaches to solving the problem), and Decision (as to which product to choose).
Conclusion for marketers: Make sure you have content and search keywords that address each phase of the buying cycle.
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1 comment:
As one of the presenters at the session, and on behalf of Google and TechTarget, thanks for a great summary of the research.
I'd love to add a few more thoughts for your readers regarding implications for business technology marketers thinking through search strategy:
1. The research suggests that search is an important brand discovery mechanism for business technology buyers. This is especially true in fast changing or niche tech markets. Non-branded queries, in particular, can play a key role in familiarizing buyers who are not yet familiar with your brand. With these keywords, marketers must carefully balance lead capture with the possibility of driving off early-stage buyers who aren't informed enough yet to know if they want to give up their personal registration information, and may not have information about program budgets that are often required to get white papers or product demos. Getting this balance right has strategic implications for post-click web design (content focused on basic education and positioning, softer offers and generally more content available without registration), success metrics for these terms (page views, time on site, downloads, etc. vs. registrations/leads), and paid search bidding strategy (may want to bid more aggressively to improve visibility of your brand on results pages).
Keep an eye out on what type of listings searchers on these terms will encounter - click through to these listings and understand what type of "brand map" a potential buyer is likely to build out. Improving your visibility in both the search pages and on publisher sites a searcher is likely to click through to from non-branded queries can be critical to getting your products and services in the buyer's consideration set in the first place.
2. With branded queries, the average visitor can be assumed to have a bit more knowledge of your business. Goals here should be to remind searchers of your value proposition, effectively differentiate your brand from the competition, provide useful resources that help the visitor choose - or make a case - for championing your brand, and helping serious buyers move forward in the buying process. Advertising on branded queries and creating relevant content than is indexed organically can also present opportunities to present useful comparative resources to buyers considering your brand and/or nearby competitor brands. On balance, the research suggests being more aggressive about registration capture, on-site chat offers, behavioral follow-up emails, or advertising re-targeting may prove more ROI positive for the marketer because buyers may be more receptive and in a buying mode.
3. While every marketer loves sales-ready leads, TechTarget CEO Don Hawk made a great point in his closing address when he said that one of the risks in this economic environment is a kind of circular, self-fulfilling prophecy with paid advertising and demand gen programs: Marketing can become so focused on more efficiently capturing hot leads, it stops producing leads altogether. There's got to be some resources allocated to introducing potential future buyers to the brand for the overall pipeline to be healthy - even in a downturn. This is all-the-more true for products and services with longer buying cycles.
- Mark Martel, Google
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