At TechTarget, we have spent a lot of time in 2007 gathering data from our ongoing research and developing marketing best practices around the IT buying process.   Recently, evidence surfaced that both the type of content (i.e. webcast, white paper, podcast, trial, etc.) and the topic of the content (analyst review, case study, product comparison, benchmarking study) determines whether the user is in the awareness, consideration, or decision phase of the IT buying process.  

With our recent acquisition of Knowledge Storm (a top-ranked search resource for technology solutions and information), we now have a complete product offering of both targeted, “push” promotion along with “pull” or broad based search strategies.  With that said, when implementing search engine optimization strategies, where do those leads generated fall into the IT buying process? 

In a recent post on www.searchengineland.com, Patricia Hursh highlights research that shows business buyers use search engines in the “awareness, research, and selection phases of the b2b buying cycle”.  At this point, I’m not willing to place leads generated through SEO in any particular part of the IT buying process.  Although I would like an opportunity to review more research, I suspect that search strategies can get more highly target content, such as events and seminars, in front of the right audience.  They aren’t just used for awareness building.  A lot of the success depends in how the content is catalogued and what search terms are used when syndicating the content.

Can you share any experiences or evidence that shows the influence SEO strategies have on all phases of the B2B or IT buying process?

This entry was posted on Monday, January 7th, 2008 at 2:13 pm and is filed under Integrated Media, Buying process. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.