With an expanding menu of information and options available at their fingertips, new research reveals B2B buyers are increasingly bringing their consumer buying patterns into their selection process for business solutions. Whether its ordering a pizza or shopping for a car, the majority of purchases now start online with buyers researching and exploring their options and selecting the option that best fits their budget and needs. BtoB buyers’ interest in “test driving” solutions continuing throughout the buying cycle. You can read the entire report  here. MORE >>

As the owner of Marketri for almost 10 years, I have been on many, many B2B company prospect calls. Some of these meetings would be considered early stage in the buying cycle, meaning the business owners were simply gathering information about marketing. Alternatively, conversations during mid-stage buyers meetings typically have focused on “what can marketing do for my business?” ” And then finally, discussing why Marketri is the right choice for a B2B organization usually happens during late-stage sales calls. What is Marketing? MORE >>

The 2012 Customer Engagement Study , conducted by IDG Enterprise and released at the end of September, focused on learning more about the role content plays in an IT Decision Maker's buying process. validation for the role of content: Enterprise IT Decision Makers engage with an average of 10 content assets during their buying process. But then I wondered how many of those assets were sourced from the vendor they decided to buy from? My money is betting on weighting more heavily the content buyers engage with before they fully engage in the buying process. Eight? MORE >>

The purchase of B2B marketing services is typically a three legged journey. Today’s blog post covers what the majority of mid-stage buyers of B2B marketing services have on their minds with the primary question being, “How will marketing help my business?” Why should my B2B company spend money on marketing? For the most part, B2B businesses seek out marketing to overcome challenges and/or seize opportunities, and typically include one or more of the following: Branding : Raising or strengthening the company’s brand. MORE >>

A few weeks ago I was leading a workshop on Lead Nurturing, which included the concept of buyer personas and defining the buying path for each individual persona. One attendee asked, “Why would you need separate buying journeys? This is something that obviously was on the mind of at least two people in the room and judging by the head nods from the rest of the class, it occurred to me that this was probably on the mind of a good number of B2B marketers. content architecture or blueprint is built upon buyer personas and their unique buying paths.  Decision. MORE >>