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B2B Marketers' and Buyers' Views at Odds on Site Registration Quality

While B2B marketers rate the quality of registrations on their own websites twice as high as those from other sites, it’s likely that their perception is at odds with the buyers’, according to a joint KnowledgeStorm Inc. and MarketingSherpa research study on how marketers’ practices align with technology buyers’ expectations and preferences regarding content distribution.

The third and final study in a series, “Issue Three: Putting It All Together - Driving Content Marketing Success” examines registration behavior, lead follow-up and lead nurturing.

Two surveys, fielded concurrently in June 2007, were completed by more than 2,700 business and IT professionals and B2B technology marketers, representing a variety of job titles, vertical industries and company sizes.

Among the key findings from the study:

• Marketers’ perception of quality registrations from their site at odds with buyer’ confidence levels:
  • Marketers rate the quality of registrations from their own website twice as high as those from other types of websites.
  • However, 47% of buyers say they are inconsistent in providing valid registration information, depending on their level of confidence that their information will not be misused - and they rank vendor websites among the lowest in this regard.

• Marketers need to look beyond their own site to generate registrations for content:
  • Users and marketers agree on the top 3 main sources to access vendor content - vendor websites, IT directories and online IT publications.
  • However, marketers heavily rely on their own site (80%) as a primary source to generate registrations compared with online IT publications (18%) and IT directories (14%).
  • But users’ choices were more evenly spread among their top three destinations: vendor websites (48%), IT directories (42%) and online IT publications (34%).

• Vendor responsiveness counts with buyers:
  • 59% of buyers say timeliness moderately or significantly impacts their impression of the vendor.
  • Though 38% of marketers claim to follow-up with registrants within one business day, just 23% of technology buyers say they receive follow-up that quickly.

• Buyers also consider the vendor’s follow-up approach in forming an opinion on the vendor:
  • 70% of technology buyers say the vendor’s approach either moderately or significantly impacts their impression of the vendor.
  • When asked how they prefer to receive initial follow-up communication, 53% said they always prefer a courtesy email and 52% said the never prefer to receive a sales call.