Google: B2B Buyers Rely On Search
- by Shankar Gupta , June 7, 2005
The study broke down the buying process into three parts--research, consideration and comparison, and purchase. During the research phase, according to the study, respondents use search 30 percent more frequently than print magazines and trade publications, the second-most often-used source. In the consideration and comparison phase, search engines were used 21 percent more often than trade publications and magazines, which were again the second-most used source, and five times more often than e-mail newsletters, which were the least-often used. And in the purchase stage of the buying process, search engines were used by 21 percent of buyers as their primary resource, with trade publications, content Web sites, and trade shows trailing at roughly 13 percent each.
The study, entitled "The Importance of Search in the Business Technology Purchase Process," was conducted in March and April of this year, and was performed by Millward Brown, which surveyed 900 people involved in corporate technology buying decisions. The study took into account both paid listings and information provided in the natural results.
John Topping, Google's director for technology B2B verticals, said that the research shows that technology business-to-business marketers can reach buyers with search, especially in the earlier phases of the buying process.
"It shows there's a particularly big opportunity for these B2B tech markets to communicate at the early research phase and the consideration and comparison phase with search," Topping said. "If I'm doing research, I'm going to try to look at everything that was written ... I think we've found particularly that in a market like this, a lot of information is needed, so it's not surprising that a search engine would be a primary way of people to organize it and get at it."
