How Buyer Research Behavior Impacts Content Consumption

Can we see obvious differences in the content consumption habits of people conducting buyer research in a particular space?

That’s the question we asked ourselves. To answer it, we took at look at the online content consumption activity in the ERP space undertaken by 26,265 unique users, representing 26 different countries, during the week of 1/22/19-1/29/19.

These users came from 1,620 unique user domains, visited 129 unique publishers, and consumed roughly 7,100 unique articles/pages.

As a result of our analysis, we were able to determine the top ten articles these users looked at over the course of the week:

We then looked at these users in terms of their overall profile. Specifically, we identified all those users who seemed to be actively conducting buyer research. (We do that by setting an historical baseline for each account, and then seeing which accounts have increased activity above that baseline).

As you can readily see, buyers in an active research phase gravitated to a different set of articles:

While the relative sample size is small, there are some interesting lessons to learn here, both in terms of buyer research around ERP as well as in terms of buyer research more broadly.

First of all, we notice a more concentrated focus on emerging technical innovation in the ERP space. The top six articles include two on machine learning, one on blockchain, and one on AI.

Second, we see an absence of high-level interest in specific solutions. The articles on Uber Freight and Oracle appear on the broader list but disappear from the “researching” list.

Finally, the general interest story about Chinese New Year, the most popular by a factor of two on the broad list, drops to 10th on the focused list.

A Few Takeaways

While I wouldn’t bet the farm on one quick example like this, it does confirm some of my basic assumptions about buyer research and how marketers should think about targeting active research.

1. At the beginning of the buyer’s journey, people want to understand what’s possible. As a result, they want to know how the latest solutions are incorporating the technologies that currently have the most buzz (machine learning, blockchain, etc.).
2. Buyer’s want to know what’s next. No one wants to make a major investment in technology only to discover they bought yesterday’s paper. This explains all the interest in coming trends and what executives can expect.
3. The latest news is a distraction for buyers conducting research. They have practical questions to sort out, and breaking news or articles of current interest won’t generally help them do that.