Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

For B2B companies, the growing importance of e-commerce is taking an increasingly central role in business marketers' minds, but building a mobile commerce presence may soon become a priority. 

Last fall, Accenture Interactive released a report, "Channel Shift: Measuring B2B Efforts to Shift Customer Online," that both surveyed and addressed this e-commerce-filled reality. And in short, it found that B2B e-commerce is only going to gain traction....

How do marketers discover, research, and evaluate marketing technologies?

To find out, in June 2015 Walker Sands Communications surveyed 313 marketers based in the United States. Respondents work for a range of company sizes (29% at businesses with fewer than 50 employees; 17% at enterprises with 5000+ employees) and hold titles at all levels (31% coordinator/specialist, 28% manager, 21% vice-president, 5% CMO, 16% other).Below, key findings from the report.

Discovery

Some 30% of respondents say they learn about marketing technology from peers; 20% discover new technologies via media outlets/blogs.

Forbes is the most popular media outlet for learning about marketing technologies and industry news (44% of respondents read); Wired is next (37% read), followed by the Wall Street Journal (35%).

Most respondents (91%) say they begin researching marketing tech vendors on their desktop or laptop computer; 6% begin on a smartphone, and 3% on a tablet.

Peer recommendations are the most influential sources of information about marketing technology solutions (63% of respondents rate them as very influential), followed by online reviews (44%) and analyst reports (33%)....