B2B Attitudes Towards Channel Choices
How do you choose to communicate in a Business-to-Business environment?
In today’s communication environment there are a lot of choices, which works best and is deemed to be the most reliable?
All good questions and the answer is…it depends on your audience. Below is information about a survey that was done on this subject. The results proved to be interesting. Leave us a comment and let us know about your communication preferences.
Pitney Bowes surveyed 4,000 B2B marketers — divided equally throughout the U.S., UK, France, and Germany — to uncover current B2B thinking regarding marketing channel choice and business communications in today’s complex and challenging communication environment.
The survey finds:
- An average of 50% of B2B companies in the U.S. and 53% across the UK, France and Germany (EU) report it increasingly difficult to reach and influence customers as a result of media fragmentation.
Examining stand-alone and multichannel B2B marketing efforts for generating business:
- Direct mail comes out as the top stand-alone channel. In the U.S., 19% of companies feel that stand-alone direct mail generates the most business for them. In the EU, 12% of companies report this.
- In comparison to stand-alone direct mail, 10% of U.S. companies favor solo e-mail campaigns (8% EU) and 7% rely on stand-alone search engine marketing (6% EU).
In contrast, more respondents favor integrated marketing as the best approach:
- 30% of U.S. firms cited a combination of mail, email and web campaigns as generating the most business for them (27% EU).
- B2B marketers recognize the enhanced effectiveness of combining traditional and digital channels — 58% of U.S. firms and 53% of EU firms feel that concentrating solely on electronic media would seriously damage their ability to generate leads.
About: 4,000 B2B decision makers surveyed (1,000 in the U.S., UK, France, Germany). Respondents balanced by company size, location. Survey conducted online, 2010.
Source: WhatTheyThink, Pitney Bowes launches free white paper series, February 1, 2010.
