In the service
OF SERVICES
Last year, our research focused on both marketing and sales aspects, examining areas of frustration as well as preferences.
Last year, one-third of the respondents were C-suite executives from large or enterprise businesses, with the results primarily focusing on the procurement of product-style solutions.
With the increasing demand for services across all levels in the IT sector, 2024 led us to explore the differences in content preferences when specifying professional or managed services from solution providers.
Where do they look?
Firstly, we established if there were any significant differences in the channels used when buyers are seeking providers of services:
Top five preferred channels to identify potential providers of services (in the early stages of the engagement process):
Analyst / consultancy firms
Peers / trusted associates or colleagues
Service provider websites
Case studies / customers of specific service providers
Review sites
There is a clear emphasis on channels that offer more people-driven insights. Analyst firms and peer insights hold the first and second positions, whereas, for technology solutions (as opposed to services) they ranked third and fourth. Interestingly, for tech solutions, websites and case studies are the top two preferred channels, while for services, they rank third and fourth, demonstrating a reversal in their importance. Despite these differences, these four channels consistently rank as the most important overall.
A definite surprise is the increase in importance for social channels other than LinkedIn. Last year, LinkedIn was a preference for 40%, in comparison to only 4% for other social channels. When assessing for services, other social media jumped to be a preference for 28%, a massive increase over 2023’s data (LinkedIn remained largely unchanged at 38% in 2024).
Is this because they are assessing people rather than product, making more personal channels like Facebook more relevant?
Why prioritise other content types?
Nearly three quarters (72%) of those questioned say they prioritise different types of marketing content when buying services rather than products. But why?
We look for research-based content or thought leadership that shows an understanding of our industry issues
It may be a higher value contract, so we need more ROI proof points
Services are more intangible, so we need more case studies, use cases and customer stories
We are buying people and their skills, so we want to hear from and see those people
Why prioritise other content types?
Nearly three quarters (72%) of those questioned say they prioritise different types of marketing content when buying services rather than products. But why?
We look for research-based content or thought leadership that shows an understanding of our industry issues
It may be a higher value contract so we need more ROI proof points
Services are more intangible, so we need more case studies, use cases and customer stories
We are buying people and their skills so we want to hear from and see those people
Thought leadership content that demonstrates an understanding of industry-specific issues is a way to fulfil some of these content needs, hence it’s importance. When services are more intangible, case studies and customers stories help, but so does an element of insight into the person or people you are ‘buying’.
say thought leadership content is more important when we are buying people and services rather than tech products.
These reasons are further backed-up by the evaluation criteria that buyers find important:
Top five evaluation criteria seen as critical when selecting service providers:
1
Deep understanding of our business
2
Scalability to grow with our business
3
ROI
4
Good relationships with others in my business
5
Shared vision / strategy alignment
In short, they want you to know and understand what they do, have credibility and alignment with their values, and stick around to be able to deliver results.
These reasons are further backed-up by the evaluation criteria that buyers find important:
Top five evaluation criteria seen as critical when selecting service providers:
1
Deep understanding of our business
2
Scalability to grow with our business
3
ROI
4
Good relationships with others in my business
5
Shared vision / strategy alignment
In short, they want you to know and understand what they do, have credibility and alignment with their values and stick around to be able to deliver results.
What’s in a name?
Not a lot, as it happens.
Having a well-known brand name is of least importance and is seen as critically important to only 22% of people. Indeed, combining those who thought it was ‘critical’ to those who thought it ‘important’ and having a big brand is still only of somewhat importance to 76%, which is 12% lower than the next least important factor.
Interestingly, if you add the values for what is seen as critical to the values for criteria seen as important (so somewhat important overall), the highest-ranking criteria is, in fact, having informative content. We would suggest that this means marketing departments have an opportunity to be more influential than one would naturally think.
