January 6, 2009 (updated April 6, 2009)

B2B Digital Marketing: A Deep Dive Into IT Hardware Decision-Makers

This is the third document in the "B2B Digital Marketing Deep Dive" series.

by G. Oliver Young, Laura Ramos

with Peter Burris, Zachary Reiss-Davis, Christina Lee

Executive Summary (This is a document excerpt)

Hardware firms like Dell, HP, and Sun Microsystems have made strategic bets that social media will drive hardware purchases and satisfaction. To test how well this effort is progressing, Forrester surveyed IT hardware buyers to find out whether social media matters among the sources of information that influence buying decisions. Overall, we found that social tactics have yet to match peer advice, Web sites, or trade press. However, room for investment in emerging tactics exists as hardware buyers, especially the most technical ones, scan multiple digital channels. While Forrester does not expect social media to supersede traditional media imminently, smart marketers will start to use these tactics to build a community presence today and augment existing marketing efforts.

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