Trends Report

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

January 6th, 2009
Laura Ramos, Vice President, Principal Analyst
Laura Ramos Vice President, Principal Analyst
GY
G. Oliver Young
With contributors:
Peter Burris , Christina Lee , Zachary Reiss-Davis

Summary

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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