It’s become one of those B2B business presentation truisms that buyers don’t pick up the phone to talk to a salesperson until 80 to 90% of their product research is complete via the Web and personal contacts. But a report issued by eMarketer today gives the lie to that recently accepted bit of common wisdom.
The reality is that the urgent call to enlist in the marketing tech crusades has left marketers in a quandary over where to begin. Calling on several resources, the research company found a community split on whether they’re buying the right technology and where they’ll find the money to fund it. In search of answers, six out of 10 marketers actually engage with technology vendor reps during that initial product research phase, according to research performed by Walker Sands, which also found 41% of marketers saying they were spending the right amount on mar tech and 42% saying they did not.
More than two thirds of marketers, in fact, name budget as their number one barrier to tech nirvana, followed by difficulties with implementation, integration, and resistance to change within their organizations.
