For Technology Product Management & Marketing Professionals

Demand Insights: The SMB Software Market 2010

Small And Medium-Size Businesses Are Defying Gravity

by Tim Harmon, August 9, 2010

Small and medium-size businesses (SMBs), like their enterprise brethren, are shifting their technology focus from IT to business technology (BT). As their focus on business solutions — as opposed to technology products — continues to grow, SMBs are now . . .

For Technology Product Management & Marketing Professionals

Segment Social Media Behaviors To Improve Tech Vendor Marketing Plans

by Peter O'Neill, July 27, 2010

Forrester's Social Technographics® survey, now in its second year, depicts the social media behaviors of more than 1,000 tech buyers from around the world. Tech marketers can use this data to plan marketing programs, campaigns, and collateral, each of . . .

For Technology Product Management & Marketing Professionals

Channel Enablement And Management Maturity And Spending Levels By Industry

by Tim Harmon, May 10, 2010

North American marketers from different industries report on the maturity of their channel enablement and management processes

For Technology Product Management & Marketing Professionals

B2B Tech Marketers? Use Of Social Media And Its Business Impact

by Peter Burris, May 10, 2010

North American marketers report on social media trends in 2010.

For Technology Product Management & Marketing Professionals

B2B Tech Marketers Must Tune Their Social Media Campaigns For Europe

B2B Social Technographics® Shows That Europeans Use Social Media, But For Various Reasons

by Peter O'Neill, April 29, 2010

Forrester has now completed its annual North American And European B2B Social Technographics Online Survey, Q1 2010. The detailed regional breakdown for European tech buyers shows that their adoption of social media in the tech buying cycle has accelerated . . .

For Technology Product Management & Marketing Professionals

Social Technographics®: Business Technology Buyers

Second Annual Review Of The Social Technographics Of Business Technologists

by Peter Burris, April 28, 2010

Forrester's North American And European business-to-business (B2B) Social Technographics Online Survey, Q1 2010, of technology buyers and their social media habits shows the important, but still constrained, role that social media are playing in business . . .

For Technology Product Management & Marketing Professionals

Fueling The New SMB: Marketing-Services-As-Software

The Way To A Small Company's Heart Is Through Its Marketing Function

by Tim Harmon, April 21, 2010

The new small and medium-size businesses (SMBs) are polar opposites of their "mom-and-pop" predecessors — they're marketing rock stars (or at least see themselves as such) — and they place a high degree of importance on technology to fuel their newfound . . .

For Technology Product Management & Marketing Professionals

The Five Things Channel Partners Want From Tech Vendors

And Another One They're Going To Need

by Tim Harmon, April 12, 2010

In our discussions with channel partners, they consistently voice five criteria they use to assess the value of their relationships with tech vendors: market size/opportunity, revenue/profit streams, the vendor's channel enablement program, the ease of . . .

For Technology Product Management & Marketing Professionals

Should B2B Tech Vendors Continue To Outsource Their Channel Marketing?

Channel Success Will Require Something New And Some Things Different

by Peter O'Neill, March 30, 2010

In Forrester's Q4 2009 North American Global B2B Marketing Organizations Online Survey, tech marketers indicated that channel enablement and management is low on the budget list, just above PR. Yet channel dynamics are becoming a major driver of industry . . .

For Technology Product Management & Marketing Professionals

B2B Marketers' 2010 Budget Trends

Spending Plans Grow Optimistic As Economy Recovers

by Laura Ramos, March 23, 2010

Business-to-business (B2B) marketers place Web seminars, search marketing, the company Web site, and social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn high on their list of spending plans for 2010 campaigns. Yet sales support demands, fixed headcount, . . .

For Technology Product Management & Marketing Professionals

Rethinking The B2B Tech Marketing Mix In The Digital Age

by Laura Ramos, March 15, 2010

In 2009, Forrester predicted a weak economy and emerging social media would cause many business-to-business (B2B) marketers to turn decisively to digital channels. But the broader change we expected did not happen because marketers focused on priming . . .

For Technology Sales Enablement Professionals

Banking And Insurance Key Security Technology Shopping Influencers

by Ellen Carney, March 5, 2010

This data chart summarizes findings from Forrester's Enterprise And SMB Security Survey, North America And Europe, Q3 2009, regarding online and traditional media that influence the purchase of IT within the banking and insurance industries.

For Interactive Marketing Professionals

B2B Interactive Spend Will Double By 2014

B2B US Interactive Marketing Forecast, 2009 To 2014

by Michael Greene, March 4, 2010

B2B interactive marketing spending will climb to nearly $4.8 billion in 2014 as interactive channels continue to grab a larger share of the marketing pie. B2B marketers will continue to invest heavily in paid search but will also begin to invest in display . . .

For Technology Product Management & Marketing Professionals

Market Overview: Virtual Event Platforms For B2B Marketers

Avoid The Pitfalls Of Early Adopters By Choosing The Right Platform And Services

by Jennifer Belissent, Ph.D., February 25, 2010

Tech marketers are beginning to embrace virtual events as a way of reaching diverse audiences to meet a wide range of objectives — from brand awareness and demand generation to customer experience and education. Most big vendors have already added virtual . . .

For Technology Product Management & Marketing Professionals

How To Assess The Impact Of Social Media In B2B Tech Marketing

by Laura Ramos, February 23, 2010

As business-to-business (B2B) marketers experiment more with social media like blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube, they worry if venturing into uncharted social waters will pay off in tangible business results. Rather than trying to discern . . .

For Technology Product Management & Marketing Professionals

Best Practices Of IT Management Software Vendor Positioning

Positioning Is Influenced By The Web Site But Extends Through Social Media

by Peter O'Neill, February 18, 2010

Two years after Forrester first published it, our vendor positioning review (VPR) methodology has become a proven strategy tool; Forrester analysts have applied it in multiple advisory engagements, and marketing professionals actively leverage it as a . . .

For Technology Product Management & Marketing Professionals

Channel Sweet Spots

What Channels Are Customers Sourcing From?

by Tim Harmon, February 16, 2010

Different-sized companies have different channels they prefer for sourcing. Moreover, users' channel preferences vary by persona, vertical, and geography. This varied audience, combined with the myriad applications and technologies proffered by the tech . . .

For Technology Product Management & Marketing Professionals

For B2B Tech Companies, Demographics Shape Adoption

Technographics® Data Depict Critical Differences Among Target Audiences

by Tom Grant, Ph.D., January 28, 2010

Technology companies must appreciate the critical differences among customers. Each demographic dimension — geography, industry, company size, and role — affects customer adoption paths. For tech marketers, choosing the right channel of influence requires . . .

For Technology Product Management & Marketing Professionals

Deepen B2B Tech Customer Engagement With Community Marketing

by Laura Ramos, December 9, 2009

Engaging business customers requires in-person contact. To date, these connections typically revolve around reference programs, advisory boards, executive meetings, and user conferences. As social activity between tech industry buyers and sellers evolves, . . .

For Vendor Strategy Professionals

Case Study: BT Business Drives New Revenues In The SMB Segment

How BT Moved From A Component Supplier To A Connected Business Partner

by Mike Cansfield, December 8, 2009

BT Business is the sales channel to domestic small and medium-size businesses (SMBs) in the UK. In the face of falling revenues and market share erosion under increasing competition in past years, BT Business underwent a strategic change from a component . . .

For Vendor Strategy Professionals

Consumer Security Market Trends, 2009 To 2010: Changing Channel And Partner Dynamics

by Jonathan Penn, November 30, 2009

Consumer security vendors are faced with market forces that are mandating a change in how they take their solutions to market. Low conversion of trials and high customer churn at renewal time are combining with a diminishing effectiveness of traditional . . .

For Technology Product Management & Marketing Professionals

Best Practices In B2B Tech Partner Portfolio Management

Enact A Vibrant Partner Portfolio To Prepare For The Upturn

by Peter O'Neill, November 25, 2009

In the murky, maturing technology industry, vendor partner programs are in a state of constant flux and are difficult to control and align with corporate strategy. Only now are vendors beginning to take control of their programs and manage them strategically . . .

For Technology Product Management & Marketing Professionals

What B2B Tech Customers Expect From Your Channel Partners

Bolster Channel Partners' Productivity By Mapping Them To Customer Demand

by Tim Harmon, November 24, 2009

Tech vendors tend to develop channel ecosystems that reflect their product and domain competencies, i.e., from the vendor's perspective, not the customer's. But customers are maturing in terms of their planned use of third-party resources, including vendors' . . .

For Vendor Strategy Professionals

Market Momentum: IT Management Software Market, H1 2009

Vendors Are Missing The Cloud And Virtualization Waves

by Peter O'Neill, November 5, 2009

Forrester's market momentum overview assists vendor strategy professionals in tracking the evolution of the IT management software (ITMS) market and in gathering intelligence about the major activities. In the first half of 2009, we tracked 165 different . . .

For Technology Product Management & Marketing Professionals

2009 Forrester Groundswell Awards Winners Offer B2B Tech Marketers Valuable Social Media Lessons

by Laura Ramos, November 4, 2009

Business-to-business (B2B) marketers approach social strategy with a mix of enthusiasm and skepticism. Most want to know which firms execute social pursuits well and what tangible outcomes occur. The B2B Division winners of the 2009 Forrester Groundswell . . .