Top Content Needs For IT Decision-Makers By Purchase Stage, January 2015 [TABLE]

IT decision-makers tend to rely on news articles and product demos early on in the purchase process, turning to product testing and reviews during the vendor evaluation and selection stage, and ROI and other assessment tools to sell internally and authorize the purchase, according to a survey conducted by IDG Enterprises. The report reveals that decision-makers download an average of 7 informational assets during the purchase process, with enterprise organizations using more assets (8) than SMBs (6).

As expected, the quality of the content is the most important characteristic to decision-makers when they’re searching for tech-related information online. Some 72% cited “reliable/accurate content or information” as being important, with 69% pointing to “straightforward, unbiased coverage” as a top characteristic. Those are clearly the most important, followed by a group of second-tier factors such as “easy-to-understand content” (49%), “a reliable source for aggregated or curated content on specific topics (48%), and “information [that] is relevant to my job/career aspirations” (48%). Read the rest at MarketingCharts.