Matt West has a great post over at The Connected Marketer (and these links will take you to his recent webinar and Slideshare presentation).
The bottom line is this – buyers are actively searching for information before a need is identified. They are looking for knowledge, trying to learn something new that might help the business – and this is where they find and value more general topic, educational content.
The buyer is taking longer to make decisions, involving more people in the evaluation and decision stages of the buying process, and expecting high quality content throughout the entire relationship with the solution provider.
The buyer also expects a speedy and appropriate response, and they are very likely to share their experience (from research to post-purchase) with others through a variety of off-line and on-line channels
