Five Ways Analyst Firms Can Help Your Marketing
While myths about the role of industry analysts persist, there are organizations that drive tremendous value through analyst relations (AR). Among what sets these organizations apart is a focus on relationships over transactions and collaboration across product, strategy, marketing, and other teams. Fostering analyst collaboration with the marketing team is especially valuable. In fact, 84% of B2B tech buyers say industry analyst reports are the TOP driver in their purchase decisions.
According to Andreessen Horowitz, analyst firms influence billions in IT spend, especially among “the Lagging 70%”, or the half of slower-moving buyers that drive 70% of enterprise technology spending. This is a clear demonstration of why analyst firms are an important part of the B2B marketing ecosystem. However, it is quite possible that your firm is not doing everything it can to derive marketing value from analyst relationships.
The value of analyst firms extends beyond access to market research data and mentions in market assessment reports. Building on their decades of influence among enterprise IT buyers, analyst firms offer a wide range of marketing advisory and content services. From enhancing messaging and positioning to marketing planning and funnel execution, analyst firms are well-suited to helping tech companies increase the marketing reach.
5 Ways Analyst Firms Can Help Your Marketing
Far too many firms believe that report mentions or inquiry analytics represent the bulk of the value analysts provide marketing teams. Those things are vitally important. However, analysts provide much more on account of their panoramic view of the market. Any tech company building relationships with industry analysts should explore the value of:
Market Intelligence
Many firms already use quantitative analyst data for marketing planning and estimating TAM, SAM, and SOM opportunities. Similarly, many leverage reports like the Gartner Magic Quadrant and IDC MarketScape for competitive marketing activities, such as creating battlecards. While these are common tactics, a good analyst team can help you get even deeper with the following:
Breaking analysis of important announcements. Beyond reporting of past market metrics and forecasting future performance, many firms provide timely analysis of market announcements. These can sound the alarm for needed changes to messaging, positioning, and competitive marketing.
Identifying emerging categories. Vendors introducing an innovative product sometimes find that their solution doesn’t seem to have a clear home in existing market categories. Analysts can help in two ways. First, they can help guide you to best-fit categories. Or, for truly unique solutions, educating analyst teams over time can influence the creation of a new market category.
Serving as a proxy voice of the customer. Analysts spend a lot of time talking to buyers and users in your market. This likely includes some of yours. Given the anonymous and high-trust nature of these interviews, customers sometimes will share things that they wouldn’t share with a vendor. While analysts will not betray confidence, they can share aggregated anonymous feedback. And in most cases, they’ll (respectfully) give it to you straight.
Providing reality checks. Sometimes vendors become intensely focused on their product and customers and a core set of competitors. While understandable, this can lead to a myopic view. When I was an analyst, this would often show up in statements such as “we’re the only company doing x” or “no other company has this certification” when it wasn’t the case. It may also show up as misconceptions about whitespaces in the market. Analysts use their panoramic view to eliminate these blindspots, helping their clients maximize opportunities.
Message Testing
Analysts see a lot of marketing decks and consume a lot of product announcements. At the same time, they hear a lot of unfiltered feedback from buyers and users. In other words, they’ve been around the block when it comes to messaging and positioning. As a result, analysts are in a unique position to provide feedback on the resonance, originality, and relevance of your messaging. This is true regardless of whether it pertains to brand, industry, product, feature, persona, or any other parameter.
When are good times to engage analysts on message testing?
Launching a feature or product. Your analyst team can guide you toward what resonates with buyers and away from what has been overdone. They can also point out overlooked differentiators that can feed into your messaging.
Refreshing your brand. This is similar to the above but at the overarching brand level. Especially pertinent here is the global view analysts have, which can help prevent any accidental similarities to vendors in other regions, segments, or product categories.
Targeting a new customer segment. Whether reaching a new industry or moving up or downmarket, analysts can provide salient points about these different segments’ pain points and how they describe them. Large analyst firms can provide collaborative insights across domain, industry, and buyer practices.
Custom Content Creation
Analyst help with messaging doesn’t have to end with strategizing. Regardless of their input in messaging and positioning (or lack thereof), analyst firms are fantastic content creators. They provide a wealth of credible research, market expertise, and skilled writers. Additionally, their branding typically enhances yours.
What kind of assets can analyst firms help you with?
Guest blogs. These are great entry points into analyst-led content. Less expensive and time-consuming than other options, you can usually plug these into your existing blog. In some cases, analyst firms may publish guest blogs on their own sites. Blogs generally have easier KPIs to measure and can give you a relatively quick idea if further analyst content efforts would be worthwhile.
Whitepapers. A classic of the genre, whitepapers leveraging analyst data and thought leadership are often valuable in the middle to bottom of the marketing funnel. However, as attention spans decrease, long-form content is becoming less popular. That said, whitepapers can still be valuable for more technical content or meatier analysis for niche audiences.
e-books. Short e-books and other medium-form content are an increasingly popular analyst offering. Often containing more visual and interactive elements, e-books are great showcases for bringing analyst data stories to life.
Webinars. Another classic, joint webinars being analysts and product experts are great at demonstrating why buyers need your product and how they benefit. Analysts set the market context vis-a-vis objective research. Internal subject matter experts show how your product will meet the moment. While this is not the analyst endorsing your product over others, it provides you with a great deal of gravitas.
Videos. Content consumption has shifted to video and analyst firms have followed. From short monologues about market trends to longer “talk show” style formats, analyst firms can partner with you on video content throughout the funnel.
The above represents some of my favorite analyst content vehicles, but is not a comprehensive list. Depending on the firm, analysts can also help with market research surveys, interactive tools, and solution validation, among other things. Licensing analyst reports in which your firm has performed well or that speak organically to your value proposition remains a winning tactic. This is a great reminder to ensure that your company is engaged with analyst firms that are strongly aligned to your industry, customer base, and vertical markets.
Market category creation and amplification
One of the most important but often overlooked reasons for engaging with analysts is the potential for influencing market category creation. In recent years, Gartner has coined popular industry categories and paradigms such as Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), Digital Twins, and Hyperautomation, among others. These terms have helped numerous marketers by providing distinct categories for their innovative solutions and portfolios.
Savvy vendors take advantage of this in two ways. Vendors with the AR resources and the wherewithal to make the case for a distinct category have the potential for a tremendous first mover advantage. More common is when the new category or paradigm naturally aligns to a vendor solution or portfolio. This generally yields many opportunities for custom content creation or licensing a report that enhances market credibility.
Marketing advisory
A possibly underutilized analyst offering is the marketing advisory services offered by Gartner, IDC, Forrester, and other firms. These practices leverage decades of expertise from proven B2B marketing leaders. I’ve personally benefited from consultations on content, web strategy, sales enablement, and pricing, among other things. These analysts had been in my shoes and seen a plethora of marketing strategies.
Some leaders will scoff at taking this type of advice from an analyst. I’ve found that considering this advice in the context of what was already working or not working for my team led to productive action. In many cases, it helps if members of the marketing advisory teams you’re talking to have relevant experience in peer organizations.
How to Make the Case for Increased Analyst Engagement
The list above is in no way exhaustive. Depending on the firm, there are other ways analysts can enhance your marketing efforts, such as providing quotes for press releases. Much like the companies they serve, analyst firms proactively seek to refine and add to their services to maintain market relevance. To that end, expect the full list to continue to grow.
Of course, in marketing, what matters is what gets measured. At times, AR activities get overlooked for the type of deep measurement that other marketing activities have.
ARInsights shares some fantastic advice about what items to measure to quantify AR impact. I’ve added my own input as it pertains to marketing:
Report placements. How many reports is your firm being mentioned in? Look beyond the raw numbers to consider the quality of the report, the audience it reaches, and if it contextualizes your product accurately.
Impact on deals. Are new customers referencing analysts as an influence on their purchase? Train your sales teams to ask about this and then record the data in your CRM.
Sentiment analysis. While more of a general point of advice in AR measurement, it is important to note analyst sentiment about your company after every interaction. Analysts with more positive feelings about your firm will make better marketing partners.
Analyst interactions. Measure the volume and quality of analyst interactions. For marketing-specific interactions, designate one person to rate the interactions or collect feedback from other stakeholders. It is important to make this as easy as possible.
Share of voice. Relative to competitors, how often do your core analysts mention your company and/or product? This can show you where to give more attention and which analysts might be better marketing partners.
Adding to the list above, ensure that any joint asset with analysts does not get left out of traditional measurement mechanisms. It is also important that any referral or “where did you hear about us?” form fill has “industry analyst” as an option. For some campaigns, you might consider very granular options (e.g. “Forrester TEI Report” or “IDC Webinar”).
Conclusion
Analyst firms are far more than just data reporters, they are strategic partners that can elevate your marketing efforts. From delivering real-time market intelligence and refining your messaging to creating credible, high-impact content and offering expert marketing advisory, analysts provide deeply impactful value. The most successful B2B tech companies don’t treat analysts as just another channel. Rather, they integrate them into the very fabric of their marketing strategy.
As enterprise buyers continue to lean heavily on analyst insights to guide purchasing decisions, the role of analysts in marketing remains critical. By building strong relationships with the right analyst firms and measuring the impact of that engagement with intention and rigor, marketing leaders can unlock powerful opportunities to increase credibility, influence buyer perception, and accelerate go-to-market success.
Thinking about leveling up your analyst strategy? Contact Greenefield for a free consultation today!
