Information-technology (IT) media company TechTarget and the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council today announced an agreement to generate quarterly reports that track IT subject matter interest, online media use and downloading of IT information by business technology buyers and specifiers. The marketing analytics data will give vendors and investors clearer indicators of IT procurement shifts, purchasing intentions, emerging application and deployment areas, and preferred media for gathering information to support IT purchase decisions.
Additionally, TechTarget will implement a Media Consumption Mapping program using its IT Research Panel membership to obtain insights into the preferred online media destinations and channels, including Web sites, blogs, online communities, and the types of content being downloaded or consumed by IT professionals.
Announced at the CMO Council’s second European Summit this week in London, the market intelligence program will be based on surveys of 500,000 IT professionals and business decision makers that comprise TechTarget’s IT Research Panel and its 4.5 million registered users. The goal of the research reports will be to give technology marketers a better understanding of which media vehicles prospective customers use to assess technology solution needs, what technical topics and issues are top-of-mind, and how spend priorities are likely to ebb and flow in upcoming months.
“The CMO Council has built a global reputation for its many authority leadership initiatives, information-sharing forums and high-level knowledge transfer among a network of nearly 3,000 peers,“ said Marilou Barsam, TechTarget Senior VP, Corporate Marketing. “TechTarget is pleased to be working with the Council to produce a credible benchmark reference to monitor and report on the print, web and other media vehicles that provide the highest quality information to organizations facing the daunting task of making large-scale enterprise technology purchase decisions.”
“TechTarget is an innovator in delivering highly-targeted technical information to IT decision makers and offers our members unique analytics and insights into media consumption patterns and how companies research and assess technology investments,” said Donovan Neale-May, Executive Director of the CMO Council. “We are keen to drawn on TechTarget’s online reach and affinity with IT professionals and business decision makers, as well as its ability to generate valuable real-time data on purchase consideration and intent from online sources.”
TechTarget is a leading provider of specialized online content that brings together buyers and sellers of corporate IT products. We sell customized marketing programs that enable IT vendors to reach corporate IT decision makers who are actively researching specific IT purchases. We operate a network of 35 websites, each of which focuses on a specific IT sector, such as storage, security or networking. IT professionals rely on our websites for key decision support information tailored to their specific areas of responsibility. We complement our online offerings with targeted in-person events and three specialized IT magazines that enable advertisers to engage buyers throughout their decision-making process for IT purchases. As IT professionals have become increasingly specialized, they have come to rely on our sector specific websites for purchasing decision-support. Our content enables IT professionals to navigate the complex and rapidly changing IT landscape where purchasing decisions can have significant financial and operational consequences. Since our founding in 1999, we have developed a broad customer base that now comprises more than 1,000 active advertisers who placed business with us in 2006, including Cisco, Dell, EMC, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Oracle, Research in Motion, SAP and Symantec. More information about TechTarget is available at www.techtarget.com.
About CMO Council
The CMO Council™ is peer-powered affinity group dedicated to high-level knowledge exchange, thought leadership and personal relationship building among nearly 3,000 senior marketing and brand decision-makers worldwide. These individuals control more than $70 billion in annual global marketing expenditures and represent companies with over $500 billion in aggregated annual revenues across a wide variety of industry sectors. These include consumer electronics, information technology, telecommunications, entertainment, media, publishing, retail, CPG, financial services, pharmaceuticals, travel, hospitality, health care, engineering, architecture, construction, professional services, and more. More information about the CMO Council can be found at www.cmocouncil.org.
