Robin Schaffer is the principal officer at Schaffer AR, a firm that helps businesses – including B2B tech startups – build and improve relations with industry analysts. I wanted to sit down with her to better understand why good relations with analysts are important to business success, the many different types of analysts that exist, and how firms – especially startups — can best engage and build awareness with them.
As Robin notes, industry analysts are enormously influential, serving as gatekeepers and endorsers, especially in the large enterprise space. And while there’s an element of truth in the notion that getting a thumbs up from an analyst involves the expenditure of money, cultivating analyst opinion is much more than a “pay to play” game.
Robin and I cover many topics in our talk that will be relevant to anyone running a business – large or small – which could benefit from building better relations with industry analysts. These topics include:
- How industry analysts influence 75 percent of enterprise decisions in the technology sector.
- The many different types of analysts (including industry and regional analysts) that may influence a corporate decision.
- Why large analyst firms seek to maintain their reputations against vendor bias.
- How startups can build stronger relationships with analysts by buying subscriptions and engaging in two-way dialogue.
- Why analysts value innovative startups, because they allow the analyst to deliver value to clients by uncovering disruptive technologies.
- Why it’s crucially important that startups engage with analysts effectively, tailoring their pitches to the analyst’s needs and time constraints.
- How analysts look to peer review sites for customer perspectives, influencing their evaluations.
- How startups can effectively use analysts to gain credibility and advocacy in their industry.
- How analyst organizations decide on new categories based on customer inquiries and vendor activity.
- Why SMBs rely more on review sites than analysts, with enterprises prioritizing analyst relationships.
- How analyst relations can impact SEO and LLM visibility.
