In this solo episode of The Unnoticed Show, Jim James introduces listeners to the world of analyst relations, explaining how analysts—research firms such as Gartner, IDC, Forrester, and many tier‑2 and tier‑3 players—shape B2B technology buying decisions. He cites an IDG study that 48% of tech buyers base purchases on analyst opinions, positioning analyst relations as a critical, though niche, complement to traditional media relations. James outlines the services analysts provide (data research, advisory days, lead generation, event organization, reprint rights, and awards), describes the tiered landscape of analyst firms, and highlights their global footprint. He then offers practical guidance for vendors: why and how to engage analysts, the value of being featured in reports or quadrants, leveraging analyst‑run awards, and using resources like analystrelations.org. The episode stresses the cost‑benefit trade‑off—analyst relations are expensive but deliver authority and credibility— and encourages businesses across verticals (tech, construction, finance, healthcare) to incorporate analyst engagement into their PR strategy. Contact information for Jim James is provided at the end.
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Hello and welcome to this episode of The Unnoticed Show with me, Jim James. Well, today I wanted to share with you about a community of people that you may or may not be familiar with, and those are called analysts. Analysts play a key role in helping to influence companies decide on what to buy. Now, it may seem a role that's a little bit murky, but analysts actually are a well-established organization around the world. They have their own Institute of International Analyst Relations, and I'll put the link in the show notes. But analysts are involved in creating reports and consultancy, and actually they make a really big difference to whether or not people will buy products and services. In fact, one view is that 48% of tech buyers make purchasing decisions based on analysts' opinions. So if you don't know about analysts already, This show is going to tell you more about who they are and where they live and where you can find them. So analyst relations is a complement to media relations. Media relations tends to be about news and stories, and analyst relations is a deep dive on a topic. Analysts themselves are researchers often employed, for example, by banks or by VCs to find out what's happening. In an industry to see who the players are, see the trends, and really to help people to make educated decisions about more complex and sophisticated issues. Not many people, not many companies actually engage in analyst relations. It's quite a niche area, but considering according to this IDG study that 48% of tech buyers make a purchasing decision based mainly on analyst opinions. Then you'll realize that it's really important that this is a community for you if indeed you are selling to other businesses. So an analyst relations person is someone who is, by definition from the analyst relations website, it's a person working individually or within a firm analyzing and publishing research and/or opinions on products and services and trends adoption, market fit, procurement, deployment, and advising independently buyers and vendors on go-to-market strategies. So what happens is that analysts get access to companies in a way that journalists do not. Analysts are often taken, if you like, deep into the organization to explain, for example, the strategy and the technology behind a product or a service. Because these analysts are not publishing their reports publicly, but they're paid-for reports, there's less anxiety about the content kind of reaching the open universe and being mistaken or taken out of context. So Gartner, the Gartner Group, is the largest analyst firm, and you've probably heard of the Gartner quadrants. There's next also IDC. And Forrest and ISG. Now, as you can imagine, there are quite a lot of them. And recently there was a report done, in fact, by a chap called Duncan Chappell, who is an old-time analyst relations expert. And they worked with the University of Edinburgh and in an awards program for 2019. And what they did, some great research, and they found that the research firms are asked for the following services. They're asked to organize events. They're asked to do research of data. That was 16%. The majority of the work analysts are given is data research. They're also asked for advisory and strategy days for C-level executives. They're also asked to help with getting business leads, interestingly enough, and making purchasing recommendations and participating in peer communities. And they're also asked for reprint rights because often what will happen is a company like Gartner will make a report and you'll want to see, for example, on Zoom, they have on the homepage the magic quadrants. And everyone wants to be in the top right-hand corner of that quadrant, which shows that it's a growth market and this is the leader in that market. These reports that are written independently by researchers are then reprinted by those vendors or technology providers that have come out on top on those reports. So the analyst relations world is dominated by this group. There is IDC, Gartner, Forrester, 451, ISH Market, and Ovum. And what we see though is that they tend to appear in different categories. So as we know, IHS Market, for example, is very good in consumer. In another, if you like, second tier down, we have people like Frost& Sullivan who are particularly good in telco, or Ovum, which is also very strong in telecom. In telco. And then in the third category, we might have people like ABI Research or Analysis Mason or Canalys or InformaTech. You'll notice most of these are Western companies generating the content out of Europe and out of America on the whole. But many of these bigger groups will have offices around the world. So certainly Gartner, Frost& Sullivan, they have offices in Singapore and in Sydney and in Hong Kong. So they can reach out around the world for news and information, but more importantly, they look for facts, they look for real data, and they create long-form reports. Now, why that's important is because if you have a new technology that you're introducing, like Zoom, for example, then you'll want to reach out to the analysts as well, because it's fine to be going to your media, but actually what you also really want to do is to be seen by these analysts, because as we've seen, if 48% of all technology purchasing takes place through recommendations from analysts, then you really want to make sure that you are talking to those analysts. Now, the analysts will talk to a technology provider. And they will ingest and take on board all of your, all your facts and your features. If you've got more budget, then you can commission them to actually write a report, of course. Now, the other thing is that these large-scale companies will then also organize awards. So if you want to, for example, work with someone like Frost& Sullivan, or Frost as they're called, they will organize an award and working with you, they will structure an award and a process. And even you can sponsor, for example, an award in the industry category and get some halo effect from that and participate in the judging and also then participate in the awards ceremony. Now they're also going a little bit mainstream. So we've got not only analyst relations on the B2B side, but we've got, for example, Gartner. As we mentioned, is really the largest, one of the largest research firms. They have Gartner Peer Insights. And so that's almost like a Trustpilot category. And they have, for example, for gartner.com, Zoom meetings ratings review. And so what's happening is these big research houses, the bigger ones, are starting to collate data. User-generated data, and ideally you want to be on the radar with them so that your technology could start to be part of their recommendations and part of their research reports. Obviously, research reports are not for anybody and everybody. You've got to have a certain scale, but analysts and analyst firms produce great content as well, of course. And so that is a great place for you to go to help make some decisions about what you're buying. But you also really want to see if you can try and get on the radar screen with 1 or 2 or 3 or even all of these analyst relations. Now you can find these analyst relations and these analyst firms, for example, at analystrelations.org is one place. I will put this into the website for you in the show notes. And what you can do there, of course, is you can find out all the details of where all the analyst relations are. Now, the cost of working with analyst relations, it's obviously not cheap, right? It's not cheap. But on the other hand, you're getting the authority, and that's really what the analyst relations are trying to do and trying to create. So where the media relations work, has become much more social media and content driven. Analyst relations is the academic side of public relations. So if you're in tech, or if you are also in some other niches like construction, for example, or government, analyst relations, find those analysts and reach out to them and start to get them to know about your company. See if you can have them start to include you in their research. And even to have you as one of their subject matter experts, because that's also how they reach out and find more data. So analyst relations, a key part of any overall public relations strategy. We don't mention it much because it tends to be a bit of a niche, but I'm doing some work for a client at the moment and bumped into an old friend in an AR firm. And realize that it's an area that we haven't covered enough. And so I wanted to raise that today for you. So analyst relations, check it out. And by all means, reach out to one of the tier 1, tier 2, or tier 3 firms and start to find out what analyst relations could mean for your business. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of The Unnoticed Entrepreneur. This is Jim James on a solo version. Which is why I'm going to keep it short because the key message is that there are other influencers out there. And according to that research, 48% of all tech purchases are made due to the reports written by analyst relations. I'm sure that that number is also the same for, for example, the medical industry or in finance. There are analysts in all these different verticals. So if you're in one of these verticals, And you want to increase your credibility and authority, find a way to get into the analysts and into their reports and play a part and have them help you to position your company as one of the top right corner quadrant companies in your industry. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of The Unnoticed Show. My name is Jim James. If I can help you, of course, you can just reach me at jim@eastwestpr.com or on LinkedIn. Or Twitter @JimAJames. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the show.
