Are Analysts Worth the Investment? Five Tips to Decide and Maximize ROI

By Matt Heinz, President and Founder of Heinz Marketing
There’s no doubt analyst relationships (with firms such as Gartner, Forrester and the like) hold considerable influence over industries and buyers in numerous industries – IT, financial services, sales and marketing and much more.  And for years, investing in analyst “subscriptions” has been a core part of the marketing communications budget for many good-to-great reasons.
Those reasons haven’t changed, although scrutiny and second guessing of analyst relationship ROI has been a constant and may in fact be intensifying.
Analyst renewals come year round, and intensify at the start of new budget cycles.  And too often, an analyst yes/no decision turns into a massive back and forth with opinions, assumptions and other subjective rationales flying in both directions.
Deciding to invest in analysts isn’t a black or white decision, ever. Here are a few things to keep in mind when deciding what’s best for you.
Define your