B2B's Marketing Challenge... No Time!

2007-10-07T12:22:00.000-07:00

I was struck by the subject of a recent article titled How to Optimize B2B Pay Per Click in Just 4 Hours a Week (Part 1) by Jon Miller of Marketo.

What caught my interest wasn't the information on pay per click advertising but the idea that 4 hours a week was considered a time savings! I speak with small to mid size manufacturers in Connecticut every day and from what I hear, no one has an extra 4 hours a week to manage a pay per click program. More often than not I hear, "We really need to update the site but we just can't find the time."

Now don't get me wrong, I believe that small to mid sized B2B companies are missing out by not focusing more on their online marketing strategy but a MarketingSherpa study showed that the single greatest obstacle for B2B companies achieving better optimization is lack of time and in-house resources.

B2C companies are spending many marketing hours (and $$) blogging, mobile marketing and social marketing to generate high traffic but B2B companies are different. Jon Miller points out these differences in search marketing goals:

B2C Search Marketing Goals:

High Volume, low value
Focus on clicks and transactions
Single decision maker
Search with the intent to buy
Transactional landing pages
Purchases immediately
No hand-off from sales to marketing

B2B Search Marketing Goals:

Low Volume, High Value
Focus on conversions and leadsMultiple decision makers
Search with the intent to research
Lead capture landing pages
Purchase months to weeks later
Closed loop lead management

It is worth repeating...B2B online marketing is not about VOLUME of traffic, it's about the RIGHT traffic. TARGET, TARGET, TARGET! It is a waste of time and marketing dollars getting emails and phone calls from contacts that have no chance of ever being a customer.
So what is the answer? Given there is limited amount of time and in-house resources you need to get help to at least get the basics done so your website is out there working for you. Your ThomasNet Rep or your web developer, agency, SEO agency, etc. can help.

THE BASICS

1) Your website MUST be search engine friendly. -Professional Design (quality design is becoming more important than ever)-Fresh Detailed Content-Keyword Focused Landing Pages-Proper Title Tags

2) High Quality Relevant Backlinks - The search engines evaluate the quality of the backlinks and the relevancy of the backlinks, not just the quantity. Vertical sites (such as ThomasNet), industry associations, trade journals are excellent sources. If you want to check the quality of a vertical site look at the the link popularity or how a site ranks for a particular keyword using tools such as marketleap.com or seochat.com

Use a tracking tool with an Executive Dashboard so you can quickly monitor your site's performance. It will take 1 minute to check your activity and the keywords. You want to make sure that companies are finding you under a product or service keyword because they are your "new" customers. People who come to your site after typing in your company name already know you. Webtraxs has a great dashboard. ThomasNet built sites all come with a Webtraxs tool and all advertisers with a "content based link package" get the tool for free otherwise it is $300 a year.

Take the time to get the basics down right so your internet marketing program is working for you while you are busy handling the 100 other items on your to do list.

This article was written by Mary Dykas - B2B Business consultant representing ThomasNet in Connecticut MVP Visuals offers printed tradeshow displays, tablecloths, tents and other custom promotional materials for your "offline" marketing needs!

MARKETING 101 - "Know Your Customer"

2007-10-07T09:33:00.000-07:00

Did you to see last week's episode (10/4) of “The Office”? It’s the one where the company, which has lost 7 of its big clients in the last year, has promoted Ryan (the young up and coming manager from Scranton) to try to bring the company into the digital age to win back the business they have lost.

Michael, the threatened overlooked old manager embarks on a quest to show that the old methods still work best. He decides they are going to win back the business by dropping in on their past customers and personally bring them fruit baskets.

Michael has been the manager for years and is absolute when he says, “Business to business the old fashioned way – no blackberries, no websites… people to people. I’d like to see a website deliver a fruit basket!”

As you might have expected, each of their past customers has a similar response, saying that the competitor has a website that is so easy to use and that it saves us time and money to use it. Michael is incredulous that these customers don’t appreciate the good old fashioned customer service stating, “WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE!“

What do they say about comedy coming from real pain?

The first principal in Marketing 101 is “know your customer”. If you start and end your marketing plan with your customer in mind your marketing plan should be a success. Then why do so many marketers fail? It is because just like Michael in The Office, the unsuccessful marketers are relying on old information.

To be fair to many small businesses, the CEO, Sales Manager and Marketing Manager are all the same person and to even consider changing means devoting precious hours they just do not have to learning new marketing techniques. It is easier to spend their limited marketing dollars sending out another brochure to the same mailing list or go to the same old trade show.

Study after study tells us that the tide has changed and companies don’t want a phone call, lunch date or fruit basket. B2B buyers want you to make their busy lives easier. EASY to find detailed product information - EASY to compare product information - EASY to get a price and EASY to order and they want it online 24/7. Sounds EASY! If you find yourself saying, “Our market is different. They don’t care about websites.” You might want to take a closer look!

If you are curious about what happened to all those fruit baskets. They are underwater in a lake inside the car that Michael accidentally drove into when he ignored his GPS system!

Written by Mary Dykas, B2B Marketing Consultant Representing ThomasNet in Connecticut mary@mvpb2b.com

Looking for trade show displays... visit http://www.mvpvisuals.com/

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Nuts and Bolts Marketing

B2B's Marketing Challenge... No Time!

MARKETING 101 - "Know Your Customer"