B2B Marketing Blog | Webbiquity

Marketing budget allocations should, of course, always be based on the unique a company’s unique situation: its specific needs, experiences, strengths, market position, market conditions and trends, etc.

That said, it can nevertheless be helpful to know how one’s competitors and peers in other industries are planning to split up their marketing dollars for the coming year. This knowledge can help marketing executives identify gaps and opportunities within their own plans, as well as providing “ammunition” for high-level budget battles.

So it’s helpful that MarketingSherpa recently asked a large number of marketers how they planned to change tactical allocations for the coming year.

 

Among the key findings:

Digital budgets are growing. While the trend is hardly shocking, it is striking how pronounced this shift is. All of the top seven growth areas for marketing dollars are digital, with more than half of all marketers planning budget increases in 2014 in five of these areas.

The top three areas for budget increases—and five of the top seven tactics—are focused on a company’s “owned” media.

Taking the top six categories as a group, the strategy being embraced by the majority of marketers in 2014 will primarily consist of:

• • Attracting relevant visitors to their websites using valued content.
• • Converting those visitors into leads by optimizing calls to action and other elements of landing pages.
• • Promoting content using a mixed of organic search, paid search, and social media tactics.

B2B vendor websites have come a long way since the days of serving as essentially online brochures. Given that 70% of the b2b purchasing cycle is complete before a vendor’s sales team is even aware of the opportunity, websites are now expected to accomplish much of the pre-sales heavy lifting.

One-to-one tactics are holding steady. More than half of all survey respondents plan no changes in spending levels for direct mail, trade shows and telemarketing in the coming year, with larger shares of the remaining respondents planning budget increases rather than decreases.

Each of these tactics enable one-to-one communication with sales prospects. Direct mail and telemarketing also permit careful targeting.

Old school marketing continues to decline. The two tactics for which the largest shares of marketers plan to cut budgets in the coming year are print and broadcast advertising.  These channels share three characteristics:

• • The content is interruption-based rather than sought out.
• • They permit only general targeting.
• • Their results are difficult to measure.

Taken as a whole, this survey indicates that marketers will increase efforts on content marketing (online) and targeted one-to-one (online and offline) communications over traditional, mass-market media in the coming year. While every company’s situation is unique, few B2B vendors are likely to stray too far off this general path in 2014.

Panda, Penguin, Phantom, Hummingbird. Disappearing keyword data. Personal / universal / local / mobile search. These are indeed “interesting times” for SEO professionals, with rapid and wide-ranging changes to the search landscape being announced at an accelerating pace.

Given all of this change, what are the best practices for SEO as we head into 2014? Which SEO strategies, tactics, and ranking factors still apply? How have SEO techniques changed in the post-Penguin world? How do you recover rankings if your site is hit by a penalty?

Find the answers to these questions and more here in more than two dozen of the best SEO guides of 2013 so far.

SEO Guide, Tips and Best Practices

The Latest and Greatest SEO Strategies by Bad Rhino Rumblings

Amanda DiSilvestro and Nick LaRosa outline new SEO strategies, tools and resources. Among the strategies recommended are taking advantage of local search (e.g., by completely filling out profiles on Yelp, Bing Places, Yahoo Local, and Google+ Local) and posting frequently (“The more you post, the better chance you have for link building, sharing, and engagement opportunities—all important when it comes to SEO”).

Google Panda And SEO: Updated Tips For Online Marketers by MediaPost

Brian Rauschenbach outlines three broad areas important to focus on post-Panda, and three types of activities to avoid, such as complicated sitemaps and navigation: “With Panda, Google has pretty consistently made it clear that simple navigation is best; websites that require too much digging to find desired content could be negatively affected.”

2013 Search Engine Ranking Factors by Moz

Matt Peters breaks down the latest study into high-correlation factors for website rank. While there is a great deal of data here, at a high level: backlinks remain the most important part of the algorithm (though quality matters more than quantity; on-page keyword usage is still fundamental; and social factors may be more correlational than causational with high rankings.

Weighting the Clusters of Ranking Factors in Google’s Algorithm by Moz

Following up on the post above, Rand Fishkin presents the weighting of categories of ranking factors in Google, based on a survey of 128 SEO professionals. More than half of all the factors that determine a page’s rank are based on backlinks (e.g., quality of sites linking to the domain, anchor text distribution) or page-level keyword usage (content quality, relevance, meta tags, etc.).

The 10 New Rules for SEO by Business2Community

Rekha Mohan outlines a process for SEO in the post-Panda and Penguin world. The English is a bit rough but the information is useful. Most of what’s covered is well-trod ground, but the detail behind developing searcher personas and considering buyer intent are interesting.

SEO Reporting & Metrics: How to Prove Progress by Search Engine Watch

Krista LaRiviere steps through a process for reporting on SEO efforts to a client, starting wih five key questions such reporting should answer for clients (among them: “What impact did these efforts have on the web presence for organic search?”), and proceeding through setting expectations, goals, and benchmarks, and driving action items.

SEO Best Practices – 5 Tips to Get You Noticed by Masterful Marketing

The always engaging Debra Murphy details five tactics for optimizing rankings on Google, such as using responsive design to optimize cross-device user experiences: “This saves resources for your website and for Google’s crawlers.  A responsive design makes it easier for your users to interact with, share, and link to your content while also helping Google’s algorithms assign the most relevant indexing properties for the content.”

How to Think Like Google by QuickSprout

Once you get past the annoying pop-ups on this site, you’ll find a detailed and valuable post from Neil Patel highlighting attributes that Google frowns upon in determining search rank (e.g., spam (comment and otherwise), malware, duplicate content, low quality inbound links) as well as things Google likes: authoritative content, social signals, and adapting your website to user needs.

7 Awesome Competitive Niche SEO Strategies by Search Engine People

Writing that “(in) SEO strategy for competitive niches…you need to win each of the small battles before you even think about declaring yourself the winner of the war,” Dennis Miedema recommends content marketing, local SEO, and industry networking among other strategies in industries with a high degree of SEO competition.

3 SEO Tactics We’re Easing Up On in 2013 by The WordStream Blog

Elisa Gabbert suggests that over-optimized anchor text, anchor text through infographic links, and guest posting are SEO tactics to ease up on. The first is obvious; the second two are more controversial, as exhibited in the large number of comments generated by this post.

SEO Audit Tips and Techniques

How to Conduct a Competitive SEO Audit to Outrank Industry Rivals by HubSpot

Rebecca Churt details a process for performing a competitive SEO analysis, beginning with identifying key competitors (in both search and the real world) and proceeding through taking action on your findings: “Think about how you will use this information — whether it be for your content strategy, product or service positioning, social engagement tactics, etc. — all of which help with your SEO in the long run.”

How to Do an SEO Audit of Your Website by Entrepreneur

AJ Kumar outlines a five-step process for performing an SEO audit on an existing website, from checking on-page optimization title tag content and length to comparing the site’s backlink profile to that of competitive sites in order to “uncover link-building patterns in your industry that you should be paying attention to.”

10 Insights from a Lite SEO Audit That Any Small Business Can Benefit From by Search Engine Watch

Glenn Gabe explains how even on a small website, a “lite” SEO audit can expose issues such as missing 301 redirects, broken links, site speed issues, and backlink problems (or simply a lack of relevant backlinks).

SEO Infographics

Infographic: How up-to-date are your SEO practices? by leaderswest Digital Marketing Journal

Jim Dougherty shares an infographic comparing “old” to “new” SEO practices, for example, the shift in importance from technical knowledge to marketing knowledge (unquestionable), from optimizing for search engines to optimizing for users, and from link building to link earning.

Infographic: 2013 SEO Ranking Factors, From SearchMetrics by Search Engine Land

This beautifully crafted infographic covers social, backlinking, technical and content-related factors in SEO. Among the key takeaways are that keyword domains and links have lost relevance, and that brands are the exception to many rules. Be cautious about placing too much faith in the accuracy of every factor, however, as advised in the (copius) comments generated by this post.

How Google Ranks Your Website – 200 Google Ranking Factors by Digital Information World
***** 5 STARS

This phenomenal infographic aggregates “the best information (available) about how Google ranks pages and websites,” with ranking elements divided in groups like domain factors, page-level factors, backlink factors, and user interaction among others.

The New Face of SEO: How SEO Has Changed [INFOGRAPHIC] by SEO Blog

Another excellent infographic illustrating the diference between “old” SEO (e.g., targeting a specific, narrow set of keywords based on search volume) and new SEO tactics for the post-Panda world (e.g., targeting a wider range of keywords based on intent and conversion data).

Post-Penguin SEO Guides

Google Penguin 2.0 vs. Black Hat SEO by SteamFeed

Brien Shanahan reports on high-traffic websites hit with Penguin penalties, including among several truly spammy sites unfortunately SalvationArmy.com, one of the most reputable and highly-rated charitable organzations, noting that “While Salvationarmy.com has many valuable links, it also appears to have thousands of links from low-quality websites.” He goes on to explain why these sites are penalized and how to recover from a Penguin penalty.

Winning with White Hat SEO in the Post-Penguin Era by SteamFeed

Brien Shanahan (again) contrasts black-hat SEO tactics (e.g., content spinning, link building, doorway pages) with whitehat tactics (creating useful content, social sharing) and details 10 white-hat techniques for achieving SEO success.

The Myth of Content Marketing, the New SEO & Penguin 2.0 by Search Engine Watch

Contending that “Content marketing isn’t new. It’s just a new buzzword picked up by other industries that suddenly found out they could to ‘do SEO,’, but they didn’t want to ‘do SEO,’ so they tried to make it more special. It isn’t,” Kristine Schachinger positions content marketing as just another SEO tactics, albeit one that’s always been very important, along with on-page optimization, legitimate link building, optimizing site load speed, and avoiding or fixing crawl errors.

Penguin 2.0: PANIIIIIIIIC!!!…(or not) by Search Engine Journal

Matt Burns explains seven changes to link-building tactics and their effects in the post-Panda environment: tiered linking and excessive keyword-match links are out, high authority and social links are, and guest blogging is in…for now.

It’s Time to Change the SEO Mindset by Search Engine Watch
***** 5 STARS

The brilliant David Harry argues that SEO today is not about link building but rather about “Content + Outreach + Social + Promotion + Brand reach,” which incorporates content development, PR, social media, and online advertising. Sounds just like web presence optimization (WPO), though he doesn’t use that term.

How to Recover from a Search Engine Penalty

How to Recover from Panda Dance by Kaiser the Sage

Jason Acidre supplies seven tips for recovering from “Panda dance” penalties in search rankings, including improving low-performing landing pages (“Start with the pages that you believe are important and optimize these landing pages to mainly increase user dwell time”) and making updates to evergreen landing pages, such as lists of industry resources.

Phanteguin: A Phantom & Penguin One-Two Punch From Google by Search Engine Watch

Glenn Gabe (again) explains how to recover from penalties resulting from “Phanteguin,” the “one-two punch from Google” on sites hit by both Phantom and Penguin. He explains not just the differences between the two algorithmic changes, but also between Penguin 1.0 and Penguin 2.0, how to identify a Phanteguin penalty, and steps to take to recover lost rankings and traffic.

Google Panda, Penguin & Phantom: 3 Recovery Examples by Search Engine Watch

Glann Gabe (once more) presents three real-world case studies highlighting recovery from tanking rankings due to each of Google’s three most recent major algorithmic changes.

Step-by-step guide to my Google Panda penalty recovery by SME Pals

David Mercer provides a detailed, step-by-step account of a real-world recovery from a Panda penalty, from improving site speed and fixing broken links to redesigning the page template and disavowing low0-quality backlinks. Some of his advice will be hard to swallow, however, such as “stop syndicating content.” And anyway, isn’t Google Authorship supposed to take care of that issue?

Technical SEO

Speeding Up Your WordPress Blog’s Load Times by Find My Blog Way

Matthew Barby demonstrates how to measure page load time and then minimize it (focused on WordPress sites) using a variety of techniques, from compressing images and caching “everything” to setting up a content delivery network.

Reclaim Lost Link Juice by Capturing 404 URLs by Search Engine Journal

Noting that changing URLs to a more search-friendly structure can cause 404 errors, traffic loss and even reduced site authority, James Parsons details two methods for identifying 404 errors and correcting them, in this helpful technical post.

B2B marketing has traditionally been viewed (correctly) as much different from the promotion of consumer products. Buyers were different, sales cycles were different, messaging was different, and media was different. While there were some small areas of overlap, the disciplines were, for the most part, treated as distinct.

That may be changing. Driven by shifting customer expectations and demands, “B2B vendors clearly feel that they need to evolve to more closely resemble their B2C counterparts,” according to recent research reported on by MarketingCharts.

Much of the study focused on online commerce, where changes in b2b offerings indeed make sense. There’s no reason corporate purchasing professionals shouldn’t be able to buy office supplies, chairs, filing cabinets, commodity technology items and other frequently purchased, generally low value items online as easily as they’d buy a book, a pair of shoes or music in their personal lives.

The study suggested however that the emulation of B2C marketing practices by their B2B counterparts may go beyond ecommerce, however. So, are B2B marketers really adopting B2C practices? Yes and no. While creative B2B marketing professionals have always adopted certain consumer marketing practices to their needs, significant differences remain—and likely will for a long time.

4 Areas Where the Consumerization of B2B Marketing Applies…

Entertaining content. B2B content doesn’t have to be boring (at least not all of it). While certain types of information, such as technical product specifications, need to be delivered as straightforwardly and succinctly as possible, many types of B2B content could use a bit more life. Show off your brand’s personality. Don’t be afraid to use (appropriate) humor. Tell stories; inspire prospective buyers with tales of what your current customers have achieved.

Multimedia content, including video. While text (such as blog posts and white papers) will continue to play a significant role in B2B marketing, messages and concepts can often be delivered in a more compelling manner through infographics, online slide presentations, and video. B2B C-level executives are watching an increasing amount of online video, with 75% of executives telling Forbes they watch work-related videos on business websites at least once per week,  according to statistics provided by b2b video expert Bob Leonard.

A focus on personal benefits. B2B buyers are people too. While it’s essential to provide information about product capabilities, benefits, and financial justification—traditional B2B content—it can also help to talk about the personal benefits of a B2B purchasing choice to a buyer, such as job security (being the safe choice), career enhancement (helping the buyer be a hero, get a raise or promotion), and work-life balance (make the buyer’s job easier, get home earlier in the evening).

Capitalizing on trade shows. Despite the growth in digital marketing channels, physical tradeshows and conferences remain one of the most effective lead generation tactics for B2B marketers. Of course, B2C marketers use such events as well, with car shows, boat shows, and home-and-garden shows being among the most popular. B2B marketers can increase the impact of tradeshow attendance by borrowing B2C event promotion tactics, such as selective use of outdoor and local radio advertising.

…And Four Areas Where B2B Marketing Remains Distinct

Roles trump demographics. While other factors have gained in importance over the years, demographic metrics remain a key focus in B2C marketing; consider the differences,  not just in the products promoted, but in the style and tone of messages between the TV advertisements shown on, for example, 60 Minutes, and the NFL game that precedes it throughout autumn.

In B2B marketing, work roles play a far larger role than demographics. Information targeted to the CFO is different from technical product specifications designed for engineering, but each of those messages remain essentially the same regardless of the age, gender or ethnicity of the financial executive or technical decision maker.

Information trumps image. In many if not most cases, B2B products and services are more complex (and expensive) than consumer goods. B2B messaging is therefore of necessity more detailed and information based; buyers need larger quantities of information to determine how a purchase may impact current business practices, how it will integrate with existing systems, what impact it will have on staffing, and other considerations absent in consumer purchases.

Committees make decisions. The vast majority of consumer purchases are individual decisions. In complex B2B sales, group decisions are the norm. Rather than targeting an individual buyer, therefore, B2B marketers need to develop content for all of the people likely to be involved in the vendor selection process, frequently encompassing at a minimum  a business buyer (how will this increase sales or reduce costs?), a financial buyer (cost, financing, ROI),  and a technical buyer (specifications, compatibility with existing systems or platforms, integration points and requirements).

Services are a major component of sales. B2B sales often combine services with products, one factor increasing the cost and complexity noted above. Unlike consumer purchases, B2B product acquisitions often include services not just to implement but also optimize the use of those items. When buying applications like marketing automation, multi-channel marketing metrics, or customer relationship management (CRM), for example, the quality of the consulting services is every bit as important as the functionality of the software itself.

While the consumerization of B2B marketing is an interesting concept, it clearly has its limits. Or does it? What do you think?

As the use of social media in marketing has become ubiquitous, marketers have turned their attention to making the use of business social media more sophisticated and strategic. They are refining tactics, integrating social with other marketing channels, taking a hard look at new networks, and continuing to refine their measurements of success.

How can marketers help their organizations move from “social media marketing” to “social business”? Which emerging platforms are essential (or even worth investigating)? What role does social play in a brand’s overall online visibility?  How does social media use differ in B2B vs. B2C companies? Between large and small businesses? Which content marketing tactics and formats are gaining or losing favor? How do marketers separate hype from reality in mobile?

Find the answers to these questions and many, many more in this compilation of more than 100 compelling social media,  content marketing and SEO stats, facts and observations.

General Social Media Marketing Facts and Statistics

1. 97% of all consumers search for local businesses online. (An amazing statistic, given that nearly 20% of the adult U.S. population still lacks internet access). (Relevanza)

2. 20- to 30-year-olds (Gen Y), act like no other previous generations. 20-something business buyers are roughly twice as likely to seek information or advice from social media as the generation before them (31- to 40-year-olds) and almost four times more likely to than the baby boomers (51- to 60-year-olds). (MediaPost)

3. 68% of Google+ users are male, while 80% of Pinterest users are women. (leaderswest Digital Marketing Journal)

4. Looking at the importance of social media by business function, 80% of business executives said social is “important” or “somewhat important” in marketing and branding; 74% said the same for customer service; 70% for innovation and new product/service development; and 63% for employee recruiting. Less than half view social media as important for supplier/partner engagement. (e-Strategy Trends)

5. Social media isn’t quite as ubiquitous as it sometimes seems. 7% of the American population has never heard of Facebook, and 41% say they haven’t heard of LinkedIn. And these people can vote. Which explains a lot. (iMedia Connection)

6. 72% of adult internet users in the U.S. are now active on at least one social network, up from 67% in 2012 and just 8% in 2005. (MediaPost)

7. As many companies have learned the hard way, unanswered complaints on social networks can go viral, causing real damage to a company’s brand. But the opposite is also true: 71% of consumers receiving a quick brand response on social media say they would likely recommend that brand to others. (Forbes)

8. 65% of respondents of global business executives say their organizations use social business tools to understand market shifts; 45% to improve visibility into operations; and 45% to identify internal talent. (Deloitte University Press)

9. There are, on average, 700 YouTube video links shared on Twitter every minute, and 500 years worth of YouTube videos watched on Facebook every day. (Social Media Today)

10. 60% of LinkedIn users have clicked on an ad on the site, and 43% of U.S. marketers have obtained at least one new customer through LinkedIn. (Social Media Today)

11. 70% of brands now have a presence on Google+, up from just 4% in the last quarter of 2012. (Social Media Today)

12. 69% of brands now have a presence on Pinterest, up from 10% in the fourth quarter of 2012. (Social Media Today)

General Marketing Facts and Statistics

13. Webinars, virtual events and other digital communications channels are driving trade shows and other live events to extinction, right? Wrong. Nearly three-quarters of brand marketers still view live trade shows and conferences as either “very valuable” or “essential to doing business.” Just 9% say their importance is diminishing. (e-Strategy Trends)

14. 93% of online research starts with a search engine, and 68% of consumers check out companies on social networking sites before buying. Visibility is vital, so every brand needs a comprehensive strategy for optimizing their overall web presence. (Brandpoint)

15. To optimize not just online visibility but also trust with buyers, vendors need to focus on their industry presence. Just 9% of B2B decision makers consider vendor content trustworthy vs. 67% who trust research from professional associations, 50% from industry organizations, 44% from analyst reports, and 40% from independent product reviews. (B2B Marketing Insider)

16. The average CTR for banners is 0.01 percent. According to Get Elastic, 31 percent of consumers are worried that they will be tracked if they click them, and 55 percent fear a virus. And yet—there were 5.3 trillion display ads served up last year. (iMedia Connection)

17. Big contradictions on big data: 71% of marketers say they plan to have Big Data solutions in place in the next two years. But 75% of marketers can’t calculate their ROI of their marketing spending and and 50% of them say that IT is not a strategic partner. (ZDNet)

18. Another contradiction: while 86% of companies are comfortable marketing with social tools, only 41% use social tools for communicating with customers. (Forbes)

B2B Social Media Marketing Stats and Facts

19. Nearly half of B2B marketers planned to increase their overall marketing budgets this year despite continuing economic challenges. Two-thirds planned to increase digital marketing spending. (Social Media Today)

20. Another source found that almost half of B2B marketers (the same “almost half”?) anticipate an increased budget for 2014, while just 3% foresee spending reductions. (eMarketer)

21. Just 38% of b2b marketers say they have a defined social media strategy. (Marketing Pilgrim)

22. Twitter is the most popular platform in b2b, with 85% of marketers saying they use this. LinkedIn is a close second at 82%. (Marketing Pilgrim)

23. Nearly three-quarters of b2b marketers say they can’t measure the ROI of social media at, or can measure it only some of the time. The primary measurement of social media success is increased website traffic. (Marketing Pilgrim)

24. Is social media displacing PR? In a recent survey of B2B PR professionals, 94% said they use social media to promote announcements vs. 71% who use press releases. 45% said they would use social media if they could use just one promotional vehicle vs. 24% who said they would issue a press release. (B2B PR Sense Blog)

25. 60% of B2B marketers identify lead generation as their top online marketing challenge. And more than a third (36%) say they can’t accurately attribute online conversions to the correct marketing channels. (eMarketer)

26. Which lead gen tactics work best? B2B marketers put email marketing at the top (with 51% saying this is a highly effective tactic) followed by SEO and content marketing (38% each), offline events like trade shows (31%) and paid search/online ads (29%). Just 11% say social media is highly effective for lead gen, and 1% identify mobile marketing. (eMarketer)

27. In terms of difficulty of execution, nearly half (49%) of B2B marketers put social media marketing at the top, followed by content marketing (39%), SEO (26%) and mobile (25%). (eMarketer)

28. Opportunity being squandered: B2B buyers under 35 years old (a growing group) are 131% more likely to make corporate purchases online than their older counterparts. 90% of B2B buyers age 18-35 now make company purchases online, compared with 45% of those age 45-60 and 29% of those age 60+. Yet nearly half have purchased from Amazon Supply in the past year because their current suppliers aren’t offering an online purchase channel. (BizReport)

29. Another opportunity being squandered: More than 90% of B2B marketers consider webinars/webcasts, e-books, white papers, and published articles to be either “very” or “somewhat” effective in achieving SEO and marketing objectives. Yet less half utilize webcasts and just 20% create e-books. (MarketingSherpa)

30. While B2B B2B buyers age 60+ conduct online research before purchasing less than 10% of the time, younger buyers (age 26-45) do research before purchasing 50% of the time or more. Another reason it’s vital to have a framework for maximizing a brand’s online visibility. (BizReport)

31. More than 80% of B2B decision makers say they visit vendor-independent communities or forums, vendor-sponsored communities or forums, and LinkedIn at least monthly for business purposes. (Marketing Charts)

32. 32% of B2B decision makers use Pinterest at least monthly, but only 2% do so primarily for business reasons. (Marketing Charts)

33. 87% of B2B companies view social media (other than blogs) as a highly successful element of their marketing mix. 83% say the same for articles on websites, 78% eNewsletters, and 77% blogs. (MyCustomer.com)

34. The top four metrics used to measure B2B social media success are web traffic (60%), sales lead quality (51%), social sharing (45%) and sales lead quantity (43%). (MyCustomer.com)

35. Almost 60% of all social media-referred traffic to B2B websites comes from just three networks: Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. (It’s All About Revenue)

36. In 2012, less than a third of B2B marketers said their social media activities were either “fully integrated” or “very involved” with company-wide operations. Today that figure is close to half. (eMarketer)

37. The top marketing tactics used by B2B marketers this year were social networks (84%), email marketing (72%), SEO (56%) and press releases (51%). The least popular tactics, each used by less a quarter of marketers, were online ads, seminars and ebooks. (eMarketer)

Statistics About Social Media Use in the Enterprise

38. 77 of the Fortune Global 100 companies have at least one official corporate Twitter account. (leaderswest Digital Marketing Journal)

39. 48% of the Fortune Global 100 are on Google+. (leaderswest Digital Marketing Journal)

40. More than one-third of Fortune 500 companies have active Google+ accounts. However, 19% of the companies with Google+ corporate accounts have not yet activated them. Google+ remains the only major social platform with a significant number of open—but inactive—accounts. (MediaPost)

41. 70% of the Fortune 500 companies have Facebook pages, including nine of the top 10 companies. (MediaPost)

42. The top five social networks used by B2B marketers to distribute content are LinkedIn (83%), Twitter (80%), Facebook (80%), YouTube (61%) and Google+ (39%). (Social Media Today)

43. Another study pegs the top three social networks in use buy Fortune 500 companies are Twitter (77%), Facebook (70%) and YouTube (69%). (leaderswest Digital Marketing Journal)

44. The leaders of these companies lag in their own social media use, however. Of the 500 leaders of the biggest companies in the US, only 28 have a Twitter account, and only 19 of them actually use it. (Quartz)

45. 68% of Fortune 500 CEOs have no social media presence whatsoever. Among the rest, 26% are on LinkedIn, but less than 10% are on Facebook and just 1% – five CEOs – are on Google+. (Quartz)

46. And yet, 90% of global business executives say that social media is important today or will be within a year. (Deloitte University Press)

47. Maybe they just aren’t doing it right? When asked to rank their company’s social business maturity on a scale of 1 to 10, more than half of global business executives gave their company a score of 3 or below. Only 31% gave a rating of 4 to 6. Just 17% ranked their company at 7 or above. (Deloitte University Press)

48. By department, the largest users of social media in enterprises are marketing (with 78% using social media to a moderate to great extent), IT (64%), sales (63%), and customer service (62%). The functions using social media least are operations (46%), supply chain operations (36%), risk management (35%) and finance (28%). (Deloitte University Press)

49. More than 40% of enterprises measure the success of their externally facing social media initiatives based on social reach (e.g., number of fans/followers) or brand reputation enhancement. Just 14% measure it based on sales. 19% don’t measure it at all. (Deloitte University Press)

50. Among the Interbrands Top 100 brands (B2C), nearly all have a presence on Facebook and Twitter. 76% are also on Google+, 74% are on Pinterest, almost a third (31) are on Tumblr. (MediaPost)

51. Why Tumblr? Because “posts tend to have a longer shelf life on Tumblr than Facebook and Twitter through ‘reblogs,’ or reposts of updates. Almost a third of reblogs (29%) took place more than 30 days after the initial post.” (MediaPost)

52. Does that mean B2B marketers should jump on Tumblr to promote their thought leadership content as well? Not necessarily; MTV claimed the second-highest number of reblogs in a recent period. Sprite claimed the most reblogs over that timeframe, with more than 85,000 for a single post with an animated GIF of a game of spin the bottle. (MediaPost)

Small Business Social Media Statistics and Facts

53. 78% of small businesses attract new customers through social media. (Relevanza)

54. This despite the fact that 80% of SMB websites don’t display links to the company’s social networks. (iMedia Connection)

55. The top three challenges faced by SMB B2B marketers are lead quantity (69%), lead quality (60%), increasing brand awareness (56%) and reaching decision makers (52%). It seems like those figures haven’t budged much in 20 years. (MarketingProfs)

56. The three tactics viewed as most effective for generating SMB B2B sales leads are company websites, email newsletters, and tradeshows. LinkedIn and Facebook were also cited as effective by more than half of marketers, coming in just ahead of direct mail. (MarketingProfs)

57. At the other end of the scale, Pinterest, outdoor media and virtual events were cited as the lead effective tactics for SMB B2B lead generation. (MarketingProfs)

58. SMB marketers identify the top three benefits of social media marketing as increased exposure (89%), increased website traffic (75%), and access to marketplace insights (69%). However, less than half said that it either reduced marketing expenses or increased sales. (eMarketer)

59. Small business marketers are most likely to outsource TV/radio advertising (40%) and SEO (35%); they are least likely to outsource email newsletter and social media marketing management (less than 5% each). (Constant Contact)

60. However, those decisions are often budget-driven. Half or more of SMB marketers would prefer to outsource both TV/radio ads and SEO, and nearly 20% would outsource social media marketing if they could. (Constant Contact)

Content Marketing Facts and Stats

61. The content marketing challenges faced by enterprises and small businesses must be very different, right? Well…yes and no. Marketers in companies large and small rank are challenged by producing engaging content, producing enough content, producing a variety of content, and measuring content marketing effectiveness in broadly similar proportions. But surprisingly, they part ways on the challenge of lack of executive buy-in (38% of enterprise marketers vs. 25% of SMB marketers say they are challenged by this), lack of budget (48% enterprise, 38% SMB) and most dramatically, lack of integration across marketing channels (58% enterprise, 23% SMB). (Content Marketing Institute)

62. 92% of marketers believe that content creation is either “very” or “somewhat” effective for SEO. (leaderswest Digital Marketing Journal)

63. More than half of B2B and business-to-government (B2G) marketers focus on white papers and case studies as key components of their content marketing, compared to less than 10% of B2C marketers. However, those on the consumer side focus much more on customer reviews (44% vs. 27% for B2B). (MarketingSherpa)

64. Different types of content address different levels of the purchase funnel. At the top of the funnel, blog posts, news articles, press releases and social media content drive awareness. In the consideration stage, “category level” web page content, “long tail” blogs and news articles, newsletters, FAQs and white papers are most effective. (Brandpoint)

65. On average, 25% of marketing budgets are now spent on content development, delivery and promotion. (B2B Marketing Insider)

66. 87%  of buyers say online content has a major or moderate impact on vendor preference and selection; but 43% say “blatantly self-promotional” content is a major turn off. (B2B Marketing Insider)

67. 54% of B2B marketers plan to increase spending on content marketing in 2014. (MyCustomer.com)

68. 77% of B2B marketers use a blog as part of their content marketing mix, and 70% use online video. (Social Media Today)

Business Blogging Statistics and Facts

69. Blogs convert readers into buyers. 42% of consumers look to blogs for information about potential purchases; 52% say blogs have impacted their purchase decisions; and 57% of marketers have acquired new customers with their blogs. (leaderswest Digital Marketing Journal)

70. Despite that, just 34% of Fortune 500 enterprises maintain corporate blogs – up from 28% in 2012. (leaderswest Digital Marketing Journal)

71. Within the Fortune 500, telecommunications (53%) and specialty retailers (48%) are most likely to have blogs. (leaderswest Digital Marketing Journal)

72. 77% of B2B firms maintain blogs. (MyCustomer.com)

73. Or do they? Another source puts the share of B2B marketers using blogs at 39% in 2013, down from 48% in 2012. Hmm, confusing. (eMarketer)

SEO and Search Marketing Stats and Facts

74. 50% of searchers on Bing click the first organic result. Only about 6% click the third result, 3% on the fourth result, and 1% on results near the bottom of page one. (Search Engine Land)

75. However—a lower position isn’t always bad. If the searcher clicks the “back” button because the top result didn’t meet expectations, then he or she is 5-8 times more likely to click on a lower result than on the initial search. That is, the CTR for a result near the bottom of page one can be as high as 8% after a “back” button click. (Search Engine Land)

76. 50% of marketers cite web pages as “very effective” for SEO. Really, only 50%? (leaderswest Digital Marketing Journal)

77. Another study puts the figure above at 95%; that sounds more like it. (MarketingSherpa)

78. 50% of consumers say they are more like to click on a search result if the brand appears multiple times on the results page. This is why web presence optimization is vital! (leaderswest Digital Marketing Journal)

79. Marketers produce a wide variety of content to support SEO, with web pages (79%), social media (74%) and blogs (68%) topping the list. The least-used tactics? Mobile apps (14%), digital magazines (11%) and podcasts (8%). (MarketingSherpa)

80. Search AND social rule. Among marketers who rate their companies’ SEO strategies as “highly effective” in achieving marketing objectives, 38% have extensive integration between their social media and SEO tactics, and only5% have no such integration. Among those who call their SEO “not successful,” just 2% have extensive search and social integration,  while 50% have no connection between these activities. (Marketing Charts)

81. Again comparing “superior” to “inferior” SEO strategists, those in the superior group are 67% more likely to say that creating original content is their most effective SEO tactic, and three-and-a-half times more likely to cite changing search engine algorithms as a critical obstacle to achieving their objectives, while being far less likely (6% vs. 58%) to point to the lack of a clear and concise strategy as a main challenge. (Marketing Charts)

82. Organic or paid? No, both! Paid search supports organic SEO efforts: paid-search ads alongside organic listings in position two through five receive two out of every three clicks from the search engine results page (SERP). When organic results are well below the fold in positions six through 10, paid search is responsible for nine out of 10 clicks to the Web site. (MediaPost)

83. Even when organic results fall in the first position, consumers still click on the paid-search ad. When a paid listing appears on a SERP with the top organic listing for the same keyword, the organic result gets 60% of the clicks on average and the paid link 40% of clicks. (MediaPost)

84. Just 23% of marketers generate more than half of all leads through organic search. 22% of companies generate between a quarter and half of all leads via search, and 24% obtain less than one out of every 10 leads via SEO. (MarketingSherpa)

Mobile Marketing Statistics

85. 50% of clicks on mobile banner ads are accidental. (iMedia Connection)

86. Still, mobile video is the fastest growth area in marketing. (iMedia Connection)

87. And 35% of B2B marketers plan to increase their spending on mobile marketing this year. (Social Media Today)

88. Facebook will account for 13% of worldwide mobile ad revenue in 2013. (Social Media Today)

Facebook Statistics and Facts

89. 77% of B2C companies and 43% of B2B vendors have acquired customers from Facebook. (leaderswest Digital Marketing Journal)

90. 81% of B2B decision makers say they visit Facebook at least monthly–but only 2% do so primarily for business purposes, as opposed to 42% who do so primarily for personal purposes. (Marketing Charts)

91. 20% of all internet page views come from Facebook.  (iMedia Connection)

92. 95% of all social media-referred traffic to B2C websites is generated from just five social networks: Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, StumbleUpon, and YouTube. 74% comes from Facebook alone. (It’s All About Revenue)

93. On Facebook, brevity matters. Keeping your posts below 250 characters can get you 60% more engagement than you might otherwise see. You can get up to 66% more engagement if you cut it down to less than 80 characters. (Buffer)

Twitter Statistics and Facts

94. 34% of marketers say they have generated leads from Twitter. (leaderswest Digital Marketing Journal)

95. To maximize click-throughs from your tweets, keep them to 100 characters or less and tweet in the afternoon (between 1:00 and 4:00 EST). (leaderswest Digital Marketing Journal)

96. Twitter accounts for 32% of social media-generated traffic to B2B websites, but 82% of social media leads. Hmm, that doesn’t jive with other research on B2B social media. (MyCustomer.com)

97. 18% of U.S. adult internet users are now on Twitter, double the percentage from 2010. (MediaPost)

98. Using Twitter for social media? Great idea, but you’d better be listening. 81% of Twitter users expect a same-day response to questions and complaints aimed at brands. (Forbes)

99. There are 400 million tweets sent each day. (Social Media Today)

(And incidentally, the only organizations that have indexed all tweets back to the beginning of the service are Twitter itself, the Library of Congress, and Topsy. And presumably the NSA.)

100. 50% of technology companies have acquired a customer through Twitter. (Social Media Today)

101. While posting the same headline and link, over and over, is obnoxious, strategically repeating a tweet several hours apart–when different groups of your followers are likely online–can substantially increase click-throughs, without being annoying. (Buffer)

102. For tweets with links, 120-130 characters is the ideal range to maximize retweets. (Buffer)

103. Use hashtags—but sparingly. Tweets with one or two hashtags get 21% higher engagement on average, but those with three or more actually get 17% less engagement. (Buffer)

According to recent research conducted by InsideSales.com and reported by MarketingProfs, websites,  blogs and search are among the most effective tactics for both lead generation and brand awareness. But social media (including Twitter, Pinterest and Google+), display ads and online video are among the worst activities for achieving either objective.

While the findings are interesting and no doubt reflect the experience of many b2b marketers, it’s crucial not to misinterpret the results. Whether one agrees with conclusions of the research or not, it clearly has one important flaw: ignoring the connections between tactics.

 

Business buyers obtain information from multiple online and offline sources when making significant purchase decisions. A study from Siriius Decisions found that b2b buyers are typically 70% of the way through their purchase process before they contact a vendor’s sales team.

That makes it crucial for companies to be as visible as possible during that research phase, before they even aware of a prospect’s potential interest. And given that more than 90% of b2b buyers use online sources in their buying decisions, it’s vital to maximize web presence.

In order to create a framework to optimize web presence and online visibility,  b2b marketers need to understand and capitalize on the connections between these different tactics. For example, just looking at four of the tactics in the “Established Value” quadrant:

Tradeshows and conferences: marketers can maximize their presence at these events by utilizing a button, badge or “ad” on the company website; direct mail; a blog post about the upcoming event; a notice in the company’s email newsletter; and through social media updates on Twitter and LinkedIn.

During the event, the company can use public relations tactics to meet with industry journalists and other influencers attending the show or conference.

And post-event, the company can keep buzz going by posting photos from the booth on Facebook and Pinterest, and if the show included a speaking opportunity, posting the presentation to SlideShare and possibly even video to YouTube.

Email or electronic newsletters: e-newsletters and marketing email messages serve two basic functions–to share information of value to recipients, and to persuade recipients to take action.

That information may be third-party links, but may also be hosted on the company’s website or blog. Newsletters themselves, new and archived, can be posted on the company website, where they provide search value. Both the email and web-hosted version of the newsletter should contain social links,  encouraging readers to share the content on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook or other social networks.

Newsletter calls to action can include registration for executive events, virtual events, or webinars—all of which appear in the “underused” quadrant in this chart. They can also promote content downloads—reports, white papers, e-books and guides. Website visitors are often more likely to register for an event or download a white paper if the landing page includes a short online video (which is, for this and other reasons, best not a “being abandoned” tactic).

Company websites: these are of course at the core of digital marketing. The ultimate goal of all online tactics (and many offline ones) is to attract visitors to your website to learn more about your products and services, and take some action (purchase, subscribe, register, download, contact sales, or some other conversion action).

The single leading source of traffic for most b2b websites remains organic search. Driving search traffic requires ranking well, which in turn depends on relevant content, high-quality links, and social signals.

The content is going to be housed on company website pages, in the newsletter archive, and in posts on the company blog. It can include images, infographics, rich media, and online video in addition to text.

Some of the highest quality links come from influential industry blogs or news websites, which are supported by an active public relations program. Quality links also come from event sponsorships and industry association websites.

Social signals are driven by links from Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Google+, and even Pinterest. Indeed, recent research indicates that Google+, while not much of a social network, can be highly valuable in achieving the ranking that drives organic search traffic. “Abandon” such tactics at your own risk.

Website traffic can also be driven by offline tactics like radio, outdoor,  and direct mail. Codes can be assigned (e.g., “Visit company.com/radio to learn more”)—or in the case of direct mail, QR codes can be used—in order to track the effectiveness of these channels.

Sponsorships/Associations: event sponsorships as well as membership in and content contributions to industry and trade association websites are key components of industry presence, which can both drive targeted website traffic and create relevant, high-quality backlinks to the company website and/or blog. Event sponsorship can also drive increased booth traffic at tradeshows.

Industry associations also often offer opportunities for guest blog posts (which can then be promoted through social networks), participation and exposure in groups on LinkedIn, and even in some cases online display advertising—which can drive site traffic or targeted calls to action.

The bottom line is that,  while various online and offline tactics clearly differ in direct value and the amount of budget and effort they merit, it’s also vital to recognize and account for the connections between these tactics and how they support each other. This requires using cross-channel online marketing metrics to develop strategies, prioritize tactics, and execute effectively to support your organization’s ultimate online visibility and business goals.