Posts Tagged ‘b2b marketing’
What is Web Presence Optimization, and Why Should I Care?
Tuesday, October 11th, 2011Web presence optimization (WPO) is the art and science of being found online. As indicated in the masthead of my blog, it has both an explanational definition (The fusion of SEO, search marketing, social media, reputation management, content marketing and social PR) and a reasonal one (Being omnipresent on the web for the search phrase that uniquely describes you or your organization.) It’s the evolution of search engine optimization (SEO), or alternatively, SEO on steroids. It is a structured approach to getting your name, company, product or service found online when people are searching for what it is you have to offer. And getting found is the necessary first step to winning that business.
Graphically, it looks something like this:
Why Does It Matter?
As Vanessa Fox puts it in the subtitle of her book Marketing in the Age of Google, “Your Online Strategy IS Your Business Strategy.” Consider the following points:
- • More than 80% of considered consumer purchases (e.g. for high-value, high-involvement products) now start with search, and more than 90% of B2B purchase cycles begin online.
- • Search is no longer just Google and Bing; the second- and third-largest “search engines” by volume of searches are YouTube and Facebook. The internal search functions of social networks LinkedIn and Twitter also have higher volume than most second-tier search engines.
- • Your web presence is no longer limited to your website and blog (as important as those remain). Prospective customers may first find you on a social network, in a blog post written by a key influencer in your market space, on a content network like YouTube or SlideShare, in an online business directory, in an online news release, or in any number of other web venues.
For many businesses, particularly on the B2B side, if your buyers can’t find you online—you don’t exist. Web presence optimization provides a structured approach for maximizing your “findability” online.
Why Social Media Matters for B2B Vendors
Monday, March 28th, 2011Social media marketing has clearly been embraced by consumer brands. Pepsi famously dropped its Super Bowl advertising a year ago in favor of a social media campaign. Coke, Starbucks and Disney are among the top brands on Facebook, with millions of fans. SMR has developed a sophisticated methodology for continuously tracking the top brands on social media based on reach, satisfaction and other metrics.
B2B marketing executives, however, tend to be a bit more skeptical. Though adoption is increasing, many b2b marketers still question the true effectiveness of social media for reaching business buyers. After all, four out of ten companies still ban access to social media sites from the workplace, and many more sharply limit its use. B2B products and services don’t generally make the same kind of emotional connection with buyers that consumer brands do, and tactics that work for b2c marketers (e.g. social media games and contests, “checking in” at retail locations, coupons and discounts) are inappropriate or flat-out inapplicable in the business world. There is, so far, no b2b version of Yelp, and its unlikely there will be anytime soon, as many companies worry about the legal liability entailed in either endorsing or disparaging a specific vendor.
Still, social media is rapidly becoming an essential component of the b2b marketing mix. B2b buyers use social media tools throughout their buying processes, from problem-solving and how-to content in the initial research phase through product/vendor comparisons and customer experience validation. Bloggers provide much of this information, supplementing the reporting and commentary of trade publications and industry analysts. Buyers thwarted from using these tools at work (e.g., part of the four-in-ten companies above) find ways around corporate roadblocks, access social media sites via mobile devices, from home or the local coffee shop, or while traveling. They rely on search and social media through the bulk of their buying process, and expect b2b vendors to be there.
For b2b marketers still trying to quantify the potential benefits of social media marketing, here are a dozen helpful stats. You can find the original sources for most of these findings in Best Social Media Stats, Facts and Marketing Research of 2010.
- • Companies active in social media report a 59% higher lead conversion rate for organic search traffic
- • 85% of B2B buyers say they want B2B vendors to engage and interact with them online
- • 93% of B2B buyers believe that all companies should have a social media presence
- • 9 out of 10 start a purchase process with search (and social media increasingly affects search results)
- • Three-quarters of B2B technology buyers say they use social media at some point during a buying cycle to gather information or communicate with colleagues about a purchase; 58% use LinkedIn for this purpose
- • YouTube reaches 36% of all business decision-makers—more than 10X the figure for Forbes.com
- • 43% of employees in Fortune 1000 companies say they use LinkedIn for professional purposes
- • 100% of the Fortune 500 have at least some of their executives listed on LinkedIn. 50% of LinkedIn users are business decision makers.
- • 65% of journalists use social media to conduct research for stories
- • 59% of C-level executives report using social media for business purposes at least weekly
- • 90% of B2B technology decision makers watch online videos
- • 80% of B2B technology decision makers read blogs; 69% are active on social networks
In short, b2b marketers need to embrace social media marketing because the buyers are using it. They expect vendors to use it as well. And you can’t win the game if you’re not even on the field.
Measuring the Impact of Social Media in B2B Marketing
Wednesday, October 27th, 2010Forrester recently released a report by Laura Ramos and Augie Ray on How to Assess the Impact of Social Media in B2B Tech Marketing. While B2B marketers have been ramping up social media activities over the past 18 months, not all are seeing the outcomes they’d hoped for. As the report notes, “these social pioneers now ponder whether this new social activity will pay off in business results, and when. The tone of our customer inquiries about the role social media plays in B2B marketing has changed from cautious curiosity to healthy skepticism as we see B2B marketers question the amount of effort (required)…struggle to keep activities vibrant…and grapple with social roles and responsibilities.”
Laura and her team further write that “social marketing programs that don’t focus on a specific audience and objective get preoccupied with the tools and fail to connect with customers…Forrester has seen thousands of companies invest in social media, but few understand how to engage in social activity in ways that create a measurable impact on the business…Seeing tech buyers venture into social channels, B2B firms — more than half in a recent Forrester survey — react by spinning up poorly planned ad hoc programs with little organizational structure…as a result, internal teams begin to bicker over social duties, jockey to be the first to launch social programs, and create a disjointed, incoherent customer experience that fosters mistrust, uncertainty and ridicule.”
Wow — “mistrust, uncertainty and ridicule” — obviously not the objectives of any marketing activity. So what can B2B marketers do (other than ignoring social media; a perilous option at best) to avoid this harsh fate?
1. Set goals, understanding what social media is good for — and what it isn’t. Social media is more like a PR activity than marketing or advertising. It’s about engaging with customers, prospects, industry press, analysts, bloggers and other key influencers to increase the amount of positive conversation about your company, product or service. This can be measured in a variety of ways such as number of “mentions” of your company across social media channels, traffic driven directly from social media sites, and increases in branded search traffic (often the result of exposure through social media or traditional PR activities). It may require some creativity to translate these metrics into hard dollar amounts, but that doesn’t mean that social media results can’t, and shouldn’t, be measured. And as with any other marketing or PR activity, social media efforts be focused on a specific audience.
2. Coordinate efforts. This is easiest if different parts of your organization actually work together toward common goals, which should be the case (but isn’t always) in every company. If your internal groups “bicker” and “jockey” as described above, it may require a senior executive to exert control over the process. But “control” is tricky in the social media world. While management needs to communicate objectives, messaging and guidelines for social media use, ultimately employees from different parts of the organization have to realize they are all working toward furthering the success of the company, and coordinate efforts to meet the needs of differing audiences (e.g., separate Twitter accounts for support and marketing, separate business-focused and technology-focused blogs, etc.).
3. Make sure that social media efforts are sustainable. As the authors note later in the report, “Unlike conventional campaigns, community marketing lacks a specific beginning and end to the activity.” In order to avoid in particular the “mistrust” and “ridicule” noted above, social media programs should be designed to be perpetual, or to last at least until they no longer make sense (e.g. a particular platform loses favor; MySpace comes to mind). This requires allocating sufficient staff time to build and maintain social media points of presence, and having a succession plan in place for when team members move on to other opportunities.
The top five social media platforms being utilized by B2B tech marketers according to the report are, in order:
- • Blogs
- • Open, public social networks (e.g., LinkedIn, Facebook)
- • Podcasts
- • Discussion forums
- • Video
Microblogging (i.e., Twitter) surprisingly came in at #7, with an equal number of respondents calling it “less important” for the coming year as making it a higher priority.
Measurement remains the biggest challenge in B2B social media marketing. 77% of respondents said they were either “learning about social media’s impact as they go along” or “struggling to find good ways to measure social outcomes.” Among the minority actually able to assess outcomes, however, most reported seeing benefits in the form of unaided recall, online reach, share of voice, and other brand-related metrics. These results, along with the fact that “many B2B marketers treat social media like an outbound communications channel, and our research highlights the consequences of this choice. Few marketers say that they can measure the impact of social activity on sales lead productivity” reinforce the value of social media as more of a PR-like tool than a direct marketing channel.
The report concludes by recommending that marketers use a combination of value chain analysis and total economic impact (I’ll leave the explanation of these to Forrester) to assess the impact of social media investments on B2B marketing success. Many marketers may find these analytical models difficult to implement and the results of even a successful exercise somewhat fuzzy. What’s most important, however, is to treat social media as an engagement channel rather than a broadcast medium, and structure measurement appropriately.
What’s the value of single phone call with a prospective customer, or a single email exchange? What’s the value of taking a call from an industry journalist who wants to include a quote from your company in a relevant news article? Any of those may be difficult to quantify, but that doesn’t mean you’d even consider ignoring an email or phone call from a prospect or influential journalist. In the end, it’s the same with social media value. It may be difficult to quantify precisely, but B2B vendors can’t afford to ignore it.
Lead Nurturing – How to Develop a Solid Process for B2B Lead Management
Tuesday, September 7th, 2010Guest post by Alexandre Sagala.
Effective lead nurturing is crucial to successful b2b marketing. “Lead nurturing can help you improve your lead conversions over time.” “Lead nurturing will generate an increase in sale opportunities up to 20%.” “Lead nurturing can help you build a trusted relationship with your economic buyer.” Understanding that not every lead is ready to buy right away, but that it’s less costly to convert an existing lead than to generate a new one, you may be asking yourself, “I need to do lead nurturing right—where do I start?”
Here is a process to get you started on the right track.
Planning
Before starting with the execution of lead nurturing campaigns, you need to spend time planning. Ask yourself and answer these questions:
- Do I understand my buyers’ buying cycle? This is extremely important. You need to be able to map out your typical buyer’s buying cycle. It is the basis of any good nurturing campaign since you will building your nurturing campaign content and messages on each step of the buying cycle. Involving sales at this time is a good idea. Confirm your thoughts on the buying cycle with them. They understand it since they deal with buyers all the time.
- Do I have enough quality content for each stage of the buying cycle? Ensure you have content and the different means to deliver that content at the appropriate time to the appropriate buyer. You can have the best buying cycle map but if you don’t have content you won’t be able to nurture your prospects correctly. To make sure you have the right content consider what goes through a potential customer’s mind as he or she makes a buying decision. Are they looking for more information on the product? Do they need more explanations on the value proposition?
- How will I measure my results? Will it be by tracking number of closed sales? Will it be by percentage of buyers moving from one stage to another in my buying map? Make sure you know this before you start so you can measure the results of your nurturing campaigns accordingly.
- What do I plan to achieve? Do you want to see an increase in the numbers of sales closed? Do you want to build a trusted relationship with your economic buyer? There are different objectives possible from a lead nurturing campaign. Make sure you know why you are doing it and then communicate it internally. This will set the right expectations with everyone in your business and make it easier to interpret campaign results.
Execution
Typically, a lead nurturing program uses these communication mechanisms: emails, case studies, articles, events, podcasts, white papers, social media messages and webinars. Use the map that you built during your planning stage and map content pieces (emails, case studies on product successes, invitation to a webinar) to each step. Think about what type of information the potential buyer is looking for at each stage. What questions will the buyer want answers to? Provide those answers using the mechanisms listed above.
Good practice dictates that mechanism be mixed and matched at each step since different buyers’ prefer different means of communication (written vs. audio vs. video). You should also ensure you are trying to move the potential buyer to the next stage of the buying cycle with your communications. Providing a way to get in contact with sales during the later phases is also a good practice.
An example of simple lead nurturing campaign could be:
- Day 1: Visitor downloads whitepaper on “Effective lead nurturing” (capture visitor information so we can communicate with him).
- Day 3: Lead is sent email thanking him for the download and inviting him to a webinar on lead nurturing.
- Day 7: Lead attends webinar. Send follow-up email asking if he would be interested in learning more how your product can help with lead nurturing.
- If “yes,” schedule a demo with sales. (qualified lead!)
- If “no,” continue nurturing.
- Day 15: Email recent customer success story, in related industry if possible.
- Day 21: Email “touching base” note. Offer other valuable information (case study, new blog post etc..)
- Day 30: Prospect calls up sales (qualified lead!)
Spacing and number of communications should be based on the length of your average sales cycle and complexity of product/services being sold. The more complex and the longer the sales cycle is, the more widely spaced the communications should be.
With this plan and information in place, you should be ready to start your nurturing your leads. If you start a lead nurturing campaign after reading this article l would be interested in knowing how it went. Let me know by email (contact information is on website listed below.)
Alexandre Sagala is the co-founder of Alsamarketing, a provider of marketing automation software that helps marketers convert and nurture online visitors into customers.
Book Review: SNAP Selling
Wednesday, August 18th, 2010Don’t you love it when you pick up a book and realize in just the first few pages that the author really gets it? Even better, they don’t just get “it,” but offer a fresh and compelling approach to dealing with the specific problem, situation, condition of modern life, etc.?
Well, SNAP Selling: Speed Up Sales and Win More Business with Today’s Frazzled Customers
Before even fully awake, “you’re on the computer checking what seems like an endless stream of email. When you look at your to-do list, you wonder how you’ll be able to get everything done. You have a dozen people to follow up with on the phone, three meetings, and a proposal that needs to be finished…Rather than take a break for lunch, you grab a quick sandwich at the vending machine and eat it at your desk. That way you can update your files and take care of paperwork that needs to be processed. Then you head out for that presentation that you wish you’d had more time to prepare for. After the presentation, you have a ton of questions that now need to get answered before the end of the week…By the time you get home, you’re tired. But rather than turning in for the day, you work on a proposal for a while, then finish up by checking your email one last time. The next day you get up and do it all over again.”
People are reluctant to add anything more to their frenetic schedules, least of all spending time listening to a sales pitch. No matter how compelling the value proposition for the product or service, it involves change, more work, and more time out of an already overburdened schedule. As Jill notes, for sales (and marketing) people in this environment, “what worked before doesn’t work anymore…the advice of many ‘traditional’ sales gurus is now hopelessly outdated…(and) things are never going to to go back to the way they used to be.” SNAP Selling
According to Jill, today’s buyers make three distinct decisions that sales pros need to aware of. The first is when they evaluate your approach and determine whether it’s even worth their time to meet with you. Once past that hurdle, their next decision is determining if making the change required is worth the cost, time and effort required. Finally, the third decision is, having committed to making a change, selecting the best product / service / vendor for their company.
Jill describes the SNAP selling process as:
Simple (eliminate as much complexity and effort as possible from the decision-making process)
iNvaluable (products and services can be copied; your expertise can’t)
Aligned (it’s crucial to be relevant — always)
Priority (maintain a sense of urgency)
Before delving into the detail behind the SNAP model, Jill notes that “Knowing as much as you can about your targeted prospect is more important than your knowledge of your own product, service, or solution. Most sellers don’t realize this, but it’s true…(but by implementing SNAP selling processes) you won’t have to work as hard as your today to achieve significantly better results.” Now that’s a compelling value proposition!
After describing the SNAP method in more detail, the book walks you through the application of these principals and practices to achieve success in each of the three major decisions (and all of the smaller decisions involved in keeping the buying process moving forward).
Though written primarily for sales professionals, SNAP Selling
In short, SNAP Selling
