B2B today is very important if one business wants to make a commercial transaction with another. To do that is important to follow various steps that are here easily listed and explained. Search engine marketing and promotion, Web 2.0 promotion, how to create the right content, picking the best order for a particular media buy and others aspects are touched here.
15 ideas and frameworks on the art of storytelling
B to B lead generation
1. B to B Lead Generation
MARCO MASU
NODARI NAZGAIDZE
2. Content
• Picking the best order for a particular media buy
• Search engine marketing
• Search engine optimization
• Web 2.0 promotions
• Where and how do you get great content
3. Picking the best offer for a particular
media buy
• Targeted VS broad audience
– The audience is already very targeted
– Broad audience, not entirely qualified (website)
• The attention hump
– Audience is already looking for you
– If not, wave your arms!
Picking the
best order
4. Search engine marketing
• Size of marketing budget SEO spending
• Enables you to guess the stage a buyer is in:
– Early stage “CRM”
– Middle stage “CRM for manufacturing”
– Later stage “Siebel CRM for manufacturing”
Picking the
best order
Search
engine
marketing
5. B to B SEM budget percentages – 1,2 M
28%
30%
4.50%
15%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
Online as share of total PPC as share of online SEO as share of online Ratio of SEO to PPC
Picking the
best order
Search
engine
marketing
6. Basic types of search engine marketing
• SEO – organic listings, natural listings, free listings
• PPC/Paid Search – Google AdWords, Yahoo Directory Listings
• Vertical Search Engines & Directories – Business.com
• Contextual ads – Google AdSense, Yahoo Publisher Network
Picking the
best order
Search
engine
marketing
7. Search engine optimization
• Hire an agency or consultant for a baseline site review and an
ongoing maintenance proposal
– Two agencies: PPC VS SEO
• If needed, re-engineer the site’s construction for SEO purposes
– Add relevant content and keywords so spiders find it more easily
Picking the
best order
Search
engine
marketing
Search
engine
optimization
8. SEO lift after 6 months of optimization
Agency VS In-House
50% 50%
105%
69%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
120%
SEO AGENCY (ESTIMATE OF CLIENTS AVERAGE
LIFT)
IN-HOUSE (ESTIMATE OF SIX MONTHS LIFT)
Picking the
best order
Search
engine
marketing
Search
engine
optimization
9. Web tips for b-to-b marketers
- If you tested a Web 2.0 tactic once in the past and it didn’t work,
don’t assume your results will be true for the rest of history. You
need to test major tactics annually. For example, if you tried a
podcast and it didn’t work two years ago, that doesn’t mean it
won’t be winner now.
- Just because your brand is bleeding-edge, it doesn’t mean your
marketing has to be. Your marketing copy can say bleeding-edge
things – but via traditional, proven media.
- Ask your PR firm or communications experts to continually
watch and evaluate Web 2.0 media (Wikipedia, blogs, message
boards, etc.), so you can be aware of what people say and think
about your brand.
Picking the
best order
Search
engine
marketing
Search
engine
optimization
Web 2.0
promotions
10. Web tips for b-to-b marketers
(continued)
- Given the fact that many executives rely on mobile devices
rather than on PCs for primary email communications, if you
believe mobile to be Web 2.0, definitely pay attention to this.
- On web 2.0 There are self-proclaimed experts whose opinions
your prospects may often take more seriously than those of the
press and your own marketing materials. You can’t use
traditional PR methods to influence them. They need to be
handled with respect, building one-to-one relationships and
inviting them to your user conferences.
Picking the
best order
Search
engine
marketing
Search
engine
optimization
Web 2.0
promotions
11. B-TO-B WEB 2.0 VIDEOS
Tip #1.
Create a YouTube channel to organize your videos; the channel
pages should include:
- A description of the content creator – in this case, your business;
- A range of communication options, including the ability for users
to email you, subscribe to your channel or share videos with
friends ;
- The channel’s history on YouTube, including creation date, total
number of videos added and most recent video;
- Hotlinks to all videos uploaded by that member
Picking the
best order
Search
engine
marketing
Search
engine
optimization
Web 2.0
promotions
12. B-TO-B WEB 2.0 VIDEOS
(continued)
- Tip #2.
- Make videos with high production values.
- B-to-B videos should employ high-quality, professional
techniques to reflect your brand and convey authority.
- They also include animated charts, graphics and other images to
help illustrate key data points as the presenter describes them,
to “make the information come alive”.
Picking the
best order
Search
engine
marketing
Search
engine
optimization
Web 2.0
promotions
13. Where & how do you get great content?
• By “content” we mean any material that is informational in
nature and not explicitly a sales advertisement for your product
or service. Content could be in the format of a white paper, a
YouTube video, an event speech, newsletter article, a press
release, etc. It might contain factual information about your
product, your happy customers, your thought leadership or it
might be about your prospect – how-to tips, industry trends and
data.
Picking the
best order
Search
engine
marketing
Search
engine
optimization
Web 2.0
promotions
Where & how
do you get
great content
14. Where & how do you get great content?
(continued)
• Content has to appeal to its audience’s needs and desires. Most
marketers ignore or discount this critical fact. Most marketers’
content initiatives are driven by their own internal needs not by
what the prospects care about
Picking the
best order
Search
engine
marketing
Search
engine
optimization
Web 2.0
promotions
Where & how
do you get
great content
15. Picking the
best order
Search
engine
marketing
Search
engine
optimization
Web 2.0
promotions
Where & how
do you get
great content
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
Interview with top executive on state of industry
Interview with top analyst on state of industry
Case study on how a company used a product to learn
something new
Top 10 list of ways to improve business
How-to-guide for using a product/service to better
advantage
New research on some aspect of your industry
Case study on how a company used a product to
improve a business process
End users Marketers
What’s the #1 most interesting content?
16. IT’S ALWAYS ABOUT THEM (NOT YOU)
People are by nature self-centered. Prospects don’t care about
you; they care about themselves.
Picking the
best order
Search
engine
marketing
Search
engine
optimization
Web 2.0
promotions
Where & how
do you get
great content
17. - Safety – keep your job, keep your company safe in a risky time,
safeguard your department, avoid looking foolish, pick the most
careful course of action, peer-vetted, proven, time-tested.
- Ease – make your job easier, save time, reduce stress, how-to,
assistance, help, quick-and-easy, simplify.
- Greed – salary increases/bonuses, wealth, profits, rewards, more
of something, stockpiling.
Picking the
best order
Search
engine
marketing
Search
engine
optimization
Web 2.0
promotions
Where & how
do you get
great content
Content becomes must-read (or must-view)
by appealing one of these top-five job related
emotions
18. Content becomes must-read (or must-view)
by appealing one of these top-five job related
emotions (continued)
- Power – power to convince a boss or committee to agree with you;
power to get your budget passed; powerful insights that can
change one’s direction for the better.
- Ego – knowing or proving you are better than other people; being
recognized as outstanding in the company of your peers.
Picking the
best order
Search
engine
marketing
Search
engine
optimization
Web 2.0
promotions
Where & how
do you get
great content
In order to capture all the leads you deserve, you need to have multiple offers all out in the same marketplace at the same time. It’s a bit like fishing – you need to bait your hook with different worms and lures for different sorts of fish.
By nature of media buy is the audience already very targeted so you can predict what sort of offer is best for them. Pick the offer they are most likely to say yes.
Is the audience qualified but broad in that they may be a wide variety of points in the sales cycle or in the decision making tree? Display a buffet of options so they can self select.
Is the audience broad and not entirely qualified? (website where a segment of readers is perfect for your offering but the rest are not. Make a targeted offer most likely to appeal to just the qualified names on that list. The offer should be of limited appeal because non-qualified respondents only cost you more money in the long run.
If the audience is looking for you (website, social media) you have their attention. You just have to fulfill their needs.
If they do not look for you but are involved in something else (reading an article), you have to wave your arms creatively in order to get attention.
Competitive intelligence can be a big help for the attention lump. If you review the ads your competitors place in the same media, you’ll probably notice that most look and sound pretty much alike. You can get incredible response lift by simply differentiating your message ( in a manner that suits brand dignity and making your creative stand out.
It is worth noting that as the size of your total marketing budget goes down, SEO spend as a percent of budget more than doubles while PPC can often hold fairly steady. It’s because for many companies/websites SEO is fixed cost unless you decide to launch into a radically different marketplace or product offering and need a lot of new pages optimized for new keywords.
Search marketing is a huge boon to vertical B to B marketers because at long last you can reach hard to find prospects at the precise point when they are looking for info about your product category.
Plus you can guess at what stage a buyer is in by what search terms they use. Early stage search: may use term “CRM”, slightly more considered search: “CRM for manufacturing”, later stage search: “Siebel CRM for manufacturing”
SEO – organic listings, natural listings, free listings
Pros: no cost, top ranked listings get 90% of clicks
Cons: can take 4-6 months to see impact, hard to control
PPC/Paid Search – Google AdWords, Yahoo Directory Listings
Pros: control rank/position, can beat competitors by auction, fast results
Cons: if you stop paying you are invisible, less trustworthy
Vertical Search Engines & Directories – Business.com
Pros: high conversion rate, rank high in paid and organic spots
Cons: more work, Few SEM agencies can handle well, pricing not easy
Contextual ads – Google AdSense, Yahoo Publisher Network
Pros: easy turn on/off, good for branding, extends your reach
Cons: prospects not actively looking for you, requires different strategy than ppc campaigns, less precisely targeted by subject matter
Hire an agency or consultant for a baseline site review and an ongoing maintenance proposal.
Even if you do not outsource to a specialist and your in-house SEO staffers are average you’ll se a double-digit total traffic lift to your site. However if you hire an outside specialist which is full-time optimization expert, your lift may be in the triple digits.
Many marketers hire two different agencies for PPC VS SEO and make sure two teams play well together.
If needed, re-engineer the site’s construction for SEO purposes. In addition to adding relevant content to your site that’s both open-access and keyword loaded you may have to change the way the current content is posted so spiders can find it more easily.
Key- this is not a short term strategy. Getting ranked might take six months or longer. The longer the microsite or blog is live and the more content and inbound links gather over time, the more search engines will take it seriously.
Search marketing is a huge boon to vertical B to B marketers because at long last you can reach hard to find prospects a the precise point when they are looking for info about your product category.
Plus you can guess at what stage a buyer is in by what search terms they use. Early stage search: may use term “CRM”, slightly more considered search: “CRM for manufacturing”, later stage search: “Siebel CRM for manufacturing”