How to generate high quality B2B leads with international digital marketing

1
How to generate
high-quality
B2B leads with
international
digital
marketing

obaninternational.com2
Hello!
Chloë McKenna
Director of
Business Growth
Xabier Izaguirre
Head of Planning
2 @ObanIntl | obaninternational.com

What we’ll cover today
#1 #2
Why digital for
international B2B
marketing?
Who are your
international b2b
customers?
#4 #5
Promotion through
international paid
media
Key takeaways
#3
Creating content for
your global audiences
#6
Q & A

obaninternational.com
Oban in a nutshell
• We’re a digital marketing agency that
specialises in delivering international
growth
• We help businesses with international
ambitions hit tough targets
• Our unique cultural understanding helps
businesses like yours identify the biggest
opportunities and avoid the costliest
mistakes

Our B2B experience

Why digital for
international B2B
marketing?
6

@ObanIntl | obaninternational.com7
Online is key for B2B decision making
online elsewhere
Source: Global Web index

Online is key for B2B decision making
• Recommendations
and direct contact
from companies are
important
• B2B decision makers
also consider search
engines, websites and
the company’s owned
channels

B2B researchers increasingly have a brand in
mind from the start, so influencing prior to
realisation of a B2B purchase is critical
Source: Google, “Influencing the B2B Journey”, 2017
68%
32%
2017
47%
Start with a
brand in mind
Don’t have a
brand in mind
53%
58%Stuck with
brand in mind
94%
2015

Mobile generates almost half of revenues for
B2B leaders
Mobile Leaders Mobile Laggards
22%
49%
23%
47%
14%
48%
5%
39%
14%
42%
Queries Traffic Leads Transactions Revenue
Average % mobile
+3x
Average % total revenue
contributed or influenced by mobile
Source:
BCG Marketer Survey, March 2017

Who are your
international
customers?
11

Profiling your international customers
Opportunity scoping
Audience research
Cultural research
Brand perception
Content needs
What do you need to consider?

Opportunity: Prioritising international markets
High Strength
High Opportunity
Low Opportunity
Low Strength
Too small

Audience: Profiling your international customers
Don’t
• Assume you understand your
international audiences based on
what you know from the UK
• Launch into activity without a
clear market strategy
Do
• Research competitive landscape
in-market and conduct audience
research
• Consider executing an in-market
Discovery

What we need to know about your audience
• “Who is it that I want to communicate with?”
• “What do people look for who are buying my type of product (or
service)?”
• “What message (or messages) can I use to get them interested
in my products and services?”
• What are my core USPs in relation to other in-market
competitors?
• “How can I reach these people?”

Understanding your audience
‘How do we do
things around here?’
Characteristics,
behaviours and
qualifiers
Cultural research Audience research
First, understand culture
Then, go deeper into a
specific audience
Quantitative
study
Market trends
research
In-depth
interviews

Culture: Be aware aware of cultural differences
Business etiquette
and protocol differ
across countries.
Even neighbouring
countries such as
Spain and UK can
require a very
different approach.
Source: Global Web index
When purchasing items for your business or department, how do you typically find out about new brands? (audience is ‘IT decision makers’)

Consider conducting audience research
Desk
research
• Establish what is
known and doesn’t
need to be
explored with
primary research
• Includes audience
measurement and
data mining of
search and sales
data
Qualitative
• Evaluate how
consumers think
and behave
• Methods include
consumer
interviews, expert
interviews, focus
groups and online
communities
Quantitative
• Quantify and
cluster those
attitudes and
behaviours
• Accept / reject
hypothesis and
provide
quantification

How people make decisions should impact…
everything
Germans like to think things through.
They engage in thorough research and
will compare prices
In addition to that, they are 40% more
likely than the average internet user to be
concerned with internet security
How would you localise your German-
language website for lead-gen differently
in light of this?
“Why do I have to give my name
before I get a quote? I just want
a price…I wouldn’t like them to
have my personal details.”
-Tobias, German LIME

Creating content for
your B2B international
audiences
20

Generating leads is a multi-channel effort
Owned media
Content
Email
Social channels
Earned media
Trade PR
Events
Paid media
Content promotion
Search & Performance
Partnerships &
Sponsorship

It all starts with great content
47% of buyers consume between 3 and
5 pieces of content before talking to a
sales rep
Content should be:
• Based on what your audience needs/
wants to read
• Genuinely useful
• Showcase your business expertise in
your sector
Source: B2B content preferences survey report

Successful global content strategy requires:
Industry and product
knowledge
Understanding of your
international
audiences
Consideration of user
journey and UX
• How do your customers
talk about your products?
• What information do they
seek online?
Ensure that your content
demonstrates that you are
trusted industry thought-
leaders & experts
• How do search queries
and search semantics
differ by market?
• How can we ensure that
your content is relevant?
Take a market-lead
approach to content
optimisation to ensure it
resonates with local
audiences
• How can we encourage
further interaction from
visitors to your site?
• How can we encourage
engagement and onward
journey?
Identify the purpose of
content and include clear
calls to action/ onward
journey
23 obaninternational.com23 @ObanIntl | obaninternational.com

How to generate international content ideas
Find out what
people in-market
are searching for /
sharing
Find out what your
international competitors
have already created (and
how)
Review what has
worked in the past –
analyse GA /
historical lead data

Once you have it, optimise it
Consider International SEO best
practice:
• Conduct in-market keyword
research
• Optimise your metadata to ensure
you are as visible as possible
• Ensure your site is optimised for
international search through correct
implementation of Hreflang tags

Understanding local user semantics is key
Client example: 125 menu items creating 650,000 extra searches a
month when localised rather than translated
DIRECTLY TRANSLATED TERMS OBAN’S LOCALISED ALTERNATIVES
English translation Keyword Searches English translation Keyword Searches
ladies' knitwear damen strickmode 40 ladies sweaters strickjacken damen 2900
skating shoes skating-schuhe 0 skater shoes skaterschuhe 2900
skiing clothing skifahren bekleidung 10 ski wear skibekleidung 8100
Dancewear tanz bekleidung 70 dance clothing tanzbekleidung 1900
kids wellies kinder wellies 0 kids wellies gummistiefel kinder 2900
men tracksuits herren trainingsanzüge 70 tracksuit men trainingsanzug herren 2900
ladies tracksuits damen trainingsanzüge 90 tracksuit women trainingsanzug damen 1900
ladies wellies damen wellies 0 rubber boots ladies gummistiefel damen 3600
women's hiking boots damen hiking-stiefel 0 hiking boots women wanderschuhe damen 4400

Consider the real use of language – B2B example
Native / English Keyword Volume
English Business Process Management 1,300
Native Geschäftsprozessmanagement 800
Native / English Keyword Volume
English Business Process Management 250
Native Gestion de procesos operativos 30
Native Gestion de procesos de negocio 20

Content experience goes beyond the copy
Poor page load speed can be a major barrier to
content engagement across markets.
Over 3-4 seconds can double or treble bounce
rates and therefore harm conversion rates
Typical culprits are:
• Heavy images
• Javascript code
• Server bandwith
Source: Pingdom, 2018
https://royal.pingdom.com/page-load-time-really-affect-bounce-rate/
Make sure great content isn’t let down by
poor on-site experience for users

To gate, or not to gate
Traditionally, you create a
‘whitepaper’ and put it
behind a form in a landing
page. This is based on a
‘value exchange’ idea
Don’t assume you always
want to do this

Arguments not to gate content
Content that is not
gated will be shared
freely and therefore
reach more people and
generate more
backlinks
As more traffic
becomes mobile, users
are less interested in
downloading PDFs
You can remarket to
visitors of your
ungated content with
a call to action to get
in touch, or with
product information

Mobile customers require a different approach
Client example: Mobile
conversion rates 4-6 times
lower for gated content
So, If you are promoting a PDF
or any other downloadable,
you could
• Offer to email the report
• Exclude mobile traffic
• Focus video and un-gated
content for mobile users
Account
Device
Category
Bounce Rate Pages/Session CvR
Client DE
desktop 76.40% 1.72 1.40%
mobile 90.09% 1.26 0.27%
Client FR
desktop 82.50% 1.48 1.29%
Mobile 94.74% 1.09 0.38%
Client CH
Desktop 78.17% 1.50 3.52%
mobile 90.70% 1.19 0.78%

When gating, consider the form carefully
Only ask for information you really need
Optimise the form through user reviews
Consider differences across countries

Only ask for information you really need
Phone numbers can be really useful to
reach your leads with a warm, personable
call.
Date of birth and personal postal address
can also be really useful to send flowers
and chocolates on your lead’s birthday 
But - Just because you can
ask for them doesn’t mean
you should. You will be
harming your conversion rate
every extra field you create, so
consider and test this balanceSource: The 2017 SAP Hybris Global Consumer Insights Report -
https://www.hybris.com/medias/sys_master/root/h5d/hca/8824
150687774/consumer-insight-survey-global-17-EN.pdf
Only 15-30% of consumers are
willing to share their phone number,
typically half of those who feel
comfortable with email

Optimise onsite data-capture through great UX
Example: We optimised the UX of
whitepaper sign-up form for our client
Appian
1. Page was too text heavy
2. Bold text catches users’ attention
3. Key reasons of ‘why to download’
were not prominent enough
4. The form was being initially
overlooked
1
4
3
2

Consider cultural differences
France
Italy
Review the grammar of the
quoted text – split
compounded sentences to
facilitate reading
By law, there must be a link
or text explaining the
company’s privacy policy –
place this near the form

The best in both worlds – gated and ungated

Promoting through
international paid
media
37

Take an agnostic approach to channel selection
Leads & CPA per Platform
Linkedin is the best platform for B2B promotion, right? Not always – think
broader and look at CPC / CPA results to help inform your paid strategy

Consider different platforms and ad formats
Facebook
Lead Gen
LinkedIn

Consider international platforms as well
33% market share in USA
75% market share in China
54% market share in Russia
74% market share in Korea
23% market share in Japan
Americas, Africa, West & Central Europe:
GOOGLE & BING
Eastern Europe:
GOOGLE, YANDEX, SEZNAM & RAMBLER
Middle East:
GOOGLE, YAHOO! AND REDIFF
Asia:
BAIDU, HAUSOU NAVER, YAHOO! JAPAN
Rules of thumb

The usual process: Translated keyword list
English Translation
The usual process to international paid media is often to use an English Keyword list and
simply translate it for different markets …but this doesn’t get the best results!

Our process: Language-first approach is best
Native Back-translation
We always take a language-first approach and use our LIME network to create seedword
lists in-language, then provide back translations. This ensures we capture all the right and
relevant search terms by understanding local interest and semantics

Selected client results in 2018:
Revenue ▲54% YoYTD
(+£2.4m)
ROI ▲41% YoYTD
(1.7 to 2.4)
Traffic ▲48% YoYTD
(+282,200 clicks)
Expansion to North America
(Started EU only, doubled media)
EU CPA ▼40% comp. to M1
(£11 to £7)
NA CPA ▼77% YoY
(£25 to £6)
Quotes ▲75% YoY
(@cost down 13%)
CPA ▼50% YoY
(£93 to £62)
Traffic ▲61% YoY
(+38,000 clicks)

Key takeaways
• Take the time to really understand who your international audiences
are – conduct market-discovery research
• Invest time in planning and strategy
• Use data to inform content creation that will resonate
• Think carefully about how you present content and make it available
• Onsite UX should be optimised to facilitate lead-gen
• Execute paid promotion to reach the right audiences with the right
message

Thank you!
Come and find us
at stand 2332
47

How to generate high quality B2B leads with international digital marketing

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