This document provides an overview of analyzing business markets and organizational buying. It discusses the key aspects of business-to-business marketing including the buying center process, stages in the buying process, developing marketing programs, and managing customer relationships. Different buying situations and how to target decision makers within organizations are also examined.
Mastering Local SEO for Service Businesses in the AI Era is tailored specifically for local service providers like plumbers, dentists, and others seeking to dominate their local search landscape. This session delves into leveraging AI advancements to enhance your online visibility and search rankings through the Content Factory model, designed for creating high-impact, SEO-driven content. Discover the Dollar-a-Day advertising strategy, a cost-effective approach to boost your local SEO efforts and attract more customers with minimal investment. Gain practical insights on optimizing your online presence to meet the specific needs of local service seekers, ensuring your business not only appears but stands out in local searches. This concise, action-oriented workshop is your roadmap to navigating the complexities of digital marketing in the AI age, driving more leads, conversions, and ultimately, success for your local service business.
Key Takeaways:
Embrace AI for Local SEO: Learn to harness the power of AI technologies to optimize your website and content for local search. Understand the pivotal role AI plays in analyzing search trends and consumer behavior, enabling you to tailor your SEO strategies to meet the specific demands of your target local audience. Leverage the Content Factory Model: Discover the step-by-step process of creating SEO-optimized content at scale. This approach ensures a steady stream of high-quality content that engages local customers and boosts your search rankings. Get an action guide on implementing this model, complete with templates and scheduling strategies to maintain a consistent online presence. Maximize ROI with Dollar-a-Day Advertising: Dive into the cost-effective Dollar-a-Day advertising strategy that amplifies your visibility in local searches without breaking the bank. Learn how to strategically allocate your budget across platforms to target potential local customers effectively. The session includes an action guide on setting up, monitoring, and optimizing your ad campaigns to ensure maximum impact with minimal investment.
In this presentation, Danny Leibrandt explains the impact of AI on SEO and what Google has been doing about it. Learn how to take your SEO game to the next level and win over Google with his new strategy anyone can use. Get actionable steps to rank your name, your business, and your clients on Google - the right way.
Key Takeaways:
1. Real content is king
2. Find ways to show EEAT
3. Repurpose across all platforms
Digital Commerce Lecture for Advanced Digital & Social Media Strategy at UCLA...Valters Lauzums
E-commerce in 2024 is characterized by a dynamic blend of opportunities and significant challenges. Supply chain disruptions and inventory shortages are critical issues, leading to increased shipping delays and rising costs, which impact timely delivery and squeeze profit margins. Efficient logistics management is essential, yet it is often hampered by these external factors. Payment processing, while needing to ensure security and user convenience, grapples with preventing fraud and integrating diverse payment methods, adding another layer of complexity. Furthermore, fulfillment operations require a streamlined approach to handle volume spikes and maintain accuracy in order picking, packing, and shipping, all while meeting customers' heightened expectations for faster delivery times.
Amid these operational challenges, customer data has emerged as an important strategy. By focusing on personalization and enhancing customer experience from historical behavior, businesses can deliver improved website and brand experienced, better product recommendations, optimal promotions, and content to meet individual preferences. Better data analytics can also help in effectively creating marketing campaigns, improving customer retention, and driving product development and inventory management.
Innovative formats such as social commerce and live shopping are beginning to impact the digital commerce landscape, offering new ways to engage with customers and drive sales, and may provide opportunity for brands that have been priced out or seen a downturn with post-pandemic shopping behavior. Social commerce integrates shopping experiences directly into social media platforms, tapping into the massive user bases of these networks to increase reach and engagement. Live shopping, on the other hand, combines entertainment and real-time interaction, providing a dynamic platform for showcasing products and encouraging immediate purchases. These innovations not only enhance customer engagement but also provide valuable data for businesses to refine their strategies and deliver superior shopping experiences.
The e-commerce sector is evolving rapidly, and businesses that effectively manage operational challenges and implement innovative strategies are best positioned for long-term success.
Monthly Social Media News Update May 2024Andy Lambert
TL;DR. These are the three themes that stood out to us over the course of last month.
1️⃣ Social media is becoming increasingly significant for brand discovery. Marketers are now understanding the impact of social and budgets are shifting accordingly.
2️⃣ Instagram’s new algorithm and latest guidance will help us maintain organic growth. Instagram continues to evolve, but Reels remains the most crucial tool for growth.
3️⃣ Collaboration will help us unlock growth. Who we work with will define how fast we grow. Meta continues to evolve their Creator Marketplace and now TikTok are beginning to push ‘collabs’ more too.
Videos are more engaging, more memorable, and more popular than any other type of content out there. That’s why it’s estimated that 82% of consumer traffic will come from videos by 2025.
And with videos evolving from landscape to portrait and experts promoting shorter clips, one thing remains constant – our brains LOVE videos.
So is there science behind what makes people absolutely irresistible on camera?
The answer: definitely yes.
In this jam-packed session with Stephanie Garcia, you’ll get your hands on a steal-worthy guide that uncovers the art and science to being irresistible on camera. From body language to words that convert, she’ll show you how to captivate on command so that viewers are excited and ready to take action.
10 Video Ideas Any Business Can Make RIGHT NOW!
You'll never draw a blank again on what kind of video to make for your business. Go beyond the basic categories and truly reimagine a brand new advanced way to brainstorm video content creation. During this masterclass you'll be challenged to think creatively and outside of the box and view your videos through lenses you may have never thought of previously. It's guaranteed that you'll leave with more than 10 video ideas, but I like to under-promise and over-deliver. Don't miss this session.
Key Takeaways:
How to use the Video Matrix
How to use additional "Lenses"
Where to source original video ideas
Mastering Multi-Touchpoint Content Strategy: Navigate Fragmented User JourneysSearch Engine Journal
Digital platforms are constantly multiplying, and with that, user engagement is becoming more intricate and fragmented.
So how do you effectively navigate distributing and tailoring your content across these various touchpoints?
Watch this webinar as we dive into the evolving landscape of content strategy tailored for today's fragmented user journeys. Understanding how to deliver your content to your users is more crucial than ever, and we’ll provide actionable tips for navigating these intricate challenges.
You’ll learn:
- How today’s users engage with content across various channels and devices.
- The latest methodologies for identifying and addressing content gaps to keep your content strategy proactive and relevant.
- What digital shelf space is and how your content strategy needs to pivot.
With Wayne Cichanski, we’ll explore innovative strategies to map out and meet the diverse needs of your audience, ensuring every piece of content resonates and connects, regardless of where or how it is consumed.
The session includes a brief history of the evolution of search before diving into the roles technology, content, and links play in developing a powerful SEO strategy in a world of Generative AI and social search. Discover how to optimize for TikTok searches, Google's Gemini, and Search Generative Experience while developing a powerful arsenal of tools and templates to help maximize the effectiveness of your SEO initiatives.
Key Takeaways:
Understand how search engines work
Be able to find out where your users search
Know what is required for each discipline of SEO
Feel confident creating an SEO Plan
Confidently measure SEO performance
Top 3 Ways to Align Sales and Marketing Teams for Rapid GrowthDemandbase
In this session, Demandbase’s Stephanie Quinn, Sr. Director of Integrated and Digital Marketing, Devin Rosenberg, Director of Sales, and Kevin Rooney, Senior Director of Sales Development will share how sales and marketing shapes their day-to-day and what key areas are needed for true alignment.
Come learn how YOU can Animate and Illuminate the World with Generative AI's Explosive Power. Come sit in the driver's seat and learn to harness this great technology.
SEO as the Backbone of Digital MarketingFelipe Bazon
In this talk Felipe Bazon will share how him and his team at Hedgehog Digital share our journey of making C-Levels alike, specially CMOS realize that SEO is the backbone of digital marketing by showing how SEO can contribute to brand awareness, reputation and authority and above all how to use SEO to create more robust global marketing strategies.
The digital marketing industry is changing faster than ever and those who don’t adapt with the times are losing market share. Where should marketers be focusing their efforts? What strategies are the experts seeing get the best results? Get up-to-speed with the latest industry insights, trends and predictions for the future in this panel discussion with some leading digital marketing experts.
Financial curveballs sent many American families reeling in 2023. Household budgets were squeezed by rising interest rates, surging prices on everyday goods, and a stagnating housing market. Consumers were feeling strapped. That sentiment, however, appears to be waning. The question is, to what extent?
To take the pulse of consumers’ feelings about their financial well-being ahead of a highly anticipated election, ThinkNow conducted a nationally representative quantitative survey. The survey highlights consumers’ hopes and anxieties as we move into 2024. Let's unpack the key findings to gain insights about where we stand.
Short video marketing has sweeped the nation and is the fastest way to build an online brand on social media in 2024. In this session you will learn:- What is short video marketing- Which platforms work best for your business- Content strategies that are on brand for your business- How to sell organically without paying for ads.
Most small businesses struggle to see marketing results. In this session, we will eliminate any confusion about what to do next, solving your marketing problems so your business can thrive. You’ll learn how to create a foundational marketing OS (operating system) based on neuroscience and backed by real-world results. You’ll be taught how to develop deep customer connections, and how to have your CRM dynamically segment and sell at any stage in the customer’s journey. By the end of the session, you’ll remove confusion and chaos and replace it with clarity and confidence for long-term marketing success.
Key Takeaways:
• Uncover the power of a foundational marketing system that dynamically communicates with prospects and customers on autopilot.
• Harness neuroscience and Tribal Alignment to transform your communication strategies, turning potential clients into fans and those fans into loyal customers.
• Discover the art of automated segmentation, pinpointing your most lucrative customers and identifying the optimal moments for successful conversions.
• Streamline your business with a content production plan that eliminates guesswork, wasted time, and money.
For too many years marketing and sales have operated in silos...while in some forward thinking companies, the two organizations work together to drive new opportunity development and revenue. This session will explore the lessons learned in that beautiful dance that can occur when marketing and sales work together...to drive new opportunity development, account expansion and customer satisfaction.
No, this is not a conversation about MQLs and SQLs. Instead we will focus on a framework that allows the two organizations to drive company success together.
Frederick E. Webster Jr. and Yoram Wind define organizational buying as the decision-making process by which formal organizations establish the need for purchased products and services and identify, evaluate, and choose among alternative brands and suppliers. Any firm that supplies components for products is in the business-to-business marketplace. More dollars and items change hands in sales to business buyers than to consumers.
Business marketers contrast sharply with consumer markets in some ways. The business marketer normally deals with far fewer, much larger buyers than the consumer marketer does, particularly in such industries as aircraft engines and defense weapons. Because of the smaller customer base and the importance and power of the larger customers, suppliers are frequently expected to customize their offerings to individual business customer needs. Business goods are often purchased by trained purchasing agents, who must follow their organizations’ purchasing policies, constraints, and requirements. More people typically influence business buying decisions. Buying committees consisting of technical experts and even senior management are common in the purchase of major goods. A study by McGraw-Hill found that it took four to four-and-a-half calls to close an average industrial sale. The demand for business goods is ultimately derived from the demand for consumer goods. The total demand for many business goods and services is inelastic—that is, not much affected by price changes. The demand for business goods and services tends to be more volatile than the demand for consumer goods and services. The geographical concentration of producers helps to reduce selling costs. Business buyers often buy directly from manufacturers rather than through intermediaries, especially items that are technically complex or expensive such as mainframes or aircraft.
In a straight rebuy, the purchasing department reorders items like office supplies and bulk chemicals on a routine basis and chooses from suppliers on an approved list. The suppliers make an effort to maintain product and service quality and often propose automatic reordering systems to save time. “Out suppliers” attempt to offer something new or exploit dissatisfaction with a current supplier. Their goal is to get a small order and then enlarge their purchase share over time.
The buyer in a modified rebuy wants to change product specifications, prices, delivery requirements, or other terms. This usually requires additional participants on both sides. The in-suppliers become nervous and want to protect the account. The out-suppliers see an opportunity to propose a better offer to gain some business.
New task. A new-task purchaser buys a product or service for the first time (an office building, a new security system). The greater the cost or risk, the larger the number of participants, and the greater their information gathering—the longer the time to a decision.
Webster and Wind call the decision-making unit of a buying organization the buying center. It consists of “all those individuals and groups who participate in the purchasing decision-making process, who share some common goals and the risks arising from the decisions.” The buying center includes all members of the organization who play any of seven roles in the purchase decision process.
1. Initiators—Users or others in the organization who request that something be purchased.
2. Users—Those who will use the product or service. In many cases, the users initiate the buying proposal and help define the product requirements.
3. Influencers—People who influence the buying decision, often by helping define specifications and providing information for evaluating alternatives. Technical people are particularly important influencers.
4. Deciders—People who decide on product requirements or on suppliers.
5. Approvers—People who authorize the proposed actions of deciders or buyers.
6. Buyers—People who have formal authority to select the supplier and arrange the purchase terms. Buyers may help shape product specifications, but they play their major role in selecting vendors and negotiating. In more complex purchases, buyers might include high-level managers.
7. Gatekeepers—People who have the power to prevent sellers or information from reaching members of the
buying center. For example, purchasing agents, receptionists, and telephone operators may prevent salespersons from contacting users or deciders.
Once it has identified the type of businesses on which to focus marketing efforts, the firm must then decide how best to sell to them. The business marketer is not likely to know exactly what kind of group dynamics take place during the decision process, though whatever information he or she can obtain about personalities and interpersonal factors is useful.
The model in Table 7.1 is the buygrid framework
The recognition can be triggered by internal or external stimuli. The internal stimulus might be a decision to develop a new product that requires new equipment and materials or a machine that breaks down and requires new parts. Or purchased material turns out to be unsatisfactory and the company searches for another supplier or lower prices or better quality.
Often, the company will assign a product-value-analysis engineering team to the project. Product value analysis (PVA) is an approach to cost reduction that studies whether components can be redesigned or standardized or made by cheaper methods of production without adversely affecting product performance.
The buyer next tries to identify the most appropriate suppliers through trade directories, contacts with other companies, trade advertisements, trade shows, and the Internet. The move to online purchasing has far-reaching implications for suppliers and will change the shape of purchasing for years to come. Companies that purchase online are utilizing electronic marketplaces in several forms listed on this slide.
Catalog sites. Companies can order thousands of items through electronic catalogs, such as W. W. Grainger’s, distributed by e-procurement software.
Vertical markets. Companies buying industrial products such as plastics, steel, or chemicals or services such as logistics or media can go to specialized Web sites called e-hubs. Plastics.com allows plastics buyers to search the best prices among thousands of plastics sellers.
“Pure Play” auction company. Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers is the world’s largest industrial auctioneer, with 44 auction sites worldwide. It sold $3.8 billion of used and unused equipment at more than 356 unreserved auctions in 2013, including a wide range of heavy equipment, trucks, and other assets for the construction, transportation, agricultural, material handling, oil and gas, mining, forestry, and marine industry sectors. While some people prefer to bid in person at Ritchie Bros. auctions, they can also do so online in real time at rbauction.com—the company’s multilingual Web site. In 2013, 50 percent of the bidders at Ritchie Bros. auctions bid over the Internet; online bidders purchased $1.4 billion of equipment.
Spot (or exchange) markets. On spot electronic markets, prices change by the minute. IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) is the leading electronic energy marketplace and soft commodity exchange with billions in sales.
Barter markets. In barter markets, participants offer to trade goods or services.
Private exchanges. Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Walmart operate private exchanges to link with specially invited groups of suppliers and partners over the Web.
Buying alliances. Several companies buying the same goods can join together to form purchasing consortia to gain deeper discounts on volume purchases. TopSource is an alliance of firms in the retail and wholesale food-related businesses.
Web sites are organized around two types of e-hubs: vertical hubs centered on industries (plastics, steel, chemicals, paper) and functional hubs (logistics, media buying, advertising, energy management).
Set up direct extranet links to major suppliers. A company can set up a direct e-procurement account at Dell or Office Depot, for instance, and its employees can make their purchases this way.
Form buying alliances. A number of major retailers and manufacturers such as Acosta, Ahold, Best Buy, Carrefour, Family Dollar Stores, Lowe’s, Safeway, Sears, SUPERVALU, Target, Walgreens, Walmart, and Wegmans Food Markets are part of a data-sharing alliance called 1SYNC. Several auto companies (GM, Ford, Chrysler) formed Covisint for the same reason.
Set up company buying sites. General Electric formed the Trading Process Network (TPN), where it posts requests for proposals (RFPs), negotiates terms, and places orders.
After evaluating proposals, the buyer will invite a few suppliers to make formal presentations. The choice of attributes and their relative importance vary with the buying situation. Delivery reliability, price, and supplier reputation are important for routine-order products.
To develop compelling value propositions, business marketers need to better understand how business buyers arrive at their valuations. Researchers have identified eight different customer value assessment (CVA) methods. Companies tended to use the simpler methods, though the more sophisticated ones promise a more accurate picture of CPV (see “Marketing Memo: Developing Compelling Customer Value Propositions”).
Despite moves toward strategic sourcing, partnering, and participation in cross-functional teams, buyers still spend a large chunk of their time haggling with suppliers on price.
Despite moves toward strategic sourcing, partnering, and participation in cross-functional teams, buyers still spend a large chunk of their time haggling with suppliers on price.
Solution selling can also alleviate price pressure and comes in different forms. Here are three examples.
Solutions to enhance customer revenues. Hendrix UTD has used its sales consultants to help farmers deliver an incremental animal weight gain of 5 percent to 10 percent over competitors.
Solutions to decrease customer risks. ICI Explosives formulated a safer way to ship explosives for quarries.
Solutions to reduce customer costs. W. W. Grainger employees work at large customer facilities to reduce materials-management costs.
Risk and gain sharing can offset price reductions customers request.
Companies are increasingly reducing the number of their suppliers. Ford, Motorola, and Honeywell have cut their number of suppliers 20 percent to 80 percent. These companies want their chosen suppliers to be responsible for a larger component system, achieve continuous quality and performance improvement, and at the same time lower prices each year by a given percentage. They expect their suppliers to work closely with them during product development, and they value their suggestions.
The lessee gains a number of advantages: the latest products, better service, the conservation of capital, and some tax advantages. The lessor often ends up with a larger net income and the chance to sell to customers that could not afford outright purchase.
The buyer may contact end users and ask for their evaluations, rate the supplier on several criteria using a weighted-score method, or aggregate the cost of poor performance to come up with adjusted costs of purchase, including price. The performance review may lead the buyer to continue, modify, or end a supplier relationship.
Business marketers are increasingly recognizing the importance of their brand. In business-to-business marketing, the corporate brand is often critical because it is associated with so many of the company’s products. Some business-to-business marketers are adopting marketing practices from business-to-consumer markets to build their brand.
Many business buyers prefer to buy a total problem solution from one seller. Called systems buying, this practice originated with government purchases of major weapons and communications systems. The government solicited bids from prime contractors that, if awarded the contract, became responsible for bidding out and assembling the system’s subcomponents from second-tier contractors. The prime contractor thus provided a turnkey solution, so-called because the buyer simply had to turn one key to get the job done.
Services play an increasing strategic and financial role for many business-to-business firms selling primarily
products. Adding high-quality services to their product offerings allows them to provide greater value and establish closer ties with customers.
A number of forces influence the development of a relationship between business partners. Four relevant ones are availability of alternatives, importance of supply, complexity of supply, and supply market dynamism. Based on these we can classify buyer–supplier relationships into eight categories:
1. Basic buying and selling—These are simple, routine exchanges with moderate levels of cooperation and information exchange.
2. Bare bones—These relationships require more adaptation by the seller and less cooperation and information exchange.
3. Contractual transaction—These exchanges are defined by formal contract and generally have low levels of
trust, cooperation, and interaction.
4. Customer supply—In this traditional supply situation, competition rather than cooperation is the dominant
form of governance.
5. Cooperative systems—The partners in cooperative systems are united in operational ways, but neither demonstrates structural commitment through legal means or adaptation.
6. Collaborative—In collaborative exchanges, much trust and commitment lead to true partnership.
7. Mutually adaptive—Buyers and sellers make many relationship-specific adaptations, but without necessarily achieving strong trust or cooperation.
8. Customer is king—In this close, cooperative relationship, the seller adapts to meet the customer’s needs without expecting much adaptation or change in exchange.
Vertical coordination can facilitate stronger customer–seller ties but may also increase the risk to the customer’s and supplier’s specific investments. Specific investments, however, also entail considerable risk to both customer and supplier. Transaction theory from economics maintains that because these investments are partially sunk, they lock firms into a particular relationship. Sensitive cost and process information may need to be exchanged. A buyer may be vulnerable to holdup because of switching costs; a supplier may be more vulnerable because it has dedicated assets and/or technology/knowledge at stake.
When buyers cannot easily monitor supplier performance, the supplier might shirk or cheat and not deliver the expected value. Opportunism is “some form of cheating or undersupply relative to an implicit or explicit contract. Opportunism is a concern because firms must devote resources to control and monitoring that they could otherwise allocate to more productive purposes.
Many institutions are characterized by low budgets and captive clienteles. Government organizations typically require suppliers to submit bids and often award the contract to the lowest bidder, sometimes making allowance for superior quality or a reputation for completing contracts on time. Governments will also buy on a negotiated-contract basis, primarily in complex projects with major R&D costs and risks and those where there is little competition.