Six ways to TURBO charge your B2B marketing SmartInsights Nov 2014
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My webinar slides from a SmartInsights session I gave on 19th November 2014, on the topic of turbo charging your b2b marketing. In this presentation I offer best practice examples and actionable tips to improve website, search, email, content and social media marketing campaigns.
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Six ways to TURBO charge your B2B marketing SmartInsights Nov 2014
- 1. Six ways to turbo charge your b2b digital marketing Raise profile, create traffic and drive engagement with six critical elements of the modern b2b marketing toolkit René Power Business Development Director, BDB 19th November 2014. Brought to you by: 19th November 2014. Brought to you by:
- 2. Why your B2B marketing needs to go turbo @renepower @smartinsights #turboB2B 19 Nov ‘14
- 3. Why your B2B marketing needs to go turbo or @renepower @smartinsights #turboB2B 19 Nov ‘14
- 4. Turbo charging ‘home base’
- 5. Website must haves @renepower @smartinsights #turboB2B 19 Nov ‘14
- 6. Website must haves @renepower @smartinsights #turboB2B 19 Nov ‘14
- 7. Example: Trelleborg http://www.tss.trelleborg.com/global/en/homepage/homepage.html @renepower @smartinsights #turboB2B 19 Nov ‘14
- 8. Turbo tip: Be customer centric @renepower @smartinsights #turboB2B 19 Nov ‘14
- 10. Getting and staying found On page and off page PPC – especially in emerging markets Language keyword research Location based search Link building @renepower @smartinsights #turboB2B 19 Nov ‘14
- 11. Link building Trade media Trade associations Directories Search engine indexes Social media Bloggers News sites Main-stream press Top Internet sites Conferences Discussion Trade portals shows @renepower @smartinsights #turboB2B 19 Nov ‘14
- 12. Example: Lead Forensics Things they consider – Google – Don’t forget – Yahoo! – Bing – Linkedin – Retargeting @renepower @smartinsights #turboB2B 19 Nov ‘14
- 13. Turbo tip: Keywords rule! Check-list for SEO Understand SEO restrictions within your CMS of choice @renepower @smartinsights #turboB2B 19 Nov ‘14
- 15. Customer outreach with email Offering the most important b2b touch points – why? Opted in (easy to opt out) Direct Personal Immediate Gets more attention than any other medium Transactional Event triggered and behaviour informed @renepower @smartinsights #turboB2B 19 Nov ‘14
- 16. Email in action @renepower @smartinsights #turboB2B 19 Nov ‘14
- 17. Turbo tip: Behaviour led email @renepower @smartinsights #turboB2B 19 Nov ‘14
- 18. Turbo charging ‘your story’
- 19. Content is a big deal in b2b Source http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/UK_Research_CMI_2013_Final-3.pdf @renepower @smartinsights #turboB2B 19 Nov ‘14
- 20. And a big deal in UK b2b Source http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/UK_Research_CMI_2013_Final-3.pdf @renepower @smartinsights #turboB2B 19 Nov ‘14
- 21. Example: Flowcrete blog http://blog.flowcrete.com/
- 22. Example: Atlas Copco apps @renepower @smartinsights #turboB2B 19 Nov ‘14
- 23. Turbo tip: Content that turbo charges b2b marketing needs to hit those human drivers and be helpful + COMPELLING USEFUL RELEVANT EFFECTIVE @renepower @smartinsights #turboB2B 19 Nov ‘14
- 24. Turbo charging ‘your social’
- 25. Social is a big deal in b2b Source http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/UK_Research_CMI_2013_Final-3.pdf @renepower @smartinsights #turboB2B 19 Nov ‘14
- 26. What B2B customers want from social? ? @renepower @smartinsights #turboB2B 19 Nov ‘14
- 27. Example: Bosch @renepower @smartinsights #turboB2B 19 Nov ‘14
- 28. Bosch @renepower @smartinsights #turboB2B 19 Nov ‘14
- 29. Turbo tips: Be active Monitor Monitor brand BBee a accttivivee brand Social advertising Social advertising @renepower @smartinsights #turboB2B 19 Nov ‘14
- 30. Turbo charging ‘user and customer centrality’
- 31. UX centred design What is your [customer’s] point of pain? How can I [you] help / take the pain away? What do I [you] want you [customer] to do next? @renepower @smartinsights #turboB2B 19 Nov ‘14
- 32. Example: UX process @renepower @smartinsights #turboB2B 19 Nov ‘14
- 33. Example: User journey @renepower @smartinsights #turboB2B 19 Nov ‘14
- 34. Turbo tip: User goes here @renepower @smartinsights #turboB2B 19 Nov ‘14
- 35. Summary Don’t get hung up on platforms, tools and technologies until Don’t get hung up on platforms, tools and technologies until you’ve clearly you’ve clearly understood the what, who, where, why. understood the what, who, where, why. The how comes later. The how comes later.
- 36. More great b2b content 1. Go tell anyone who’ll listen about this deck! 2. Buy v1 of Brilliant B2B Digital Marketing from Amazon 3. Head to Smart Insights Expert members and access v2 exclusively (+ hundreds of other guides and resources) 4. Look me up on Linkedin, connect and talk to me one-to-one about your b2b digital marketing challenges 5. Start receiving my Marketing Assassin blog and event updates. 6. Check out other great b2b marketing content on BrightTalk @renepower @smartinsights #turboB2B 19 Nov ‘14
- 37. Thanks for listening Now, go # @renepower @smartinsights #turboB2B 19 Nov ‘14
Editor's Notes
- [Welcome and usual housekeeping – polls, questions, ratings] Are you looking to raise profile, create traffic or drive engagement? To help you meet these goals, I’m going to look at the six critical elements of the modern B2B marketing toolkit and how normal every day companies are using them to great effect. Getting ahead and staying ahead of the competition. Being your customer’s first choice. It isn’t always about embracing the newest, shiniest techniques. It is about consistency, reliability, credibility. Customers may often cite innovation as one of the must haves, but it’s rarely at the top of the list. They want continuity and risk mitigation.
- We’re in business to make money. If you’re not thinking AIDA, you need to. Now the digital/science bit. Whether it’s on desktops, laptops, phablets or tablets, there is one truth when it comes to marketing your business online. If you can’t be found, don’t have a clear and compelling offer and don’t make “transaction” easy for customers, you’re doomed to failure. Web searches, supplier websites, and in most countries email remain the primary information sources for the modern business buyer. These are the tools that allow customers to seek out products and services, to learn about the companies that provide them and to ensure they are regularly updated on them.
- So building on this, the underlying premise of effective B2B (digital) marketing though, lies in engaging customers and prospects and providing them with useful, relevant content that improves their own business’ revenue and performance and positions yours as an expert to rely upon. So before we get distracted by no less important traffic generation, let’s try and remember why we’re in business. Run poll no 1: How many of you in the room have a documented digital strategy and plan to achieve it? YES and it’s working YES but it’s not working. NO but I’m working on it. NO (30% will be in line with latest research)
- The most important b2b asset is your website – why? Three reasons Vendor’s own search is still the no 1 way buyers assess suppliers Your website is your 100% owned way of controlling what they see, learn and how they feel about your business All promotional routes need to lead somewhere – your website!
- Easily accessible contact information is the most import thing on a B2B vendor website, according to a recent report from Dianna Huff and KoMarketing Associates. Pricing, support, information about application dominate. Are you providing this? Read more: http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2014/24654/what-b2b-buyers-want-from-vendor-websites#ixzz3DUqtR5jG
- What is needed most on the the home page? What they do (product) and who they are (about us). People do business with people and want to know who they’re dealing with.
- Websites might not be viewed as a classic piece of content marketing (more on the C word later). But think about it. Where do people go as a result of all your marketing communications? Where is the one place you have total control over message, first impression and access to engagement statistics? I’ve picked Trelleborg seals as a great example of a b2b website for a number of reasons. They have successfully created a site packed full of customer centric information and resources to “help” them. On the home page alone there are signposts to a variety of interesting things. From the simple use of words like ‘your’ and ‘solutions’ a visitor is going to feel like this site is for them. It starts at the top with the “What would you like to do? button before moving onto signposts to services and tools, high profile spots on apps, to information about Trelleborg around the world. They are using their real estate to the max.
- Trellborg have turbo charged their web experience be making the most of that blue button. Drilling into that blue button we really get to the heart of what they offer customers. It could perhaps be organised a little better but there are our certainly a number of options for the website visitor to explore and move very quickly to the content that might be the most appropriate for them. I love the “what would you like to do” line. Very welcoming and inviting. More on this notion of customer centricity later.
- Shining a light on your brilliant and most important online asset means turbo charging your search performance and priorities.
- Conventional advice says write for search engines and human visitors. Write for visitors based on/around the vocabulary your audience are using is more significant. If your website copy, tags and call to actions are written in a mechanical way it won’t result in the site experience being terribly appealing. Conversely, writing for human visitors, keeping sentences short and the keyword stuffing to a minimum, increases the likelihood of use and the traffic stats will reflect this. When did you last check search volume on your preferred terms? It’s free. Use adword tools to check use in regional and international markets. And if you are are considering PPC, use it selectively – ie when you have time sensitive campaigns, or new brands/offers to launch. Over time, your ads will just be ignored. Invest in the long tail, more specific phrases of words. We all need to use them increasingly to get to the content we want, but in business we often park this and chase highly competitive words we have no chance of ranking on. Looking across markets, it is important to ensure any campaigns are set up on the right country search engine, ideally with locally hosted and domain relevant pages – i.e. running French ads on google.fr to a .fr page will have a more beneficial impact and be perceived more significantly by the local search engine. With the team providing critical product and language support, we can ensure that your international (local) campaigns have the best chance of success. Search can be used for key campaigns/regions depending on your priorities, could start small or with test campaigns to roll out further at later stage.
- Having the right inbound links can dramatically improve your visibility online. I talk a lot about watering holes online. You need to be where your audience is. Sounds obvious but it is so much more than media websites. Use all your assets, including PR to target audiences where ever they hang out. (Each could then be monitored using referral goals in Google Analytics).
- Click on an ad and visit a company website and see what happens in your onward travels around the Internet. You’ll certainly get the feeling you’re being followed by ecommerce brands like John Lewis with prompts on that little black dress, but B2B products and services are doing it too. Lead Forensics is one that uses the power of search to full advantage, right across the search engines, in professional networks and in planting advertising and editorial around the web in a way to improve the likelihood of click. If this model is important to your sales pipeline, integrating your search tools and platforms is going to be critical to maximise return.
- Getting found then becomes the next challenge. Our SEO checklist includes things like keyword checking and selection, meta data incl. descriptions , URL and page titles, h tags, alt tags for images, anchor text on links, body copy, CTA copy. All have an impact on where a page ranks in search. Not having optimised pages is a severe obstacle to search marketing success. This may require a different approach in terms of campaign landing pages if it can’t be addressed.
- The nirvana of B2B digital marketing is converting web visitors to engaged prospect, then transactional customer. So once your brilliant content has been found on your website through search, you need to ensure you give visitors a reason to part with their contact data – so you can continue the dialogue and dig a little deeper to meet their needs.
- We know that email is the most important touchpoint in B2B. Don’t we? Here’s why: More on the significance of event triggered elements later.
- Email marketing is so much more than the email. It is the seduction of a problem resolved, the usable and useful nature of the solution, the context in which it is offered and where it is housed. Consideration, too needs to be given to the power of putting the right content in front of the right people at the right time. Email is still the only direct way to access the people you want to interact with most. Different examples of email activity – static email with no onward links (Innospec), static email single offer (SVA), dynamic email (tna), responsive email (BDB), video email (AZ)
- Email isn’t just about newsletters. Most recipients don’t read them anyway– at best scanning the first item. Click through and interest drops off markedly per item. So use email as a way to build advocacy (webinar on that topic tomorrow, 4pm) and to engage recipients more. Think about your own online experiences. Don’t you trust the brands where you get a double opt in, click to verify, a welcome , a thanks when you do something, a confirmation of order / despatch, or reminders on time sensitive deals. Rethink your touch point strategy and build a little ecommerce thinking into your approach. Base your email around the actions your customers are already taking. Run poll 2: We’re half way through. As of right now, which element are you going to go away and turbo charge? Website Search Email Waiting to hear more
- Here I’m using story to replace the C word (content). Businesses are solving real world problems for people who make value based decisions on the products and services they buy. There is a growing movement towards aligning more emotion with the rationality in the B2B buying process and for good reason. Professional buyers in all categories aren’t just looking to make money, save money, reduce waste, improve performance. They want the reassurance of making good decisions, want the kudos for selecting well and want to get on in their career. This is where the story of what you do, how you do it, who does it and why you do it better than anyone else is critical in warming people towards you.
- The C word is fast becoming a dirty word in marketing . But I think most people on the webinar today are using content marketing or intend to (we’ll check that in a minute) but I thought it useful to share some of the latest data on content marketing uptake in the UK to help us see what’s being used and what is working. CMI teamed up with the DMA to survey 190 UK companies between Aug 12 – Jan 13, 2/3 were b2b companies on content marketing use and future use. This graph shows content marketing by use in the UK and I think it interesting to note that despite all the talk of visual content – video, image, animation and infographic - the most used continue to be focused around the written word. (Anything to do with search engines I wonder?)
- Respondents looking forward to spending in 2014. Here we see 64% looking to spend more than they did in the survey period.
- Two pieces of content at the opposite ends of the budget spectrum now. We all know blogging is important for search and search engine ranking as Google algorithms (despite never ending updates) do generally always score relevant and frequently updated content highly in their scoring. Corporate blogs are notoriously hard to create leads from but they can be used effectively as a first step content tool to navigate interested parties to deeper, more valuable content – that then leads to a potential conversation about a problem and its resolution. I’ve been following Flowcrete’s marketing ever since they re-energised their online marketing a year or so ago. Their blog site is a great mix of the practical, theoretical and mixed with a little bit of comment and science too. Focused on flooring it’s got some great things going for it like Dr Flowcrete’s flooring clinic which gives the opinion more credibility but it also has enough variety to the content within agreed topics to keep it fresh.
- Different types of content fit different budgets and customer needs. Atlas Copco’s underground drilling app for the mining sector. Similar in terms of its over-riding objective to provide information to users when they need it in-situ, it offers a wide variety of specific product information right down to 360 degree walk throughs, technical specifications (like the Trelleborg app) images and movies to help customers select and use equipment correctly. Again in theory, a lot of work for a fairly niche audience, but the pay off is in the customer engagement and lock in. This is a high value capital expenditure market.
- I could talk about content all day, but I can’t as they switch me off after 47 minutes. But its suffice to say that the best content grabs something inside us, tells a story, convinces us, moves us. That story telling ethic can work for your business too if you think CURE. Compelling – it is content presented in an engaging way Useful – it is both useful and useable, the piece of content of itself can be applied to my situation Relevant - it is advice on a subject relevant to me Effective – it makes me want to do something as a result.
- It’s not fun on your own. And there are big gains to be made in terms of audience reach, participation and your bottom line if you can turbo charge your social media efforts too.
- From the same research we looked at on content, we can see the social media platform utilisation (platforms used to distribute content). Assuming there is a lot of written word content it isn’t a surprise to me that the top three are Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook. Then there is a dramatic drop off. Slideshare uptake is a surprise to me given how easy it is to place content and what great search engine optimisation it has.
- Seven out of ten business people say that business-to-business (B2B) brands don't do a good job of communicating with them online, according to a survey conducted in late 2013 by Maxus, the media planning and buying arm of advertising giant WPP. The findings suggest that suppliers may be neglecting a huge audience of corporate buyers, who are perfectly willing to engage with brands and to hear their messages on social media, just so long as they're relevant. Of the 500 respondents to the Maxus survey, 86 percent said they were keen to see company news from suppliers on social media, 79 percent wanted to receive promotions and 66 percent said they wanted information on product development.
- Many people say businesses can’t run effective Facebook pages. I disagree, but there are some caveats. 1. You need to be very large or 2. You need to be hyperlocal and 3. You need to understand your market and be prepared to be creative
- Bosch packaging’s Facebook page is clearly designed to impact several groups Employees Potential employees Customers I think are a bonus! See what types of posts get the most interaction on Facebook. Bosch favours the unconventional. Clue: it is never new product announcements!
- Three social media tips: Be active – distribute, contribute, engage Monitor brand / generic mention for opportunities to help Consider social advertising to reach audiences on specific platforms
- So to the final part of the six part turbo charging your b2b marketing adventure. Actually this isn’t a technique, a platform or a tool. It’s more a state of mind. You’ll read lots of predictions over the next few weeks around things you should be spending money and time on to try and improve your cut-through. Tools that will help unearth more data for you to analyse. But the reality is, all the feedback you need to improve is sitting right in front of you. If through this webinar, my ramblings about understanding your customers, the mental state of mind and the triggers that impact their buying behaviour and working out how and where to best react to them hasn’t resonated, then I can’t help you! The last point (which could so easily have been the first) is putting the customer and their experience at the heart of everything you do. Doing this transcends tools, platforms and technology and puts you much more in a service frame of mind.
- There is nothing remotely UX centred about dentists, how they do it or they equipment. When you place UX and the journey to ‘action’ at the centre of everything and answer these two critical questions, we create very different types of marketing campaigns. How you do it then becomes secondary (but a good deal more creative) to what you want them to do. Successful advertising, direct marketing, website, email and social campaigns are forged on tapping into a fear or meeting a need – and moving people quickly to the solution.
- Here’s our evolving UX process that we apply to all kinds of projects at BDB. Five step process that includes: Understanding site users Analysing traffic and trends Categorising user types – so to create traffic flow by persona or application Detailed task analysis - to build compelling call to action Agree flow for site maps, navigation, traffic flow etc
- Our approach to user journey is much more device / platform specific and comes into play when we start considering the pathway a customer takes when they arrive at a website, app or other marketing piece for the first time and seeding the right content to create a constructive and linear pathway to the right outcome. The steps include: Mapping origins of entry (and where from) Home page Service page Product detail page Download / contact Share / network
- Think about the user. Put yourself in their shoes. And I mean really. How else can you design products and services and ways to access them if you don’t? Run poll 3: And with that we’re nearly done. One final poll. Having heard about six areas to turbo charge, which element are you NOW going to go away and turbo charge? Website Search Email Content Social
- Run poll no 3: How many of you in the room have a documented digital strategy and plan to achieve it? YES and it’s working YES but it’s not working. NO but I’m working on it. NO (30% will be in line with latest research)
- That’s all I’m talking about today if you want to learn more about how I and we at BDB approach marketing especially in challenging international b2b sectors, there are a number of ways to do that… Also check out the B2B hub on Smart Insights where we’re creating some great and bespoke material.
- Now its over to you. Thanks for listening. Now, go TURBO.