The document outlines 7 digital marketing priorities for B2B companies in 2013: 1) Develop a digital strategy, 2) Establish an effective website, 3) Improve search engine visibility, 4) Drive inbound interest through content marketing, 5) Leverage social media platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter, 6) Optimize landing pages and conversion rates, and 7) Use analytics to measure performance. The presentation provides guidance on implementing tactics for each priority, and emphasizes developing a strategic, thoughtful approach to digital marketing rather than being reactive. Measurement of marketing ROI is key to justify investments and refine strategies.
B2B Digital Marketing Priorities 2013 (SmartInsights conference)
1. B2B Digital Marketing Priorities for
2013
René Power
Digital & Business Development Director
BDB
The seven areas you should be focusing on in 2013
Digital Marketing Priorities 2013 Summit
11th January 2013. Brought to you by:
2. Are you a digital magpie or owl?
• Impulsive
• Reactive
• Likes new shiny things • Wise
• Thoughtful
• Methodical
3. Agenda
Priority 1: Why your business needs a digital strategy
Priority 2: Establishing an effective home base
Priority 3: Getting and staying found
Priority 4: Developing inbound interest
Priority 5: Going social
Priority 6: Turning traffic into leads
Priority 7: Making analytics your friend
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4. About me
18 years in B2B marketing
Accomplished international (digital) marketer and
business developer www.bdb.co.uk
Respected blogger
www.marketingassassin.co.uk
In demand digital marketing speaker
Author Brilliant B2B Digital Marketing
An owl (with a taste for shiny things!)
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5. Priority 1: Set a strategy
Why?
Information is the primary driver in B2B specification
Browser mentality: supplier research is predominantly
conducted online
Applying a robust approach to being found when
customers are looking increases
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6. Poll [1]
Do you have a documented digital strategy?
31% on webinar said yes
63% on webinar said no
6% on webinar didn’t know
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7. Benefits of a B2B digital strategy
Focuses activity
Sets tangible goals
Helps secure buy in at all levels
Assists financial & resource investment
Identifies / prioritises target audience
Understand channels / how they are
used
Encourages use of channels
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8. What goes into B2B digital strategy?
Digital SWOT
Online value proposition
Return on investment
measured by
Sales
Savings
Attribution
Customer satisfaction
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9. Priority 2: Establishing home base
Why?
There are over 10m .co.uk sites registered and
644m live sites worldwide
Your website is most likely the first port of call
36% of B2B buyers look at supplier sites during
problem resolution
49% of B2B buyers look at supplier sites to shortlist
18% of B2B buyers look at supplier sites to make final
supplier selection*
Your website provides that crucial first
impression
*2012 Buyersphere survey
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16. Priority 3: Getting and staying found
Why?
Search is everything
Customers browse on their
terms
You have a great site =
don’t leave it as a great art
in a dark, concealed room
Search optimised sites can
make or break
businesses…and careers
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17. Checklist: key areas to focus on
Use Google Adword tool for keyword analysis
Set primary keyword/s per page
Assess competition
Meta data - First 70 and 200 words and density
Meta description
Page titles, h1 tags and alt tags
Anchor text
Calls to action
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20. Priority 4: Driving inbound interest
Why?
Use content to attract customers
Deliver useful and relevant
information to customers when
they most need it
Demonstrates authority
Builds reputation
Creates trust which leads to
transaction
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21. Build an inbound marketing machine
Audit what you have
Repackage and repurpose
Create a calendar
Run mini campaigns
Set milestones
Walk before you can run
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22. Poll [2]
Do you use any of the following inbound content
marketing tools? (Top pick and in descending
order)
Blogs – 49% on webinar voted blog
Newsletters / email
Guides / white papers / ebooks
Webinar / webcast
Audio content
Video content
Hosted presentations
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28. Priority 5: Going social
Why social is important for B2B
Social enhances audience building
Social can drive deeper relationships
Social can provide ready-to-use test & trial
Social can deliver customer service
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29. Poll [3]
Which social media platforms are going to be
critical to B2B in 2013? (Selected webinar vote
below)
Linkedin – 50%
Twitter – 11%
YouTube – 11%
Google+
Facebook
Slideshare
Pinterest
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30. Do you (or can you) CARE?
Content Audience Relevance Evaluation
How do we want to be Who do we want to be What are important Can we measure if / how
perceived? associated with? issues to our audience? our content matters?
What are we going to Who do we want to How can we help, How are we going to
say, share, comment on? influence? advise, add value? measure if audiences
care?
How are we going to do Who do we want to Can we do this
it? engage? frequently? How are we going to
measure our relevance?
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36. Priority 6: Turning traffic to leads
Why?
Businesses can’t just help
They need to turn a profit
Finesse landing pages
Tease and tantalise
Always have a next step or
action that the customer is
inspired to take
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40. Priority 7: Make analytics your friend
Why? …Really!?
Set up goals/funnels and
assign value
Use forward and reverse path
analysis to indicate most
popular/effective content
Use event tracking to monitor
calls to action
Use content experiments to
test/increase performance on
key pages
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41. What can you measure?
buzz by time of day seasonal buzz competitive buzz category/topic buzz
Buzz by no of posts buzz by impressions shift in buzz channel
buzz by stage in DM process mainstream media mentions installs downloads
buzz asset popularity buzz by customer type mainstream media
uploads favourites likes comments ratings
mentions growth rate of fans follows friends contacts no of pass
alongs recommends buzz with links
increase in searches %of embeds nobookmarks subscriptions
of views/interactions polls
page viewsclickthroughs changes in search ranking type reach
virtual gifts tags popularity contest entries leads generated
channel geography sampled of posts impressions time spent clicks
products volume store visits trials
contributions by bloggerschatrooms wikis online sales offline sales
customer acquisition & retentioncomplaint handling
savingscost per clickchange in share AEV
satisfaction feedback event time on site
dwell response
email open rate bounce rate region cost per customer attendance
by time / event
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42. Ultimately, can you answer these?
1. What are your marketing activities designed to achieve and how
can you link the investment in specific areas to tangible revenue,
profit and growth?
2. How would a percentage decrease in your marketing budget
impact revenue, profit and growth? (At some point, you will be asked
to work with a reduced budget.)
3. How effectively are you converting marketing investment to sales
compared with previous periods, competitors and the marketplace?
4. Can you define what your revenue conversion is (profit minus
marketing and sales spend)?
5. What do you need to know to be able to answer these questions in
order to quantify your return on marketing investment?
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43. Summary – questions please!
Set a strategy
Invest in your website
Improve your search visibility
Become useful and relevant
Go social with purpose
Work hard on conversion
Monitor analytics
Don’t be a magpie – become
an owl!
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44. More on B2B digital marketing?
NEW 440 page Kindle eBook on B2B digital
marketing available now at Amazon
This and hundreds of other guides and
resources are available to Smart Insights
Expert members.
rene@bdb.co.uk
http www.bdb.co.uk
@renepower
blog http://marketingassassin.co.uk
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Editor's Notes
1. Information is easy to verify on your website. Shows a company is trustworthy and stable. 2. There is a real organisation behind your website. Evidence that the organisation exists takes this further by providing clear guidance on locations, people, products.3. Highlight expert content and services offered. As we move from being a broadcast to targeted inbound marketing economy, companies that produce focused content relevant to the needs of customers will stand out. 4. Demonstrate honesty and integrity on your website. These qualities may be seen as subjective but you can set a tone throughout your website as pages such as About Us, Our Philosophy and FAQs allude to your honesty and integrity.5. Make it easy to contact you. Post contact details on every page throughout the website and not just on a ‘Contact Us’ page. 6. Your website should reflect your business. And, it should reflect the experience that customers enjoy offline, face-to-face, in stores, on stands and anywhere else. 7. Your website should be accessible and easy to navigate. Western websites have navigation bars either running horizontally across the top and bottom or vertically to the left-hand side of the website for a reason. 8. Use frequently updated relevant and useful content. Content is the biggest part of your digital strategy as it governs your selection of keywords, what you say, how and when you say it. It helps rank your site with search engine bots and entice real human visitors too. 9. Avoid errors of all kinds. Sounds obvious but spelling mistakes, grammar and punctuation slip ups, 404 messages and any other error on a website disrupts the user experience and risks harming your credibility.Remember to treat every page as a potential landing page so narrative, call to action and signposting are all key. More on this later.
Run through examples discussing the difference between Stelzner’s primary and nuclear fuel (from the book Launch!)Primary fuel(lifespan = 3 days) inclHow to guides,Expert interviews, Reviews,News stories, Case studiesNuclear fuel (lifespan = months) inclSurvey reports, White papers, Top 10 contests, Micro events (webinars, video, podcasts)
Social interaction can be integrated all over the web (from within your website – Knauf), to aFacebook page.Google’s most recent algorithm update gave social mentions on Google+ and other social sites more ranking so we’re now seeing the benefits of this in search.TCN construction network is another thriving online community. The point is – good social demands interaction.
The goal of most businesses is to provide a rewarding return for their owners or shareholder investment. This is our focus in the last two sections where we move on to assess how a B2B marketer sets about delivering quality leads to the sales team and uses a variety of tools and techniques to drive more, and better quality leads which can be nurtured through to transaction.
ClaremontThe example on the left is a landing page for workplace interior design firm Claremont showing how content can be arranged to showcase the business in the possible light to a specific audience – in this case the legal sector.In this example the page includes a number of the critical elements that should be included in a landing page:A headline and (optional) sub-headline.A supporting image (or slider including multiple images).A brief description of the offer/call to action.Supporting elements such as testimonials, affiliations, accreditations or security badges (for transaction B2B sites).Interactive content to bring the landing page call to action to life – in this case video testimonial.A form to capture information – duplicated twice at the top and bottom of the page.Separate email sign, get in touch and social media profiles.Downloadable material in the form of interactive brochures.
AnglianAgain focused around conversion to action. Make contact or fill the form in. Could it be any blunter?
AdobeShow lots of primary and nuclear content to get people to take action from webinars to blogs to datasheets etcThe point is – you spend all your time, effort and money getting them there. Make it easy for them to do business.