This document summarizes the results of an online performance survey of 80 Microsoft Dynamics partners in Belgium and the Netherlands. The key findings were:
- On average, partners scored 59 out of 100 on online performance. The best scoring partners were near 90.
- The top five drivers of online success were identified as content optimization, mobile friendliness, user experience, technology, and social media integration.
- A coaching program is proposed to help partners benchmark their site, identify optimization opportunities, and improve performance in key areas over six months. The goal is to increase online leads and search visibility.
5. 1. 67% of the Customer Buying Journey happens online and anonymously
2. Digital native ERP/CRM vendors are rapidly gaining market share
3. Where will your revenue come from in 2020?
The Customer Buying Journey
this is your wake-up call
7. Average score Number of sites according to
average score
research
80 websites of Microsoft
Dynamics Partners in
Belgium & Netherlands
(Feb-March 2015)
How do Microsoft Dynamics Partners score online?
11. 94% of users click on a first page result,
80% only looks at the first 4 results
and less than 6% checks the second page.
www.gravitateonline.com
“
”
12. How to make content
perform better in search?
Keyword
consistency
•URL
•title tag
•meta description
•headings (<h1>)
•alt attribute
Text / HTML
ratio
•< 15%
•15-25%
•> 25%
Blog
Technical
factors
•indexed pages
•broken links
•backlinks
•robot.txt
•XML sitemap
•WWW resolve
•URL rewrite
A page with a single broken link can
seriously impact search engine rankings.
blog.siteimprove.com
CONTENT
OPTIMIZATION
“
”
14. Go for a well-managed content marketing
strategy
Aim for 100% keyword consistency
Evaluate the ROI of your content management system
Consider blogging
15. Mobilegeddon is beginning, not ending.
If you’re not yet mobile-friendly,
make it happen now.
www.searchengineland.com
“
”
16. How to make your site 100% mobile-
friendly?
MOBILE
OPTIMIZATION
<3’
17. Think mobile-first
The impact on mobile search is increasing – on a short term
User experience + relevant content = competitive advantage
Responsive or adaptive web design? Always keep it clean!
18. Conversion
form
•user-friendly online form for:
•newsletter subscription
•seminar registration
•contact for proposal
•download whitepaper,
•surveys, quiz,
•etc.
Load
speed
•< 1sec
•1-3sec
•> 3sec
Make it easy for users to engage
USER
EXPERIENCE
<3’
19. Offer added value Solve real problems
Build a relationship
Create triggering call-to-actions
20. Which technology
works best? Security •SSL certificate for HTTPS
Scripts &
code
•caching
•nested tables
•inline styles
•CSS
•JavaScript
•gzip
Analytics •analytics tool installed?
A tool for web analytics is a must-have.
How else do you gain insight in the final
stage of the Customer Buying Journey?
www.meetcontent.com
TECHNOLOGY
“
”
21. Opt for industry standard tools
Use an efficient CMS, email marketing and content
distribution tool
Get insight in the Customer Buying Journey
Consider onboarding marketing automation
22. How to make the most
of social media?
How many B2B-
decision-makers
use it?
How many B2B-
marketeers
use it?
How many
partners
use it?
B2B-decision-makers are
the most active online users
of social media worldwide.
www.globalwebindex.net
SOCIAL MEDIA LINK
“
”
23. Grow your social footprint
Social is part of your content marketing plan
Social conversation leads to conversion
Social drives data
24. How can we help?
Dynamics Online Performance Plan
25. ✤ Individual coaching program to bring your online performance to a higher level
✤ We spend 24 days (4 days/month during 6 months) realizing your online
improvement objectives
✤ No financial surprises with fixed monthly retainer fee
Dynamics Online Performance Plan
what is it?
26. Benchmark
Benchmark your website against best practices in
your industry and among 3 selected competitors
SEO Audit
Plan individual audit regarding SEO, technical &
mobile readiness, user experience and social
media.
PHASE 1
ASSESS
Evaluate your current
situation against
industry best practices
month 1 - 2
Technical optimization
Together with your web agency, address technical
issues detected during the assessment phase
PHASE 2
OPTIMIZE
Mobile optimization
Together with your web agency, make your site
more mobile friendly and responsive.
Prepare your website
to address your target
audiences
Keyword research &
selection
Recommendations on the keywords and phrases
that will optimize search rankings for each page.
Create Social Media profiles
Set up social media profiles which are important in
your industry
month 3 - 4
PHASE 3
PERFORM
Attract & activate
more potential
customers to your
website
Inbound link building
Get links from relevant websites, associations &
directories relevant to your business.
Lead nurturing content
Create content plan & nurture (potential)
customers by sharing relevant content through the
right media.
Conversion & call-to-actions
Activate online visitors though compelling call-to-
actions like polls, videos, whitepapers, webinars,…
month 5 - 6
Dynamics Online Performance Plan
what can you expect?
27. How we make it work together…
• increase your online score by
10%
• get 20% more online leads
• close the gap with your 3 main
benchmarked competitors
• go for Google’s first page
search results (for your selected
industry/keywords)
• we keep in touch through
monthly status calls
• we collaborate with your web
agency (or vendors) if necessary
• we partner with your key asset:
your own marketing team
What we are aiming for…
Dynamics Online Performance Plan
how it works
28. • For those Dynamics Partners
who want to actively engage in
boosting their online
performance
• Apply now and get:
6 months coaching program by Lemarco
Based on monthly retainer fee
• Microsoft offers on top:
Regular status calls with Microsoft
Employees (6 months)
Extra Microsoft marketing Support (eg.
relevant content)
Active promotion of your Business Case by
Microsoft (through blogs, social media,
events)
Extra funding by QBS Group (if QBS
Partner)
Dynamics Online Performance Plan
how it works
29. 1. Submit your application form by October 20th, 2015
2. A committee (Microsoft & Lemarco) will select 5 Partners
3. You will be informed by October 25th, 2015
Dynamics Online Performance Plan
next steps
Notas do Editor
But what is online performance ?
At Lemarco we have been working with Dynamics partners since 2006.
I started this company coming from Navision & Microsoft.
I’ m very happy Erik Verheyden joined me...
At Lemarco we really want to help Dynamics Partners close the gap between their innovative solution and the market..
It’s much more than just attracting new customers on your website...
At the start of 2015, we came up with a bold plan. To analyze and benchmark the online performance of Dynamics Partners.
Marketing & Sales have a new role...
1. The customer finds you
Analyzed the websites of 80 Dynamics Partners in BE + NL.
Pretty sure these results are applicable for all Dynamics Partners, including you ;)
The average score of the 80 websites we have analyzed is 58,7 to be exact. You know the army of JC drowned in a river of 30cm depth on average. So an average doesn’t say much.
That’s why we zoomed in on the actual numbers, so we could define some levels or capabilities if you wish. In other words: how far or how close is each of the individual websites to that average score? Why do they score better or worse and what does that mean?
Problem childs: those partners only have 1 choice... Start all over again.
Question marks: they are in a diffficult position. If they don’t act soon, they will likely fall back eventually to that problem child category. If they do act, they are in the game again and can become a runner-up.
Runner-ups are those who can increase their performance with just a little effort.
Less than 10% of the sites can be nominated as stars – they reach more than 70%.
Wow, 70%.... But is that the ultimate goal? Let’s look at the big guys...
We did a little benchmarking to make our survey complete.
SAP, Oracle, Netsuite are on the top shelf, reaching 90% and more. Microsoft – let’s be honest – can do a better job here. The best performing Dynamics partner is in the same league as Microsoft, but the average performing partner has a really a big gap to close: from 59 to 79%.
This is the playground, so let’s have a look at the toys to play with.
Now how is this score being calculated? Which criteria are taken into account? We have analyzed about 70 criteria, which can be housed into 5 main categories: the 5 key drivers of success.
First comes content optimization. Most people think it’s about SEO and the amount of traffic to your website. There’s actually a whole lot more that differentiates a good from a bad performing website. Mobile friendliness, user experience and conversion, technology used and the integration of social media play an important role as well.
How important? Let’s see at their impact on the overall score.
Now how is this score being calculated? Which criteria are taken into account? We have analyzed about 70 criteria, which can be housed into 5 main categories: the 5 key drivers of success.
First comes content optimization. Most people think it’s about SEO and the amount of traffic to your website. There’s actually a whole lot more that differentiates a good from a bad performing website. Mobile friendliness, user experience and conversion, technology used and the integration of social media play an important role as well.
How important? Let’s see at their impact on the overall score.
Now how do get on that 1st page? Or at least: how can you rank higher than your competitor?
Many companies reach out to an SEO agency, because they are considered the best party to optimize the content of your website for search engines.
Is that the way to go? Not really.
Our answer to that is: you should optimize the content for your users. Our ambition in this research is to reach further than standard SEO recommendations. That’s why we apply a 360° approach and look at all of the aspects that make or break the performance of your site.
Let’s look at the first driver: content optimization
First thing to ask is “what is content”? Content is more than physical texts you can read on a website. Content is also what you don’t see: meta data. Hey, here is your SEO! But content is also about the structure of a page URL, images, video, etc. Just a note: if people are looking for a demo on the next version of NAV, wouldn’t it be great if they land directly on your YouTube channel? It’s the 2nd largest search engine and bigger than Bing, Yahoo, etc. combined.
Why is this so important? Well, this is where you can be in control of the keywords and phrases that can bring more traffic to your site. The better you get in integrating them throughout your site, the more likely they will make your site rank higher. The main message is: be consistent and make maximum use of them. And there’s a lot of room for opportunity here: only 36% of the sites does a good job.
Secondly: how is the balance between plain text and HTML? Sites with more than 15% text will rank higher. But 8 out of 10 websites has less. Not that they should necessarily add more text and stuff their pages with content. No, in most cases they should clean up the HTML code of the templates they use. Did you know that Google considers websites with less than 15% text as possible spam?
Another thing that Google favours is “news value”. A blog is a significant signal that a website is regularly updated and aims to attract visitors that are looking for added value. The reason only 50% has a blog has possibly to do with the lack of resources. Folowing and feeding blog content from trusted 3rd parties could be a feasible and easy solution.
And last come some technical factors that should be provided by the CMS tool behind. Or are not... These make it easy for “crawlers” (little Google bots who work 24/7) to index your entire website. You better help them to do their job. Provide a robot.txt file, an XML sitemap, avoid duplicated content. Great to have your URL work with and without “www” but tell those bots it’s actually the same site. And broken links... Their impact is serious.
A proven case, a project that I’m personally working upon right now and which I ‘m happy to share with your: nav365.be.
To conclude the part of content optimization, here’s our advice.
Make up a plan in which you define the frequency of publishing, the type of content, the online channels that you will use, etc. This is by far the cornerstone of building up an audience. And how you make them engage with your content over time. Engagement leads to conversion and online leads.
Some things to consider:
Be consistent in the use of keywords and phrases. It’s more than just filling out a meta description.
Ask yourself the question if your current CMS system doesn’t stand in the way. Can you handle everything by yourself, or do you need to call on the help of an external party for even the little updates? A CMS should be user-friendly. And it plays a big role when talking about ROI. We come to that later.
Last but not least: consider blogging or working with bloggers.
Over to mobile...
How knows about Mobilegeddon?
Google launched their new algoritme back in april this year which basically favors mobile friendly sites in search results on mobile devices, Google Mobile that is. No real surprise, since more than 50% of the online traffic happens on a mobile device nowadays.
I think “mobilegeddon” is unjustly used. It is not the end, it’s actually the beginning. It’s a strong signal that search results will show completely different on a mobile device versus a desktop. Why? Simple: mobile users should have a maximum level of user experience on a mobile device.
If you can’t meet that requirement, you’re out of competition.
Do you know that 70% of the business decision-makers use their smartphone to find and learn about products and services that are related to their business? They do that on the go, in between meetings, when talking... And in the smallest room.
What do you think has the most impact on mobile friendliness?
Speed. If your website doesn’t load in less than 3seconds, a mobile user will likely try another search result. 65% of the sites needs more than 3 seconds. Of course you can’t control the network connectivity, but by optimizing the code and scripts, you can at least manage 40% of those 3 seconds.
Then comes design. How responsive (or adaptive) is it? You don’t want users to zoom, to scroll from left to right, to flip their device just to read your content, do you? Don’t forget: mobile users don’t even bother doing that anymore. They simply click away. In 65% of the analyzed sites, there’s room for opportunity.
Is the site optimized for touch screens? The call-to-actions you use in buttons and banners should be easy to tap. Merely 15% does a good job here.
And content should be easy to read. Nearly half of the sites requires the user to zoom in.
This is a train you can’t stop. Period.
The combination of mobile user experience and relevant content (see previous) gives you a competitive advantage. Speed plays a big role. Some business make a crucial mistake to invest in extra mobile functionalities, whereas they can seriously impact that loading speed.
When it comes to design, screen your templates. Do they act the way you want on every device, on every browser, on every operating system, in every resolution? Simplicity rules here.
Take this mobile friendliness seriously. Businesses that don’t invest today, risk of getting behind the competition. They’ll face a huge catch-up in the coming years.
Businesses that pay a lot of attention to user experience, will likely do a better job when it comes to online conversion. The better the experience, the more engagement, the higher chances are that anonymous visitors want to interact with your products and services.
We looked at different criteria, but for the sake of this presentation we only zoom in on 2 of them:
Conversion form. The availability, the location, the ease-of-use tells a lot how serious partners are about lead generation. There’s tons of opportunities to use a conversion form for: subscribe to a newsletter, request an proposal, contact to call back, download a white paper, register for a seminar, watch the whole video, participate in a survey, do a simulation, etc. More than half of the partners don’t have a conversion form, at least not on their homepage. Don’t forget the mobile user here. They will simply swipe or scroll to get to that form, not click. Make sure your front door is wide open.
And then again: load speed. To illustrate, just this scenario: If a website is too slow, users will click away and not come back. If a homepage does not clearly indicate what a company has to offer and what visitors can find… ditto. If users get lost, if text is hard to read or does not answer the most important questions… indeed. But not worries. There are tons of other websites out there, offering a better user experience. Most likely… the one of your competitor.
To get you started, here are some ideas for triggering call-to-actions that perform better than standard ones.
Technology, why would that matter?
Well, there’s different sides to this.
First of all, the platform or infrastructure your site is hosted upon is a key indicator of the level of security. Do you have HTPPS for instance? It’s one of those factors that Google takes into account, presuming your site is suitable for safe transactions. Should you care? Yes. NAV is moving to the cloud, offering a subscription business model. Now is the time to configure your SSL certificate right. Fact: only 12% is ready.
Secondly, do the sites contain clean codes and scripts? Remember these are the blocking factors for sites to load fast and avoid visitors to leave your homepage. Google looks at this. 25% do a great job here.
Do you have a tool for web analytics installed. Positive result: 80% has. So 20% is not really interested in what visitors do on their website. A quote to tap into the Customer Buying Journey illustrates why this is necessary. Do you know how many visitors you get on a monthly base, how long they stay and on what page or content they leave and exit your site?
clickdimensions integrated in Microsoft CRM => to close the loop from anonymous visit to purchase
In general, marketeers aren’t too focused on the technical dimension a website is built upon. But they do count. As well for the ranking in search, as for the users that will visit your site.
We’ve seen so many times that business are working with custom built CMS which is actually only to the benefit of the web agency. Choosing for proven tools, is freeing up time and budget. Referring to the problem childs, their CMS system often doesn’t allow them to manage their website in a proper way.
What is the buying behavior within your market? Do they use “ERP” as a keyword? A good analytical tool will tell you. Please know it’s an expensive keyword if you’re considering SEA – but is it relevant to your audience. Consider“navision demo” instead. People do perform searching this.
And you will see, as soon as you take analytics seriously, you would choose a platform on which you can host your entire online marketing strategy and execution upon. Taking this step by step, you might consider onboarding marketing automation, for your website content management, email marketing, social media distribution and most of all: smart reporting on what performs best, where and why.
Enough about technology, there’s simply too much boring stuff to it. I am a marketeer myself
Time to get social...
However the little impact social media has on the online performance score, please know that this goes hand in hand with a well-thought content marketing strategy. It ‘s not a matter of choosing where to invest more, it’s a matter of combining both.
We didn’t look at the number of likes, comments, tweets, shares being posted to the typically used social media channels. Instead, we looked at the importance that Dynamics Partner pay to their social presence. Fundamental question here is: do they link to these accounts from their website? And do they do this in the right, technical way, so Google captures this as a plus factor in ranking?
What are the 4 key social media channels for B2B? Do partners make the right choice? And how does that correlates with real life?
Take this quote in mind: B2B decision-makers are the most active online users of social media in the world. Not convinced? Here’s what they do.
Linkedin
60% of the partners integrates LinkedIn on their website. A good choice, since it is the preferred social media for B2B and with the highest conversion rate. This is why nearly 90% of B2B marketeers are on LinkedIn on a regular base. So practically, about 30% leaves money on the table. 82% B2B decision-makers actively uses LinkedIn in a professional, business-related context. To connect with colleagues, peers, customers and prospects. To participate in groups and to review products and services they might consider.
Twitter
Twitter is the 2nd most popular B2B channel. 64% of the partners manages a Twitter account. But it becomes interesting why a business decision-maker uses Twitter for. Twitter is more than just a channel to push content to, there’s a lot of push-back as well. If nearly 90% of the B2B marketeers uses Twitter, there’’s a reason behind. They use Twitter, not necessarily to receive and consume content, but to feedback real-time and get in touch with companies or share their experience about your products or services. Let me tell you a story about Microsoft tweeting about the Ultimate Business MakeOver campaign. To put things in the right perspective.
Facebook
Naah... “Facebook is B2C” I hear you saying and you’re right. It shows, not even 60% actively uses Facebook. But if we look at the business decision-maker, about 80% will recognize they use Facebook, not only for private use. To connect with colleagues, peers and to nurture business relationships, is amongst their objectives using this social medium. And to comment on postings from brands, products and businesses, whether or not sponsored. Something to consider? Would it take much time to actively use Facebook as an extra distribution channel? Stitch your Facebook posts with your Tweets and you can kill two birds with just one stone.
Google+
We’re not in the USA where Google+ has a respectable amount of users. But please consider the Google play, especially for SEO’s sake. I’m not saying you should make it different track of your content marketing strategy. But if you’re doing videos on YouTube, there’s no argument not to post to Google+.
Social media should be an important part of your entire content marketing strategy. It’s not enough to just “be there”, doing something with it is key.
Make sure you are in control of what’s being distributed to social media, who is in charge for that and don’t forget to close monitor the conversation with the audience. There are tools for that, but my recommendation is to follow up yourself, especially at the start of this journey. If you do this the right way, social eventually leads to conversion.
But choose your battleground. Better go for 2-3 media instead of launching accounts you don’t actively manage.
Important to add: iGoogle takes social signals into account.
Social drives data. See what LinkedIn can offer for your company or group page...
Analyzed the websites of 80 Dynamics Partners in BE + NL.
Pretty sure these results are applicable for all Dynamics Partners, including you ;)
1. The customer finds you
It takes a plan + focus => coach
You say to yourself: OK.. I might be interested. What can I do? And what can Microsoft do?
We are really looking for partners who serious about this.
Microsoft is committed to help you
And serve as a ‘best practice’ for other Dynamics Partners.
actively promote those Partners as Best Practice
