B2B Social Media Marketing - Really! (2013 edition)

Editor's Notes

• #3: The mainstream media in the United States is in a state of precipitous decline. Newspaper revenues have fallen by more than half since 2005 in circulation is at levels not seen since the Kennedy administration. In the magazine market, the news is not much better. Circulation at Iconic titles like woman’s Day and Redbook are off more than 70%in the past decade. While some new titles have made up the gap, the overall magazine circulation picture is trending steadily downward.In B2B publishing, the situation is even worse correct. A decade ago, technology publishers produced more than 1000 pages per week of printed magazine content aimed at business buyers. Today, almost none of those publications even exists anymore. The largest loser in magazine ad pages in 2009 was the business-to-business segment.
• #8: Why should you optimize for search?Numbers like these provide pretty compelling evidence. The volume of search activity is growing steadily and the quality of search engines is improving. About 80% of B2B buyers start the buying process with a search, and I think it’s safe to say that nearly every buying decision has search embedded somewhere in it.Two numbers are interesting in this chart. One is that the average number of words in a Google search is increasing. This indicates that people are getting more savvy about using search engines and are specifying longer queries. This means that your search strategy needs to be focused more than ever on the so-called long tail of highly specific keywords. We’ll get into that a little later.Another amazing statistic is that 20% of all Google searches have never been done before. This means that try as you might to anticipate the ways which people will find your company, they’ll always come up with something new. Your keyword strategy needs to be fluid.
• #15: Characteristics of B2B interactions differ in some fundamental ways from B2C interactions. This has important implications for the selection of social media tools. Among the major differences are:B2B marketing is much more likely to focus on value than experience. Value can be expressed in many ways, including price/performance, the fit with the customer’s business objective, flexibility, and compatibility with existing systems. The “Wow!” factor that is so important to many consumer buying decisions rarely means much in business engagements. B2B buying decisions are usually made by groups, whereas consumer buying decisions are made by individuals. This means that B2B marketing programs must influence multiple people at multiple stages of the buying process, and each of those individuals has different priorities. The chief financial officer (CFO), for example, is focused on return, whereas the product manager may be thinking more about user experience or lead generation.Business buying cycles are longer than consumer buying cycles. This is primarily because more dollars are at stake and more people are involved in the decision. B2B companies prefer to choose suppliers for the long-term and avoid disruptive and expensive changes. This means that much more research usually goes into a B2B decision than a B2C decision.Business buying decisions are more likely to be a commitment than consumer buying decisions. The viability of the manufacturer, its quality of support, and its future product road maps have significant influence on these decisions. Once the sale is made, buyer and seller are bound together in an ongoing dialog. Relationships play a more important role in B2B than in B2Cdecisions. In some cases, business buyers bet their careers on the choices they make. They need to feel confident that their supplier will validate the soundness of their judgment. Service and support are essential decision factors. Down time is expensive. Business customers expect their problems to be solved when they need them solved. B2B sales have lots of moving parts. At the high end in particular, contracts are often custom bid and may include bundled services, special discounts, and detailed price schedules.
• #32: ES
• #33: In the posts I take advantage of content I’ve posted in SlideShare, YouTube, and Flickr to make the post richer and increase the digital footprint. I also do an audio podcast of almost every post. Customers and sales folks gave me feedback that they have long commutes and wanted the audio version of each post, so I created an iTunes channel and MP3 subscription.
• #34: PG