Podcasts Joining Blogs in B2B Mainstream – Research

November 30, 2006 by · Leave a Comment

Recently, we pointed our readers to a MarketingVOX posting on the rise of B2B blogging.  Seems the folks there have been at it again, this time with a post giving a nice summary of a KnowledgeStorm and Universal McCann joint research study on the emerging role of podcasts on B2B technology purchase decisions.
A few of the study’s findings…

  • Some 41 percent of business and IT professionals say they have listened to podcasts on more than one occasion, while 13 percent say they frequently download or listen to them
  • Fully 55 percent of respondents said they would be more likely to consume white papers and analyst reports if they were delivered as podcasts.

“This is one of the first surveys focused specifically on the B2B audience and it clearly shows that podcasts, blogs and other new media types are viable mediums for reaching B2B technology buyers,” Matt Lohman, director of market research, KnowledgeStorm, said in a statement.

Just as we endeavor to shape our products/services in response to customer input, we marketers should be doing the same with our message-delivery vehicles.  It certainly feels unwise to just ignore the preferences of roughly half of our target audience.

Filed Under: B2B Web Strategy ·

Fluff is for Sandwiches, Not Websites

November 16, 2006 by · Leave a Comment

The pitfall of value-less content

You created your site because you wanted to deliver some kind of information to both your clients, and the general public.  You wanted to help solve your users’ problems, offer something of value to the world, and hopefully generate a few leads in the process.  Certainly, it’s a noble (and potentially profitable) goal, but are you reaching it?

So many companies fill their web pages with “fluff” – content that isn’t helpful to users, and simply wastes a few priceless seconds of the time they decided to spend on your site.

The average web user has a short attention span.  The average frazzled marketing assistant looking for a product, service, or vendor for their company has an even shorter attention span.  Typically, that user is taking away 5 minutes of time from doing their “real job” to see what you have to offer them.  They don’t have time to waste reading content that does nothing but pat your company’s back or drown the reader in internal jargon.

The links on your site are a promise to the user.  They say “if you click me, you will find something valuable and useful.”  When that user clicks a link and gets nothing more than 2 sentences of fluff content and a generic piece of stock photography, you’ve broken that promise.  That user is now disappointed and irritated that they wasted the time to click that link; and – justifiably – they leave your site. 

Your website should inspire people to “snoop around,” not run for the exit.  If your user is short on time (and you should always assume they are), the site should at least offer them something that will inspire them to click that “Add to Favorites” button and (hopefully) check you out later. [Read more...]

Filed Under: B2B Web Strategy, Conversion Metrics, Web Design ·

Website Impact on a Service Business

November 16, 2006 by · Leave a Comment

We recently came across an outstanding article by Mike Schultz and John Doerr at RainToday.com:  5 Effects of a Website on a Service Business Brand.  Because we believe it’s well worth a full read, we’re not going to quote it here at any great length;  but here are just a few of its salient points, in brief:

First Impressions are Key –
Potential clients of service businesses today form a good part of their initial opinion of a firm based on its website, using it to quickly evaluate…

  • How clearly does the management of this service company communicate?
  • How up-to-date is this service firm?
  • Is this firm attentive to detail (& hence up to our standards)?

Service Specialty –
Assuming our service firm passes the first-impression test, prospects usually move forward to evaluate whether the firm’s specific service offerings apply to their needs …typically looking for appropriate specialization.  Be sure that your specialties are clearly communicated.

Memorable Brand Impressions –
Consider the following two points to make sure your brand and message are not quickly forgotten: [Read more...]

Filed Under: B2B Web Strategy, Conversion Metrics ·

B2B Blogs Go Mainstream

November 10, 2006 by · Leave a Comment

We’ve had that nagging, subliminal feeling for some time now that blogs had gone beyond the simply trendy, and were fast becoming business-critical in the B2B world.  The folks over at MarketingVOX apparently couldn’t agree more:  their recent post, “Research:  Blogs a Powerful B2B Presence” summarizes an Emerging Media Series study conducted by KnowledgeStorm and Universal McCann, which gathered data from 4,500 business and IT professionals.

Some of the study’s key conclusions:

  • Some 80 percent of respondents say they read blogs, 51 saying they read them at least once a week.
  • More than half of respondents say they are getting both business and technology information from blogs.
  • Over 53 percent of respondents say the content they read in blogs impacts their work-related purchasing decisions.

Sounds a lot like critical mass to us.  If your company was planning to be the last B2B to start a blog, it just might be time to re-evaluate that strategy.

Filed Under: B2B Web Strategy, Online Marketing ·

Using Integrated Marketing to Drive Web Traffic

November 8, 2006 by · Leave a Comment

Ah, yes… website traffic.  It’s a bit like kids and Halloween candy:  something you just can’t have enough of.  No matter how much traffic your site gets, chances are you – or someone in your company – believes it’s not enough.  So herewith, a quick guide to useful traffic-boosters.
Let’s look first at the online elements, since they probably seem most “connected” to the goal…

Search-engine promotion:  This is the process of raising your site’s visibility in the listings produced by the various search engines (Google, Yahoo!, msn, etc.) in response to user keyword searches.  It comes in two flavors: [Read more...]

Filed Under: B2B Web Strategy, Traffic Generation ·

To Register or Not? Yes, It Really Is a Valid Question

November 2, 2006 by · Leave a Comment

OK, so you have a nifty pay per click campaign running, and Sally Suspect has just clicked through to your landing page to grab a copy of your latest & greatest white paper.  But before handing it over, you want to capture Sally’s critical contact information;  so you hit her with your registration form prior to letting her get anywhere near the “download” button, right??

Most of us marketeers are silently screaming, “Of course!” …it’s basically in our DNA.  Plus, isn’t that the whole reason for spending all that money on PPC and SEO? …so that when interested new leads arrive, their contact info is captured and fed into that giant email-incubation machine, which is all but certain to turn them into customers in 3-18 months?

[Read more...]

Filed Under: B2B Web Strategy, Engagement ·