Ruth P. Stevens Articles and Columns

Ruth P. Stevens Articles and Columns: DIRECT Magazine

February, 2009

What’s New in B-to-B Marketing
By Ruth P. Stevens

You might have thought that in a recession, marketing innovation would slow down. But, no! Great new ideas are still coming out of B-to-B direct marketers. In fact, maybe a recession forces us to work smarter, versus harder.

These days, no surprise, many of the innovations are happening online, especially in search engine marketing, which is still the single fastest-growing marketing channel (at 14.9%, according to eMarketer), although its rate of growth is showing signs of slowing down. Here are some new developments in the areas of search, video, lead generation and social media.

Global pay per click management
An exciting new direction in search engine marketing is the globalization of pay per click campaigns. Most large B-to-B companies are organized into regional, or even local, marketing groups, and for good reason. Customization of messages to local buying behavior makes a lot of sense, especially when multiple languages are involved.

But when it comes to search marketing, companies are waking up to the fact that paid search is an ideal candidate for global funding and coordination. Why? Because search is so concentrated. Business buyers worldwide do product research via a few gigantic search engines—most likely Google. So a single buy can reach a worldwide audience—unlike any other medium out there. Plus, search ad copy is short and simple, and doesn’t require much creative adaptation to different cultures.

Perhaps most importantly in global marketing organizations, pay per click search budgets are relatively easy to move around among regions quickly, to optimize overall global ROI.

SAP, the multi-national enterprise software giant, has recently gained efficiencies by centralizing its search engine marketing budgets, while using four local “demand generation hubs” in North America, Latin America, Asia and Europe (EMEA) to manage regional execution.

SAP found that managing pay per click globally has other benefits as well. According to Adriel Sanchez, director of direct marketing at SAP, a bonus from centralized search management has been in identifying gaps in website content. “Keywords are a window into customer needs and interests around the world,” says Sanchez. “When we see an uptick in keywords for which we don’t have relevant content on our site, we go develop the demos or white papers needed to fill that gap.”

Automated real-time SKU-driven advertising
B-to-B marketers selling products by e-commerce are now connecting their product catalogs directly to Google AdWords, in order to create highly relevant advertising on the fly. When the product information is digitized, Google can index it, and customers are able to find what they are looking for based on the product name, description, number or the promotion, with updates driving automatic refreshment.

Says Sam Sebastian, Google’s director for local and B-to-B markets, automated feeding of product information into AdWords helps grow business dramatically. “We have a $6 billion client, a distribution company, that is now selling over a billion dollars through its site, due to our partnership. The idea is to bait the hook with lots of bait at a time. And the best part is that, since it’s all pay per click advertising, you only pay when a hand raises.”

A dignified site for distributing corporate videos
Just about every corporate communications department produces video for PR and promotional purposes. But you may want to let loose your video into the frenetic environment of YouTube. If so, there is now an alternative.

eCorpTV.com is a video-sharing channel online that allows corporate videos of all sorts—whether product demos, employee recruitment, or corporate social responsibility films—to be posted for free, in a quality-controlled environment. As online video consumption skyrockets, this may be the way to distribute videos with more confidence and less clutter.

New ideas for lead generation campaigns
B-to-B direct marketers are always looking for new ways to improve the productivity of their lead generation campaigns. According to David Azulay, vice president of client services at The Kern Organization, three new techniques are showing signs of success:

Add a video introduction to your landing page. “Enthusiasm for video is at an all-time high,” notes Azulay. “We are finding that a credible spokesperson giving a short video introduction to the product or service can increase conversions and downloads by 20-50%.”
Create an online “resource center” stocked with white papers, research reports and case studies. Business buyers appreciate it when their vendors give them information they need to do their jobs. Allowing prospects to download whatever they need can provide a valuable competitive edge.
Focus attention on lead nurturing. Lead nurturing is nothing new, but B-to-B direct marketers have developed a new-found appreciation for its power to improve campaign performance dramatically. “We are building nurturing programs as part of nearly every integrated program today. It really pays off when you tailor the message when keeping in contact with prospects who are not ready to buy immediately,” advises Azulay.

Automated lead distribution
One of the most aggravating elements of lead generation programs is the difficulty of determining which sales person should get which lead. Smart companies today are setting up rules-based automated lead distribution programs that enhance the work of their SFA (sales force automation) or CRM systems.

The hard part, of course, is setting up the rules in the first place. This requires a lot of what-if planning among sales people and marketers to identify the key variables and criteria for decision-making. But once that’s done, then the leads flow smoothly and—most importantly—quickly, to the right sales resource.

An example comes from Linda Tenenbaum, account executive at IMI, a database marketing firm in San Jose. One IMI client, a telecommunications equipment manufacturer, created lead distribution decision rules based on three cascading criteria:

Government. Based on certain key words or government domain names, if the lead is identified as being from a federal or state government entity, it is sent directly to one of two dedicated reps who cover government accounts.
Key accounts. Based on a reference table, if the lead comes from a list of key accounts, it goes directly to the call center for follow up. Once the call center personnel have further qualified the lead, it goes to the rep dedicated to the account.
Comments. Based on particular interest topics in the text, the lead will be handled by customer service. For example, if key words appear for products that are no longer supported by the company, an email is generated with information about where to go to find out more about that product.

Twitter gets real for B-to-B marketing
There’s been a lot of recent hype about Twitter out there—always a cause for skepticism—so it’s refreshing to hear that some B-to-B marketers are actually getting real business value out of this new tool. According to Ed Linde II, senior marketing manager for web marketing, IBM is using Twitter in several ways to encourage deeper customer relationships.

First, IBM has set up Twitter communities around events, both face-to-face and online. Event attendees can communicate among themselves, with speakers, and with product managers, before, during and after the event, which serves to enhance their experience and expand the value of the event itself. “These attendees are classic early adopters,” says Linde. “They are using Twitter to share tips and experiences with the products, telling new users what to expect, and offer planning guidance. It’s like a real-time user group. Often, they trust each other more than they trust the vendor. Plus, they like the networking.”

Linde’s group is also using Twitter to enhance customer communications. Jan Van Hoomissen, web marketing manager, noticed a Tweet that grumbled about IBM Intel servers being overpriced. On examination, the message turned out to be from an IBM business partner. She reached out to the partner, and with the help of the partner management team, was able to restructure the deal. Later, the partner Twittered his gratitude for IBM’s responsiveness. Linde commented, “We’re using these new tools to cut through some of the organizational complexity. It’s important to be quick, transparent, and honest in social media. We have to take some lumps, but if we respond to them appropriately, we can turn them around to be a positive.”

Ruth P. Stevens consults on customer acquisition & retention, and teaches marketing to graduate students at Columbia Business School. She is the author of The DMA Lead Generation Handbook, and her new book is Trade Show and Event Marketing, now available at Amazon. Reach her at ruth@ruthstevens.com.

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