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Internet Marketing Handbook Series Marketing Online B 2 B “If you want to take full ownership of your B2B brand online, think outside the box, put all your ducks in a row and proactively remove the low-hanging fruit with a campaign that does exactly what it says on the tin, then this is the handbook for you!”

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Internet Marketing Handbook Series

Marketing OnlineB2B

“If you want to take full ownership of your B2B brand online, think outside the box, put all your ducks in a row and proactively remove the low-hanging fruit with a campaign that does exactly what it says on the tin, then this is the handbook for you!”

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“In the B2B arena, you need results. Big goals get big results. No goals get no results or somebody else’s results.”

B2B: Marketing Online 1

The Internet advertising Bureau is a B2B brand. And that’s why we’re so passionate about B2B marketing, because we do it, and we appreciate the need to stand out in loud, highly competitive markets. This is where digital comes in, offering numerous opportunities to secure an online presence that can put you head and shoulders above the rest. In fact, fail to embrace it and in these tough times your sales may even suffer, simply because online is where your audiences are likely to be.

We often say that the internet is more than a medium, rather a series of highly effective and accountable tools that can perform very different roles within your communications campaigns. Online can be employed to position you as a thought-leader within your industry through the creation of informative, compelling content and the adoption of new and innovative technologies. If you want to get in front of your customers during the research process, use search. If you’re looking for reach, and engagement, online display advertising and video can be the perfect solutions. Every business needs to update their customers on its products and services, as well as sometimes just keep in touch with a friendly hello, and that’s where email comes in. And building an exceptional buzz around your company is now possible through the use of social media.

This IAB handbook is a ‘how to’ guide for any B2B organisation that requires a helping hand in the world of internet marketing. Here you’ll find insights into strategy, execution, measurement and evaluation across a range of disciplines to fully equip you with the tools essential to make your mark online. We’ve asked our B2B council to share their expertise with you, providing practical advice to further enhance your service and guarantee the kind of longevity that all businesses crave.

IntroductionFrom Guy Phillipson, CEO, Internet Advertising Bureau

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1. Search - The gateway to your brand 3Getting Started 3Combining paid and natural search 5PPC campaign management strategies 6Marketing Mix Integration 82. Email - Reach new clients and maintain relationships 10Setting up your campaign: Data 12Setting up your campaign: Creative 13Setting up your campaign: Delivery 15Tracking 16Resources 173. Display - release the power of branding And messaging 18Objectives and Strategies 20Getting Started 22Delivery - Targeting, placement & ad serving 24Measurements and Tracking 264. Social media - Using online communities for b2b purposes 28How to use social media for generating leads 29Listen and analyse the conversations out there 29Create a framework 30Create a contagious platform 31Activate advocacy and spread contagious ideas 32Collect data for the salesforce 335. Video - The ultimate engagement tool 34Strategy and Getting started 36Marketing mix integration 39Measurement and Future 406. Conclusion 428. Glossary and delivery format information 469. Key players and contact details / Acknowledgements 50

Contents

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Introduction

This chapter aims to give you an insight into one of the most important marketing channels of the 21st century. The content in this chapter is based on professionals’ observations, across thousands of campaigns which have been run or consulted on. Search engines are continually developing their algorithms and rule sets, which affect search ranking without revealing how or why changes have been made. This chapter will provide help for both the novice and seasoned marketer who uses the web to drive traffic. The authors of the sections will take you from campaign set-up and management, to measurement and analytics, covering the do’s and dont’s.

Getting Started

1. Search The gateway to your brand

• What should you think about before embarking on your B2B search campaign?

• What are people searching for?

• How does search fit into the organisation’s marketing and communication strategies?

• Is your search strategy based on a specific campaign by aiming to support a multi-year search infrastructure for the company?

• Will traffic be driven on objectives or campaign activity?

• Where will you be driving traffic to on your site? – look at links to specific pages not just your organisation’s home page

• Do you have the right tracking links/reporting capabilities?

• How will you define success and track the success of search versus other activities you are planning?

By James Farmer, Publishing Director,B2B Marketing

By Rachel Tyler, Microsoft Advertising and Hanne Tuomisto-Inch, Banner

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What are your campaign objectives?It is important to get this clear. Your keywords, copy and landing page will all be influenced on what type of campaign you are running. Is it brand awareness or response driven? Do I need a call to action or do I need to be specific? It is critical to consider the mindset of your target audience.

What is your target audience?Defining your target audience will help you understand your recipient’s search behaviour and develop your campaign. People are often not searching for solutions, but instead researching problems they have. The words people use to search are not necessarily obvious – the more detailed you can be, the more effective you can make your campaign.

How do you define and measure search marketing success?It is important to decide what metrics are important to measure upfront. There is a variety of data which is available through search platforms. It is essential to make a decision of what you will measure and how much you are willing to pay for the action (click/visit, download/lead/sale).

Do you have compelling reasons for people to give their registration data?Business audiences are often reluctant to give up their contact details, unless there is a fair value exchange. The call-to-actions you offer need to match with the objectives and the buying cycle that your prospects are in. For example, independent, third party research and whitepapers are relevant in the awareness / early information gathering stage. Case studies and technical solution sheets and free trial offers are more relevant later in the buying cycle. Content needs to be unique, relevant, compelling and valuable.

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What is your competitive landscape like?Carry out research to evaluate how competitive your market sector is in terms of search activity. Based on an initial keyword list you will be able to get average bid prices from Google tools. Furthermore, using tools like Hitwise and Adgooroo will allow an understanding of competitors’ copy, keywords and volume of activity, both on PPC and SEO. These will be crucial in determining how aggressively you need to launch your campaign and how to get a competitive advantage over your key rivals.

Combining paid and natural search

It’s the question everyone asks: search engine optimisation (SEO), or pay per click (PPC)?’ But the more compelling question is, ‘How can we integrate them?’ Integrated Search is the key to successful Search Engine Marketing, short and long-term. Although SEO and PPC advertising are in principle very different strategies, both rely on content optimisation to increase ROI, and together they give more powerful results than either strategy can achieve on its own.

Why content rulesA few years ago, pay per click advertising was lauded as the fast-track alternative to SEO you just chucked loads of money at PPC for immediate results and rankings, and you didn’t need to change your whole website to get them. But times have changed, and this key difference between SEO and PPC is disappearing.

This is down to the Google Quality Score, which calculates how relevant your paid listing is for the keyword/phrase you are bidding for. To get a high quality score you need to optimise the content on the page the ad directs users to (the landing page). Ongoing optimisation is vital and necessary for notable results.

B2B: Marketing Online

“Use search to get your name out there. Anonymity is the greatest barrier to business success.”

By Lisa Ditlesfsen, Head of Search, Base One Interactive

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Are you overlooking a big mutual benefit?You may know that SEO contributes to successful pay per click advertising, but PPC can also boost your SEO strategy. The data you can collect from running a PPC campaign, such as total impressions for each keyword, is invaluable to help determine how and where to target specific keywords for use in the organic listings. Marketers can use PPC campaigns to test creative messages, and then apply the test results to meta data for SEO campaigns.

Get everyone talkingFor successful integration, communication between the SEO and PPC teams is imperative. Whether your search marketing is outsourced or handled in-house, it’s crucial that all relevant departments are sharing information and updates. Sharing information such as keyword performance data across SEO and PPC efforts makes them both more likely to produce conversions and, ultimately, results.

Be prepared to switch sidesTo get the most out of an integrated SEO and PPC campaign, you’ve got to play to the strengths of each strategy. So don’t be afraid to adjust the focus: sometimes PPC should take the lead, and sometimes SEO will be your main driver. For instance, once a website generates significant results from the organic search engine optimisation, pay per click advertising should be used to increase traffic. If you don’t perform well in the search engine results pages (SERPs) for certain terms, make sure you have solid PPC coverage on these terms.

PPC campaign management strategies

Keyword ResearchThe first step to PPC management is extensive keyword research based on your website, products and target customers. You need to find as many keywords relevant to your company. First focus on

By Petra Studholme, Paid Search Manager, Simply Businessand David White, CEO, Weboptimiser

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high volume keywords, then include so-called tail-end (more obscure) keywords that are low volume but are cheaper to bid on.

TargetingIn addition to targeting your customer by highly specific keywords, most search engines now also give the option to target by geographic location (local versus UK), demographics (target by gender or age) or behaviour. These tools can help to make your campaigns more focused to the right audience hence improving your click through rate (CTR), lowering your cost per click (CPC) and improving your ROI.

URLIt is essential to get the display URL correct as it will help users find your site. You are able to add keywords or product group to your URL. This is extremely effective (for example http://www.SimplyBusiness.co.uk/insurance). It is important to check that all your links and URLs work. Search engines will ignore your page if it is broken.

DesignBefore you can think about PPC management, you need to come up with good creatives. Focus on your website and your unique selling points which you need to get across to your target audience. For example what differentiates you from competitors and the message you want to get across. Think like your customer and what they want to “hear” from you. It is vital to test different creatives for different product groups. Run two to three creatives per ad group and test them against each other to find the strongest performing ad. Consider where you are directing users to, sending customers straight to a lengthy complicated form may not be the right thing to do. Creatives should be refreshed at least every six months.

ProfilingAnother important aspect of your PPC management is the profiling of your existing and prospective customers. By using the data you

B2B: Marketing Online

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have it is possible to target your audience and attract them to click on your ads. Analysis can also help you identify patterns and hot spots for certain days of the week and times of the day where you are most likely to get the maximum out of your PPC investment.

Campaign management Organise your target search terms into campaigns and ad groups that reflect segments of your target market. You are then able to create a range of advertisements that are designed to promote each group that you want to target.

Marketing Mix Integration

It is a great irony in the market that only a small percentage of B2B firms have successfully integrated search marketing with their wider marketing mix. Search marketing is not a new media channel, if a week in politics is a long time, then 10 years of search, as part of the marketing mix, is a lifetime. The market has been able to effectively integrate telesales with direct marketing (DM), advertising with direct sales, direct sales with branding, telesales, DM and advertising; however SEO and SEM has not been as successful.

The best way to look at search, in an integrated model, is to break it up in the short term and mid to long-term marketing objectives.

The short term - Initial new product/service launches:Don’t use search as a one trick pony, it is not the sole marketing solution. Even the search engine owners use the full marketing mix in their marketing efforts. Search is a very powerful channel, but there are drawbacks… there can be wastage if used poorly and it will not give your product full market exposure.

It can take up to 3 months to get new content on your site or a new website listed on natural search results. Therefore, you cannot sit

By James Farmer, Publishing Director, B2B Marketing Magazine

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around and wait that long for the search engines to find and list your new content. During the early weeks of your launch, you need to put aside a portion of your budget exclusively to PPC advertising.

Where is the integration though? Within ‘search’, PPC should be seen as part of the initial direct marketing effort to drive awareness to your new product/services. The PPC offer/positioning should tie into your overall marketing objectives. For example, will you be using PPC, and possibly direct mail? Select a mix which will drive response against your objectives. Each marketing channel needs to be measured against the next to see which is driving the best results i.e. how much does it cost to make a sale or recruit a prospect? Once these numbers are crunched, then select the most effective channels.

The mid to long-term – Continuing to push an established product/service

Well-built sites/micro-sites will quickly optimise over 3 months in “natural search”. Managing to obtain a top position listing is key. Once the site is listed at the top, then you can hold back on PPC. The next steps should be maintaining natural search levels and improving on wider keywords to build even greater natural search optimisation. At this point, integration of the campaign will subside. The web should drive quality traffic, this is why managing quality leads via SEO is imperative. Monthly targets need to be met, and quality is always better than quantity. If the SEO is not pulling in quality leads, then one must repeat the product launch plan, within the best performing integrated marketing mix, including more PPC, until you can re-optimise your site to draw in more targeted prospects via natural search.

B2B: Marketing Online

“It’s not who you know, it’s who knows you.”

By James Farmer, Publishing Director, B2B Marketing Magazine

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Email marketing within B2B has some similar challenges to those in B2C but there are fundamental differences. Each organisation we deal with usually has their own IT infrastructure which means that delivery to inboxes can be unsuccessful in one organisation and not an issue in another. Email in B2B is much more of a support tool to the business rather than something that will drive people to a shopping basket to buy the latest Xbox game. The important thing to remember is that the individuals in B2B are worth a lot more to us and it is worth the time and effort to get our campaigns right. This chapter will help you, the marketer, understand how email works in B2B, what to look out for and how email can add value to your business relationships.

Why is B2B different to B2C?

• You’re dealing with much smaller databases of people than consumer marketing.

• It’s often non-transactional, so you need to give it a little more thought than just sending an email and waiting for the shopping basket figures to tot up.

• Your recipients representing businesses are probably spending

2. Email Reach new clients and

maintain relationships

By Ed Weatherall,

Managing Director, Concep.

11B2B: Marketing Online

“Be unique, not different.”

a lot of money which is not theirs. This is often higher and more disposable than consumer spend.

• They are busy people with bursting inboxes. Within a business environment people have even less time than consumers to browse emails and the internet.

Objectives and strategy

You need to understand what you’re trying to achieve before you start putting your messages together and selecting the channel. Ask yourself:

• Am I set up for the reports and analytics I get back to refine future communications?

• Is email aligned with the other channels and touch points in my marketing mix?

• How many marketing messages can my different audiences (such as prospects, customers, stakeholders or staff) receive and how many will they tolerate/welcome?

Then see which channels you are likely to use throughout the year to deliver your different messages. Set out how you will monitor each channel so you can quickly see what is working (both alone and together). You’ll also need to ensure that all your channels are aligned. You don’t want to have different messages/creative/branding on your website, advertising and emails. This will only confuse your target audience.

When you’re putting your email strategy together you’ll need to separate ongoing and one-off communications. It’s good to plan regular communications as your audiences will get used to receiving relevant content at regular intervals. Members of your own business will also know when certain content is being sent and can plan their own communications around these.

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Setting up your campaign: Data

When setting up your campaign, there are two main options when it comes to data: you can build your own email list or you can rent a list from a reputable commercial supplier.

So how do you go about building an opted-in email list?

One way is to use your website to allow customers/prospects to subscribe to a company newsletter to receive announcements - for example, new products and services or late deals and the like. Alternatively you could ask them to opt-in verbally.

Offline you can gather emails simply by asking customers for their email address just as you would ask for a contact address or telephone number if you do not already have a database containing such details.

Whatever means you use to gather email addresses you must ensure that:

• The customer has given their permission to receive information by email from you – never send an email to someone who does not want it. Whilst for B2B this is not a legal requirement, it is best practice and ensures a more responsive list.

• The customer always has the option to unsubscribe/cancel i.e. not receive further emails.

• You disclose how you intend to use their information in a privacy policy which is easily accessible to the customer - for example, whether or not you intend to pass on their details to a third party.

• You do not abuse the permission granted by the customer. Signing up to receive a newsletter does not give a company the right to send all sorts of other communications such as mail shots for example.

“If you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it every time.”

By Saul Parry, EDR Agency

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• You don’t alienate and annoy your customers with a deluge of daily/weekly emails. Newsletters can be monthly, bi-monthly or quarterly. Periodically asking people how often they wish to receive your newsletter is sensible.

The best list is going to be one you have built yourself but the other option is to purchase an email list from a reputable list broker or owner. The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) has launched a searchable directory on its website of its member list brokers/owners.

Tips when buying a commercial mailing list:

• Only buy opted-in lists.

• Only use reputable list brokers/owners.

• Check the source of the lists you are buying – how, when and where people signed up and what did they agree to receive.

• Be specific when selecting your lists in order to target your audience - for example by location, industry sector, contact job function, number of computers and the like.

• Generally personal rather than generic (info@ etc) email addresses work better.

• Get telephone numbers as well - a follow up sales call will often uplift response by up to 20 per cent.

Setting up your campaign: Creative

Text vs HTMLWill this email be Text or HTML format? Many believe that HTML is always best because it looks more professional but it isn’t that simple. Text can be used to great effect to communicate the personality and character of your brand. On the other hand, HTML has the advantage of aiding recognition.

B2B: Marketing Online

By Richard Bush, Managing Director, BaseOneGroup

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The subject lineOften ignored, the subject is the single most important piece of copy. This single line usually determines whether your email gets opened at all and, like a good envelope message, it has the potential to raise expectations and positive feelings towards the content before it is viewed. The best principle to follow is that the subject line should be direct, open and honest, rather than clever, intriguing or over-promising.

Design and layoutThe principles for effective email design follow those for web design and it is wise to develop some elements of consistency between your email format and the website that users will click through to.

However it is not enough to simply copy the website design; it needs to be adapted for email use:

Make the branding elements smallerThe use of the preview pane on email applications means that many people judge emails before opening them. To make this possible you need to reduce the space used by the logo and other branding elements so that at least some copy is visible in preview. Also, this means that text is often more important than images that will rarely download automatically.

Keep the file size smallMany corporate companies are reducing the size of personal mailboxes causing larger emails to bounce-back. Consult your designers and developers to use methods to reduce file sizes of the emails.

Keep images smallThis is mainly to speed up the time taken before the mail is fully visible. It won’t really affect the file size but it does impact on usability and therefore effectiveness. All images should be accompanied with the appropriate text so that people viewing offline can still get the gist.

“Act like you already are the business you want to become.”

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Design for printWhilst not universally accepted, it is believed that a significant proportion of people print emails to read them at a later, more convenient, time or to show them to colleagues. To accommodate this you may need to reduce the page width. To be safe put critical information on the left hand side.

Some additional HTML tipsHTML emails will almost always be too long to read without using the scroll bar, so it’s important that there is some meaty content within the visible area.

Image blocking is default in most email clients, so ensure your email is not relying solely on the creative to drive interactions.

Once you’ve completed the design it is strongly recommended to test it on a variety of different email platforms and operating systems both online and offline.

What’s the point?Whatever layout you use, make sure the content is focused on the objective - usually that will be to get as many people as possible to click through to an online area. You rarely tell the whole story or complete the sale in the email itself.

Make your message short and powerful. The more persuasive you are, the better the results.

Setting up your campaign: Delivery

This is the more technical part of email. Less than 10 per cent of organisations do not change their mail filters to allow relevant email messages through (Concep London), so it is important that your email and sender profile tick the boxes to ensure your email arrives.

B2B: Marketing Online

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Reputation Every time you send an email from your domain it has an effect on your reputation. It is important that you monitor your reputation with the ISPs, if you are sending lots of emails you can quickly get blacklisted or see your delivery rates drop. You can do this yourself or it may be easier to use a company (Return Path, Bonded Sender, Goodmail) who will manage this for you. By working with them, your reputation can be enhanced.

AuthenticationThis is a question of where the email is coming from. With more and more fraudulent emails being sent it is important that your servers are configured correctly. Make sure you have the DNS records set up for the domain you are using and if possible set up Domain Keys and Sender ID.

Tracking

One of the biggest mistakes busy marketers make is thinking that once you have pushed the send button the campaign is done. WRONG. You are also able to track users if you have the correct processes in place. Using this tracking can be essential to gaining valuable information about your recipients and translating that back into something your business can use.

Views How well received was your message by the market? If people aren’t reading it or passing it on to colleagues, maybe you need to change your tact, or stop going on about it.

Clicks and downloads What particular topics are your recipients clicking through on? Is this a cross selling opportunity or do you have enough people for a round table discussion?

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Undeliverable Pass invalid records back to the data owners to ensure your business is looking after its most valuable asset.

Opt outs Find out why people do not want to hear from you by email and ensure that they are getting relevant messages from you in the format they want.

Domains Make sure your emails are being delivered to particular organisations and that your key clients make up a good proportion of your mailing list.

Resources

B2B: Marketing Online

“Hey, let’s touch base and brain storm!”

Email Standards Project - www.email-standards.org/ (Creative)DMA - www.email.dma.org.uk (data protection and benchmarking)Marketing Sherpa - www.marketingsherpa.com/ (General)Email Marketing reports - www.email-marketing-reports.com/ (General)

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Introduction

Common misconceptions about the role of online display advertising within the B2B space are often:

• B2B advertising should be serious. • It should be straight to the point. • B2B advertising should be dry, follow a set formula, and god

forbid it embraces the same level of creativity as consumer-facing campaigns.

There is no research available to suggest that we stop becoming ‘textbook’ consumers as soon as we walk through our office doors. Whilst sometimes the subject matter may not be quite as inspiring and entertaining as, say, the latest Hollywood Blockbuster or a Renault Meganne, we should still aim to engage our audiences. If we want to drive sales, at the same time why not give them something nice to look at, too?

3. Display Release the power of branding and messaging

By Hanne Tuomisto-Inch,

Online Communications Diretor, Banner.

and Amy Kean,Senior Marketing and PR Manager,

IAB

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Back in 2006, the IAB conducted some research amongst key B2B decision makers with regard to their online marketing activity and exposure, and we found that 83% of respondents had taken action as a result of seeing an advert on a B2B website. Encouraging news, since that’s where our audiences are likely to be, and they’re ready and waiting for you to provide them with a reason to click.

Online display advertising comes in many forms. In fact, the first ever banner was for a B2B advertiser, AT&T back in 1994. Over the years our beloved banner, the skyscraper and MPU have gone from strength-to-strength, and are no longer confined to the realms of ‘click here’ and ‘purchase now!’ Of course aside from the more ‘traditional’ display formats, there are other tools available such as sponsorships, tenancies and video, which will be discussed later on.

In B2B, whilst driving sales, registrations or collecting data is extremely important, so too is driving brand affinity and getting people to like your product or service. Online display advertising and creativity can do this. Look at the ads for Barclays below, aimed at small businesses, produced by digital agency Dare. No doubt a serious subject matter and a campaign with real targets (the challenge for Barclays was to generate 1,154 new leads per week) but the execution could rival any B2C creative out there today.

B2B: Marketing Online

Dare developed two unique creative executions: one used 3-D modelling to depict business ideas hatching out of eggs and another showed jump leads giving a business a kick-start. Both emphasised the role of a Barclays Local Business Manager in providing expert advice and promoted the Barclays start-up guide.

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Objectives and Strategies

There are four key elements that need to be considered in order to create success in your online display campaigns:

• Targeting • Ad format• Creative• Placement

The strategy requires the creative, media and strategy teams to work in tandem, starting from a definition of your target audience, their media consumption habits (both on and offline) and insights into their interests, and what they respond to through the use of case studies or previous research conducted on the B2B audience. Visit www.iabuk.net/casestudies for more information.

The online budget allocation should be based on the level of internet usage vs. other media, campaign objectives, cost of media, competitive landscape and total budget available. Often the above equation means that the budget is heavily in favour of online due to high usage of internet when researching B2B purchases, results-driven objectives, relatively low cost of media and limited budgets.

The use of rich media to inject emotion into this predominantly rational marketplace paid huge dividends. After ten weeks, the campaign was already beating targets, with acquisitions 30% above target and cost per lead 46% under target.

But how do you implement such a campaign yourself?

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The creative, ad format and targeting are all interlinked; the creative strategy needs to be in line with the most effective ad format for the campaign objective. For example, large ad units taking advantage of rich media such as video are best for brand building while more text-based, lower cost ad units work well for response-driven campaigns. This needs to be taken into consideration in the creative concepting stage. The placement where the ad eventually appears, follows once the creative and media (targeting and ad format) strategies are in place.

Figure 1: Online display advertising strategy elements

B2B: Marketing Online

Source: Forrester Research, Inc.

Creative

What is the message of the ad?

How does the message get communicated?

Placement

On what sitesshould the adbe served

Where on the page shouldthe ad go?

Targeting approach

What type of personshould receive the ad?

Where are they?

What behaviorsidentify them online?

Ad format

What size shouldthe ad be?

What type of content shoudit use?

IDEAL

AD

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Getting Started

The formats in display advertising can be roughly broken down to standard and rich media units. Standard, on the page online display units are as follows:

• 468x60 banner (now being phased out in favour of the larger leaderboard)

• 728x90 leaderboard• 120x600 / 160x600 skyscraper• 200x200 / 250x250 square• 300x250 / 336x280 mpu or rectangle• 180x150, 125x125 button • Half page units are becoming more common as well (300x600)

The above standard units are generally created in Flash, with a gif / jpeg back-up, however they can be turned into rich media units by making them interactive. For example, any of the units can stream video, expand when moused over, or have interactive elements or forms that can be filled in the unit itself. In addition to making the standard units rich, there are additional over the page rich media units as follows:

• Expandable ad units (all standard ad units can be made expandable)

• Overlay / floating units

As a general rule online display advertising is bought on a CPM (cost per thousand) basis, although some publishers, ad and affiliate networks will also work on a CPC (cost per click) or CPA (cost per acquisition) basis. In the B2B environment, the CPA deals are most commonly based on lead delivery not sales, due to the longer sales cycle.

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Let’s not forget that our business audiences are still people that appreciate good advertising, who want to be entertained and feel proud of the purchases they make. As such it is important to strive for quality – in terms of the idea at least, if not the actual creative – of B2C campaigns. In terms of your creative strategy, think about the message and how it can best be communicated to your target audience, and meeting your campaign objectives. Grab your audience’s attention, tap into their interests, and even tell a story, like the rich media campaign for Canon, below, created by digital agency GT.

It is also essential to decide upfront, exactly how you want to measure your campaign, what’s important to you and what response you want from your potential business customers, as this should also dictate the creative and production process.

B2B: Marketing Online

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There are numerous banks of exceptional online creativity available, to both provide inspiration and also insights into how your competitors may be using the medium. Try www.creativeshowcase.net, or www.iabuk.net/richmediaroadshow to begin with. Other great industry tools are www.allourbestwork.com http://creativezone.eyeblaster.com/, www.tangozebra.com and www.doubleclick.com/insight/gallery/index.html. Enjoy!

Delivery - Targeting, placement & ad serving

Online targeting and placement strategies are based on the target audience definition, their interests and behaviours. The targeting options offered by publishers for display advertising are as follows:

• Contextual• Behavioural• Demographic• Geographic (IP/Location)• Frequency capping

The most common targeting strategies are contextual and behavioural. Contextual online display inventory has become scarcer and its cost has increased, leading to behavioural options becoming more attractive. Behaviourally targeted inventory uses the ad networks such as Revenue Science or Tacoda to display ads to audiences that are heavy and/or recent viewers of relevant content, for example, people that have read technology content more than four times over the last 2 weeks. The use of demographic targeting is available on sites that require registration, and geographic targeting is usually important to exclude. For example for UK advertisers it is important to IP target to UK audiences only as English language websites often attract a significant proportion of their visitors from abroad. Frequency capping

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is a targeting technology that allows you to limit the maximum number of times a person is able to see your ad. For branding campaigns, a higher frequency of 6-8 is beneficial for better brand impact and brand recall, while response-driven campaigns may want to limit the frequency to 1-2 per user.

The online advertising placement decides which types of sites should be included in the campaign and where on the site and page the ad should be positioned. The homepage used to be a popular placement in the past, however nowadays users often go directly to the content / section they want to read via search engines, thus bypassing the homepage. The positioning on the page is important as well. In general, above the fold placements are preferred as users don’t have to scroll down to see your ad, therefore you won’t be wasting money on people that won’t even see it. However, navigational browsing means that the cheaper, bottom of the page placements might sometimes work better for response campaigns as once the person has read the article, they are more likely to respond to advertising than at the top of the page.

Ad serving is the means of delivering your ads to the desired target audience. Ads are served on sites based on the targeting chosen (site, section, ad unit, behavioural, demographic, IP and frequency). Ad serving enables you to track the number of times the ads have been seen and the relevant responses. Third party rich media ad servers also enable tracking of interaction rates on video / expandable / interactive units. Agencies will serve ads through third parties for all of their campaigns as a rule in order to have an independent bird’s eye view. This will allow them to report and optimise on the campaign for their clients. Ad servers also enable tracking on the landing page on a post click and post impression basis, thus enabling conversion and ROI tracking.

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“Love your zone of discomfort”

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Measurements and Tracking

It is important to set the key performance indicators by which the campaign success will be measured. Campaign objectives determine the KPIs, and can be divided into branding and response metrics.

Response

• Response rate / Click-through-rate (CTR%): the campaign response rate can be measured using the click rate as a gauge and benchmarked by ad unit, industry and country according to the market averages from Doubleclick.

• Conversion rate (from click to conversion): conversion rate is often a more relevant metric as it relates to the campaign’s goal, whether it be a registration for an event, competition or whitepaper. Marketingsherpa is a good source to benchmark your campaign’s conversion rates to industry averages.

• Cost-effectiveness (CPC and CPA/CPL): you should set a target CPC or CPA/CPL based on business realities before campaign start. For demand generation campaigns, the maximum CPCs or CPAs that you should pay need to be calculated utilising your ROI targets, cost of goods sold, expected conversion rates and deal values.

Branding

• Lifts in brand awareness metrics: can be measured using the overall brand tracking studies, however in order to measure the impact of any specific campaign it is better to utilise research studies by companies like Dynamic Logic and Media Metrix. They allow advertisers to measure each media’s impact on campaign metrics, while benchmarking the results against the market average.

• Brand engagement: can be measured by tracking interaction rates, video play durations and number of visits to the landing page on a post click and post impression basis. Doubleclick and

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the 3rd party Rich Media servers such as Eyeblaster and Pointroll have benchmarks by ad unit, country and industry for the rich media interaction and response rates.

• Buzz measurement: Online reputation monitoring services such as Nielsen Buzzmetrics (and many complimentary ones on the internet) allow you to track the mentions of your brand in the blogosphere. You can chart the increase and direction (positive/negative) that your campaign has had on the blog opinion and level of discussion throughout the campaign.

B2B: Marketing Online

“So, Frank, are you taking your display advertising to the next level?”

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Introduction

Social media and B2B marketing are in the midst of a stormy love affair, but their love child is yet to grow up. They share a common passion for conversations.

Conversations are what social media is all about; whether you are on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, or something sector specific such as IT ToolBox.com. This links into the B2B goal of generating leads through the salesforce, where the opportunity for a one-to-one conversation is the most valued prize outside of the sale.

B2B is more complex, and usually slower than B2C, and can involve more people in a structured process. Getting the right messages into this process and unlocking the power of advocates

4. Social media Using online communities for B2B purposes

By Anthony Effik,

Chief Strategy Officer, Publicis

Modem

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has historically been the critical function of the salesforce. The salesforce are the custodians of conversations with the market. These conversations with prospects and customers are the key measure of the organisation’s health. Social media can now play a role in this process by creating opportunities for profitable conversations.

How to use social media for generating leads

So how does a B2B organisation tap into these conversations to drive growth?

There are five things you can do:

1. Listen to - and analyse - the conversations out there2. Re-think what the conversation could be – create a framework3. Create a contagious platform that reframes the conversation4. Provide tools for activating advocacy and spread contagious ideas

that change the conversation5. Collect data for the salesforce and integrate with their processes

Listen and analyse the conversations out there

There are hi-tech and low-tech ways to do this. You should first talk with the salesforce to find out what they are being told and asked. What are the main customer and prospect problems and issues? What do they say about the brand and the products? A quick look at general search results for keywords linked to the brand will give you an idea of the conversations and content out there. Compare this to competitor brands. Also see what is being said on the blogs by checking out Technorati and Google Blog Search. If you have access to a more advanced tool such as Onalytica, Radian6, or BuzzMetrics you might be able to map and score things like sentiment and influence.

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Create a framework

Most digital communications are about driving sales, and focus on providing information about the product rather than about helping solve a real problem. The product is rarely the whole answer to any business problem, but is instead just part of the solution. Before a product is selected there is much more thinking to be done. The goal is to be a part of upstream thinking when the target audience is framing the problem – way before consumers have even necessarily thought about potential vendors.

“If you aren’t being criticized, you aren’t doing much.”

Case Study:

Publicis Modem has been involved in a series of social media ventures for Hewlett Packard across several of their business units. By listening to what the target audiences were saying about HP they found that the big decisions had been made way before they engaged with the client online. It was a self-fulfilling prophesy; their content was about buying HP, so if you didn’t want to buy HP you simply didn’t visit. Users were only visiting HP when they had already defined their problem in great detail, and were close to a purchase with HP. On one level this sounds like good news, but on another level there was a need to consider the number of people who weren’t visiting HP. For most of the market there was a big difference between a business problem and a technical solution.

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Create a contagious platform

To reframe the conversation for HP, Publicis Modem built different platforms for different parts of their business. For senior IT decision-makers involved in creating and managing complex server and storage networks they created the HP Blades Servers Community. This is described as a place for you if ‘you have questions about blades. The community has answers. Inside Blade Connect, the customer can find the information they need and connect to others with a click. Meet other blade users, share thoughts, and talk to the experts that built the blades . . .or just catch up on the latest buzz.’

Publicis Modem also created the HP Information Management Hub, a ‘community with a comprehensive library, independent comment, expert insight, best practice, interactive events, blogs, and exclusive

B2B: Marketing Online

Case Study:

Publicis Modem created a framework that was built around three stages:

Framing the problemSelecting the vendorMaintaining the solution

After auditing the client’s digital assets and content it was found that most of them were - unsurprisingly - focused on selecting a vendor – the purchase stage. The recommendation was to use social media across the whole process, but in particular to use it to populate the first stage - framing the problem - and the last stage - maintaining the solution – with content and advocates.

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videos and podcasts.’ IT professionals visited these sites for very different reasons. The hub allowed for information across the whole framework to be reached. Users were able to find information about HP and also generate their own content. This helps framing the problem stage.

The Information Management Hub focused on making the Hub contagious by creating HP-sourced content that is rich, and must-have for the audience (such as videos, webcasts, whitepapers and podcasts), but also encouraged user generated content.

Activate advocacy and spread contagious ideas

Wherever you are in the purchase cycle, B2B marketers relish the opportunity to create one-to-one sales conversations as conversations drive advocacy and advocacy drives growth. Fred Riechheld’s research into Net Promoter Scores shows that the likelihood to recommend a brand or product is the strongest indication of a business’s growth prospects. Riechheld’s work at Bain & Co showed that the most recommended company in its category grows 2.5 times the rate of the category average. Getting recommendations is key to growth.

In other research by Weber Shandwick we find that “50 per cent of people who say they would recommend haven’t yet recommended”. Thus a key part of social media in general and B2B social media in particular is about activating advocacy. In Information Technology, you’ll find that advocacy has always been key offline, and key case studies. But these superstar advocates are only part of the story, the cherries at the top of the proverbial cake that hide the many others. There’s wisdom in those crowds, so our goal should be to activate the 50 per cent of people that say they’d recommend that haven’t, and get them to share their experiences with others. With the HP example, Publicis Modem equipped the advocates with tools to share content that was provided by HP and user-generated sources. They allowed for send-to-a-friend functionality, RSS feeds, social bookmarking, and opportunities to rate and review content.

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With these mechanisms in place for propagating the message, the agency could then look at paid for media such as banner advertising in standard formats to advertise the site to drive traffic. However with rich media formats the client can also add social features to advertising, and take site content and detach it from the site and distribute it to third party social media platforms where audiences are congregating, such as LinkedIn, IT Toolbox, CIO.com and many others. This means striking clever and bespoke media deals with vendors who can host unorthodox advertising formats that take feeds from sites, and can respond back.

Collect data for the salesforce

All of these efforts take us full circle to my original assertion that good social media B2B activity is focused around the salesforce. Our framework of three stages - framing the problem, selecting the vendor and maintaining the solution - meant that our target audiences were engaging with us right throughout the purchase experience. This took pressure off the salesforce as the audience self-served itself with content and answered most of its simpler questions. Any enquires to the salesforce were therefore very hot enquiries or tough questions that required vendor specific answers.

Access to most of the content areas usually required registration which gave us data that was fed into the lead management process, and integrated with other data sources to give a 360 degree picture of the prospect or customer. In some cases we get data into the process from people just before they are ready to buy, but not too early – a kind of Goldilocks Prospect Opportunity; not too hot, but not too cold. In addition to this one-to-one data we also obtain group data on which content areas are of most interest to the audiences - which helps HP listen. And if you remember, listening is the first key step in doing effective B2B social media. And so we start again around the virtuous cycle.

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Introduction

There can be little doubt that video is the ultimate engagement tool. Human beings are tele-visual creatures and there is a vast body of research to support the proposition that when it comes to the delivery of key product or service USPs and the definition of a brand, video has no equal. Video can change perception, implant memorable messaging and dramatically enhance brand recall very efficiently.

Until relatively recently the power of television has been unavailable to online marketers but now the barriers are falling fast as the reach of the internet and the sheer penetrative muscle of video combine to create the ultimate tool in customer engagement. Desktop television has arrived – the circle of convergence is complete.

When most people talk about videos, they’re often referring to videos like Smirnoff’s Tea Partay music video, the Sony Bravia ads, Soulja Boy - videos that have travelled all around the internet and been posted on YouTube, MySpace, Google Video, Facebook, Digg, blogs, etc. - videos with millions and millions of views.

5. Video The ultimate engagement tool

By Rebecca Kane,

Head of Media, BrightTALK

and Amit Kotecha,

Project Executive, IAB

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However there are now effective methods of advertising around video content which can be used for B2B video campaigns:

• Pre-Roll - in this format of advertising, the advertisement clip is inserted before the actual video.

• Post-roll - in post-roll, just like the other in-stream ad formats, a short clip is played and streamed within the player at the end of the video stream itself.

• Mid-Roll - this advertising format is where the clips are included in the middle of the videos.

• Viral Ads - which are shared on a community sites such as YouTube. Video can also be used to enhance the user experience on your own site, or for video blogs, web casts and webinars. Many B2B marketers say that B2B video viral marketing is like “lightening in a bottle”. They advise that there is no simple formula to viral and you cannot orchestrate such a campaign because both content and timing are so critical to viral success. Others will argue that they can concoct a viral campaign for anyone and will go to just about any length to do so.

• Instream Flash Overlays - more companies are deciding to opt for flash overlays now InStream . YouTube’s decision to use Flash overlay ad has been very successful and it has given them a much wider range of video inventory, this is being adapted by a larger number of publishers.

• Product Placement - technology is here right now to enable greater interaction with video and the tools are simple to use and available to all. This level of interaction creates greater brand engagement and can even be used to allow the user to manipulate and test out a product in a virtual replica of real life situations. The potential for advertisers with such tools is limitless and unique to the medium.

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The ultimate engagement tool

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• Interactivity - the technology is here to enable greater interaction with video and the tools are simple to use and make available to all. This level of interaction creates great brand engagement and can even be used to allow the user to manipulate and test out a product in a virtual replica of real life situations.

• Companion Ads – there are commonly text, display ads, rich media, or skins that wrap around the video experience. These ads come in a number of sizes and shapes and typically run alongside or surrounding the video player. The primary purpose of the companion ad is to offer sustained visibility of the sponsor throughout the video experience. Companion ads may offer click-through interactivity and rich media experiences, such as expansion of the ad, for further engagement opportunities.

Strategy and Getting started

The ability for video to so succinctly “set out your stall” cannot be underestimated and carries with it risks as well as rewards. Unlike radio, cheaper to produce and easier to consume, video leaves nothing to the imagination and can consistently deliver a confident campaign but by the same token could deliver a weak proposition consistently poorly.

Below are some tips to getting what you want from your campaign:

Set clear objectives• Who do I wish to communicate with? Define your audience• What is the point of my communication? Information/CRM/

entertainment etc• What do I want to say? Identify your key messages• What do my audience want to hear? Brand challenges and

solutions• What do I want them to do? Call to action

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MethodIt is essential to decide on which method of advertising you would plan to use. Each method has a different format and will affect your strategy.

Be relevant Make sure your message and content are relevant both to your company and to your target audience. Without relevant content, you may do really well but effectively not achieve your objective. Kind of like that dancing baby concept from the 90’s. Can you name the company behind that one?

Know your audience Do not just focus on their job roles think more about behavioural characteristics. Understand what interests your audience, where do they live and work how do they get their information?

BrandingVideo online can be the ultimate branding tool. Like TV it has the potential to grab attention, unlike TV it also has the potential to interact with viewers. It is essential to be clear about your brand and try and push the boundaries of what online video can do for your brand.

Have fun but protect your brandIf you are using blogs to back up your campaign you should make fun of yourself before someone else does, however don’t do anything that will embarrass you or the company. Don’t take chances with controversial content or release anything of such poor quality that you create a negative brand image. Also do not use dubious tactics to get noticed.

B2B: Marketing Online

“Let’s get all our ducks in a row.”

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Be to the pointOnline behaviour is very fast paced. Therefore video has a short amount of time to grab and keep the attention of viewers. It is essential that videos are to the point fast, entertain and leave them wanting more. Adding captions to your video can help.

OptimiseBe sure that people can find your video by optimising for search engines: Tag it, name it appropriately, describe it, add links and compelling copy and optimise using the right keywords.

Keep the story alive If you are creating a viral video use your blog to keep the story alive. You have to try and get the word out, a press release is simply not appropriate for video marketing. What’s more, blogging with the full story behind the campaign helps to give your video and your company a face and a personality.

Build a community Do not use trickery or bait to get people to your video because you will be forgoing one of the most valuable benefits of the viral approach – the ability to quickly and inexpensively build a community of interest. The Word of Mouth aspect of video marketing gives marketers a powerful way to attract a following. Do this by explaining each step of the program using your blog. Tell your audience what you were thinking when you produced it. Report on the results. Give followers a way to track the momentum and keep it alive.

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Case Study:

Last year Cisco Systems Inc. (Worldwide Networking Company) in the US carried out its first video viral campaign to drive awareness around a product launch. Their aim was to do something with video and promote it on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook etc. However their marketing team failed to cross-promote the various tools, which caused people to end up with no more information after they had seen the ad. There was no “next step” in the marketing process. However, instead of viewing the campaign as a failure the team sat down and figured out what they could do better.

For the company’s November 11, 2008 product launch, the marketing team used the information they received from the previous campaign and used social media tools to drive awareness around a video campaign featuring an ongoing viral. The advert follows a struggling young reporter, Ira Pumfkin who is ordered by editor Sally Thompkin to visit Cisco to try to find out about their new product launch. Ira even runs into John Chambers, but of course the bumbling reporter has no idea who Chambers is. Cisco used a video (see link below) successfully with backing up by Cisco bloggers adding to the buzz. (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=OB68LmoEoT4)

This paid off as the campaign managed to receive 40,000 views in 5 days. The Cisco marketers were meticulous about monitoring blogs and Twitter for feedback – and contacting appropriate people. They were able to learn as they went on, and were responsive to who was talking to them.

Marketing mix integration

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Measurement and Future

Measurement of video on the internet is far more complex than the current means of measuring traditional online advertising. The main reason for this is that video is a linear format – it has a start, middle and an end. There are massive developments being made into the planning and measurements of video online. Having consistent, industry wide data that can help plan a campaign in advance and judge its effectiveness afterwards will be one of the keys to help the industry drive forward. There a variety of ways in which you can track the response of viral video.

It is essential to track and monitor the results and keep your followers and the blogging community posted on the momentum building behind your campaign. This helps build excitement and credibility around how your video is resonating with the audience. It might just convince an influential blogger that he/she should write a story about you. Look at:

• Web traffic reporting• Google Alerts for media and blog coverage• Salesforce.com for leads and evaluation requests as well as revenue

opportunities• Clickstream analysis to measure how users have got to your video

Studies show that B2B marketers and sales reps need to follow-up on web-generated leads within 30 minutes of a registration or the chances for conversion are poor. If you don’t have a great program for automatically scoring and qualifying leads so that you can route quality leads to your salesforce instantly, you could be asking for big trouble if your video becomes popular.

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First of all, your sales team is likely to be swamped with a larger percentage of irrelevant leads. Secondly, you will miss out on a number of great sales opportunities by taking weeks to respond.

If your video meets its objectives it is also possible to show its value.Don’t miss your chance to prove to everyone that the campaign was worth the investment. Show that the spike in traffic and coverage hit the right audience and generated brand awareness or demand.

B2B: Marketing Online

“This book does exactly what it says

on the tin.”

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In a world where emailing, social networking, watching video, searching for and reading web content is fundamental to work (let alone personal life), the internet has never been more important if you want to reach and maintain a relationship with your clients in the B2B arena. People spend a large chunk of their work day in front of a computer, using online to trade, learn and communicate. No wonder then that B2B businesses now rely heavily on the broad range of tools that the medium offers, such as display, search marketing, email and the ‘social’ web to not only reach potential clients, but continue a relationship after a sale.

Taking this into account, internet marketing is, in some respects, more in tune with B2B than other media because it can facilitate conversation, essential to building that all important relationship and a direct connection to the client. As such, the internet brings tools to the table that are a revolution for the B2B marketer and closer to the personality of face-to-face. Couple that with the benefits of knowing more about an audience than ever through measurement, tracking and specific targeting and you’ll think you’ve struck marketing gold.

6. Conclusion By Jack

Wallington,Senior Programmes

Manager, IAB

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However, there are complications, often brought about through a lack of understanding of what is still a relatively new and sometimes complex medium. Search and email marketing may be familiar, but the display of today is totally different to what we were using at the turn of the millennium. B2B marketing is also very different to consumer marketing because of the increased value of individual clients, the fact they are spending someone else’s money and are therefore detached but more accountable to purchases. This means you have to increase the amount of attention you give to clients prior to a sale and, importantly, post sale as you maintain the relationship.

So how do you use tools in B2B when they are often built for reaching consumers? Hopefully this handbook, produced by the IAB B2B Council (consisting of experts in the field) has helped enlighten you on the fundamentals of using the internet in B2B marketing. Agencies and other B2B specialists are on hand to help in the mind shift to using the internet in this setting, but the proof is really in the execution. As with any marketing plan, you have to think about the person you are trying to reach. Learn how they use the internet and then use the tools at your disposal to deliver great creative executions. Remember at all times that, as this guide states throughout, best practice is key and it’s important to monitor and adjust your marketing messages continuously.

The world of B2B marketing has never been better, with B2B websites producing greater, higher quality content, making display propositions more enticing for brand planners. A large business purchase or deal will involve many face-to-face meetings but once you’ve left the building, it’s the internet that clients will turn to, at some point, to continue and build on their research. It’s here that search and social media marketing are all powerful. If a client is searching for the positives or negatives of your offerings, they will turn to a search engine to find it. If you aren’t managing your reputation in search, a negative find

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“Let’s hit the ground running.”

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can be incredibly damaging but an abundance of positive results will reassure. This is magnified in social media where a recommendation from peers carries a lot of weight, whether it’s negative or positive.

Your clients don’t consume only the internet and while it can be used as a primary medium, you must also consider how internet works with the rest of your marketing mix. For instance, running a television or press campaign will boost the results of search marketing, but importantly, with online marketing, the results of an offline campaign will be enhanced. You can build upon branding, offer more in-depth information and even collect data online to judge your campaigns offline.

B2B internet marketing is fast paced, exciting and, as the IAB has found, in many cases more advanced than the consumer market. Make the most of the branding, reach and measurability of the internet to bring your campaigns to life and to bring client relationships closer than ever before. The tools are at your finger tips, and so are your clients.

Some final rules…

1. Entertain your audiences - just because you’re selling business products or services doesn’t mean that your audience won’t want (or need) to be engaged with your communications.

2. Set objectives - decide what you want to measure at the beginning of your campaign - what are your desired results: sales, registrations, data capture or all three? This will feed into how you execute your messaging/creative.

3. Research competitors - always monitor what your competitors are doing online, whether it’s a display campaign, a viral video or high rankings in natural search listings, you can always learn from others in your sector and apply this to your own marketing activity.

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4. Test and tweak - test your website creative, check usability, invite feedback from clients and then tweak things to build on past mistakes or less effective campaigns.

5. BUT don’t try too hard - writing a corporate blog may seem like a good idea initially, but can you invest the time required to do it properly, and are you writing with your audience in mind? In the same way, a token page on a social networking site won’t win you any new ‘friends’ unless you offer a reward of some kind, or useful information and insights.

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“This book brings a lot of value to the table.”

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Algorithm - the set of ‘rules’ a search engine may use to determine the relevance of a web page (and therefore ranking) in its natural search results.

Banner - a long, horizontal, online advert usually found running across the top of a page in a fixed placement.

Blog - an online space regularly updated presenting the opinions or activities of one or a group of individuals and displaying in chronological order.

Click-through - when a user interacts with an advertisement and clicks through to the advertiser’s website.

CTR (click-through rate) - frequency of Click-throughs as a percentage of impressions served. Used as a measure of advertising effectiveness.

7. Glossary & delivery format information

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Contextual advertising - advertising that is targeted to the content on the Web page being viewed by a user at that specific time.

Conversion rate - measure of success of an online ad when compared to the click-through rate. What defines a ‘conversion’ depends on the marketing objective eg: it can be defined as a sale or request to receive more information…etc.

CPA (Cost per Acquisition) - cost to acquire a new customer

CPC (Cost per Click) - the amount paid by an advertiser for a click on their sponsored search listing.

CPM (Cost per Mille) - also known as Cost per Thousand. Online advertising can be purchased on the basis of what it costs to show the ad to one thousand viewers (CPM). It is used in marketing as a benchmark to calculate the relative cost of an advertising campaign or an ad message in a given medium. Rather than an absolute cost, CPM estimates the cost per 1000 views of the ad. (Wikipedia definition)

Digg - is a user generated content site where members submit (mostly techie) articles and news items they’ve found on the Web. The articles are then voted for and the most popular published on Digg’s front page.

Geotargeting - the process of only showing adverts to people on a website and in search engines based on their physical location. This could be done using advanced technology that knows where a computer is located or by using the content of website to determine what a person is looking for, e.g. someone searching for a restaurant in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire.

ISP (internet service providers) - companies that connect people to the internet in exchange for a fee using methods such as broadband and DSL. Examples of ISP’s include Tiscali, BT and AOL.

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IP address - the numerical internet address assigned to each computer on a network so that it can be distinguished from other computers. Expressed as four groups of numbers separated by dots.

Impression - the metric used to measure views of a webpage and its elements- including the advertising embedded within it. Ad Impressions are how most online advertising is sold and the cost is quoted in terms of the cost per thousand impressions (CPM).

MPU (Multiple Purpose Units, although interpretations may vary) - a square online advert usually found embedded in a web page in a fixed placement. Called ‘multiple purpose’ as it is a flexible shaped blank ‘canvas’ in which you can serve flat or more interactive content as desired. Overlay - online advertising content that appears over the top of the webpage.

PPC (pay per click) - a search marketing model that allows advertisers to bid for placement in the paid listings search results on terms that are relevant to their business. Advertisers pay the amount of their bid only when a consumer clicks on their listing. Also called sponsored search/ paid search.

Pre-roll - the name given to the adverts shown before, or whilst an online video is loading. There can be more than one and although they all vary in length, they average 21seconds in duration.

Rich Media - is the collective name for online advertising formats that use advanced technology to harnesses broadband to build brands. It uses interactive and audio-visual elements to give richer content and a richer experience for the user when interacting with the advert.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) - software that allows you to flag website content (often from blogs or news sites) and aggregate new entries to this content into an easy to read format that is delivered directly to a user’s PC.

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SEM (search engine marketing) - the process which aims to get websites listed prominently in search-engine results through search-engine optimisation and paid search.

SEO (search engine optimisation) - the process which aims to get websites listed prominently within search engine’s organic or natural(algorithmic, spidered) search results. Involves making a site ‘search engine friendly’.

Site analytics - the reporting and analysis of website activity- in particular user behaviour on the site. All websites have a weblog which can be used for this purpose but other third party software is available for a more sophisticated service.

Social Media - we refer to social media, in a commercial sense, as: the creation of useful, valuable and relevant content and applications by brands, or by consumers with specific reference to brands, that can be shared online, facilitated by web2.0 technology.

User generated content - online content created by website users rather than media owners or publishers - either through reviews, blogging, podcasting or posting comments, pictures or video clips. Sites that encourage user generated content include MySpace, YouTube, Wikipedia and Flickr.

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“In today’s highly competitive marketplace...”

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The IAB would like to thank the IAB B2B Council for their important contribution to this report. With special thanks to:

James Farmer, B2B Marketing, Chair of B2B Council

Ed Weatherall, Concep

Hanne Tuomisto-Inch, Banner

Petra Studholme, Simply Business

Richard Bush, Base One

Rebecca Kane, BrightTALK

To contact, or for more information on these companies, please visit the IAB membership directory at www.iabuk.net/membershipdirectory

Key IAB contributors

Jack Wallington, Senior Programmes Manager

Amit Kotecha, Project Executive

Amy Kean, Senior Marketing and PR Manager For further information regarding this handbook or other IAB activities including research, events, seminars, presentations and training, please visit www.iabtalksb2b.com or email us at [email protected]

Acknowledgements

Key players &

contact details

“We hope you’ve enjoyed reading this

guide to B2B marketing online as much as we did making it!”

Design & artwork byEvolve Design &

Digital Mediawww. evolve-ddm.co.uk

Internet Marketing Handbook Series

14 Macklin Street, London WC2B 5NF tel: +44 (0)20 7050 6969 fax: +44 (0)20 7242 9928 email: [email protected]