Tip 1. Ask Yourself- How Important is Brand Building to My Business?
If you read yesterday’s post, you may think this is a dumb tip… “of course brand building is important to my business!” Trust us when we say this is a critical question to ask before you start worrying about building your B2B brand with search marketing.
Building a brand through search marketing or any other channel is hard work that requires solid strategic planning, a great product/service, great execution and dogged persistence over time to reap the benefits of strong brand awareness and loyalty. If you sell a commodity product, the rewards of a strong brand are great but the challenges to differentiate your brand over time are great as well. If you’re the market leader with a strong, established brand, chances are your search marketing programs are already reaping the benefits with very strong ROI on branded terms and there may be little incremental benefit to be had from further brand building through search marketing.
The main point of this tip is simply to get you to stop and consider how serious you are about building your B2B brand with search marketing. If you’re serious about it, let’s look at the next tip…
Tip 2. Understand Where Your Brand is Today
How risky is the choice to purchase your product/service? This question is critical to ask yourself because it’s exactly the first question that your prospects think of when presented with your brand.
How strong is our brand presence on general search engines? Are you currently advertising on branded terms on the major general search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing? If so, what is the average rank of those paid listings? And, what is your average position in the organic search results? While both of these answers can vary considerably for a variety of reasons well known to search marketers, it’s important to clearly assess how your branded terms rank today before embarking on projects to improve brand visibility in search results.
How strong is our brand presence on vertical search and directory sites? This area is key for B2B search marketing and yet less experienced search marketers and agencies often overlook it based on a simple misconception… the assumption that because branded searches on general search engines show the highest conversion rates in the most popular web analytics programs (like Google Analytics), business buyers overwhelmingly use general search sites only. Search marketers making this assumption undermine the performance of their search marketing campaigns by missing a few key data points:
- Business buying is a process involving multiple types of search and information sites over time. The use of vertical search and directory sites increases as business buyers get a basic understanding of what they need and look to vertical search and its experts for more product/service details, purchasing advice and a short-list of relevant vendors.
- 50% of business buying involves identifying new vendors and/or purchasing products/services that the person or company has never purchased before.
- There is a strong bias toward attributing search marketing ROI to general search engines over vertical PPC, display ads, email, etc. built in to the most popular web analytics tools. Effective online B2B lead generation, and any B2B online branding effort involving search marketing, therefore must include a presence across both general search engines and vertical sites that follow the path prospects are likely to take online in their search for solutions to business challenges.
Tip 3. Plan Alignment Across Brand Campaigns & Search Marketing
As previously discussed, the fact that brand campaigns will generate search activity and search marketing results improve when backed by a strong brand or brand campaign, means that it is in the best interest of both brand and search marketers to work together from the early stages of any brand marketing initiative if the goal is to get the highest possible ROI.
Search marketers must fully understand the brand campaign. Once you understand the brand campaign, bring PPC, SEO and social media pros together to address the key question: How can we get the strongest possible presence for this brand across general search and vertical sites? The answer to this question should be the basis for formulating an effective, and aligned, search marketing strategy.
Tip 4. Don’t Leave Gaps in Your B2B Search Marketing Plan
Ensuring a very strong presence on general search engines for your top B2B branded terms is essential for attracting both repeat customers and new buyers using general search engines to navigate back to your web site to convert to sales. Again, this is a “must do” activity for B2B search marketers, but focusing only on top branded terms on general search engines means limiting your exposure to prospects:
- In earlier stages of the buying process, when they’re less aware of the major brands
- Intent on purchasing more commoditized products where there isn’t a strong brand preference
- Moving beyond general search engines to learn about and find solutions to their business challenges on a variety of more targeted vertical sites
Identify the online resources your prospects are likely to encounter, and the paths they’re likely to take, at different stages of the buying process as they look for the types of product/service solutions you offer. Then compare this to both your current search marketing program and your search marketing strategy to support specific brand campaigns. To maximize ROI and brand impact, make sure your search marketing plans cover the complete path from identifying a need to conversion.
Tip 5. Measure Brand Campaign Impact on Conversions
Brand marketers are accustom to indirect measures of brand campaign impact but the connection between brand marketing initiatives and search marketing results described above suggests a much more direct route… brand campaigns should impact the following search marketing metrics:
- Paid search impressions, both generic and branded
- Web site visits from branded search terms and closely related generic terms
- Time on site for search-driven visitors, particularly if search drives visitors to a more interesting/interactive experience
- Web site conversions
- Online sales
More direct measures are always preferred over indirect measures, and tying brand campaigns to search marketing results, including conversions, will provide the metrics necessary to continuously optimize marketing programs to build B2B brands with search marketing.
About Wendi McGowan