B2B Marketing Blog

John Doe

Architect & Engineer

We love that guy

Smartphone Statistics To Drive Your Mobile Advertising Strategy In 2020 (1)

 

The internet is increasingly mobile! In 2020, more people own a smartphone than a toothbrush and we’re spending almost three hours a day glued to their tiny screens.

What does this mean for business?

Users want mobile responsive content they can interact with on-the-go and they want it to be as good as other online content.

While you’d be forgiven for thinking this is a B2C problem, research suggests B2B buyers increasingly want their B2B buying experience to be comparable to the one they get as a consumer.

Plus, it’s a trend that’s set to gain traction as younger buyers enter the B2B market.

But it’s not just user’s preferences you need to think about. Search engines also put increasing emphasis on mobile content. In September 2020, Google will go mobile-first and place mobile-optimised content ahead of other content in the SERPs.

Which means that, If you’re building a presence for a B2B business online, you need to:

  1. Understand how people use the internet on their phones
  2. Build your marketing strategy around their wants and needs

To help you do that, we’ve put together the infographic below. It’s stuffed with all the smartphone statistics you need to hear this year.

Embedded from UKWebHostReview

3 key takeaways for B2B business

1.There’s no social media without smartphones


In 2019, more than half of social media engagement came from mobile users. And if the ongoing rise of mobile-only social platforms like WhatsApp, TikTok and Snapchat is anything to go by, mobile is taking centre stage.

A recent report by Boston Consulting Group suggests this isn’t just a B2C trend. 80 per cent of B2B buyers use their mobile at work and 60% say it plays an important role in their buying process.

Which means you need to think bigger than making existing content more mobile-friendly. Instead, think about developing some mobile-only campaigns. What do we mean by ‘mobile-only’?

Mobile-only marketing campaigns are created to meet the specific needs of mobile users. So they make use of the technology we have on our smartphones. For example, your mobile-only marketing strategy could involve:

  • Creating an augmented reality app that allows potential purchasers to see how your products work without taking them out of the warehouse
  • Tag your field-based service products (e.g. vehicle hires) with a QR code connected to a landing page
  • Use messaging apps to run groups or forums for your niche or industry

… and much more besides.

2. Mobile is just as important to brick-and-mortar businesses


If you thought mobile marketing was just for online businesses, you’d be wrong my friend.

40 per cent of mobile searches reference local goods and services. Which means that owners of brick-and-mortar businesses need to be just as smartphone-savvy.

If you run a local B2B store (e.g. builder’s merchants, service providers), your most important task is to mobile-optimise your entry in Google My Business and other directory listings. If your business appears in Google’s Local Pack, you’ll experience a significant increase in footfall.

Plus, don’t forget that your buyers enjoy the consumer experience. So, don’t discount mobile marketing schemes as a B2C tactic. No matter what hat your buyer is wearing, they’ll still enjoy rewards customer loyalty discounts offered through a mobile app.

3. Smartphones make advertising more global


Run a B2B business with global reach? You need know just how important mobile is outside of Europe, North America and Australia.

While smartphone penetration in the US (77%) and the UK (82.2%) has remained unchanged, it’s risen dramatically across South Asia and Africa. Smartphone are no longer a luxury item for the few, but an essential tool for taking part in modern life.

In fact, by 2021, it’s estimated that 3.8 billion people (almost half the global population) will own a smartphone and it’s often the only internet-enabled device individuals have outside of the office. So, invest in mobile marketing for your global audience and you’ll start reaping the rewards now.

 

Schedule a FREE consultation

Read More

John Doe

Architect & Engineer

We love that guy

SEO + PPC: Hand in Hand for Inbound Marketing Success header

Many marketers seem to believe that building content, together with accompanying landing pages and calls to action is all they need to do for a solid inbound marketing funnel. Sure, creating a funnel with different journeys based on your buyer persona is definitely the foundational structure of every campaign, but there is often a vital part missing. And without that vital part, chances are nobody will end up going through those carefully constructed funnels of yours.

In case the blog’s title did not give away the secret already, we are talking about the combo of SEO and PPC. Read below to learn how the combined efforts of these two practices serve to strengthen the top of the funnel, and how you can apply it in practice.

SEO

Long gone are the days when simply adding a keyword to the title, and in the body a few times, would suffice. For proper indexing, search engines demand much more, including:

  •         Onsite SEO (Both content-related, and non-content related)
  •         Offsite SEO (link building, content distribution, social discussions, influencers)

Onsite SEO

Onsite SEO, a practice that revolves around optimizing elements within a page or a blog post, can be divided between content-related practices, and non-content-related ones. Content-related ones include making sure the content tackles a specific topic and that it has the keywords and the alt text to show for it. So make sure your content includes keywords (preferably long-tail ones) in the title and the first paragraph, as well as in the blog’s meta description. Keywords need to reflect a certain user intent. Make sure that every piece of content has at least one relevant image, which will also contain the keyword in the alt text. And most importantly, make sure the piece is authoritative, trustworthy, and unique. Duplicated content will not bode well with search engines.

Non-content related SEO means making sure the site works properly from a technical perspective. Is it optimized for mobile? Make sure it is, because Google loves it. Does it load fast? Again, make sure it does, because users loathe slow-loading sites. Make sure the piece has outgoing links (links pointing to other sites, for credibility purposes), that has a proper URL structure, as well as the Schema.org structured data.

All these things combined will ensure that your masterfully crafted content gets the search engine ranking it deserves.

helping you navigate your startup to marketing stardom

Offsite SEO

Once you are done optimizing your pages for search engines (both technically and from a content perspective), there are things you can do outside the site with the same goal in mind. Marketers usually think offsite SEO and backlinking are synonymous, which is not exactly true. Backlinking, albeit an important part of offsite SEO, is, at the end of the day, just part of the effort. By having content on other sites and blogs linking back to your content, it is your content that will gain more visibility, credibility and an increased perception of quality. All of these are essential at building trust among your target audience and creating an image of an opinion-maker and a thought leader.

However, do not stop there. Another important part of offsite SEO is content distribution through social media, which also means engaging in meaningful conversations on various platforms such as QuoraLinkedIn or Reddit. Adding guest blogging to the mix is also valuable, and depending on the industry and the niche you are in – you can also consider employing the powers of influencers.

At the end of the day, offsite SEO revolves around improved perception of your content’s quality, both among search engines and your target audience. That is done through links and mentions among other content creators, as well as links and mentions on social media and among influencers.

PPC

While SEO requires investing in resources to rank high in SERPs under specific keywords and inbound efforts focused on converting them into leads and full-blown clients, it is no secret that organic efforts take time, and lots of it. Until search engines index your content for specific keywords or when competing for rankings on super competitive organic terms, PPC can come in very handy.

PPC advertising can be designed to complement the related SEO efforts as well. Paid search allows you to achieve prominence among SERPs, as well as to conduct small experiments in order to find which keywords generate relevant traffic to your content. Exploring which terms make the user reach your content in the fastest possible manner provides inbound marketers and SEO professionals with valuable information about these visitors. They come with sufficient enough insight to tailor their strategies (SEO) and content (inbound) to the audience. All the data on clicks, impressions and conversion rates for specific keywords that are gathered in the process offer wealth of information that can help make smarter strategic SEO and inbound marketing decisions.

Pro tip: Don’t fall for the usual trap of utilizing PPC and SEO just to promote the top of the funnel. Don’t forget – different buyers are at a different stage in the buyer’s journey, so promoting just one stage, or one part of the funnel might not be the ideal thing to do. Smartly utilize your efforts to strengthen the entire funnel.

Closing comments

If a tree falls in the forest, and there is no one to hear it, that is one really sad tree. A masterfully crafted inbound campaign, comprising of valuable blog posts, beautiful landing pages and clear calls to action, will be a really sad one – if there is no one consuming it and signing up for walled content. To make sure your buyer personas actually hear your falling tree, you need to drive them to the forest, and that is best done through the combined use of SEO and PPC. By optimizing your content for search engines algorithms and adding solid display ads to the mix, you will see your target audience reaching the top of your funnel – in droves.

 

Read More

John Doe

Architect & Engineer

We love that guy

google quality score.png

According to a recent article on SEL (Search Engine Land), in the last year Google launched more than 1,600 (!) new changes in their search.

Definitely the most interesting ones are the changes to the Google Adwords quality score reporting.

In short, Quality Score is a metric which assesses account relevance and landing page factors. It is an estimate of the quality of your keywords, ads and landing pages on a scale of 1-10 and is determined every time a customer searches a keyword you are targeting (to read more about how Quality Score works, see our AdWords guide).

Google has added seven new reporting columns that provide deeper insights for advertisers:

  • CTR
  • Ad Relevance
  • Landing Page Exper.

These will spare the hovering over the little bubble icon next to each keyword to get the status on current Quality Score factors.

google adwords

(source: Google Inside Adwords)

And even more helpful:

  • Score (hist.)
  • Landing page exper. (hist.)
  • Ad relevance (hist.)
  • and CTR (hist.)

These will show the last known score in the selected date range (as far back as January 2016).

inside adwords

(source: Google Inside Adwords)

To help you understand the changes a little, let’s say for example that it’s Feb 10 and you want to see what the QS was for your keyword “Oranges” from Feb. 3 to Feb. 8.

The new “Quality Scores (hist.)” column shows the last known Quality Score for the reporting period, 4/10, as well as the historical score for each day within that period.

When segmenting data by day, you will see how the end-of-day Quality Scores changed over time

Also note, that when there isn’t enough data, (impressions or clicks), like on Feb. 7 and Feb. 8, the score will not be reported and you’ll see a null QS (-).

These changes are important, as they will help advertisers to understand how changes to their account, like ad optimization, impact Quality Score and in turn their overall account performance..

Struggling?

If you’re spending lots of time and effort on your online marketing but you’re frustrated because you’re not producing results – reach out to us, we might be able to help you out.

Schedule a FREE consultation

 

 

 

Read More

John Doe

Architect & Engineer

We love that guy

ppc reportig.jpg

Introduction

Not all marketing efforts can be measured accurately (SEO for example can get very challenging to measure). PPC is great in the sense that it enables very precise (though sometimes complicated) measurments.

As with every aspect of digital marketing reporting, the purpose of a PPC report is to inform you on whether your marketing efforts are helping to achieve your goals. If not, your campaigns need to be realigned to do just that. Don’t let yourself get distracted by overwhelming data, remember that what matters most is to have a clear grasp of the bottom line. Not every measurable metric needs to be included in a PPC report. A good report should reflect the results of your marketing efforts and revolve around ROI.

Your periodical PPC report (whether weekly, montly or quarterly) should be built in some sort of bucketing method. This post will walk you through what you need to know.

A PPC report structure

When creating a PPC report, marketers should make sure to consider the level of PPC knowledge and familiarity with PPC terminology of the reports readers. This should go without saying but the persons being informed needs to be able to understand the report, not just be impressed by it. The data should always be explained with respect to what it actually means for your  business.

A PPC report should start with the most valuable,  bottom-line information, following a drill down of each channel/campaign.

Here’s an example of a recommended report structure:

Executive summary

This part should detail the total media spent on all channels vs. the bottom-line success of the efforts. A pro report will elaborate down to revenue and ROI/ROAS metrics.

For example: This month we’ve spent 20,000$, generated 10 customers and a total revenue of 100,000$.

Campaign Performance (Consolidated channels)

This should consolidate all channel effort per specific campaign goals.

For example: a B2B Company aiming at selling three different products will probably be advertising on multiple channels (Google, Facebook, Linkedin, etc).

Each of the three products will be advertised in a seperate multi-channel campaigns, it’s important to understand the performance of each campaign seperatly (campaign A for product A, Campaign B for product B, etc)

The data should be displayed as following:

  • Campaign A – Summary
    • Channel Performance
      • Google
      • Facebook
      • LinkedIn
      • Any other channel
  • Campaign B – Summary
    • Channel Performance
      • Google
      • Facebook
      • LinkedIn
      • Any other channel

Improvment suggestions

Expect to find performance issues reported in your PPC campaigns. A report that presents flawless performance is almost suspicious. Shortcomings are part of the equation, it’s important to acknowledge what went wrong, and create a comprehensive plan of action in order to optimize and improve.

Two examples of how deep PPC can get

With PPC reporting, there is a wealth of information that can be measured to inform you of whether ad and keyword dollars spent are worth it or not, but there are two metrics which are particularly challenging. However complicated, these metrics are super useful to understand and they’re  not impossible measure, so go the extra mile and do. I’m talking about attribution modeling and offline conversions.

  1.  Attribution modeling, or understanding how each PPC marketing channel is performing for paid ads (Google, Facebook, etc.), takes a decent amount of effort (but it’s worth it). This metric is typically measured using Google Analytics, which allows marketers to shed light on which paid ads have the greatest campaign ROI. You can read our guide on how to setup Google Analytics attribution models here.
  2. While not applicable for every business (Low-touch SaaS, eCommerce, other online-only retailers), tracking offline conversions is often overlooked as a metric to scale advertising effectiveness. An offline conversion is basically any time a customer is converted outside of directly using your website (for example via phone or a personal meeting). To measure offline conversions using Google AdWords is a little labor intensive, but it is valuable in order determine how online ad spending has been resulting in offline conversions. With a bit of digging, you can report on how the investment in each keyword  has influenced a campaign’s success. Click here for our step-by-step guide on how to use your CRM and AdWords to track offline conversions.

Reporting shortcomings

When it comes to any digital marketing campaign, not everything is going to be perfect 100 percent of the time. A lot of times there will be tracking issues or data discrepancies that will prevent evaluating and measuring deeply enough. That’s natural. Make sure that your tracking is aligned and enables optimal indepth reporting.

Conclusion

By understanding what worked, what didn’t work and why, you will keep on improving. Don’t forget to always keep your eyes on the prize – measure for ROI.

Read More

John Doe

Architect & Engineer

We love that guy

how_to_drive_cibver_2.jpg

Introduction

This is a fairly common question asked by lots of businesses. Every business has a limited amount of resources (human, cash, time) and needs to utilize those as efficiently as possible.

The truth is that both methods have their ups and downs: there is no single right answer here, just like pretty much anything else concerning marketing. It depends on your business, budget, target group, website content, design, short term and long term goals, company vision and a few dozens of other things.

To make your life a little easier, we have put together a comparison of inbound marketing vs. ppc so you know what you are dealing with when you make your decision. Let’s jump in.

 

Short Term Solutions: PPC

Depending on your present conditions and goals, you need to decide what does your business need: Do you need traffic? Do you need conversions? Does your website have the content needed for conversions? Are you confident your sales team can handle leads well?

Answering questions like these will help you understand which strategy you have to pick, when and why.

Pay Per Click can be considered a short term solution in terms of driving website traffic, which will help you bring in tons of qualified visitors when managed correctly. You basically pay a third party site (say Google) to post your ads on their website.

The idea is that if a company spends enough time and budget on keyword research, bid management, keyword match type, clever targeting, site links, negative keyword removal and scheduling, they’ll get a good amount of qualified visitors that are very interested in their services. If enough budget is spent on ads, the tactic will produce rather satisfying results. Here is a detailed Pay Per Click ROI calculation guide you should check out.

PPC Consumption Pie Chart

 

 

(Source)

On the downside, the value of PPC ends there. It does not guarantee that visitors will convert on your website, or that they will ever become one of your customers, unless you have high quality, top notch content and design to encourage conversions and purchases.

Another thing to think about is that the traffic stops flowing the moment you stop paying for ads. Its super inconsistent and is only there while you have cash to fuel it, otherwise your website visits will be brought down to what you had before starting your Pay Per Click campaign, regardless of how long it lasted.

What this technically means is that Pay Per Click is a good, short term solution for getting highly qualified website traffic for a company that has pretty damn good infrastructure (compelling content and intuitive design mainly) to advance the visitors in their buyer’s journey. It won’t take too long either: your website visits will grow like mushrooms in a forest on a rainy day.

Long Term solutions: Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing offers more of a long term solution for businesses in terms of consistent, high quality website traffic, lead conversions and customer gain. It’s a much slower take off than in the case of Pay Per Click (a well-executed inbound strategy typically takes around 6 months to start producing results), but on the upside, whatever you get in terms of traffic, leads and customers, will stay with you for a very long while. In some cases (evergreen content) website traffic will be there forever and you won’t need to continuously worry about it.

How To Create An Effective Inbound Marketing Strategy Call to Action

Today, most people use search engines to research any purchase decision they are willing to make, be it a service or a product. Studies show that 81% of customers research products online before going to the store. Because of this absurdly large number, SEO has quickly become one of the most important online marketing aspects for any company.

Here is a chart showing the impact of SEO on US consumer market:

 

 

(source)

Inbound offers search engine optimization with the help of creating high quality, relevant, compelling content that will push your content higher on SERPs. This basically means putting in tons of hard work and effort to make your way to the top, instead of buying it (in case of PPC).

Also, by giving away high quality content (whitepapers, eBooks, infographics, etc.) for free, helps build trust among your audience and position yourself as a thought leader in the industry. This way you will not only gain high quality traffic thanks to search engine optimization, but also acquire a good number of qualified leads for a much lower price and build trust with them. All of these efforts combined will eventually lead to gaining loyal customers.

Average Cost Per Lead Inbound vs. Outbound

 

(Source)

The downside of inbound is that it accepts nothing short of selfless dedication, patience and consistency. Everything you do (SEO, content generation and distribution, building trust, offering valuable tips to consumers, etc.) take a lot of time to get started and more often than not, you won’t see any satisfying results for the first few months, in contrast to Pay Per Click.

Also, if you someday decide to put your inbound campaigns on hold, it will basically result in a few months of work, cash and effort lost for nothing. You need to make sure that you have the dedication, budget and patience first, before taking the initiative with this approach.

Read more about Inbound Marketing:

Conclusion

To sum it all up, inbound marketing is a perfect solution for almost every business out there. It will provide very high ROI in the long run, along with a stable sales funnel, consistent website traffic and highly qualified leads for as long as you maintain quality content production (which you are going to do no matter what strategy you choose to go with).

PPC campaigns can work miracles when a business is in need of a strong traffic boost in a very short amount of time. It’s an effective way of getting qualified prospects and converting them with the high quality traffic you already have on your website.

While both strategies have their ups and downs, getting the best out of both worlds can be a good plan to go with: you basically get the ball rolling with PPC and focus your efforts on inbound to keep it rolling.

If your found this useful, and you’re curious to learn more and find out how to create a long lasting inbound marketing strategy, we invite you to download our How-To guide for creating an inbound marketing strategy.

Schedule a FREE consultation

 

Read More

Go to Top