Keyword-Driven Marketing for B2B

By Mike Grehan.
June 9th, 2009.

Typically, when people talk about search marketing, they talk about companies in huge B2C sectors, such as financial services, travel and consumer electronics. What you don’t hear are stories from the B2B marketing realm, where the volume is lower but the investment often much greater.

Interestingly, on my travels I’ve bumped into many marketing executives from industrial-type B2B organizations who honestly believe search isn’t for them. After all, they chuckle, who goes to Google to search for a titanium dioxide manufacturer?

Who? You’d be surprised. A search for “titanium dioxide manufacturer” at Google brings back over two million results. If that’s not enough, the Google keyword tool suggests that over 60,000 people search for the term each month. And yet, only two companies are bidding on the term in paid search. I’d say that’s pretty narrow competition.

But these numbers fail to communicate one crucial element: customer intent. Obviously, a search for titanium dioxide indicates some level of interest, but that doesn’t mean a user is looking to buy something. In fact, when you break it down, you quickly discover that titanium dioxide is used and referred to in a variety of ways. Some call it titanium (1V), others call it titania, and it pops up in everything from sunscreen to food coloring.

Understanding what your customers want is the foundation of effective marketing.

That’s why Keyword-Driven Marketing (KDM) is so important. I’ve written many times about KDM, but the key takeaway is its huge importance in determining end user intent. Understanding what your customers want – and how they express that need – is the foundation of effective marketing, even in the B2B realm of titanium dioxide.

Of course, understanding the language of the end user is no less important in the B2C world, but the purchase-making decision process is vastly different. In B2B, sales cycles are often much longer, not to mention more complicated. Decision-making is also usually by committee – meaning more than one person has to buy in for a purchase to be made. Lastly, the majority of B2B sales don’t happen online, meaning capturing your target audience as early as possible in the purchase process is tremendously vital. From there, it becomes a matter of understanding how your customer’s vocabulary evolves throughout the decision-making process.

Having said that, people often tend to ask, “Is paid or organic search better for B2B search marketing?” The short answer is “both.” But there are different strategies for different products and sectors.

For example, B2B packaged goods – such as office supplies – frequently have similar features and benefits. Purchase decisions are thus often based on price or incentives, so a tactical paid search campaign can outperform the same approach in organic. But in many other cases, purchasing B2B products or services requires major capital investment and research – not to mention a lot more risk – and so a stronger emphasis and investment in SEO typically returns better long-term results. (I’m speaking in the broadest sense here…don’t want to wander off into a marketing lecture!)

In B2B lead generation, the search marketplace extends well beyond the three major search engines.

It’s also important to realize that, for B2B lead generation, the search marketplace extends well beyond the three major search engines; numerous vertical search engines and directories specialize in specific industry sectors and need to be part of your mix. But no matter what tactics you use to get new customers to your web site, once they’re there you need a mechanism of engaging them before they bounce off the page and over to your competitor. In this sense, B2B is no different than B2C.

Granted, B2C is known for its cool brands, sexy products and flashy, above-the-line advertising, and its websites often draw from intensive creative to develop compelling experiences. In the B2B world, let’s just say a tech spec manual for an industrial manufacturer usually doesn’t spark the same type of creative inspiration. But that doesn’t mean you can’t create the right kind of experience for your end user.

The key, once again, is found in the KDM approach. The more you understand about end user intent, the better you can create landing pages that meet those specific expectations. Mining keyword intelligence to match landing pages with the right content can vastly improve conversion rates and ROI. Supplementing the right content with the right analytics testing can then generate even more actionable customer insight. (Here’s another free tip: Don’t shy away from A/B and multivariate testing! B2B marketers sometimes seem to think that this kind of testing is geared specifically towards the faster purchase cycles found in B2C, but savvy analytics has proven it can deliver big results in B2B, too.)

So in summary, to make the most of your B2B marketing:

Use Keyword-Driven Marketing to truly understand the language of your customer.
Understand user intent and provide an entry point as early in the buying cycle as possible.
Develop integrated search marketing strategies to maximize return on investment.
Provide compelling experiences – not just content.
Test, test, and test again. Then, test, test and test again…