Search Marketing Insights for B2B Firms

November 30, 2006
By Patricia Hursh

EVERY B2B company that has a Web site should be engaged in search engine marketing. Why? Because your customers are absolutely, positively using search engines!

Business buyers use search engines to conduct research, compare companies and select providers. When people search for information that’s directly related to your business, you need to be there -- in a prominent way, with a compelling message.

Search engine marketing enables B2B marketers to:

• FIND interested and qualified prospects online.


• DRIVE these prospects to your Web site cost-effectively.


• CONVERT visitors into online leads, and ultimately...


• ENGAGE leads and turn them into customers and sales.

The Opportunity

Recent research provides compelling data on how B2B buyers use search engines extensively.

A study by Enquiro and MarketingSherpa, found that 64 percent of business buyers go to a search engine before any other online destination to find out more about a product or service. In fact, search engines are the #1 way B2B buyers find information online.

Furthermore, business buyers use search engines throughout the entire buying cycle, starting with early-stage industry research all the way through to looking for product-specific information and selecting providers.

It’s no secret that buyers start using search engines long before they are ready to purchase. A reported 41.5 percent of study respondents said they start using a search engine anywhere from two to 12 months in advance of purchase. This reflects the B2B buying process – which is longer and more complex than most consumer cycles with multiple decision makers and multiple touch points.

The Marketing Gap

Yet, with all this compelling data, B2B marketers have been slow to embrace online marketing in general, and more specifically, search marketing. Business buyers are moving online, but B2B marketers are still focused on traditional channels such as trade shows and trade magazines.

Today, according to Forrester Research, only 48 percent of B2B marketers are engaged in online marketing, and they spend only about 24 percent of their entire marketing budget online.

This gap between buyer behavior and marketing priorities presents a real opportunity for savvy B2B marketers, an opportunity to grab more than your fair share of customers who are online and actively looking for what you offer.

Generate Online Leads

The majority of B2B companies don’t sell products or services online. Instead, most use their Web sites for lead generation purposes.

The most common way B2B companies generate leads online is by asking visitors to register to receive various resources and assets of value, such as whitepapers, industry fact sheets, research studies, software downloads, newsletters – or asking visitors to register for events, such as Webinars. A common mistake many B2B marketers make is asking for too much information upfront during the registration process. Remember, you are just starting to build a relationship at this point, so keep it simple. Perhaps you start by asking for only name and e-mail address. Test various types of registration forms and see which one yields the highest number of acceptable leads.

Turn Leads into Sales

Online leads are then funneled into the company’s sales process and ultimately (hopefully) turned into customers. Most likely, for B2B companies these are offline sales that occur weeks or months after initial contact. Because of the long sales cycle, and since most sales occur offline, it can be difficult to link search marketing leads to customers and sales.

To remedy this, firms should integrate lead data back into their sales management systems as much as possible. This allows a company to track a prospect all the way through the buying cycle. We call this process, Search Lifecycle Management™ (or SLM), which involves tracking a person from initial search to ultimate sale.

Recommended Program

A comprehensive and effective B2B search marketing program includes search engine optimization, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, Web site conversion and marketing analytics. Typically, all four efforts are necessary to maximize results and reach prospects through the entire buying cycle.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is required to improve visibility in natural or organic search results. This builds brand credibility and delivers qualified visitors over the long-haul without relying on a media budget.

PPC advertising allows B2B firms to present targeted ad messages with specific calls-to-action to various audience segments. Your ads reach prospects at the very moment they are looking for information, and you only pay for responders (or clicks). PPC campaigns are cost-effective, highly controllable and deliver results immediately.

Web site conversion ensures that landing pages are as effective as possible, enabling B2B firms to engage visitors and turn as many prospects into actionable leads as possible.

Marketing analytics must be implemented to track, measure and improve the entire program at a granular level -- maximizing ROI over time.

Where should you focus your search marketing efforts?
B2B marketers should test multiple search channels including the largest, most popular search engines, namely Google, Yahoo and MSN. But, also test any appropriate vertical engines or niche players, such as these industry-specific search sites:

• ThomasNet.com (Industrial)


• KnowledgeStorm (Business Technology)


• Business.com (General Business)


• BitPipe & IT.com (Information Technology)


• Scirus (Science)


• GlobalSpec (Engineering)

Follow Your Customers

Let’s face it, buyers are in control. They determine when, where and how they will look for information. Don’t fight it. Rather, enable their searching and buying process.

Search engine marketing presents a huge opportunity to reach these “hand raisers,” the people who are online and actively looking for information directly related to your business. And, if you start now, you’ll be ahead of many competitors who are still focusing on trade shows and industry publications. It may sound obvious, but in order to get your message in front of prospective customers, you need to be where they are... online using search engines!

Patricia Hursh is president and founder of SmartSearch Marketing, a full-service search engine marketing agency serving clients in consumer and b-to-b markets.

Posted on November 30, 2006 12:59 PM

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