Looking Ahead to 2018: The Year of Data-Driven Marketing for B2B
by MGB2B
Data-driven marketing refers to marketing insights, strategy, and decisions that arise from the analysis of data about or from consumers. It is one of the most transformational changes in the history of advertising. Data-driven marketing takes the answers to the questions like Who, What, When, Where, and Why and makes the answers actionable.
The Benefits of B2B Data
- Enables marketers to focus advertising efforts on businesses that are more likely to be receptive
- Identifies new leads and promotional opportunities using hyper-targeting
- Ensures that existing sales and business relationships are stable and successful through nurturing and growth
Ultimately, investing in data collection and analysis can produce valuable insights that improve your campaign performance, which often translates into increasing your bottom line, while providing more meaningful advertisements to customers.
How to Collect Meaningful Data – Pre-Campaign
Now that the many benefits of data are clear, how do you go about collecting meaningful data for your company? The first step is identifying what you know and what you don’t know. If you’re interested in understanding your customers better and building buyer personas, a Consumer Research Study could be the route to take. Or if new product development is one of your 2018 goals, perhaps a Product Development Survey would be best. Understanding knowledge gaps in your organization is the first step in defining your research parameters and getting at the information you desire.
How to Use Data to Inform Your Online Campaigns
Surveys are a great way to collect data. But they aren’t the only way. Some of the most important data is collected as your digital campaigns are running. For instance, Paid Search campaigns are only made better by tracking the performance of several ads. Over time, the data tells you which messages are resonating with which audience segments, which times of the day ads are performing, etc. You can use information from email campaigns similarly, testing to see which subject lines and messages perform best and using the data to make your campaign more effective. These are just two examples. Online testing and fine-tuning should be a big part of your marketing strategy in 2018 if you are not already doing it.
Investing in Audience Growth
When you conduct research and testing with the goal of gaining insight into your target audience, not only will you have a set of data points describing them, but you will have a deeper understanding of their thoughts, feelings, and motivations. You will have answers to the questions Who, What, When, Where, and Why. With this information, you can create targeted campaigns keyed into specific points that appeal to your audience.
For example, let’s say you learn through research that factory owners are not just concerned with OSHA compliance, but also feel an emotional connection to protecting the lives of their employees through safe work environments. You can take that piece of emotional information and apply it to your messaging, helping factory owners connect with what you’re saying on a deeper level. If you learn architects visit certain industry websites more often than others, tailor your media plan to highlight that website. If contractors tend to open emails more at night than throughout the day, customize your email campaign to launch at 9 pm instead of 10 am. Small tidbits such as these can reveal themselves through detailed research, and become game-changers in the development of your entire marketing strategy.
When considering marketing initiatives to pursue in 2018, marketing research and testing should be top priorities. Gaining a deeper understanding of audience behavior is crucial, especially as outreach becomes more digitally focused each year. And in 2018, we will continue to see this trend develop and blossom. Time to dive in head-first!
Continue ReadingPaid Search for Manufacturers – 5 Tips to Improve Your PPC Campaign’s Performance
by MGB2B
The U.S. manufacturing industry is the strongest it’s been in years. According to the most recent data, manufacturing job growth is on the rise. And in 2016 “manufacturers contributed $2.18 trillion to the U.S. economy.”
But while the manufacturing industry continues to grow, the majority of manufacturing firms in the United States are small businesses. In fact, three-quarters of these businesses have fewer than 20 employees. This means that competition among small businesses in the manufacturing industry continues to increase. Which can make it harder to get your manufacturing company to stand out from the crowd.
Paid search for manufacturers can be just the solution you’ve been looking for to put you ahead of your competitors. But if your business is small, or perhaps new, your budget may be limited. And it’s important to add that money can be spent quickly on a PPC campaign if it isn’t managed correctly. With this in mind, here are some tips to help you control your spend and make sure your paid search budget effectively reaches the right customers.
5 Paid Search Marketing Tips for Manufacturers
- Keywords – Keep Them Tight and Targeted. It’s not revolutionary to make sure your PPC keyword lists are tightly targeted to your product offering. But it’s so important that it has to be stated up front. A lot of your paid search marketing budget can be wasted on search terms triggered by poorly chosen keywords. This means you need to choose keywords that accurately represent your products and industry. It also means you need to utilize Google AdWords’ and Bing Ads’ keyword match type options to eliminate loosely matching search terms. It’s likely you’ll find that broad match keywords bring in highly irrelevant traffic. So sticking to phrase and exact match options for the majority of keywords is highly recommended. One other thing to be aware of is the dual meaning some of your most important keywords may have. In both the B2B world and the manufacturing industry, it’s common to see words that may mean something completely different to the world at large. Use industry-specific modifiers like “industrial” and “commercial” in front of vaguer keywords. This helps make sure you’re showing ads to the right type of searchers while reducing spend on irrelevant clicks.
- Day and Time – Show Your Ads When Your Customers Are Searching. For B2C, it often makes sense to show your ads all day/every day. The average consumer doesn’t have a set schedule for when they’re going to search for a pair of sneakers or a cheap hotel room. But in the manufacturing world, there are days and times when a search is more valuable than others. Most of your searchers are employees or owners of other companies. Therefore, they are much more likely to perform these searches while they’re at work. Setting your campaign’s ad schedule to only run Monday through Friday, say, or from 6 AM to 8 PM, can help you save money on searches less likely to turn into leads. Which enables you to save your budget for the days and times with peak value.
- Location – Limit Based On Your Company’s Capabilities. There are a number of options available to you in the location targeting settings of your paid search campaign. So you should definitely use them to your advantage. You can specify which countries, states, even zip codes, can see your paid search ads. What you choose, however, must be determined by your company’s or product offering’s capabilities. Does your manufacturing business only ship to the U.S.? Then don’t show ads in other countries. Is your product offering specific to a regional industry? Limit your location settings to exclude states outside of your target region. In the end, it makes no sense to show your ads in places you can’t or won’t sell your products.
- Devices – How Are Your Customers Searching the Web? Today’s articles on Internet traffic sources will tell you that more and more searches occur on mobile devices every day. While this is true, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the traffic your PPC campaigns receive from mobile devices is more relevant or valuable than the traffic from computers. In fact, you’re likely to see quite the opposite. Since, as we’ve already stated, you are targeting a B2B audience, your prospects most often perform their searches while at work. Often from a desk. You’re likely to find, then, that the traffic you receive from computers performs at a better rate than the traffic from mobile devices and tablets. In your paid search campaigns, you can choose to bid higher or lower for mobile, tablet and computer traffic. This allows you to put more or less of your limited budget behind the traffic source that is most valuable to your business.
- Remarketing Lists for Search Ads – Reaching Your Website’s Previous Visitors. Like the manufacturing industry, the online paid search market is a highly competitive one. A higher bid on a search keyword can determine who shows first for a relevant search. You should use every tool at your disposal to reach your customers. But also recognize that some searchers are more valuable to your efforts than others. And perhaps the most valuable searcher of all is one who has already visited your site. After all, they may just need that extra push to return and make a purchase. Data regularly shows that the traffic from these previous visitors is likely to perform at better click and conversion rates than regular traffic. Utilizing Remarketing Lists for Search Ads can help you reach these customers before your competitors do. RLSA requires some set-up. But once you have it running, you can set higher bids for searches that come from previous visitors to your website. So you can appear above your competition in the search results and turn past visitors into new leads and sales.
Both the manufacturing and online advertising industries will continue to grow over the coming years. So you’ll need to use every tool in your belt to grow along with them. These 5 tips for paid search for manufacturers can help get the job done.
Continue ReadingWhat You’re Getting Wrong with B2B Paid Search
by MGB2B
Have your B2B paid search efforts hit a road block? Have your AdWords and Bing Ads campaigns plateaued and you can’t help feeling that something’s wrong? Well maybe there is! Let’s take a look at some common mistakes B2B companies make with their paid search campaigns and how you can fix them.
Ad Schedule – Showing Your Ads at the Right Times
B2B companies, more than B2C companies, should be ultra-aware of when their paid search ads are running. More importantly, you need to be sure it corresponds with when your customers will be searching for what you have to offer. A B2C company that sells, say, men’s clothing can likely see quality return while running ads at all hours of the day. But a B2B company likely only sees relevant traffic for their product during normal business week days and hours, when their customers at other companies are on the job. This will vary depending upon your market, but the idea holds true. Try running long term “Day of the week’ and “Hour of day” dimension reports. What times are you getting the most traffic and the most conversions? Armed with this info, you can adjust your ad schedule to exclude those times you’re not seeing good bang for your buck.
Keywords – Being Specific, Using Long Tail & All Match Types
Your keywords are the foundation of your B2B paid search effort. That means they can make or break your campaigns. Make sure that you’re not only focusing on the core phrases that explain your product, but also on longer, more detailed descriptions that will connect with more serious buyers.
For example, say you sell safety helmets to manufacturing companies. You’ll want to make sure you don’t just focus your keywords on basic terms like “helmet.” The term “helmet” can mean different things to different people, like “bike helmet” or “football helmet,” and can waste a significant amount of your budget on irrelevant clicks. Using more specific, long tail keywords like “yellow work safety helmet” will save you money from those irrelevant clicks and catch the customers more likely to purchase your products. And don’t just rely on broad match keywords, but also work in broad modifier, phrase, and exact match versions of your keywords to increase click through rates and save money.
Ads – Promote What Makes You Unique
The paid search landscape is a competitive place and you want to make sure you’re using your entire tool kit to bring in those coveted leads. This means knowing what sets your B2B company apart from the competition and making sure to promote this in your paid search ads. Does your company offer free shipping? Do you give discounts with bulk orders? Whatever makes your product offering seem more attractive than the other guys’ be sure to mention it in your ad text. AdWords Ad Extensions like Callouts or Sitelinks can be a great place to fit in this promotional copy without using up valuable ad space.
Testing – Finding What Works Best
One of the most common mistakes we B2B paid search advertisers make is setting up our ads and landing pages and then getting too busy with other projects to fully test their effectiveness. But testing is a monumentally important aspect of getting the most out of your efforts. Using a dedicated A/B testing tool is a sure fire way to optimize your paid search campaigns, but can become pricey. At the least you should create multiple versions of all of your ads, test different ad copy and landing pages, run them and see over time which performs better and learn why. You can run different versions of ads simultaneously and AdWords will automatically begin serving those that perform the best based on your ad settings. This can help us learn what about our ads is connecting most with our audience and optimizing our ads for that.
Re-engaging – Following Up After a Lead
Sometimes getting the lead can seem like the most important goal of a B2B paid search campaign. But of equal, if not more, importance is following up with that lead to turn them into a valued customer. Whether this translates into someone at your company manually contacting the lead or utilizing a marketing automation tool to connect with them, re-engaging after the lead is vitally important. Hopefully this re-engagement will turn the lead into a sale, or if you’re lucky, many sales down the road. But, even if it doesn’t end up converting, the process will teach you something about why they didn’t end up buying after all, and you can use this info to further optimize your campaigns in the future.
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