Integrated Branding Blog | Movéo

Hosting videos on your Site vs. YouTube

Many marketers are already aware of the benefit of using video in B2B marketing. But once you’ve decided on this strategy, you still have to decide where you’d like to host the videos - your own Web site or YouTube. There are pros and cons to each, which I explain below.

The benefits of hosting videos on your site are that the user will be spending time on your domain and that links to the video will empower your domain and not YouTube.com. When a user is on your site, you have the added benefit of promoting your brand. YouTube does allow you to customize your channel, but control is limited.

Some companies may not have the time, bandwidth or resources, however, to implement videos on their site. There is a level of programming involved and you will have to embed some type of video player. If the technical issues are too much of an obstacle, you might strongly consider the YouTube route.

Creating a YouTube Channel and uploading videos is very simple and can be accomplished in a matter of minutes. You can also optimize your videos by giving them appropriate titles and tagging each one with related keywords.

It’s important to remember that YouTube is currently the second biggest search engine in the U.S. as far as volume of searches. Using YouTube allows your videos to be found by users who are searching within YouTube.com, as well as those who are using Google or Bing.

B2B Customer Loyalty

Brand loyalty is often associated with B2C companies, although it can be argued that customer retention is just as important (if not more) in the B2B realm.

In the past, we've discussed some of the differences between B2B and B2C in the buying cycle. More often than not, a B2B purchase is much more involved because of technical aspects of the product, higher price and multiple people involved in the decision process. Consider this and that the market for B2B products and services are smaller and you see that retaining customers is a critical component in B2B marketing.

We've recently conducted two studies on this topic. Read the results in our latest article, The Million Dollar Question: How Loyal are Your Customers?

B2B Videos for Search are More Important than Ever

Image courtesy of Search Engine Land

As search engines and social media continue to evolve, it has become more important than ever for B2B companies to use videos for search.

What does this have to do with search engines?
In today’s world, which is heavily influenced by social media, search engines return results that include Web pages, blogs, products, images, videos, maps, local businesses and more. It’s called social, universal or blended search. Because of this, it’s important for companies to create content in these ways so that they might have more visibility. Not every form of content is appropriate for every company, however, so it’s important to find which are relevant.

Why is video generally a good option for content for B2B companies?
This one’s pretty simple, if you think about it. In many cases a B2B purchase can be very technical and research intensive. Videos make it easier to explain content and give the user a break from having to read an extremely long document. In addition, it gives the B2B company a chance to show their product in action. This does not in any way mean that written content shouldn’t be available as well, just that having the extra option can make the process much easier for you and a potential client.

So, whether you create a YouTube channel or host the videos on your existing site, make sure to consider this option if you are a B2B company. Not only do you give the user what they want, but your videos have a chance to increase your brand visibility in search results.

What’s everyone Tweeting about?

If you don’t believe Twitter has any marketing value, get this. You can use Twitter as a research tool even if you don’t have a Twitter page. Would you like an example? I thought so.

Let’s take one of our friends - Stericycle. This company offers an array of product recall services. If they want to know what the Twitter community is tweeting about in regards to the keyword ‘recalls,’ they can go to search.twitter.com and find out. See for yourself: recall-related Tweets.

The search results mentioned above show all the Tweets that mention the word ‘recalls.’ Savvy companies have used this to see who’s talking about their brand and counter it with positive PR messaging. Companies with a Twitter account can reply directly to the user and try to resolve issues, thank them for being a patron, or whatever makes sense. There are endless creative ways to use Twitter. I suggest you start by searching to see what the community has to say about your company. This is similar to Google Alerts, which we’ve mentioned in a previous post, but it only involves people on Twitter.

How have you used Twitter for your company?

Marketing Wisely With Email in a Down Economy

In a down economy email marketing can be both a B2B marketers friend and enemy.  As cuts are being made across the board and marketers look for ways to increase sales they must not lose sight of the fact that while price and with that selling,  is important, value, or the perception of, is equally important. Your customers and prospects are going to, or rather are already, getting bombarded with offers from companies trying to win their business. And, here's where email could work for or against you.

Every marketer knows email is a cost effective means for getting their message in front of customers and prospects quickly and easily. The temptation in a down economy is to increase the frequency of email for hope of increasing response.  The reality is, relevancy our performs frequency. So unless you can increase both the frequency and relevancy of your messages, the smart play is to focus on increasing relevancy. You will get greater response rates from the more relevant content, and you will avoid falling into a sea of white noise with all the other marketers out there who are bombarding your targets with irrelevant offers/content/messages.

Now back to value. As you work to define relevant content for your subscribers, don't forget to deliver some extra added value with it. For B2B marketers added value could come in form of shared knowledge such as white papers or Webinars. The added value will help strengthen the bond between your targets and your brand so that when they are ready to buy, you will be at the top of their list.

To learn more about how Moveo can assist your business with email marketing strategies visit us at moveo.com

Dave Cannon, Director, Interactive Services

B2B search marketing

Search engine marketing for a business-to-business company is different than for a business-to-consumer company. In short, there’s more research involved with the user before a buying decision is made. In most instances, B2B purchases are very substantial in cost and can even involve a contract for a decided amount of time. In addition to this, the researcher may not even be the person who has authority to make the buying decision. The user may be researching a number of companies to present to whomever makes the decision. It may take weeks, months or longer for a purchase to be made, if at all.

So how can we market a B2B company site in the search engines to take advantage of this behavior? We still want to bring users to the B2B site through SEO and PPC efforts. The key is to have information that the user can download or have sent to them via e-mail, thus making a conversion. Newsletter and white papers are an excellent way to keep communications alive with the potential client. Make sure these pieces of information are easy to find no matter what page the user is on and don’t make any forms too tedious to fill out.

When analyzing your traffic keep in mind the behavior and processes that the user is more than likely following. This will help you translate your analytics into useful data. Don’t look for the quick sale. It’s all about conversions and continuing that relationship you’ve started.

Jeff Swanson

Top B-to-B Ad Impression Sites Reveals Social Mistakes

A lot of buzz has been flying around about Web 2.0 and Social Media. However, when it comes to where ads are shown statistics released by Nielsen Online AdRelevance for September 2008 reveal that many B to B marketers are not keeping a close eye on where their ads are being shown. Five of the Twenty sites in particular really jump off the list at me and make me wonder what people are thinking?

 

#2 MySpace 153.7 million impressions. MySpace is cheap as far as both CPM and CPC goes. So most marketers don’t want to pass up on the possibility of cheap clicks. I have never seen a conversion from a MySpace based click in AdWords.

 

#8 YouTube 82.2 million impressions.  YouTube is another Google AdWords accessible site, and unless excluded it will quickly generate a large number of impressions. YouTube clicks are even rarer than MySpace clicks, and conversions are just as sparse to non-existent.

 

#15 Photobucket 39.2 million impressions. Photobucket is a photo and video sharing site and much like YouTube it seems to generate a lot of impressions and very few clicks.

 

#16 NeoPets 37.8 million impressions. Yes you read that correctly, NeoPets. I don’t know about you, but my ten-year old daughter isn’t going to be making any B2B buying decisions any time soon.

 

#17 Facebook 34.5 million impressions. Facebook, along with MySpace, are the leaders in social networking, the only real reason MySpace has more impressions is they are served by Google and Facebook is served by MSN.

 
What do all five of these sites have in common? It's Social Media.  And why are they such bad places for B2B advertisers online? Social Networks may include your business audience but they aren’t there to do business. Even small business people who are using these social networks as a primary form of marketing ignore the ads.

When choosing where ads will be placed online it is important not to only consider if your target audience is there but also why they are there. A person networking with friends or catching up with long distance pals just isn’t in the frame of mind to pay attention to the ads, and if they do it is often a negative reaction. Let people’s social time be social. Unless you are promoting a party at an upcoming convention or a sponsorship of a not-for-profit event keeping business and pleasure separate in online advertising increases click-through-rates by decreasing impressions that have no positive effect.

I have even tried using these sites as part of a brand exposure strategy. There were a few clicks but with a click through rate of less than one tenth of a percent and no increase in organic traffic discernible it made no sense to keep showing ads on social networks. If you want to dabble in Web 2.0 advertising on the social networks is not the way to do it. Put up one profile for a key employee and have them contribute to the community and answer people's questions in the forums or groups. 

4 Customer Experience Suggestions for Yahoo! SM

As someone who manages a large number of PPC campaigns, across a variety of search engines, I must say that I’ve noticed an important difference in the customer experience between Yahoo! SM and Google.

The Google experience has been designed to make things very user-friendly, including the AdWords interface, which makes campaign setup a breeze.  But with Yahoo! SM, the setup process is far more complex and time-consuming, due in large part to the way they’ve organized their account settings.  In fact, to get around some of the limitations in the Yahoo! SM interface I began uploading campaigns as spreadsheets, instead of building them myself in the interface.  And, even though Yahoo! SM handles the upload for me (a benefit of achieving Gold status) it remains a difficult process, because the communication I receive from Yahoo! SM during the upload is sporadic…at best.

What really confuses me is how Yahoo! SM can lag so far behind Google in the development of its user interface.  After all, they own the Overture patent that PPC is run on.

Obviously, I cannot recommend against advertising with Yahoo! SM on the basis of the limitations I experience in their user interface.  Instead, I need to make my recommendations based on where my clients’ dollars are best spent (oftentimes, this involves using both Google and Yahoo! SM).  However, when it takes three times as long to setup an account in Yahoo! SM versus Google, I begin to ask questions about cost/benefit.  

 

That being said, there are a few key improvements I’d recommend for Yahoo! SM, which I think would make the experience comparable to what Google offers its advertisers currently.

1. Make the Excluded Words feature more accessible. At the account level the excluded words are hidden away in the administration tab inside the tactic settings. To make things easier, they could be accessible as a link directly to the right of the search link seen below.  

At the ad group, it would be helpful if this were accessible as a tab in the bar below the tabs. This way, the campaign manager could simply check the ad groups where they want to add excluded words, and then be directed to a page with a field for each ad group, all ready to be filled in. 

 

2. Provide transparency for Geo-targeting setup. If you ever look deep into web analytics and try to figure out where visitors are located, it all boils down to the IP address. Yahoo! SM could start with the first layer of the IP and give users the option of targeting down level by level. This type of targeting would provide local businesses an alternative to AdWords, which allows very specific targeting, but really isn’t transparent with how it works.

3. Improve communication.  Yahoo! SM should understand that their customer service department is THE most important department for PPC managers. Get them on Twitter, on Skype, on Social networks. Yahoo’s customer service people should be everywhere, and they should be willing to communicate in whichever method the client requests.

4. Establish agency relationships.  Even though the formal Ambassador program has ended, Yahoo should still reach out to advertising agencies that have dabbled in Yahoo! Search Marketing, to provide support.  Yahoo! SM is a good deal as far as clicks go, but from an agency standpoint, the additional time needed to setup the campaign can quickly erode the PPC cost benefit.   Better yet, a good editor program could alleviate many of the current problems inherent with manually uploading spreadsheets. 

I admit that Yahoo has some tough choices ahead of them.  But, if they remain focused on fixing some of these issues, they can better leverage the advantages they do have over Google.  

Using Tag lines as AdWords Headlines

Traditional thinking of how to construct an AdWords typically falls into two schools of thought. The first school, championed by Perry Marshall and other Guru’s, is to use dynamic keyword insertion to ensure your headline matches the search query of the user. The second school, promoted by many experts such as David Bullock, is to instead to very finely group keywords so you can write a headline that will always be very specific to what the user searched for. I have always agreed with David. However, I never shy away from split-testing something new. There are several new styles of headlines I have split-tested that have proven effective. 

1. Tag Lines as Headlines. Ex. For NES Rentals we used “Get it in Gear” 

2. Brand Centric. Ex. For Alloyd Products we used “Alloyd Brands” 

3. Event Based. Ex. For Thermosafe we used “See Us at PackExpo” 

By giving each of these different approaches a chance Movéo’s clients' ads stood out from the competition, who were set in one of the two typical schools of thought. In B2B and Healthcare copywriting for Paid Search Marketing one cannot be afraid to try something new. Metrics are so easy to track and analyze that finding the best conversion sources is often just one creative test away. Headlines do not all need to be the same style.

Top 3 B2B Social Media Spaces

Keeping up with the latest developments in PPC marketing has led me to be very involved in the Online social media space in general. I have experimented with countless new media marketing techniques and participated in developing everything from article marketing programs to the latest apps like Twitter.
I was listening in on a webinar my wife was participating in and the group consensus on the state of social media was ranking the top three new media applications/websites for B2B marketers.

1. Facebook. The Driving force behind why Facebook is preferred for professional development over similar sites like MySpace is the beginnings of the network as a way for college students to connect and keep in touch. This education level of the base user is distinctly different than the more artist/teen targeted MySpace.

2. Linked-in. Linkedin is designed to be focused around professional contacts with job postings, a Q/A board, and the ability to get a recommendation from a colleague.

3. Twitter. The leading edge of social applications is Twitter. Twitter is a micro-blogging format that limits any post to 140 characters. users are able to follow other users, and the other person can choose whether they want to follow back. In addition users can direct message each other. Twitter posts are indexed by Google. Many corporations such as Comcast are building their outreach on Twitter by having a tech support account that is monitored 24/7. Twitter is like the latest version of a chat-room, but everybody has control over what part of the room they see.

I agree with 2 out of the 3 above for B2B marketing and public relations. Social Networking sites are not a place to market unless you are a solopreneur. Facebook and MySpace are simply not perceived as professional forums, and are often not completely controlled by the user. Control over voice and branding when using new media and social media make using these outlets seem risky for many large organizations, but a well thought out strategy directly related to branding and target audience can make new and social media outlets a source of prospects, clients, and goodwill for any size business.