Think search is just for consumers? Think again! Last week I attended a seminar hosted by the Business Marketing Association that featured a panel of gurus from search giant Google, mega-distributor Grainger and b2b marketing agency Slack Barshinger. The key take-away? B2b businesses need to add Search Marketing to their marketing arsenal, and fast.
B2b search has increased 139 percent since 2007. Offline advertising from search engines Google, Bing and Yahoo is driving business executives online to find vendors, suppliers, partners and more. Statistically 52 percent of small business owners use search first when researching suppliers. And lest you think you can’t reach the decision-maker, 64 percent of C-level executives’ conduct 6 or more business searches per day. The more popular search engines’ tend to drive broad volume whereas the smaller players like ThomasNet, GlobalSpec and Business.com deliver smaller yet more qualified traffic
Panelist Jeff Woelker, Senior Digital Strategist at Slack Barshinger advises business marketers to “test the organic search results for generic, non-branded key words” that are relevant to your business. If you don’t find your website listed on the first three pages, Jeff suggests that you “consider using paid search to raise your visibility while you bring your ranking up.”
Other insights from the panelists include:
You have on average just 8 seconds to make a page impression. If your images are slow to load or your flash player hangs, people won’t wait around for you
YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world after Google. Are you there?
Test often – fail quickly, learn quickly
Make a commitment. Search engine marketing takes time; be patient and stick with it
Struggling with keywords? Try describing your business without using any brand names
Benchmark your competition. If you don’t find them online, do not think that gives you permission to skip it. Instead consider it a window of opportunity to take the lead early
In summary: Get There!
