Google study offers insights in B2B Marketing

Following up on the webinar “Social Media for B2B companies – tactics, tools and techniques” that I held today from South Tyrol, I have promised to share one of the latest Google studies on B2B marketing.

At their event “Thing B2B 2011″ Google introduced the results of their new B2B study. It refers to business decision makers and how they make their way to buying decisions, which tools they are using and which technical platforms influence their purchase process.

The study “Connecting with the Customer” (video) asked 1.600 B2B business decision makedrs from various industries. The results were then combined with the latest findings of a Compete Clickstream study. The Compete study is tracking website conversion rates of a panel that is based on 2 Mio. consumers.

The study concludes that 30% of conversions on activities like whitepaper downloads, Email, Calls or other pull activity happen after two weeks time, or even at a later stage. It also states that -not surprising- in order to reach B2B decision makers the Internet is the best choice. 57% of the respondents say Internet advertising sticks to their mind versus 34% print. Only 16% say TV ads have a lasting effect on them.

When B2B decision makers are in a purchase process, they make use of the following sources…
- 71% Internet
- 41% Professional organizations
- 39% Tradeshows
- 37% Catalogue
- 33% Consultants
- 31% Direct Mail
- 11% TV

The leading online resources where B2B decision makers go to…
- 73% Search engines
- 51% Brand websites
- 45% Online reviews
- 42% Websites of professional organizations

In the following video Sam Sebastian, Industry Director at Google reviews the most important results of the study “Connecting with the Customer”, and makes clear that Social Media has the best effect if it is connected with all the other marketing activities companies are running. The review is followed by a dscussion between Paul Miller, Vice President of eCommerce at Grainger; Kathy Leech, Director of Brand Communications at BP; Andy Markowitz, Director of Global Digital Strategy at GE. Just watch it…

Spot On!
Business decision makers are a challenging shopper category. However, the study makes clear that the Internet is the place to reach them easily. Mobiles and Social Networks are becoming more and more important in the lead generation process, too. One in three B2B clients who searches for information on their smartphones also uses Social Networks for research purposes. Sam Sebastian, Industry Director at Google summarizes the findings in three bullets:
1. The Internet is the new tradeshow
2. B2B customers search early and often across the Web to information
3. Think orchestration, not integration

Maybe I would have chosen a different third point… “Think stimulation, not penetration!”. But that is my view…

Source

LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook? Study finds leading social network from journalists…

What’s your guess? What is the leading social network for journalists? And what does this mean to business decision makers, managers and PR professionals?

The answer by far is LinkedIn with 92% – with a remarkable increase of 7% compared to 2009. However, this does not mean that it is their main source of information. At least, this is what the latest study tells us which is called 2011 Arketi Web Watch Survey: Inside BtoB Media Usage of Social Media.

For me it was a bit of an eye-opener as I thought journalists might prefer to use Twitter to monitor sources for trending topics and breaking news. Probably, the statement has some value still. For Mike Neumeier, Pricipal, Arketi Group was not surprised…

“It comes as no surprise more BtoB journalists are participating in social media sites, especially LinkedIn. (…) LinkedIn provides an online outlet for them to connect with industry sources, find story leads and build their professional networks.”

The second largest still is not Twitter. It is Facebook. 85% of journalists are on Facebook (increase by 30% to 2009). However, Twitter comes in nearly at the same result (84%) and with the highest growth of 60% to 2009. And nearly half of the responding journalists (49%) say they blog or read blogs regularly.

“When compared to the 2009 Arketi Web Watch Survey, this year’s results show significantly more journalists are using social media tools (…) This means companies have more online channels through which they can reach media targets. This is both a blessing and curse for today’s PR professionals.” Dr. Kaye Sweetser, associate professor of PR, University of Georgia’s Grady College

Findings where journalists have their news sources…
- 80% via public relations contacts
- 77% rely on news releases
- 74% turn to newswires (i.e. BusinessWire or PRNewswire)
- 71% get from email pitches
- 56% from blogs
- 44% from micro-blogs (such as Twitter), and
- 39% from social networking sites (such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Myspace).

More than nine out of ten journalists responding (96 percent) say they prefer to receive news releases via email from companies they know, and 95 percent of business journalists say they prefer to receive news releases via email from companies they don’t know but are in industries they cover.

Journalists get crucial information regarding breaking news from the following sources…
- 85% Industry experts
- 81% Company website
- 80% Industry website
- 80% Other interested parties
- 57% Industry blog
- 53% Company blog
- 41% Industry Twitter feed
- 33% Company Twitter feed

Spot On!
Although LinkedIn is very popular among journalists, it does not seem to be the centre of attention to get a big story. Still, the direct contact and company websites have massive power and as they are probably the most trusted sources, they still lead. Still, social networks make it easy for journalists to get in touch with relevant people for good quotes. It should assume that investigative journalism is on the rise. Reading newspapers and websites today, I personally get the feeling that blogs have far more to offer.

What is your view?

The Social Society – Social Engagement & Jobs

Some days ago, I have started the series The Social Society which is meant to be a thought-provoking piece of information to get us all rethink what the challenges, opportunities and risks are that arise from the social web. For all those who engage in the Social Web as you will see in this post, it could be a job creator and a job killer. Just the way you want to see it if you are checking the latest findings from studies and posts on social engagement and what it can do to you and your job. In the end as we all know today… Social engagement costs time!

Let’s start with the good message first: An Accenture study assumes the internet will account for 21% of gross domestic product (GDP) growth in five years. Thus, it will have a remarkable impact on employment levels. It “created jobs on a large scale,” the study claims. Accenture predicts the internet creates 2.6 new jobs for every one lost. The study cites the example of France where 500.000 jobs of middle men got replaced by technology as people thought but in reality 1.2 Mio. jobs were created through the internet. So, the internet is a job creator. So far, so good from a general point of view. We get jobs, thanks to the internet…

Now what happens when Social Society is doing their jobs?

One of the main questions that business decision makers want to know is how productive are we based on technology, the web and social activities? You will find more studies stating negative rather than positive impact on productivity when it comes to social engagement.

Although studies should be asking whether productivity increases or decreases with the use of technology, and especially the social web, most of those studies just release negative results. Or is it just the way media reads it? If you ever come across a trustworthy study that suggest the benefits of internet activity or social engagement, I would be very happy to share these findings…

Maybe the following study is a positive example? According to the latest uSamp US study, the web is a time waster. What is positive about 45% of employees surveyed stating they work 15 minutes or less without getting interrupted. Isn’t this a scary thing? Some managers might say: Sure, social media and the other forms of social engagement will be the reason for this. I can already hear them…

The study reveals however, that 60% of workplace distractions are tied to email, social networks, text messages or just jumping between windows of applications, so not only social engagement. 53% of workers “waste” at least one hour per day on technology interruptions by social engagement and collaborative tools which equates to approx. $10,000 in annual productivity loss per person (based on an average salary of $30 per hour). Funnily enough, it is not social media that causes main problem for productivity. 23% of distractions are coming from email. So, productivity will get lost with the use of technology but social engagement is a much smaller portion. It’s the way we read studies that makes them sound appropriate for our purposes, right?

So, can the Social Society use the social web during our working hours?

Well, this is where managers and the evanglists of web technology are fighting “verbal battles” these days. Porsche denies acces to Facebook for employees, Italian government did so to their employees, too. People get fired for being socially engaged on Twitter. Although I have to admit that some of these 13 Twitter cases were not really clever and thoughtful conversations. But go to Twitter and Facebook and just monitor what people are saying. These examples happens on a daily basis. One gets caught by proclaiming or talking about their employer, their company or some irrelevant topic. Some don’t. Or we don’t hear about it. Some people are clever and obey some clever rules about how to avoid personal branding mistakes. We are all learning social engagement these days…

So is there a solution how much social engagement is feasible for employees in the future? Or should I say for the employer…?

Spot On!
In some way companies always appreciated (and expected) social engagement and personal branding. If people were writing books, they have been seen as specialist and experts in their field. If they spoke at events, they were even more accepted and respected as business partners. If they expressed their thought-provoking opinion publicly, people rated their transpaency, their openness and their intellect. People have done this next to their jobs for ages. Companies have accepted it as it paid back to business and brands. Did this increase productivity? Who knows… Today, people write blogs, fuel discussions via Twitter and Facebook, and engage on social communities. The lack of understanding for this social engagement. How to show guidance and leadership capabilities of executives and managers in terms of embracing the value of social engagement. Tracking user patterns or blocking access to modern social media tools won’t decrease the level of social engagement. If people are busy, they will reduce their social engagement. If managers know how to use social engagement for productivity and if employees get more freedom for productive conversations (i.e. fixed % of spare time for social engagement) and social training, I can imagine we will see more positive reports and studies on social engagements in the future.

Again, this is just a thought-proking post and I am very much interested in your views… Come on get engaged! It will help all of us get a better understanding of how to improve our future workplace.

News Update – Best of the Day

Marketers see many studies like one of the Morgan Stanley reports which state that there are more social network users than email users. And especially in the B2B sphere the research makes clear that 80% of business buyers today say that they find their vendors as opposed to vendors finding them. Tony Sambito writes advices that compasnies and brands plan for the Social Buyer before it is too late. I absolutely agree with him…

Business decision makers often ask me how much I think Social Media goals have to be linked to business goals to drive success. A new report, “The State of Social Media in Credit Unions: Opportunities and Challenges,” from 187 credit unions of varying size and composition across the United States and Canada now allows some insights in that question. According to the study, companies using Social Media with more than two years of experience are the most likely to report success (57%), while those that have three months or less are least likely (17%).

Still thinking what will be the Social Media trends for this summer? Tim Gray has an answer for you. Find the 5 trends that he advices to watch out for. Location based topics, group buying, “swiming in the stream” (social stream), social search and mobile. Don’t know if this is really social only but still good in terms of your web-strategy.

5 stairways to “Why should we use Twitter…?”

This is one of the question, I still get asked frequently by many friends, fans and business decision makers in webinars or seminars: “Why should I (or we) use Twitter?”

The answer is so simple, so obvious, so broad. Just as broad as the opportunities and chances that are opening up when people listen to Twitter.

Twitter is like a stairway to a modern social personality which is self-defining, enlightening and inspirational…

I listen so we are…
I follow so we can rate and like…
I get followed so we show interest in lives…
I learn so we see peoples’ latest thoughts, visions and ideas…
I share so we keep people connected as a never running dry fountain of inspiration…

This is why I use Twitter and why you, your company and your employees might do so as well. And why I manage my Twitter account myself, and don’t let anyone else manage it – no matter if private or business. Or as Twitter says in their new video… “Follow Your Interests. Discover Your World. Twitter”.

Some insights in mobile business productivity

This week I came across two studies which illustrate how much mobiles are changing business productivity these days and what the outlook is for business decision makers if they want to stay ahead of times.

Leaders in their field will take a close look at the 2010 year in review for mobile (video), the use of the multiple devices that enable more work mobility, flexible web access to inhouse technology and sales property, as well as the problem of fragmentation as tablets seem to re-define the business use of mobiles.

For (IT) managers the question for the future will be how much tablets can overcome the desktop history and in which technology to invest to increase business productivity.

A recent study by the University of Heilbronn gives insights in the latest market development of device shipment.

If we align this with the “always on” philosophy, then we can imagine that the way we will be working in the future will get away from desktop towards a mobile workplace which could be the hotel lobby, a restaurant or on the couch, working in a relaxed atmosphere at home. The desktop won’t be the place of work. With increased mobile technology opportunities there will only be “working or not working”. The way to this new world will be changed when management enables their employees to have access to information anytime, anywhere. The study states that the “use of mobile technology can increase productivity of business travellers by 30-50%”.

How much smartphone could make a difference in this changing process of the future workplace highlights an infographic by the Sybase blog, part of SAP today, which is documenting compelling proof points of which IT and other executives need to be cognizant.

When I was chating (obviously via mobile) to my business contact Sarah Goodall, business blogger and social media lead EMEA at SAP, she gave me her personal thoughts on the changing mobile market yesterday… and I absolutely agree with her view.

“Smartphones and mobiles will be crucial for business productivity going forward. Mobile devices, similar to social media, are fast becoming part of everyday consumer behavior. It’s only natural that these behaviours will transfer and are adopted in business life. People want access to information real time – they want accuracy, they want it immediately and they want it at time of thought. It’s an instant world now and information needs to be transferable and accessible in real time. This will help professionals make informed decisions in real time. It will give them flexibility and agility to make decisions on the move. All of this will help toward productivity.”

The two studies show that having the right mobile app strategy in place will definitely boost the productivity of businesses. So, business decision makers should better hurry up and make their business “social and mobile ready”.

Salestainability – a phrase or a challenge?

No, the word did obviously not exist before… Or can a phrase come to live with Google not knowing about, nor finding it with their intelligent algorythm? If Google has not indexed one website with the phrase yet, can I claim the phrase as my innovation? Anyway… So, I just created the word today. Horray…

How did I come across it? Let me tell you how I thought about sales and sustainability…

In my eyes the word salestainability defines the future of a successful long-term strategy in business – especially in our social web world… Salestainability. The merger of sales and sustainability could become the formula for clever and intelligent business for the next generation C-level. For those managers who aim to get the balance right between the desire to use social web efficiency and to credit their own customer base for loyalty and advocacy.

Last week, I thought about the challenge for business decision makers to align their web-strategy with new opportunities that social media and social networks offer. And quite frankly, I can imagine that marketers might become kind of “greedy” when thinking about the latest studies. When Deloitte and ExactTarget find that customers are mainly following brands because they want to get benefits, coupons or discounts, nobody would be surprised, if brands are sending rather than understanding.

The social web tends to offer many opportunities to do conversation with our customers without “spaming” them. If customer become Facebook’s Fanpages they declare their open mind to brand activity, and are not only “Likes”, or brand advocates. If people accept Dell’s promotions and let the IT vendor generate 5 Mio. US dollars via Twitter accounts, we need to re-think our sales business and integrate it into our web-strategy to leverage the sales approach to the next level of SocialCRM if they are capable of doing it. And if customers respond to Groupons location-based promotions, they follow the studies results and motivate brands and companies to reach out to them.

Some might pick it up and use their old email tactics – often unpersonalized, uncustomized, unhuman… Feedback might not be valued the way it deserves to be recognized. Companies will start pushing promotions out to them. Why not, if they ask for it? Why not, on a daily basis? Why not challenge their current capabilities at high frequency, harness their brand feedback and hand out permanent sales offers? Why not…? Another study might tell them why…

So far, so good…

Sales is the key driver for business. Business can’t live without push, promotion and placement. Upsale is upscale. No gain, much pain. Companies love to take the money from their customers but do they really care about sustainability? But how can a company in a world of quarterly reporting, balanced scorecards and budget pressure pay attention and give credit to sustainability?

The value of sustainability in business from an executive management point of view was just highlighted in the study “Sustainability: The ‘Embracers’ Seize Advantage” from MIT Sloan Management Review and The Boston Consulting Group. Managers who take the sustainability approach as a key strategic metric to their business will improve brand reputation, claims the study. And most companies are “looking towards a world where sustainability is becoming a mainstream, if not required, part of the business strategy”. Thus, having an essential impact on their sales and web-strategy…

Salestainability is where the worlds of sales and sustainability face the competition to understand which customers are the best ones and how to embrace, hug them and treat them. Who are the best…?

Those who don’t follow/fan/like and still get emails, newsletters and direct mail and don’t unsubscribe?
Those who like the brand on Facebook and do conversation around a brand but don’t buy…?
Those who buy through Groupon, take cheap offers and are one-stop shoppers, never seen again?
Those who follow and listen through Twitter for bargains and rate them with a RT or share it?

Who knows the answer? The answer might be: Find the right salestainability!

Spot On!
Salestainability is not a phrase, it is a challenge. Salestainability is getting the balance right between “want” and “wish”, and thinking about diversification and respect. It is an external strategic business attitude towards training the customer on the social web capabilities around a company and brand. Internally, it is about not exhausting the business immanent SocialCRM tactics. Letting the customers breath and take their own decisions without being pushed too hard, without getting under pressure – with the approach of willing to find and give the personal touch from and to the customer. With the pleasure for social shopping leasure.

That’s what I would define as the future salesforce. That’s what I would call… salestainability!

What do you think of salestainability, it’s definition and it’s future outlook for a business that creates a powerful and still customer-centric strategy?

Study: Social Media still at early stages in companies in 2010

A recent study by SmartBrief and Summus on the State of Social Media for Business 2010 shows how companies use Social Media at the moment. More than 6.000 business decision makers took part and there are some trends that can be seen here. And what did we expect…? Social Media is still at early stages.

Most companies (66,5%) use Social Media 18 months now. Almost half of them are “playing” with Web2.0 tools, only 5,4% work with them for more than 3 years. Most companies focus on the top 5 Social Media tools: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Blogs. The reason why they use these tools? As most of their clients are to be found at these places. Although they admit that they also use some niche platforms like FlickR.

Publishers knew it before brands: It takes time to make Social Media usage efficient. The study states that after 2 years companies see the value in Social Media and make it an integral part of their business strategy. Nevertheless, most of them predominatly still use it to raise awareness for their brands (no wonder if 60% of Americans and Canadians follow brands as of promotions and coupons, which an Empathica Consumer Insights research tells us). They talk about product or service information, spread their messages, and don’t rate the conversation with the clients. By not listening they waste a lot of energy and leave the real benefit of the user input behind.

One question that could be quite interesting for a discussion is why it takes so long for companies and brands to adopt and get used to Social Media. Is it because they don’t collaborate with Social Media agencies or because they like to work with internal resources? As we can see from the results, it could also be another factor: One third is not in the position to decide about Social Media, 33% see data security as an issue and 15% saw resistance from the managemetn a critical point.

Spot On!
In my eyes the two most interesting topics for hindering Social Media efforts could be minor trust and no understanding of efficiency of Social Media strategy. Only 7,3% see their strategy as very revenue generating. 14,2% rate their Social Media strategy efficient. Just 14,7% said their companies do measure Social Media efforts, while more than 33% don’t measure at all. At least Social Media is not seen as a fad anymore. If companies don’t understand the long-tail of Social Media, the achieved results won’t meet the expectations of the management. Although Facebook and Twitter seem to be the main platforms for Social Media use as of their reach (intensity), the real benefit could be for more companies by understanding the real impact of the community ideology, blogs, bookmarking sites, or in the future location-based social networks.

News Update – Best of the Day

Ecommerce is developing rapidly. And although users are said to be slow in adapting new technology, they expect their retailers to embed the latest trends and technology in their websites. As this will increase the sales potential of a business, companies should carefully listen to top 10 tactical trends by Michael Piastro which will help supercharge your ecommerce strategy for the future.

Social Media is in “at” your workplace, you said? Yes, but what does top management use it today? A new comprehensive study of more than 1000 business professionals by Pierre Khawand, Founder and CEO of People-OnTheGo shows that business decision makers manage multiple “inboxes” including Social Media. Social media is already a regular part of the work day. LinkedIn is the most popular social network. More than two-thirds (63.8%) of top management and almost three-quarters of marketing (73.9%) and sales (74.2%) respondents check LinkedIn regularly. Isn’t it interesting that private email is as popular as business email for top management? Social Media or private emails… Thinking about what might affect productivity more in the future…

Are small companies spending most of their marketing funds into Social Media in 2011? No! The use traditional websites and e-mail, says a report by online survey firm Zoomerang and GrowBiz media that surveyed 751 small firms (predominantly with less than 25 employees). The survey finds that over a quarter will spend at least 30% of their online marketing budgets on their websites, E-mail coming in second (18%). Only 10% were planning to spend at least 30% of their budgets on Social Media.

The way to the real-time future of marketing mix

When you hear the term “marketing mix”, what do you think…? Pause! Think… Pause!

Does that sound familiar to you? For some of you it might. To others it blurs as they follow the hypes as new marketing topics that are shouting at them. Or did you listen to their silent tones? Isn’t it better to varify and understand the client before start creating a new marketing-mix.

Watching the latest videos on your Youtube channel, talking to “friends” on Facebook or following the latest conversations on Twitter is one thing. Drawing conclusions out of these conversations on the social web world is another. And taking actions like evaluating adwords versus email versus social network marketing or blogs versus micro-blogs) for your marketing mix afterwards is a third step.

Conclusions might also be that marketers realize that B2B people still read print preferably to online or love real face-to-face conversations. They might find out that these business decision makers think twice before they engage in conversations. Reasons might be social media guidelines or policies. Steps are needed (like social media monitoring) before you start understanding your own marketing mix could pay out (i.e. online and offline focus groups).

Other marketing opportunities have never died although social media still hypes. And there is a reason why the “marketing mix” phrase was created by Neil Borden some years ago. Not only as it is an easy to understand phrase. More as we use it in our daily business as marketers without even noticing anymore. It is in our DNA. It is a necessity. Will it ever be removed? I doubt it…

Isn’t it interesting that we never had something like “The ultimate approach to market your products and services”?

Obviously, there is none. In over 50 years nobody found one. Why that is? Well, the world is driven by human beings and their attitudes to become familiar and aware of new things is a dynamic process. Some people adapt quick, other slower. They prefer to get informed via paper. Some like online (via publisher platforms, social networks or blogs). Some still stay offline (as they are often on planes or trains). Others record TV news programs and watch them on-demand with their iPads. And then others use mobile readers or apps to stay up to date with their favorite brands.

Seeing the social hypes in our business world from an outside perspective, I sometimes get the feeling that marketers have to refocus on where users are in their “adaption of technology evolution”. And not invest all their money in one horse race. Or to use another business anology from a tactical HR point of view: Never let the whole sales team be on the same flight.

Where is the difference in marketing?
Is there one? If all your marketing budget goes on airport billboards and then an oil crisis comes up, the invest equals zero in terms of earn out. Or if you buy just one ad in a service provider catalogue on the web but the world uses Google and cannot find the provider in the first ten results, the budget might be wasted.

Some companies think investing in Twitter or Facebook saves their brands awareness in the future but forget that these sites go down once in a while. And then the data is gone or not accessible. Lucky are those who can be approached from other access points then – be it via a phone call (at most companies I am searching hours for a phone number), at an event promoted with social media maybe, at their corporate website, or the self-hosted community that is not on the popular social networks.

The cocktail of having different access points available, and those interacting with each other, is the marketing mix of the future. Although they might have a single target or focus the are aiming at, the marketing mix should be aligned to one common strategy: Engage the client.

Spot on!
As we are automizing our marketing more and more, we always have to keep an eye open which tools and trends are coming up. As technology evolves quite quickly, human beings tend to forget that they need to adapt their marketing mix accordingly. Having said that it does not mean they have to switch their marketing mix approach immediately. Watch out for the tipping point when your power buyers, your brand vangelists, start using different technology. This is the time when the “adaption of technology evolution” happens…

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