Content. Digital. Social.
Are these the three principles of B2B marketing today? If B2B marketers want to connect with their knowledgeable and expert audience, they need to produce content, but then they need to get that content in front of their target audience. The days of snail mail, print advertising and the yellow pages are dwindling, so how can your target audience actually find you?
Why should B2B marketers be incorporating Google AdWords into their strategy?
According to industry studies, the best lead conversion tools in B2B marketing are (in order): client referrals, website and digital marketing such as social media.
Ok, so you might be thinking how Google Adwords is going to help me with client referrals.
Remember I've previous discussed customer centricity and then need to put your customers first during pre-sales, the sales process and post-sales. Therefore, let's say your potential or actual client mentions you to someone else in the business, what is the probably the first thing that person is going to do?
Google you!
If you google your company name and you are not on top of the Google search results, you have a problem. Google Adwords helps get your brand name and your company's keywords up in the rankings.
If you want to drive your audience to the content on your website, Google Adwords is a more strategic approach to add to your social media campaigns. In a B2B environment where your audience may be searching industry specific terms or research, your Google Adwords campaigns may help you get to the top of their search lists.
How can B2B marketers optimize their Google AdWords strategy?
- Get Your Marketers Certified
Allow your marketer(s) to study in detail how the Google AdWords program works and get certified. Google provides a training guide and then a final exam to get certified in their program. Marketers can complete the certification in a few weeks' time, and it will be a worthwhile investment having that expertise on the staff.
- Expand your Keyword Analysis
Google AdWords offers a keyword analysis tool to show you how well keywords perform in Google searches and how likely they are to get clicks among the competition. This alone is a powerful tool, but marketers can use market research such as content analysis searches on social media, polls and surveys, etc to collect keywords. Marketers can also survey other employees in the company to get feedback on keywords in the industry.
If your company is using Google's Blogspot, check your analytics to see how people found your blog. Google will show you the keywords entered that brought people to your blog.
- Start with a Test Budget
Google AdWords is obviously a financial investment as well as a time commitment. As your trained marketers will learn, there are several payment options including PPC (Pay per Click) and marketers can set daily budgets as to how much they want to spend. Google's algorithms and search results are also based on the money invested in an ad campaign, so marketers will sometimes have to hedge their bets.
Start with a test budget - something like $4-5 per day - so you can carefully monitor your first campaigns and see if it's driving traffic to your website.
- Google AdWords is part of an overall strategy
Remember that your Google AdWords campaign needs to fit into your overall strategy. You should develop your content marketing strategy based on market research, customer centricity plan and feedback with your sales team and then funnel that into your Google AdWords campaign. Remember that the goal of the campaign is to get your content and brand in front of the target audience.
- Evaluate and Adjust
Like the rest of your marketing plan and strategy, marketers should be evaluating all campaigns. What's working, what's not working? Is website traffic increasing, and if so to which pages? And most importantly, in the longer term, is there a lead conversion? Remember that marketing is a continuous cycle that is constantly being evaluated and revamped.