Finding the B2B Bull’s-eye

CMA works with many different kinds of business-to-business (B2B) clients and each are unique in their own right. They face different market challenges, they have different goals and have unique sales cycles. Perhaps the largest variable to consider in B2B marketing is who the target audience is.

Within a B2B company’s target zone, it’s always essential to find out who makes up the “bull’s-eye.” After all, it’s a common rule of thumb that 80% of your sales come from 20% of your clients—the most loyal clients. The genesis of this theory was an Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who in 1906 noticed that 80% of Italy's land was owned by 20% of the population. He then carried out surveys on a variety of other countries and found to his surprise that a similar distribution applied.

The way marketers are building brand loyalty has obviously changed drastically since Pareto’s time, but the principle remains. Consider this recent eSurvey of 1,100 North America marketers. It found that B2B marketers employ an average of eight different tactics to achieve marketing goals and those tactics mostly included content marketing.

“Content Marketing,” or custom media (sometimes called custom publishing, custom content or branded content) is the creation and distribution of educational and/or compelling content in multiple formats to attract and/or retain customers.

Essentially, what this says about the new B2B marketing landscape is that marketers are now publishers. There are many different avenues for creating useful information for potential customers while showcasing a company’s expertise.

Ready to be a publisher? Give us a call to learn the many ways CMA can bring these tactics to life for you.

Jeffrey Barnhart

President and CEO

jbarnhart@cmasolutions.com

SEO: A PR Change Agent

CMA's PR manager, Kaitlin Friedmann, recently became a guest blogger on e-Xplorations.com, a marketing blog designed to help business owners become more savvy to new trends. The excerpt below was posted this week...

You’ve seen the reports—2010 is shaping up to potentially be the year where all marketing and public relations departments truly step up their Web 2.0 budgets. This means increased time and energy devoted to blog development, social media marketing and other user-generated content overall, and all together, a new way of thinking about integrated marketing.

With all of these exciting interactive communication developments happening at once, perhaps the topic on most business owners’ and executives’ minds is search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is valuable to any promotional campaign because the very aim of this practice is to create awareness, raise interest and desire, and move a consumer to take action all in one place—the search engine.
In the public relations profession, SEO has been a major change agent. Gone are the PR strategies that ignore the power of online media and rely only on traditional print and broadcast outlets.

Most SEO seekers’ main objective is to drive traffic to a specific website—now also a common goal for the PR professional, whose usual directive “get ink,” has been fully transitioned to an equal or greater desire for website hits. While Business Wire, Marketwire, PrimeNewswire, PR Newswire and PRWeb have been valuable tools for press release distribution for decades, (to both media and directly to the consumer) PR professionals need to utilize these services to their fullest extent by providing more optimized and tailored content to make their announcement stand out.

To increase the chances of an announcement reaching the individual it was intended for, a few simple practices can be integrated during the writing of the press release:

1) Make headlines – Your headline is still your first opportunity to make a good impression on your target audience. Craft a headline chock full of keywords that speak to your audience’s main concerns and greatly increase your chances of them moving on to learn more.

2) Drop your anchor – Using targeted words for anchor text that links back to specific pages of the company’s website, or to other useful pages such as a company blog, can determine the ranking that the page will receive by search engines. Make sure your linked text is relevant to the landing page and include your actual URL in as many appropriate areas as possible—not just the boilerplate.

3) Use words from your customers’ mouths – In order to increase word of mouth among your target customers, wouldn’t it make sense to ask them what their needs are first? Compile a list of top search terms and key issues by putting in some extra time to survey your market or compile market research ahead of time. This will ensure you aren’t using misunderstood jargon or buzzwords they consider overused.

4) Do it yourself – Many online news outlets have areas where you can post press releases yourself. These areas offer an opportunity for you increase your SEO ranking by having your company or client’s name mentioned on websites other than your own.

A lot has changed about PR in the last five years, but one thing that will remain timeless is the value of good copywriting. A press release that is vague, too opinionated or just poorly written will get you nowhere—with or without SEO. By relying on your instincts and approaching SEO in an organized way, you can upgrade your PR approach and adapt appropriately without seeming like you’re rushing to jump on an SEO band wagon.

Kaitlin Friedmann
PR Manager
kfriedmann@cmasolutions.com