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At my request, Editor-in-Chief Hallie Mummert conducted an online survey of Target Marketing's readership. The goal: find out what the best practices are in B-to-B marketing today.
To begin with, 94 percent of respondents are involved with B-to-B marketing. Fifty-three percent do B-to-B only, while 41 percent do a mix of B-to-B and B-to-C.
Let's take a look at the rest of the survey findings.
Brochures Are Not Dead
New media pundits like to observe that print is dead in general; and, in particular, brochures are an antiquated marketing medium. But nine out of 10 Target Marketing (TM) readers who responded use brochures in some form. Seventy-three percent still have traditional printed brochures for their products and services. Eleven percent use white papers instead of brochures to communicate product information. Six percent have brochures available for download only, but these are not print documents. Only one in 10 respondents agreed with the statement, "Brochures are old hat and we don't produce them much anymore."
What this means is that, more than likely, your competitors have sales brochures. These brochures are used in inquiry fulfillment and by salespeople. Without a solid brochure for your company, product or service, you are at a disadvantage in your inquiry fulfillment and sales efforts.
Blogs Do Not Rule
Wherever you turn, you read another story about the increasing influence of blogs in our society. Yet in B-to-B marketing, blogs are underused.
According to this survey, less than one in three B-to-B companies sponsor official corporate blogs that the marketing department or other areas are responsible for. Only 8 percent say employees who have their own blogs may blog on company time.
A hefty 57 percent of those surveyed agreed with the statement, "We don't operate company blogs or worry much about blogs in our marketing." Only 16 percent of PR departments targeted important blogs with special public relations efforts. And 18 percent of marketers surveyed said they monitor other people's blogs to see what is said about them and respond accordingly to correct erroneous information and misperceptions.
According to this admittedly limited survey (there were 131 respondents), most B-to-B marketers don't view blogs as being terribly significant in the scheme of things. That's surprising, given all the hoopla about blogs in the business press.
Dual-purpose Websites
The majority of marketers surveyed said that both branding and conversion are important goals of their websites.
Sixty-nine percent stated that "branding our products and organization online" is an important consideration when creating and maintaining the company website. Fifty-six percent of those surveyed said an important goal was "increasing conversion rates to generate more leads and sales."
I was shocked by the answer to the question concerning search engine optimization. Only 60 percent of the marketers surveyed reported that optimizing their website to increase search engine rankings was an important consideration when creating the site. I would have thought the figure would be closer to 100 percent. This suggests that a significant number of B-to-B marketers (four out of 10) primarily generate new business outside of Web search.
Content marketing is another hot topic on the marketing lecture circuit, and TM subscribers are sold on its value: 65 percent of those surveyed agreed it was important to "create value-added content to establish us as thought leaders in our market." Only 53 percent agreed with the statement that "having great copy and design on our Web pages is an important consideration when creating a website."
Videos Are Underused
Another area where TM readers seem to be behind the leading edge is in online video. Fully 57 percent of those surveyed said they do not do much with video. Only 23 percent post videos on YouTube, and 11 percent do viral video marketing. Fewer than one in three is responsible for "creating marketing videos for our website."
This strikes me as odd, because videos have been a popular B-to-B marketing tool for decades. Before the invention of the video camera, we would shoot them in 16 millimeter and call them "industrial films."
My point is that your company may already have an archive of perfectly usable footage. It's a waste to let it sit in a file drawer. Instead, get more mileage out of your video archives by putting them up on your website and directing visitors to them. If they are too dated, reshoot.
The Truth About Social Networking
Judging by the amount of coverage social networking gets in the media, you'd think it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. But TM readers don't think so.
Only 18 percent of marketers surveyed agreed with the statement, "Social media is an integral and active part of our overall marketing," and 24 percent said they are "planning to become very active in social networking." Four out of 10 marketers said they do some social networking, but it is only an ancillary part of their marketing program, and 8 percent felt it was a waste of time and effort.
Which social networking site is most important to B-to-B marketers? Of those surveyed, 42 percent network on LinkedIn, 39 percent have a Facebook page, 30 percent use Twitter and 5 percent have a MySpace page.
The survey seems to indicate that social networking, while potentially valuable, is not the marketing "silver bullet" that new media evangelists have made it out to be.
What Marketers Value
The survey asked marketers which marketing skills and knowledge areas are the most highly valued by their organizations. The answers: content marketing (68 percent), copywriting (59 percent), SEO (50 percent), graphic design (49 percent), analytics (42 percent), keyword research and discovery (37 percent), and HTML design (27 percent).
The two most valued skills were content marketing and copywriting. This finding is contrary to those who say we live in an age where "no one reads copy" anymore.
Finally, we asked TM subscribers how they see the role of marketing viewed in their organization today. Ninety-two percent said either marketing has grown in importance (69 percent) or has not changed in importance (23 percent). Only 4 percent felt that marketing has less status and prestige than it used to.
Bob Bly is a freelance copywriter and the author of more than 75 books including "The White Paper Marketing Handbook" (Racom). You can find him on the Web at www.bly.com, e-mail him at rwbly@bly.com, or phone (201) 385-1220.
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