Step Five: Two-Way Communication

Business-To-Business companies are suddenly finding themselves in a new social arena and wondering how to respond to the current trends of online marketing. How does one reach the millions of potential customers out there? How do we monitor what’s being said about our company, products, customers, competitors, executives, etc?
The first thing to do is define who uses your product or service. Networking with your customers can provide a great deal of insight to the inner workings of the prospective business including the problems they face, the solutions they’re looking for and who to talk to.
Social networking on sites such as:
Linked-in, Facebook, and MySpace are one way of linking you to your customers and can provide ideas, lead generation, research and development support, and the means to stay connected.
Communication works two ways. Connecting with your customers is one way and listening to what's being said is the other. What people are saying about you may be good, bad or indifferent but how can you set the record straight if you don’t know?
The best way to start listening is to start searching. Keywords and keyword phrases to search for include company name, brand names, company executives’ names, your urls, and the slogans or taglines you use in marketing efforts. Do this on all the major search engines every day.
It’s one thing to link to other people but you also need to know who’s linking to your site, blog, or content. It’s easy to find out, just enter:
Link:www.YourUrl.com(or .net, etc) and you’ve got it.

Lesson#5: Two-Way Communication

• Research the social networking sites such as: Linked-In, Facebook, and MySpace according to your area of business interest, and start communicating with your customers.
• When searching for exact names or phrases (ie: your company name, products, etc.) be sure to put quotation marks around your query.
• Set up e-mail alerts on Google, Yahoo, MSN, and let the search engines bring the query results to you!
• Add common misspellings to those queries to find out even more.
• Revisit the search engines once in a while, to conduct these searches directly from the sites. This will enable you to keep an eye on paid search ads running against your keywords or trademarks.
• You can also find out who’s linking to a specific page by putting in the url of that page. This technique works just as well for other pages as it does for your own. If there's talk about your company or brand on the Web, why not find out who links to the pages that are talking?

Getting started blogging? Check out my classmates’ blogs for ideas:
If you’re looking for a movie, KMovies by Kyle Henes, will find any movie you’re looking for! If you love cars, the BMW Enthusiast by Albert Frank, has information from hot looks to engine choices! For information about my professor at Champlain College, check out Elaine Young.

Step Four: Blogging

This week, in my Online Marketing class at Champlain college, I am fascinated to learn about blogs and the importance of them.
When did it all begin?
Like many things, early bloggers did not have a name for what they did, but blogging has been around since the beginning of the internet (1990). It was slow starting but since 2002, Blogs have gained increasing notice and are now taking over the news!
Blogs make the headlines. There are even Blog of the day awards!

There are blogs representing every interest and business you can think of and more. They are a way for people to share information and their feelings about it, creating a deeper more personal experience for the reader.
The Welton Mountain Tech Blog by Gabriele Martino, tells of how an article in the Boston Globe affected her family and her community.
The Continue Your Education blog by Katrina Gibson, talks about how online marketing classes are important while the Vermont Unboxed blog by Bob James, talks about interesting things to do in Vermont.

There are many advantages for B-to-B Companies to start blogging.
Blogs can help:

• Create a personal interaction with the customer, especially for customer support issues.
• Increase visibility and search engine rankings by creating a broader content base and traffic to your site
• Network with people who have similar interests
• Establish credibility as an expert in your field
• Expand your reach to potential customers and stakeholders

Lesson#4: Blogging

• Google Blogs in your area of interest and find out what people are saying about you and your competitors.
• Offer your opinion or expert advice with a word of caution: Don’t use marketing speak to try to sell your products! Consumers don’t trust product information they find on social media.
• Deciding what you want to achieve with your blog can help you get focused, so that you can spend your time and effort on activities that help your business objectives.

Step Three: Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization is a big topic and so important. The problem businesses are facing is that even though they know it’s something that has to be done, they can’t find the people to do it!
Google AdWords and Analytics tracking is a job all on its own. The tools are free to use but time consuming to learn and requires constant updating.
I have been working with Google AdWords to optimize a software site and have found that the keywords are not getting any clicks. This tells me that the content is not written properly for its target audience. Once again it comes down to the content. The challenge here is to really know who your target audience is. What words are they using to type into Google to try and find the information they need? How do I get my information to that new prospect?
The other important aspect I’ve learned is the power of outside links to your site. Cross linking creates traffic; the more traffic, the higher the organic ranking.
Also, make sure you’re listed in the open directories. This is where search engines go to validate whether a business is credible or not. You’ll have to research them as there are many, but an important one is the ODP or the Open Directory Project.

Lesson#3: Search Engine Optimization

• Know your target audience – Who are they? What do they do? What blogs do they read? How do they correspond? What language do they use?
• Use this language, pick out keywords and put it in your content. You really have to put yourself into the mind set of your customer.
• Create blogs and newsletters; this will expand your content using friendly broader language. Remember it’s all about the content!
• Go after your business partners and link to each other. Cross linking creates traffic to your site and credibility to search engines.
• Also, make sure you’re listed in the open directories; it can take some time, but start the process.

Step Two: Text Legibility

The problem with a lot of these business sites is the language that’s being used. It’s just too technical! Text legibility is one of the biggest issues plaguing b-to-b sites.
So many sites are filled with wordy, technical, and repetitive text. Content, how it's written and how it's presented, is crucial to the consumer who makes the decision of whether to stay within seconds of finding your site. Too much text on a page, no matter how relevant, causes information overload.

Lesson#2: Text Legibility

• Studying blogs of your target audience is one way to learn the language, but failing that, good old down-to-earth English is a great way to start.
• Take out the ridiculously detailed lists of product features and create a download with this information.
• Use language and terms that most people understand. For example most people don’t know what a “white paper” is. Instead, use the words to describe it such as “a detailed list of product features”.

Another point I’d like to make is for businesses to realize that it’s more likely the secretary of the head of the IT dept who is combing the sites for the info they need. All the more reason to make it easy to understand with the product details, easily accessible.

Online Visibility Step One: Branding

I have just read an article in "BtoB, The Magazine for Marketing Strategists", about web sites and the usability problems that plague business-to-business sites in particular. Branding, text legibility and information overload seem to be the biggest issues. There are so many businesses out there using their web sites as tools to sell their products to other businesses and falling terribly short. What’s wrong with this picture? What can I do? Where do I start?

I am currently taking classes for Online Visibility to answer exactly those questions. This blog will be of how I apply the strategies that I learn to bring a b-to-b company in the forefront of its competitors.
This is a new venture for me and my hope is to inspire others to do the same. I’ll let you know the successes and failures as they happen so that you, the reader can fine tune your approach, hopefully leaving out the failures!

So here it goes: Step one: Branding

The first challenge I found was company branding.
“Who is the company and what do they do?”
I researched several business web sites, software companies in particular, to educate myself on who they were and what they did. My first impression was ok, I see their name…but what do they do? It was like reading another language.
All I could tell was that they were a software company, but what kind?
I interviewed one of the owners and told them my frustration with their web site; their explanation was that their software was specialized and that only people in the field would understand it. Big Mistake!
Lesson #1: Branding who you are and what you do in plain English! It shouldn’t take an expert to have to figure out who you are and what you do, maybe how you do it, that’s different.