Social Media for large, global B2B companies

Social Media as a part of Corporate (Online) Marketing Communications

Index

Introduction

Social media & the changing media and marketing landscape

Social Media

What is it?

Benefits for B2B companies

Social Media Readiness Survey

Not included in this presentation

General conditions for implementing social media (and other online activities)

Strategy

Leadership

Culture

Community Management

Content

Policies & Guidelines

Tools and Technology

Measurement

Social Media as a marketing tool | Case Studies

Case 1: Implementation strategy

Case 2: Promotion and Advertisement

Case 3: Market Monitoring

Case 4: Online Content Strategy

Short- and Long Term Advises

Suggested Reading

Traditional and new media

In 2013 traditional media and marketing platforms (magazines, newspapers, television) compete (or complement) with ‘new’ media such as the Internet, texting, mobile phones, social media, user-generated content such as blogs, and YouTube as well.

As the media landscape changes, marketers may change the type of promotions they use in order to reach their target markets. General expectation is that due to changing technology and social media (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn), less money will be budgeted for traditional media such as magazines and more money is budgeted for “non-traditional media.”

Marketing: one consistent approach

Though technology and new media are developing rapidly, the basic goal of marketing remains the same: Once a company has developed products and services, they still must communicate the value and benefits of the offerings to current

and potential customers in a business-to-business (B2B) market.

Introduction | A Changing Marketing Landscape

But because of all new marketing platforms (offline and online) it’s important to deliver one consistent message to buyers across an organization’s (global, regional and local) promotions. These includes all different types of media such as magazines, the Internet, mobile phones, professional selling, and social media.

Social Media are the online tools and platforms people use to share their thoughts, opinions, insights and experiences with each other on the internet.

What is Social Media?

It’s about CONNECTIONS

– With customers (network)

– With media

– With suppliers

– With influencers

– With (potential) colleagues

– With people

It’s about AUTHORATY

- Build a reputation

- Demonstrate expertise

- Share information

- Help people

It’s about CREATING VALUE

- For customers

- For the community

- For others

- For you

History of Social Media Source: click here

What’s next?

Most Popular Social Media Networks (2013)

Social Media 2013 Facebook: +1 billion users

(launched in 2004)

YouTube: 800 Million+

monthly unique visitors (launched in 2005)

Twitter: 500 million users

(launched in 2006)

LinkedIn: 238 million

users (launched in 2003)

Google+: 500 million

users (launched in 2011)

Popularity and number of profiles per social network change continuously, per country or continent, but there are a few major

and global players.

Social Media offers companies tools to communicate with it’s audiences/market on the internet. Every department can benefit from social media.

Social Media | What is it about?

General benefits Social Media for B2B companies

Social media enhances brand awareness. By being present and engaged on social media networks, companies cost-effectively increase brand awareness.

Social media offers product information and answers customer questions. By supplying the information that prospects actively seek at every step of the purchase process, social media helps close sales.

Social media can provide ratings and reviews consumers seek before purchase. Retailers and other forms of business can re-post ratings and reviews on their own website or let customers search for them on other sites such as Google.

Social media supports search optimization. Social media content can improve search rankings through their keyword focus, links and engagement level. Additionally, social sharing and other content forms like videos and images aid findability.

Social media generates leads and sales. Social media helps generate leads through shared content that attracts prospects. While it can be challenging to close deals on social media, it’s critical to have a call-to-action, trackable promotion code and a streamlined landing page. (Here’s more insights regarding social media and sales.)

Social media powers earned media. When consumers find engaging and useful information along their purchase journey, they share this content more broadly. These social shares, referred to as earned media have the added benefit of an unspoken endorsement from the sharer.

Social media engages ‘fans’ and advocates. Social media networks provide the space for brand advocates to engage with each other over their desire to show their brand support.

Social media builds thought leadership. Firms become known for being the expert in their space by creating and sharing their content, especially via a blog.

Social media provides competitive positioning insights. By monitoring what’s happening in the social media ecosystem, you can distinguish your competitors and better understand their behavior.

Social media mitigates or avoids PR crises. By having a social media presence, an organization is able to respond more quickly and effectively to a potential PR crisis once they’ve built a base of followers.

Social media costs:

Social media requires brand monitoring and analytics. This enables businesses to discern what’s happening in the evolving marketplace as well as how their business is perceived.

Social media needs content creation. At its core social media runs on content. It’s critical for organizations to continually create great content or they risk alienating their existing fans.

Social media includes distribution and related promotion. It’s important to get your content out to multiple social media locations such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Also don’t underestimate the importance of having your content re-distributed via RSS and other forms of syndication.

Social media requires on-going staff engagement. Social media requires firms to be present and active. It’s not like a traditional campaign where you pay for promotion and it goes on autopilot.

Social media must have senior management commitment. This is difficult to assess in terms of specific euro’s but it’s critical to success. Without c-suite support, social media won’t be taken seriously.

Social Media related investments

Why social media for B2B companies?

There are higher gaining's per customer

Target Audiences are easier to find and to connect with

The value of high quality information:

Highly specialised companies, with complex products demand extra explanation and services. Social Media offers B2B opportunities to address and explain/answer certain topics or questions about your company’s products, services and solutions.

There is less competition on search engines (like Google).

This makes it easier to be found by target audiences.

Better supervision and control on company image.

Less annoyance of critics.

Life Cycle of products and services is longer.

Investments in social media are therefore more efficient.

People are more socially involved than products or services.

Especially in B2B environments the qualities and expertise's of the employees make the difference. And this is where social media comes in: your professionals can show they ‘got’ it, through social media.

B2B professionals have interesting content to share.

In general professionals want to grow their knowledge and network. This will generate interesting information for a online community.

Many people think that social media is especially relevant for personal use or B2C businesses. Without denying the opportunities within B2C sales and marketing, according to David Rosen, VP at Makovsky, social media is more suitable for B2B than B2C companies, because:

Social Media

On Google it has 470.000.000 hits; it is continuously referred to in the news; and your children aren’t doing anything else anymore these days. Everyone seems to be talking and using Social Media, and for many different reasons.

Don’t be fooled! Although Social Media has proofed itself to be a useful marketing tool, anyone who’s thinking about using it should realize it won't perform miracles. Success is depending on many factors (see page …). So don’t rush in to it. Take it seriously and write a realistic strategy before you start.

As a marketing tool social media should be approached (and incorporated) as ‘just’ another (online) marketing channel within the (online) marketing or media landscape. Because of its popularity and size it should be incorporated in the whole marketing communication mix though.

Social Media: an integral part of the marketing communications mix

Social Media isn’t a separate or temporary ‘thing’, is just a relatively new marketing channel, just like a magazine or a brochure, but with extra, and even

new capabilities. Moreover: social media are here to stay!

Because of its growth, popularity and opportunities

its should become an integral part of your company’s marketing communications mix. People should be

encouraged to use them.

Social Media Readiness Survey

SWOT Analysis

- these slides of the presentation aren’t included

in this version -

Introduction & Theory

Social Media (and other Online activities)

Conditions for successful

implementation Strategy Leadership Culture Community Management Content Policies & Guidelines Tools & technology Measurement

For successful implementation of SM within a B2B, there are some general conditions to live up to:

Conditions for implementing social media

Strategy There must be a strategy (social media, content, online)

Leadership There should be clear leadership. Not only on an organizational level, but on a global (or at least) European level as well

Culture A culture needs be created in which online efforts (and associated activities, like social media) are simulated and prioritized (and taken serious).

Community Management There must be management of online communities (followers, traffic, etc.)

Content There has to be a realistic content strategy, with commitment from all that are involved.

Policies and guidelines There must be general social media and online policies and guidelines, from which employees and departments can benefit. This also means that relevant training must be provided.

Tools & technology There should be tools for managing and optimizing social media and online activities.

Measurement There should be clear goals, which determine whether your activities are successful or not. Key of success = measurement. It allows you calculate ROI (return on investment).

Strategy

Let’s start at:

DCS systems?

‘Who fails to plan, is planning to fail’. (Winston Churchill)

Social Media (and related online activities) should be implemented with a clear strategy. Because social media are just an online tool and platform, social media marketing should be part of the general (online) marketing communication strategy. (see figure next page).

Because your online activities might not yet being fully developed, online marketing isn’t seriously implemented. A clear online marketing strategy could set online standards and incorporate the use of social media as well.

The following elements are part of an Online (marketing) Strategy:

1. Online mission: Where do we stand for? Why are we here?

2. Online goals: What do we want to achieve?

3. Success factors: Which factors do we need to influence?

4. Indicators: How will we measure success (or failure)?

5. Targets: What will be our targets?

6. Improvement: What should we improve?

Strategy

Strategy Available ?

1. Online Strategy ?

2. Online Marketing / communication Strategy ?

3. Social Media Strategy ?

CMS also involves “Web” or “online” marketing Custom Marketing Strategy (CMS)

Source: TREW Marketing

> Start with planning.

Start with strategy development

Social Media Strategy – full model

Leadership

What about:

Leadership: a global, regional and local responsibility

Leadership on global a global level

Big Multinational companies usually have 1000’s of employees and multiple offices in many regions and countries. This males them global companies. Global Companies in many occasions therefore have a global image to live up to, especially regarding its online activities.

As mentioned earlier the media- and marketing landscape are changing; online presence is getting more important and profitable. It is also important to realize that Internet, and social media as well, do not have clear - geographically - boundaries (like the ‘old’ media landscape usually had). The online landscape also faces differences in language and use and popularity of online platforms throughout the world, but in the end all that a company is (in public) publishing online will be visible (and viewable) in front of the whole world.

This is one reason why big global companies should standardize its online activities: so the ‘look and feel’ of all online communications globally is in line with the corporate policies and guidelines (which will be addressed later in this survey).

This is what is mean by ‘leadership’: globally integrating and monitoring your company’s online presence.

Who will set the global standards of all online activities, like social media?

Who will initiate social media and take leadership?

Who can be addressed when questions arise or advise is needed.

Most Social Media platforms are global networks. Social Media often has no clear geographical borders. Subsequently: global collaboration and monitoring is necessary.

Your company needs collaboration of as many offices, regions, employees as possible

Global collaboration and reputation

Global accounts

Micro accounts

Local accounts

Regional accounts

Your company’s global online reputation

Your company’s online reputation is based on the sum of ALL online platforms (also social media) together Therefore a ‘bad’ local, regional or micro account influences your general online reputation

A global company has a global online reputation

Your company = Japan East Asia ASEAN &

Oceania CIS Europe Middle East North and

Central America South America South Asia

One consistent online approach & message

Internet, and social media as well, do not have as clear boundaries like the ‘old’ media landscape. Of course there are differences in language and platforms, but in the end all that a company is publicly publishing online will most of the times be visible to the whole world. Just search for your company name in Google, it will likely show

content from all over the world.

Leadership: a global, regional and local responsibility

Leadership on global, regional or a local level?

Leadership is not only necessary on a global level, but on a regional, or even local level as well. For instance: if there would be global standards, who would make sure people, departments and business units live up to them? Who will initiate the research and strategy on how social media should be implemented on a regional or local level? In other word: whose responsibility will ‘social media’ (and its goals) be?

Implementing Social media at a company requires leadership, clear roles and clear responsibilities. Without them the execution of a social media strategy is bound to slowly dissolve after a while, probably before any results are recognizable.

How will social media be organized within your corporate structures? Who will be social media spokesman?

Different types of coordination of social media within companies

Source: Altimeter Group Survey Q4 2012

Social Media: a burden or a necessity?

For some of your employees Social Media is likely to be perceived as just a temporary phenomenon. Many people still – especially the ‘older’ generations… often associate social media with the elaborate use of time consuming online social activities carried out by for instance their children, friends, or partners. Whether or not this is true (which it isn’t…), opinions on social media are also being influenced by the horror stories circulating in the media. Others, just don’t see the necessity of social media: business is going well, so why bother? Whatever opinion people have about social media, misperceptions of social media are often caused by not understanding them properly.

Don’t be fooled; obviously there are threats related to the use of social media (and all online communications), therefore good policies and guidelines are in order. Still, the ‘threats’ associated with online activities are not so different from the ones companies are already facing. Of course, there is a chance of facing criticism online, or getting negative feedback trough the internet. But, like companies can’t control newspapers (although…), you can’t control the internet either. Internet is an open source of information and people will contribute to it, with or without presence of your company. Hence, its better to participate on these platforms, to monitor potential discussions and join in on them if necessary. But with no presence at all, it will be even harder to control or influence a discussion or topic online.

Aside from some threats related to the use of social media, the most important thing about them is: as a marketing tool, internet (and social media) offers interesting business opportunities.

To benefit from it, social media should be taken seriously. As mentioned before: Social Media (and other online activities) should become fully integrated in marketing communication strategy, and not separately. It should be incorporated in your company’s corporate culture. The social media strategy should be integrated with the wider organizational business plan and marketing strategy. It is necessary for all levels of the organisation to embrace the principles of social media. Therefore there should be a mandate from highest level of the organisation.

Your company’s Culture

Community Management

Don’t forget about:

Community Management

When engaging in online activities there should always be an individual nominated to assume ultimate control and accountability for the organization's social media efforts. This person is responsible for governance, policy documentation, training, the execution of the strategy, and constant monitoring and analysis. Without such a person many online activities will slowly diminish after a while. The community manager must keep beneficiaries engaged, come up with ideas and monitor the whole process in general.

Because of complexity of large, global organizations such a person should be assigned on different levels (global, European, local). These community managers should be able to show leadership when it comes to online activities.

Community Management

Community manager: Central Spokesman

In short: Online Content Marketing is about two thinks, about:

Creating: what are you going to create? This concerns the actual process of writing, editing and optimizing content for online platforms.

Sharing: where will you share/publish information. Social Media are a tool for sharing content with target audiences and therefore is part of the content marketing process.

Though a lot of offline content is published, but the creation op (online) content is a challenge for many organizations:

Is your content creation standardized or centralized?

Is it clear whose responsibility creating and publishing content is?

Content Marketing

An online (intranet) content library could be created, where all relevant (external) content is published internally. There are probably already places on your companies intranet to do this, but is everybody contributing to this? A clear content policy and guideline (content protocol) could be created to help your professionals creating qualitative content most efficiently.

Social media as tool to share and publish content

One problem concerning the creation of ‘content’ may be that it is sometimes unclear who is responsible for writing, publishing and initiating it. This is why there should be a content protocol that answers the following questions: Who can be addressed for creating the different types of content: should it be MARCOM, external

parties? For instance: what if a salesperson or a product marketer for whatever reason needs a video.

Whose responsibility is this? What conditions needs to be lived up to? What does this person needs to supply in order to get it done? Etc.

Who can be addressed for translations if necessary? What are the related expenses? What kind of ‘look and feel’ (lay out) conditions do I need to live up to? How should content be written / published in order to make measuring online statistics? What should be done after content is produced and where does it need to published? What other conditions for online publications are important?

For instance: it is generally advised that for promotion purposes online video’s shouldn’t be too long. Same goes for articles. And there all kinds of rules that may improve conversion and usability.

Content Protocol

Social Media: a global, regional and local responsibility

Micro level - department - product - service/

solution/ Bu’s'

Local office

Regional HQ

Global HQ

Level

- HR - Marcom - Services - Solutions - Delivery, etc.

- Netherlands - Japan - USA - India - Etc.

- Asia - Middle East - Europe - North America - Etc.

- HQ

Company x | social media

Who / What

- Career news - Events - Testimonials - Application notes /

whitepapers, etc.

- Local news / events - Local product

developments - Local success story - Etc.

- Regional news - Regional products - Success stories - Regional events - Etc.

- Global news & developments

- Biggest projects - Success stories - Etc.

Content

Micro social media

platform

Local social media

platform

Regional social media platform

Global social media

platform

Publish on platform

‘Content = King’ and ‘if social media is a motor, content is gasoline’. These are phrases often articulated when stressing the importance of ‘content’ within the whole process of social media. And its true! Content makes a difference. The key to ‘good’ content is developing a content strategy. But remember:

There must be devolved responsibility. The most successful organisational social media campaigns have multiple contributors. Content production by more than one person enables a greater volume of content, a perception of being available and accessible at all times, more authentic interaction, and a richer and more diverse range of topics and themes.

There should be regular coordination meetings to pre-plan social media content production and activities (but there is also scope for spontaneity). The best social media campaigns are highly orchestrated and thoroughly planned before they are executed. Production of a regular ‘running sheet’ is an appropriate mechanism for coordinating social media messages, as well as integrating social media efforts with the organisation’s wider marketing strategy. At the same time, social media agents within the organisation should be empowered to be spontaneous when required.

There must be compelling content. Perhaps more than anything else, compelling content is critical to success. If the content that is being produced is not interesting or of no value to the target audience, then there is little point being involved in social media at all. Social media specialists use the ‘what’s in it for me’ principle to good effect, they encourage fans to engage, to contribute and to redistribute the content.

Content

The content should be well-written, keyword-rich and free of spelling and grammatical mistakes. Ultimately all corporate communications - formal letters, marketing collateral or social media posts - reflect positively or negatively on the organisation’s brand.

There must be an appropriate frequency of content. There is no ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to the appropriate frequency of content, but it is important to get this right for your particular type of organisation.

There has to be an appropriate tone and persona adopted in social media content. Unlike traditional corporate communication, social media is typically less formal, it is couched in a more conversational tone, and it is infused with the writer’s views. A balance must be struck between formality and informality, depending on the nature of your organisation. The tone must be consistent.

When writing B2B (marketing) content focus on: What problems, concerns, or needs are my customers facing right now, that are causing them to seek out my product or service?

Next step: write about it!

B2B Content: lot’s of theories…

Read more: case 4

Another model…

Policies, Guidelines & training

Help employees with:

In order to centralize and control all online activities, as well as to stimulate employees to join online efforts, clear policies and guidelines are needed. These should focus on what you should do, instead on what isn’t allowed. Help people help your company online. So there should at least be:

A social media usage policy in place. In making the case for social media, it’s common to field employee productivity concerns. After all, it’s easy to log on to Facebook and discover an hour has passed. The solution is to stay focused on the principles outlined in your social media policies. The devolution of content production and the immediacy of social media dictate the need for a codified social media usage policy. The policy needs to contain clear guidelines for the everyday usage of social media and publishing rules.

A social media training program in place. Following on from the production of a social media usage policy, the organisation should provide appropriate training for staff to ensure that the policy is understood and adhered to. This is particularly important at induction.

There is constant learning about social media within the organisation. Social media is a rapidly changing phenomenon – for example, Facebook was founded in 2004 and in the space of 6 years it has amassed over 500 million users, an unprecedented feat for all forms of media. It is important that social media personnel are accustomed to new emerging trends and the constantly changing landscape. This knowledge will allow the organisation to stay ahead of the game.

Emergency plans in place should something go wrong. The open nature of social media means that there is potential for things to go wrong – the inadvertent release of confidential information, ‘flaming’ by disaffected customers, theft of login details by an unhappy former staff member, ‘cyber squatters’ who purport to be your organisation on social media sites. Organisation's must be prepared to counter these contingencies should they occur.

Policies, Guidelines & training

Policy/Guideline/protocol/training Available

Social Media Policy ?

Social Media Guideline ?

Social Media (or online) protocol ?

Social Media training program ?

Risks should be dealt with according to policy

Policies to control risks

Quite obviously, there are risks related to going ‘social’, with privacy and security being high on the list. The spontaneous nature of social media can also backfire on companies. And finally, many organizations worry that the conversational tone of social media will undermine their careful branding. Not engaging in social media, or not using it effectively, however, has its own set of risks which often can be shown to be even more damaging.

Tools

Key to effectiveness:

Social Media is a online activity, and it is depending on technique (computer, software, etc.). Because social media networks are overflowing and so are the things you can do on them, it can be become a very time consuming and complex process. Luckily there are tools or software programs to make the process more efficient and easy, especially for community managers. It is strongly advised to use such tools when using more than one social media network at the same time. Examples of Social Media Management Systems are:

Hootsuite Enhance your social media management with HootSuite, a popular social media dashboard, which will helpl you manage multiple networks and profiles and measure your online activities.

Twitterfeed Offers to tweet the last posts published in a blog via the RSS feed.

Hubspot an inbound marketing software platform that helps companies attract visitors, convert leads, and close customers. An alternative would be Marketo.

Another very important condition for effective social media is a good Hub Station. A Hub Station - usually a the corporate website - functions as the base-platforms, where most online communications (online traffic, content, online campaigns) are referring to and come together. Furthermore a Hub Station is also very important for measuring online statistics and the efforts (and success) of your online activities.

Tools

Content tools Photoshop Article library (for instance within intranet) Meltwater

Analytic tools Google Analytics

Usually a companies website serves as such a Hub-Station.

Tools | Online Marketing needs a HUB-station

All campaigns usually link to corporate websites = hub station

Without clear goals it is very hard to calculate ROI for social media (and online marketing), and social media can become a very abstract process. In the end social media should obviously contribute to diverse business goals (set KPI’s). In order to determine its success results must be measured! By analyzing online statistics companies this can be done. But:

There should be monitoring and analysis of key performance indicators. A social media campaign must be constantly monitored and adjusted as necessary. A set of appropriate quantitative and qualitative key performance indicators that relate to the objectives of the strategy should be identified to determine its success or otherwise. Suitable online KPIs might include sales referred, newsletter sign ups, search engine ranking, unique visitors, page views, bounce rates, time on site, follows/fans, unsubscribes.

At the same time there must be a focus on sustainability and long-term results. A social media strategy must be executed in full for at least 6-12 months before it begins to achieve any significant traction. An expectation of immediate success will ultimately result in failure of the strategy.

Measurement | ROI

How marketers should approach online campaigns

Measuring Digital Campaigns | model

Social media measurement admittedly can be difficult to calculate. As an organic, trust-building activity best suited for influence and soft lead generation, drawing a direct cause-and-effect between social marketing and ROI is a challenge. But it can be done effectively.

Measurement must be holistic (all marketing efforts must be measured), or else it will miss the effect of social combined with traditional marketing. Internally, ROI becomes specific to an outcome or goal; there is no one answer.

Many marketers swear by measuring content by its performance; they create databases that track their social media updates and online interactions in a highly detailed way. Inbound marketing, among other things, uses content downloads and webinar registrations to capture solid leads (and measurements).

And, of course, website metrics — and social metrics, are the ultimate measurements of referred traffic from social media. For instance, if sales have increased, and the number of referrers that your website analytics show to be coming from social efforts has spiked, then dig deeper into those stats and learn whether they are directly related (they probably are!).

ROI

(Online) KPI’s related to goals (Reach, Act, Convert, Engage)

Source: www.smartinsights.com Read more: case 1

Social Media and Online Marketing

From opportunity to policy

Case 1: Implementation

Case 2: Promotion and Advertisement

Case 3: Market Monitoring

Case 4: Online Content Strategy

Case 5: Online and Social Media Training

Case 6: Top B2B social media networks

When businesses think about starting up online activities like social media, there are a number of phases you have to trough. For Social Media it is important to realize that a Social

Media strategy is an extension of the overall marketing strategy.

When creating any online strategy, always start with:

A clear Strategy and clear Goals

Case 1: Implementation | Start with a strategy

The question is not how to make money from it, but rather, how your company can use the various social media channels to facilitate prospecting; and how the company can cultivate relationships and integrate ways of communicating and selling to buyers. To begin you may want to choose to focus on a few of your overall marketing goals e.g. lead generation, customer retention, establishing yourself as the expert, or increasing your brand awareness and equity.

When businesses start up online activities like social media, they should also know how such activities can or should contribute to articulated business goals. Of course these are likely to be different (or not) for each office, department, person or business unit.

Examples of (online) business goals:

Case 1: Implementation | Set goals

In order to calculate ROI and campaign effectiveness clear KPI’s should be set.

* A key performance indicator (KPI) is a metric that helps you understand how you are doing against your objectives.

Case 1: Implementation | Set KPI’s

Example of Online Marketing KPI’s • Site traffic • Unique visitors versus returning

visitors • Time on site • Page views per visit • Traffic source • Day part monitoring (when site visitors

come) • Newsletter subscribers • Texting subscribers

• Chat sessions initiated • Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn followers

or fans • Pay-per-click traffic volume • Blog traffic • Number and quality of product reviews • Brand or display advertising click-through

rates • Affiliate performance rates

Read more: http://www.shopify.com/blog/7365564-32-key-performance-indicators-kpis-for-ecommerce#ixzz2fzBn6agM

Questions that need answering before staring up:

Who is your targeted audience:

Recent customers

New customers (anonymous)

Engineering professionals

Thought leaders, industry guru’s

Are your audience(s) online? On what platforms?

How are you going to communicate with them?

How will you measure results?

Case 1: Implementation | Set target audience(s)

Your Customers share info on their social media accounts

Don’t forget about the other steps!

Online Promotion and advertisement

Advertising, simply put, involves paying to disseminate a message that identifies a brand (product or service) or an organization being promoted to many people at one time. The different types of marketing communications an organization uses compose its promotion or communication mix, which consists of advertising, sales promotions, direct marketing, public relations and publicity, sponsorships (events and experiences), social media and interactive marketing, and professional selling. The typical media that traditional companies utilizes for advertising are likely to focus on: magazines, (news)papers, the Internet (corporate website), direct mail, newsletters and brochures.

Social media and other online platforms can also be used as channels for advertising. Benefits could be:

• Target audiences can effectively be targeted by using keywords (search engine marketing) or by targeting profile databases (LinkedIn).

• By measuring campaign results (for example: analyzing online traffic to website) the return on investment can be calculated.

• Online advertising is cost effective.

Case 2: Promotion and advertising

Advertising and Promotion Opportunities Social Media and online (search engine) advertising as an effective new alternative to ‘old’ marketing

efforts. Using tools and structures to calculate ROI and optimize online marketing communications Online search engines marketing Online media (like social media) tools to promote new product releases

Gathering leads, market insights and remain up to date by monitoring (potential) customers and competition through following their social media accounts and other online platforms.

Social media and other online platforms are interesting marketing channels.

But effectiveness is depending on several factors:

Figure - Factors That Influence Selection of Promotion Mix

Many factors, such as a firm’s marketing budget, the type of product, regulations, target customers, and competitors, influence what composes the promotion mix. Depending on what medium is used, marketers use the communication process to encode or translate ideas into messages that can be correctly interpreted (decoded) by buyers. However, marketers must determine how to get consumers’ attention and avoid as much interference and noise as possible.

Case 2: Promotion and advertising

What does your promotion Mix look like? Do they include

online or social activities?

There are numerous online channels for sharing and communicating all kinds of marketing related content, including advertisements.

A marketer should discover what channels are most effective, by analyzing statistics and calculating ROI. (page …)

Online Promotion & Advertising

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Other online platforms for advertisement

SEM: sponsored (paid) search results. (Cost Per Mille / Cost Per Click)

SEO: Organic search results

Search Engine Marketing Process

Online platform for advertisement

Focus on online traffic (online visitors)

Channels for getting traffic (visitors)

Next step: converting traffic to customers

Social Media are good platforms to monitor your company’s industry related developments. Just monitoring online conversations alone can help you glean changing trends and needs and pick out emerging opportunities. Both customers and competitors are active on social media platforms, as well as other related parties. Social media monitoring can be used as:

A great tool to track down and share industry related news:

o monitor market: industry, customers, competitors and company accounts. Because your market related parties are sharing all kinds of content online, monitoring them can be useful to improve market insight about target markets. Or to Identify new product and service opportunities

o The online landscape therefore seems like a good place to monitor your market (industry, customers and competitors), because most of them are publishing online. And… it’s fairly easy and fun!

A way to get introduced with social media and other online activities.

o By listening to how market is communicating online (what is being shared and in what form) not only useful intelligence can be gathered, but your professionals can get familiar whit different kind of social media network and related online platforms.

Integrate social media into daily activities of employees, trough Intranet, and by providing suitable technology (social media dashboards, website integration, etc.)

There are several possibilities for monitoring online channels. First it’s important to determine who to monitor: (potential) customers, competitors or industry in general. Secondly, it is important to know what or where this monitoring should take place: social media channels (Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, etc.), blogs, corporate websites, third party websites, etc. etc.

After this research you can set up the tools and resources you want to use. Goal is to bring all company related information together in one environment, where employees can read them efficiently, without investing to much time in it.

There are quite many different tools/services that can do this. Some are free, some of them are paid.

Case 3: Market Monitoring

What do you want to monitor? Set Key Words!

Single and long-tail (multiple) keywords

Where do you want to monitor? Set platforms

Social Media

External websites

Blogs

Etc.

How do you want to monitor? By rss feed

Google alerts

Social media dashboards

General monitoring tools (such as meltwater)

Monitoring schedule

Monitoring dashboard

Social Media Monitoring Platform (SSMP)

Industry - Industry guru’s and

thought leaders - Social media accounts

of industry related websites

- others

(potential) Customers - Social media accounts

of (potential) customers

- RSS newsfeeds of corporate websites

- others

Competitors - Social media

accounts of customers

- RSS News feeds of customers

- others

employees

SSMP

Content Strategy (Online) CASE 4

Online Content landscape (Case 4)

Social Media, like any other website, rely heavily on the content that is on there.

The principles of good content are, to a large extent:

interesting to your audience,

delivering compelling and highly valuable information,

and created with your business goals in mind.

The specific focus of B2B copy has one variation: B2B sales funnels tend to be longer and more complex than consumer-focused transactions. Content needs to support that sales cycle and nurture leads and prospects along your funnel in order to be effective.

Content Strategy

What Makes an Effective Content Strategy?

Decisions about what types of content you'll create for your customers (e.g., blogs, newsletters, case studies, etc.).

Plans for what topics or material you'll cover, and who is going to write it.

When and how you're going to distribute this material to customers and prospects (e.g., rely on search engine traffic, distribute at tradeshows, email to contacts, etc.).

A number of different factors go into this planning. At the heart of it is understanding what's effective to help you sell your products and services.

A B2B content strategy needs to be created with several specific factors of your business in mind:

B2B content strategy | planning

Who are my customers, and what kinds of content do they like to consume? Understanding what channels, platforms,

and content formats they spend the most time looking at is directly related to creating content that achieves your goals.

What problems, concerns, or needs are they

facing right now, that are causing them to seek out my product or service? Use your content to help solve that issue,

and you'll have a customer for life. Are my products or services best showcased in

print, video, or audio formats? Choose content types that are natural to

your business.

What do I enjoy? If you're going to be creating or

promoting your content, it's helpful to choose something that engages you personally. The energy of your materials will be better, engagement will be more natural, and your ability to create connections with customers and prospects will be much more evident. Plus you'll have fun.

What does my specific sales funnel look like?

Starting at general research or brand discovery phase and going past maintenance and upselling? What types of content can you create along the funnel to help drive your prospects toward a selling decision? Any content strategy should start with your business' personalized funnel mapped out.

Example: content focused on sales process or ‘buyer journey’.

Every type of content should have a clear purpose

Online Content Marketing is part of your customer’s buyer journey

B2B content ideas B2B Content Ideas: Education and Thought

Leadership.

If a prospect wants education or thought leadership what they are really trying to do is understand their problem or opportunity, get a fix on the landscape, and understand how to frame the market. B2B content ideas that address these questions include:

Trends, benchmarks and statistics

What’s new and why it matters analysis

Best in class examples

Problem guides

Opportunity guides

Needs assessments

101 education

B2B Content Ideas: Solutions and Product Suitability

If a prospect want solutions and product suitability content they want to figure out how to solve their problem. This means understanding how different solutions work, how to compare different approaches, a building a short-list of relevant solutions. B2B content ideas that address these questions include:

Solution guides

Solution comparisons

Pitfall analysis

Readiness and suitability assessments

Strategy and planning templates

How to find and select the right vendor

B2B Content Ideas: Decision Support and Credentials

Prospects who have built their short-list then look for decision support and credentials. This means building internal consensus for the decision and building comfort with their choice. B2B content ideas to address these questions include:

Pricing

Trials or product demonstrations

Access to internal subject matter experts

Implementation plans and requirements

Delivery examples / success stories

Data sheets

Focus on Developing Practical and Useful Topics

The most common search phrases start with “how to” concepts not specific brand or product names. If your search traffic is primarily driven by your brand name you are missing traffic from prospects looking for practical information related to their decision process. To connect with prospects before they know who you are, you need to share practical and useful “how to” topics related to your subject matter expertise. Balance your product, brand, commentary, opinion, and about-us content with practical content to see better inbound search results and content engagement. Use these B2B content ideas to inspire practical content topics such as examples, guides, templates, plans, tips, reviews, etc.

Source: www.brainrider.com

Channels for exhibiting Thought Leadership

Online Thought Leadership

One of the goals of an online marketing strategy is to show and create Thought Leadership: show industry expertise.

Training and Education (topics)

Knowledge of online tools (like social media) might be low at your company. In order to be successful online this should improve. By educating and training employees on how professionals can benefit from social media and other online activities, they are much more likely to get involved in your company’s online activities.

Setting up such a training program should be fairly easy. You only need a person with online capabilities and social skills, and a number of different training programs, like: courses that explain basic and more experienced use of different social media platforms (Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google, etc.); the basic principles of online advertising; a guide on how to create online content; etc.

Such a training can be given by someone within your company, or by any experts outside the company. Examples of trainings modules/topics:

Education about your Online and Social Media policies

Social Media – how can it drive business

Website optimization:

o How to create te perfect Hub Station (website related)

o usability and multimedia integration

Online Marketing

o Advertising and Promotion

o How to make your efforts measurable and calculating ROI

Online Content: how to create effective online content

How to build an online community

Social Media Management

o Learn about time/cost effective social media management

Extra: Online and Social Media Training

Twitter

LinkedIn

Facebook

Google+

YouTube

Extra: Top B2B platforms

Overview of popular social mediab2b platforms. Based on USA research.

(source: marketingprofs.com)

Advise Short Term Implementation | Goals & objectives

1. Open regional and/or local social media accounts. o Suggested platforms to start off with: twitter,

LinkedIn, YouTube

Make these accounts part of corporate marketing communication mix and start publishing relevant corporate news:

Press Releases

Information about upcoming events

Career opportunities

Product developments

Sponsorships, etc.

Integrate these platforms with corporate communications: Corporate website(s)

E-mail signatures

Offline communications

Intranet, etc.

Start measuring results (online traffic, downloads, shares, etc.)

Short Term #1

2. Website Optimization

Because of the central role of a companies website within the social media process (hub station). Professionals should start at developing there websites.

• Set goals: what do you want out of your website?

• Optimize lay-out and usability, increase findability online (SEO)

• Know what is actually on there (many interviewees don’t have a clue)

• Start by analyzing statistics

• Make website content shareable, by implementing social media buttons and rss-feeds.

• Make website part of your online communications mix: standardize publishing: get websites up to date

• Define website publishing ‘freedom’. Are you able to influence content of website? Whose responsibility is it?

• If possible: move content to .eu domain (many info is on .com domain, which makes analyzing traffic harder)

• Integrate website with analyzing tools (google analytics)

3. Online marketing (promotion & advertising)

When advertising becomes relevant experiment with online possibilities like: • Search Engine Advertising (Google, Yahoo)

• Social Media Advertising (ad’s on LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, etc.)

Start online campaigns and integrate them with content on the corporate website. Deploy a structure that enables you to measure result (online statistics) and try to calculate ROI. In the end compare them with offline marketing efforts.

4. Write or renew policies, guidelines and

protocols

Though there already are some policies, they’re not complete, and need renewing. • Social Media Policy

• Social Media Guideline

• Content protocol and strategy

• Website protocol and strategy

• Online advertising protocol and strategy

Short Term #2

5. Social Media Training and Education

Individually or Group

6. Social Media Monitoring

Start monitoring market (industry, customers and competitors) trough social media, in order to get professionals familiar with social media. (create awareness)

7. Leadership

Appoint a Social Media (and online) spokesman. At least on a local or regional level.

8. Content Library

Start publishing all external communications within a centralized environment > intranet. Engage employees to do so, by making it an easy process. (protocol)

Thanks for reading!

- Paul Holthuis -

About author | My digital map

News & Information

Technology

Shopping & Travel

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Twitter

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marktplaats.com

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Paul