Reading January’s edition of B2B marketing magazine (offline isn’t dead yet) it is not surprising to read that websites are the primary B2B information resource. Many of our customers have recognised this for some time and have been investing in their online marketing accordingly.
The article cited research conducted by the Association of Online Publishers (AOP). The study claims that 97 per cent of business decision makers polled cited the web as the ‘most used’ form of media, whilst 60% of respondents regard business websites as ‘essential tools.
With just over 50% of respondents confirming that the Internet is their first port of call in decision making for the purchasing process; it really backs up how important a businesses web presence is.
I was speaking with a partner of ours who specialises in business development. He gave an example of one of his customers who was a regular supplier to a large shipping company with long standing relationships in place. The business didn’t even hear about a relevant tender process until he heard via a competitor’s press release that the competitor had won the business. When he enquired why he didn’t even know the work was up for tender, his contact in the business investigated. It came back that the shortlist to request for tender was drawn up from online research and their company hadn’t featured. It brought it home to the company in question the urgent need to address their lack of investment in their online presence.
Interestingly the research also confirmed the importance of a strong brand, with 74% of respondents indicating they were more likely to trust a website if it is linked to an established source including well known brands and industry bodies.
If you are questioning the importance of online marketing for your business, hopefully these figures will provide some clarity.
B2B Online Marketing
WebProNews has reported on an AccuStream IMedia Research report recently published which found that online video media spend totaled $2.1 billion in 2008 up 36 percent on 2007. The research also indicated that online video media is set to continue double-digit increases through to 2010.
The video spend was measured in different formats. Pre-roll, which shows a video advert prior to the main video being shown, is predicted to experience a 27% growth in 2009, particularly due to growth in inventory with the development of syndication and video indexing engines.
In-banner video impressions grew by 65 percent in 2008, and accounted for $1.5 billion in gross media spend. Overlay executions also proved popular.
It should be expected that over the next few years as connection speeds improve and increased inventory becomes available that video will increase as a popular medium for advertisers.
Online Advertising
That is the question. As online marketing consultants we are constantly promoting the online marketing virtues of blogging to our customers. One of the most common questions we are asked is:
“How often will I need to post to make it worthwhile?”.
We recommend that at least one of the senior members of the team should be posting at least weekly and more regularly if possible. Like anything the more regularly you post the more likely it is that you will develop an engaged audience. If you are only updating your blog once a month, it’s unlikely that you are going to develop an avid reader base or even sufficient content to make it worthwhile. Therein lies the challenge, how do your senior managers make the time available to post regularly when they are busy running the business.
Hence this is our first blog post. As an online marketing company specialising in SEO we have been responsible for helping a number of our customers set up their online blog presence and we have written hundreds of posts.
Why haven’t we started blogging earlier? Simply, because we haven’t been able to make the commitment. One thing that we always recommend is that if you can’t commit to your blog it’s probably best not to start and we took our own advice. However, the time has come where we’re confident in our commitment that the LexisClick blog will be kept up to date at least weekly, with all the latest musings of our online marketing team. Our team will be bringing you the latest on everything from SEO to Google Analytics, to the scores in our chocolate taste tests. We look forward to giving our readers a bit of an insight into the world of LexisClick online marketing as well as providing some useful and not so useful information along the way.
Here’s to the first of many posts….
LexisClick News
LexisClick News
