Clicks 'n Conversions Blog

This article was first published  April 15, 2008 on the Tatum Marketing blog

If you’ve been following my recent posts about pay-per-click advertising, I’m going to make a lane change on you today. Stick with me. This is worthwhile.

Lately I’ve been talking with so many technology business owners who are frustrated by the lack of results they’re getting from their marketing efforts. More often than not I find the results are dismal because they’re still using marketing tactics that were the way to go five years ago but aren’t nearly as effective now.

Before we get into a discussion of what works now and what doesn’t, let’s look at some facts and statistics that affect software and technology marketing today. If you understand & keep these in mind, it’ll make more sense as to why the conventional approach doesn’t work so well anymore.

Here goes:

1. A vendor’s website – along with recommendations from a colleague or peer – rank as the most important influencers in a B2B purchase decision. (Enquiro Research; Business to Business Survey 2007.) Gone are the days when a technology website was just an online brochure. Your website is your marketing hub. Unfortunately, in the eyes of business-to-business buyers, most sites suck.
2. Today 80% of business technology buyers go looking for vendors – they don’t wait for vendors to find them.  (MarketingSherpa Business Technology Marketing Benchmark Guide 2007-08). Visibility will bring you far greater results than any outbound marketing effort.
3. Virtually every new technology purchase involves online research. And online research means search engines. Depending on which study you read, Google is the general search engine of choice for 77% to 93% of business technology buyers. Can your prospects find you on Google?
4. Generating traffic and leads is no longer the most important marketing function (if it ever was). You must efficiently convert those leads to customers. All business technology and software purchases are multi-step. You’re not going to sell your product with the first prospect contact. If you concentrate on generating leads and driving traffic without worrying about your conversation rates, you’re probably throwing money down a rabbit hole.
5. The voice of the people is much stronger than the voice of the company. Your users, your buyers, your employees, and a whole bunch of other people all talk about you and your product. They also talk about their business challenges and other options. Much of this talking is being done online. For a technology company, participation in the online community is both an offensive strategy and a defensive one.

If you’re asking yourself why your marketing efforts aren’t generating enough sales (for ecommerce businesses) or sales opportunities (for offline businesses), take a look at your approach.

Are you relying on outbound campaigns like direct mail, telemarketing and non-search advertising at the cost of your online visibility? Is your website little more than an electronic brochure?

Time to make a change. Go where your prospects can find you. And that would be online.

What about you? What’s your biggest marketing challenge?