Quite often B2B search engine marketing involves more complex strategies and requires marketers to think of strategies with the end in mind. The B2B selling process is more complex and the potential consumers buying cycle can be long and drawn out. As a result, B2B marketers are presented with unique challenges and need to continually build relationships with their consumers.
Establishing a relationship with the potential consumer is key, but understanding that there are different people in the buying funnel with their own semantic maps is the real ticket for success. While its true that there may be different people in the buying cycle who search using the same key phrases, the intention of each may be different. Each will have their own set of pre-determined keywords that they will use to search for. As a result the importance of revisiting keyword baskets is crucial. The end result of course is obtaining qualified traffic and thus qualified leads.
Here are some other challenges faced by B2B marketers
- Longer, more Complex Selling Cycles
- Undetermined KPIs
- Need for "traffic filtering" to ensure qualified traffic is turned into qualified leads
- Understanding the Consumer's Buying Cycle
- Measuring success at various intervals of the selling cycle
- Ignoring secondary conversions and missing out on opportunities to intercept qualified traffic
- Tracking leads through sales
- Developing effective on-site conversions that lead to the bigger off-site conversions (ie. the sale)
The B2B marketplace is filled with "hyper-competition" and an ever-growing list of challenges. B2B marketers need to be proactive in tackling these challenges if they hope to have success with their search engine marketing campaigns. |
