ZMarket Scoop

How to Drive Traffic to Your Website

Does all the hype about driving users to your website through pay per click ads, search engine marketing, social media, and blogs make you suspicious about which one really works best?

You are not alone. Since the inception of the World Wide Web, companies have been trying to figure out how to make money from it. After the dot bomb era, someone finally figured it out—make it a big advertising medium. The internet has been hailed as the new yellow pages--too bad yellow pages didn't jump in soon enough to become their own version of Google.

There is plenty of information out there that talks about how these tools affect consumer sales, but how do B2B and industrial marketers use them to increase web leads? Here is a quick overview of how B2B and industrial marketers can use these tools to effect web sales.

Pay Per Click: Probably the most promoted and used tool on the internet. Pay per click (PPC) ads are those entries usually on the right side of the natural search pages and/or ad highlighted at the top of the natural search results. PPC promises high ROI, click through rates and conversions; however, studies have shown that while 80% of B2B buyers research online before making a purchase, less than 20% click on PPC ads.

Search Engine Marketing: Search engine marketing or search engine optimization is about moving and keeping a company's web page to the top positions of an organic search. This is the holy grail of the web. Nearly 75% of B2B buyers searching the web click on organic links (those results in the middle of the page vs. the ads to the right and top), and the top four positions get over 50% of the click through.

Viral Marketing: Viral marketing is the most talked about topic among some internet marketers today. Viral marketing employs existing social networks to rapidly spread brand awareness through word of mouth. It is most talked about in terms of consumer products but talk of its effectiveness of its use is oozing into the B2B and industrial marketing arenas. Although there are still questions about its effectiveness, integration of blogs, industry tools and white papers into a company's website may be effective uses of this tool for industrial and B2B marketers.

Blogs: Although the next best thing since sliced bread, successful blogging demands a great deal of work to get them going. Successful blogging must supply something useful to the masses to get them there again and again, but if a company finds that special mix that pulls in the readers by providing content worthy of forwarding, a blog can be a tremendous source of leads.

Print – yes print! Print still has its place in drawing users to your website; and, next to word of mouth, is the biggest influencer in the purchase phase for B2B buyers. Printed articles about a company become a very powerful word of mouth tool in that it offers credibility through third party endorsement. Printed articles can also include carefully worded action statements that drive readers to the website when companies offer online tools such as troubleshooting guides, white papers and/or industry focused "calculators". Also as more and more trade magazines convert to digital content, a published article in a trade magazine becomes a lasting promotional tool on the Internet for years, if not decades, to come.

With the wealth of promotional activities that the internet offers, it is no wonder that more and more companies have been increasing their PR budgets the last 4 years.

Cashing in on Published Articles

Published articles about your product or company can stretch a marketing budget 10 fold.  Here are some of the ways you can cash in on marketing publicity:

Take the copy to your prospects to establish credibility.

Get reprints and send them as direct mail pieces.

Put links to the articles on your website.

Use them in monthly newsletters to your current clients and prospect list.

Create SEO articles from the original press release to increase page ranking on major search engines.

Frame them hang in the office to increase morale within your organization.

Keep a media book and present it at annual meetings.

Include a list of media placements to your annual reports.

Do You Make These Mistakes with Your Press Releases?

Press releases seem easy enough to write, but marketers often try to apply the same rules they use in marketing pieces in their press releases.

Here are three common mistakes that can kill a good press release:

1. Testimonial from clients instead of quotes.

   The difference between a quote from your client and testimonial is the tone and the subject. Quotes from your clients should address something specific about your product and how it offered a solution. Testimonials, more or less, are company focused and often address how "great" the company is. Would you rather own a car from a company that "never breaks down when you are on the road," or own a car from a company that has "outstanding customer service?"

2. Outrageous "First Ever" claims in your headline.

   Yes, if your company is an innovator, then you need to address that in your press release, but claims like "first ever" in the headline and lead paragraph are red flags for editors that a press release is self serving and quite frankly, they will challenge the claim—always. Editors are journalists and they are trained to question. They also have an uncanning knack for remembering obscure facts and will certainly remember some other product that was "like" yours and disbelieve the claim. It doesn't matter if you "truly" have the first car that can fly, there are other ways to say it that sound more newsworthy. Just think of the difference between how Newsweek would headline a UFO sighting and how a tabloid would report a UFO sighting.

3. Product focused vs. solution focused.

   Many press releases end up reading more like a spec sheet rather than a press release. Specs are fine in press releases, but they should include the benefits or give comparisons. For instance: Why is it important that a car has an 18 gallon gas tank? Compared to most vehicles that have 13 gallon gas tanks, the larger 18 gallon tank gives drivers 1/3 more driving time between fill ups. (That's not a real fact—just one I made up).

The thing to remember about press releases is that they are written for the press—you know—the media. The closer your press release is to a story that the media would write the better chance you have of getting the attention of editors and writers.

3 Easy Ways to Stand Out from your Competitors

Does it sometimes seem like you can't compete with your competitors full page ads in trade magazines?

Many of today's major brands, including The Body Shop, Starbucks, Wal–Mart, Red Bull, Oracle and Yahoo!, were built with virtually no advertising.

Feature articles in trade magazines can't be purchased, but the cost of having a feature article written and then pitched and placed in trade magazines is about one third of the cost of a full page ad.

Here are three ways to stand out from your competitors:

1. Write a feature article, or contract someone to write a feature article, about common pains in your industry and how solve those pains. Addressing specific problems in the industry will catch the attention of readers. Remember the last time an article specifically addressed a problem you were trying to solve?

1. Include quotes from one or two of your customers in the article. Getting your customers to talk about how your product solved their problem builds credibility in the readers mind. What others say about you is much more important than what you say about yourself.

1. Pitch the story to several publications in vertical markets to stretch your marketing budget and expand the reach of your message. If you are in the widget industry and your story includes quotes from an automotive company and a buzz saw manufacturer, pitch the story to widget magazines, automotive magazines and buzz saw magazines.

Standing out amongst your competitors doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg. Sixty seven percent of readers take some type of action as a result of reading or looking into specific feature articles—even if it is just passing it along to another person.