What Works Where in B2B Digital Marketing [2011]

DIGITAL BRAND ENGAGEMENT

What works where in B2B?Digital benchmarking researchApril 2011

In association with The Marketing Society and Circle Research. #wwwb2b

What works where in B2B? 15 April 2011 Page 2 of 35

Introduction

While case studies abound for consumer-centric digital marketing, a constant cry from the business to business marketing community is how difficult it is to find out what others are doing. Perhaps unsurprisingly, as so much B2B activity is select in its targeting. As a result, it’s hard to know whether you are doing the right thing, or whether there is something else that might work better.

With this in mind, Omobono has partnered with The Marketing Society and Circle Reseach to develop a collective understanding of what B2B marketers really think of digital – how are they using it and how well is it working?

Results are based on responses from senior level marketers with budget and strategic responsibility for some £33 million. With over 60% of the respondents coming from large organisations, including some of the UK’s largest energy, telecoms, IT and financial services companies this is an authoritative view of what works where.

We hope it will be of value to marketers in 3 specific ways:

1 First it allows you to benchmark your own activities against the norm. Select your own marketing priorities from the list and compare your own expenditure in time and money against what others are doing. Are you underspending in key areas? Are your activities far more time consuming or costly than others find them?

2 Second, it highlights the areas which B2B marketers are finding the most cost effective and some which aren’t. It’s an opportunity to reflect and reconsider whether some activities should be scaled up – or down – to really maximise the impact of your budget.

3 Third, it opens up a debate. Despite the increasing use of social media and the presence of other methods of audience engagement, marketers are primarily using digital to push their messages, regardless of whether this is what people want from them. In short, it would seem that although channels have changed, behaviours haven’t.

So whilst the survey reflects the established practice – is that enough in a day and age when audience engagement is all important? Marketers are following established lines but perhaps it’s time to challenge the received wisdom and think about things differently.

We look forward to continuing the debate and knowledge share during 2011. Later in the year an online version will go live which will allow you to input your own data to gain a comparative benchmark.

To share your views in the meantime please join us on #wwwb2b.

Survey objectives

The research set out with three specific objectives:

• Which marketing goals are the highest priority for B2B marketers?

• How are the time and money dedicated to B2B digital marketing allocated amongst digital marketing channels?

• Which digital marketing channels are the best means to achieve marketing goals?


Q: What is the highest B2B marketing priority for your organisation over the next 12 months?

Making sure you have a deep relationship with your customers and increasing the profile of your company.

Q: What matters in B2B marketing?

A:

Deepen customerrelationships

(36%)

Raise brand awareness

(26%)

Deepen understanding

of target market

(10%)

Developbrand

positioning

(9%)

Launch anew product

or service

(9%)

Strengthen‘thought

leadership’position

(7%)

Ensure organisation is living the brand

(0%)

Other(4%)

Highest priority


It may be no surprise that companies are not prioritising product launches in the present economic climate - but given the importance of building customer relationships and building brand awareness it seems surprising that such low importance was given to living the brand. This highlights one of the first ‘disconnects’ which we have identified as a result of the research. Perhaps, given that

marketers are struggling with budget and resource issues, one of the impacts is that they simply cannot cover all the bases. But the upshot is that the marketing effort does not join up the external and the internal. Given the size of the organisations involved we also found it interesting that brand awareness was so high on the list of priorities.

Thought leadership and brand positioning are important secondary priorities

Q: What are the three highest B2B marketing priorities for your organisation over the next 12 months?


Raise brandawareness

Deepenunderstanding

of target market

Develop brandpositioning

Launch a newproduct or

service

Strengthen‘thought leadership’

position

36%29%13%

26%6%

16%

10%14%6%

9%16%23%

9%7%11%

7%23%19%

Ensure organisation

is living the brand

0%3%

10%Other

4%1%0%

Highest priority

Second highest priority

Third highest priority

Are marketers struggling to deliver joined up marketing which links top line objectives with corporate behaviour?


43%

80%

14%

39%


Deepen understanding of target market

20%

43%

Raising brandawareness

% choosing as 1st priority

% choosing as 1st - 3rd priority

Significant increase on overall response

Significant decrease on overall response

Q: What are the three highest B2B marketing priorities for your organisation over the next 12 months?

Marketing priorities for larger companies

A breakdown of responses by company size revealed, as might be expected, that for larger companies, brand awareness was less of a priority than for smaller companies.

There was an interesting sub grouping of companies whose B2B operations were part of a B2C organisation however, for whom

this was more important than the norm.

Perhaps there is a need for them to get their particular light out from under the B2C bushel.

Finally, deepening understanding of the target market, remains a secondary (or tertiary) consideration which only the larger companies

set store by – perhaps because they know that this in turn leads to success in the more important objective to develop their client relationships and thought leadership position.

Perhaps also it is only larger companies, with larger resources, who have the luxury of prioritising this objective.

What works where in terms of channels?We looked first at what marketers were spending their time and money on.

Overall, 3 channels take up more than half the time and money allocated to digital marketing – corporate website development, email marketing and social media – with 56% of the budget spent between them and 58% of marketing time.

Search marketing (SEO and PPC combined) is responsible for 14% of budget allocated to digital, and 13% of time allocated to digital.

Mobile marketing (site optimisation, SMS/MMS and apps) takes 4% of the budget, and 5% of time.


Digital allocation by channel - budget

Websitedevelopment

Email marketing

Socialmedia

Online video/podcasts

SEO

Display advertising

PPC

Micrositedevelopment

Extranet

Mobile optimisation Apps

SMS/MMS

Other

Affiliate

(31.3%)

(14.3%)

(10.4%)

(7.3%)(7.1%)

(7.1%)

(1.8%)

(3%)

(0.6%)

(1.5%)

(2.5%)

(0.9%)

(6.7%)

(5.5%)

BudgetTime

Q: In the next 12 months, how do you expect to allocate your B2B digital marketing budget?


Digital allocation by channel - time

Websitedevelopment

Email marketing Social

media


SEO

Micrositedevelopment

Display advertising

Mobile optimisationAffiliate

SMS/MMSExtranet

PPC

Other

Apps

(27.9%)

(15.8%)(14%)

(8.8%)(7.8%)

(6.3%)

(3.9%)

(4.4%)

(2.3%)

(2.3%) (2.2%)

(2.1%)

(1.6%)

(0.7%)

BudgetTime

Q: In the next 12 months, how do you expect to allocate the time your organisation dedicates to digital?


Digital allocation by channel - budget vs. time

Four channels are particularly time intensive in that they take a greater share of time than of budget: mobile apps, social media, SEO and mobile optimisation.

Three channels take a significantly larger share of budget than time: PPC, display advertising and development of extranets (possibly this is due to the costs involved in setting up sites which are often more complex from an IT perspective).

The figures in this chart have been calculated using data accurate to 1dp. This approach has been adopted to establish the nuances in the data for comparison.

Time intensive Cost intensiveTime BudgetTime

Extranets(3% - 2.3%)

Affiliate(2.5% - 2.3%)

Online video/ podcasts

(7.3% - 7.8%)

Mobile optimisation(1.8% - 2.2%)

SEO(7.1% - 8.8%)

Website development(31.3% - 29.7%)Email

marketing(14.3% - 15.8%)

Display advertising(7.1% - 4.4%)

PPC(6.7% - 3.9%)

Microsite development(5.5% - 6.3%)

Apps(1.5% - 2.1%)

Social media(10.4% - 14%)

SMS/MMS(0.6% - 0.7%)


Digital allocation by channel - overall effectiveness

Five channels are seen by more than half of marketers as an effective channel for achieving their marketing priorities: website development (70%); email marketing (68%); social media (64%); online video/podcasts (63%); development of microsites (53%).

Seven channels are seen as effective in achieving marketing priorities by less than a third of B2B marketers: SMS/MMS; mobile optimisation; apps; PPC; development of extranets; display advertising.

These low scores however reflect the niche nature of these channels - they are seen as more effective for certain marketing goals than they are for others.

70% 68% 64% 63%53% 43%

29%29%

28% 24% 20% 17% 13%

5% 12% 9% 11%11% 19%

24%38%

26% 32% 29% 37% 47%

Website development Email

marketing Social mediaOnline video/

podcastsMicrosites

SEO

Extranets Display advertising

PPCApps Affiliate

SMS/MMS

Mobile optimisation

Effective Not effectiveNeutral

Q: How effective are the following channels in achieving the marketing priorities?

What works where when it comes to specific marketing prioritiesAs might be expected, the perceived effectiveness of digital channels throws up some differences when they are assessed against individual marketing priorities. The same 3 channels take the lead in overall effectiveness as in budget and time allocation, with online video, microsites and SEO also punching above their weight.

For example, when the priority is deepening customer relationships, the development of extranets is seen as a more effective channel than it would be on average. Conversely SEO, PPC and display advertising are seen as significantly less effective in achieving this goal. On the other hand, when the priority is raising brand awareness, SEO, PPC and display advertising are seen as more effective channels than they would be in general.

In contrast, the development of microsites is seen as less successful in raising brand awareness than it is in general.


Strengthening ‘Thought

Leadership’ position

Dis

play

ad

vert

isin

g (1

8%)

Emai

l m

arke

ting

(79%

)

Social media (82%)

Website

development (76%

)

(64%

) Mic

rosi

tes

(30%

) Ext

rane

ts

(42%) SEO

(12%) PPC

(12%) Affiliate

(3%) Mobile optimisation

(3%) SMS/MMS

(24%) Apps

Online video/

(85%) podcasts Deepening customer

relationships

Dis

play

ad

vert

isin

g (1

7%)

Emai

l m

arke

ting

(76%

)

Social media (59%)

Website development (63%)

Microsites (61%

)

(37%

) Ext

rane

ts (3

0%) S

EO

(19%) PPC (19%) Affiliate


(15%) SMS/MMS

(24%) Apps

Online video/

(65%) podcasts

What works where for - specific marketing priorities

% of respondents selecting ‘effective’



Raising brand awareness

Dis

play

ad

vert

isin

g (5

3%)

Email

marketi

ng (6

6%)

Social media (78%)

Website

development (75%)

Microsites (38%

)(25%

) Ext

rane

ts

(75%

) SEO

(53%) PPC

(28%) Affiliate


(13%) SMS/MMS

(28%) Apps

Online video/

(72%) podcasts

Developing brand

positioning

Dis

play

ad

vert

isin

g (4

5%)

Email

marketi

ng (7

3%)

Social media (64%)

Website

development (88%

)

Microsites (52%

)

(24%

) Ext

rane

ts (5

5%) S

EO

(27%) PPC

(18%) Affiliate


(12%) SMS/MMS

(21%) AppsO

nline video/

(67%) podcasts



Dis

play

ad

vert

isin

g (1

4%)

Email

marketi

ng (4

3%)

Social media (52%)

Website

development (29%

)

Microsites (33%

)

(29%

) Ext

rane

ts (1

9%) S

EO

(19%) PPC

(19%) Affiliate


(14%) SMS/MMS (19%

) Apps

Online video/

(24%) podcasts

Deepen understanding

of target market

Launching a new product

Dis

play

ad

vert

isin

g (3

7%)

Email

marketi

ng (7

9%)

Social media (47%)

Website

development (84%)

(37%

) SEO

(42%) PPC

(11%) Affiliate

Mobile (21%)

optimisation

(26%) SMS/MMS

(26%) Apps

Online video/

(58%) podcasts

(11%

) Ext

rane

ts

Microsites (53%

)




What works where for - perceived effectiveness vs. budget

0%

25%

50%

75%

25%

SMS/

MMS

AppsMobile

optimisationAffiliate

ExtranetsPPC

Displayadvertising

SEO


Socialmedia

Microsites

Email marketing

Websitedevelopment

Bu

dget

Unsurprisingly, the three most effective channels are also the ones that receive the most time and money. Interestingly, online video and development of microsites are also seen as effective, but this is not reflected in their share of digital marketing budgets (7% and 6% respectively).

Contrast this with PPC and display advertising, channels which both receive 7% of marketing budgets, but are seen as effective in achieving marketing priorities by less than a third of B2B marketers (28% and 29% respectively).

As the above chart demonstrates, there are some ‘niche’ channels that perform extremely well, particularly given their relative cost. These activities provide a useful reminder to marketers to consider additional activities in addition to the big 3.

PerceivedE

ffectiveness


76%

9%

65%63% 61% 59%

37% 30% 24% 20% 19%19%

17% 15%

13%6% 9% 9%

22% 22% 30% 37% 37%30%

43% 44%

Website development

Email marketing

Social mediaOnline video/

podcasts Microsites

SEOExtranets

Display advertising

PPCAppsAffiliate

SMS/MMS

Mobile optimisation

Effective

Not effective

Neutral

What works where for - deepening customer relationshipsQ: How effective are the following channels in deepening customer relationships?


What works where for - deepening customer relationships

When it comes to the things that work for deepening customer relationships, online video, microsites and extranets are the best in class. Social media also performs well. As might be expected, the traditional promotional mechanisms (PPC, display and affiliate) are felt

to be less effective. It’s interesting however that email marketing – a push technique – is felt to be the most effective channel against this priority and yet not for some of the more traditionally push objectives such as raising brand awareness.

SMS/MMS

AppsMobileoptimisationAffiliate

Extranets

PPCDisplayadvertising

SEO


Socialmedia Microsites

Email marketing

Websitedevelopment

PerceivedE

ffectiveness

Bu

dget

0%

25%

50%

75%

25%

50%

Q: In the next 12 months, how do you expect to allocate your B2B digital marketing budget? Q: How effective are the following channels in deepening customer relationships?


What works where for - raising brand awareness

78%

3%

75% 75% 72% 66%53% 53%

38% 28% 28% 25%16%

13%

6% 3% 9% 9%6% 9%

13% 19% 25% 22%22%

38%

Website development Email

marketing

Social media Online video/ podcasts

Microsites

SEO

Extranets

Display advertisingPPC

AppsAffiliate

SMS/MMS

Mobile optimisation

Effective

Not effective

Neutral

Q: How effective are the following channels in raising brand awareness?


What works where for - raising brand awareness

0%

25%

50%

75%

25%

50%

SMS/

MMS

Apps

Mobileoptimisation

AffiliateExtranets

PPC

SEOOnline video/podcasts

Socialmedia

Microsites

Websitedevelopment

Email marketing

Displayadvertising

Bu

dget Social media tops the poll against this marketing

priority, reflecting how the world has changed in recent years. It also confirms how far social media has established its role in B2B, an area which has traditionally lagged behind BC2 behaviours.

Thereafter the more expected activities perform well, with the surprising finding that only half of respondents felt that display advertising, the most obviously broadcast medium, was an effective channel for raising brand awareness.

Q: In the next 12 months, how do you expect to allocate your B2B digital marketing budget? Q: How effective are the following channels in raising brand awareness?

PerceivedE

ffectiveness


What works where for - strengthening ‘thought leadership’ position

85%

3%

82% 79% 76% 64%42% 30% 24%

18%

12% 12% 3%

3%

3% 3% 3%3%

3% 3% 3%

3%

Website development

Email marketing

Social mediaOnline video/

podcasts

Microsites

SEO

Extranets

Display advertising

PPCApps

Affiliate

SMS/MMS

Mobile optimisation

Effective

Not effective

Neutral

Q: How effective are the following channels in strengthening your thought leadership position?


What works where for - strengthening ‘thought leadership’ position

0%

25%

50%

75%

25%

50%

Bu

dget

SMS/MMS

Apps

Mobileoptimisation

AffiliatePPC

Online video/podcastsSocial

media

Microsites

Websitedevelopment

Email marketing

SEO

Displayadvertising

Extranets

Thought leadership was the mantra of 2010, and it looks as if it will continue to be a key marketing objective for B2B marketers for the next 12 months as well, as companies jockey for position to be seen as expert in their respective fields. As might be expected, the use of online video and

podcasts and social media overall performed particularly well in this respect. Email marketing makes its habitual appearance, perhaps because it is the mechanism which carries the deeper content to the end user.

Q: In the next 12 months, how do you expect to allocate your B2B digital marketing budget? Q: How effective are the following channels in strengthening your thought leadership position?

PerceivedE

ffectiveness


What works where for - developing the brand positioning

6%

88%73%

67% 64% 55% 52%45%

27% 24%24% 21%

18%18%

9%6% 3% 12% 9%

30%

24% 21%33% 36%

21%39%

Website development

Email marketing Social mediaOnline video/

podcastsMicrositesSEO

Extranets

Display advertising

PPC

AppsAffiliate

SMS/MMS

Mobile optimisation

Effective

Not effective

Neutral

Q: How effective are the following channels in developing your brand positioning?


What works where for - developing the brand positioning

0%

25%

50%

75%

25%

50%

SMS/MMS

Apps

Mobileoptimisation

Affiliate

PPC

Microsites

Websitedevelopment

SEO

Displayadvertising

Extranets


Bu

dget The final significant objective, developing the

brand positioning, was the first time that corporate websites took the lead role, despite being perceived as the most effective digital channel overall. Correspondingly websites performed best at launching a new product or

service. Whilst social media was not in the top 3 for once, it also gained the lowest score for not effective, whilst display advertising is seen as least effective by the most people with the exception of mobile activities. Online video scores well again.

Q: In the next 12 months, how do you expect to allocate your B2B digital marketing budget? Q: How effective are the following channels in developing your brand positioning?

PerceivedE

ffectiveness

Email marketing

Socialmedia

A word on mobile

To our surprise, mobile (whether optimisation, apps or messaging) performed consistently badly in the survey. Some of this is understandable – the spend on the medium is low and so correspondingly is the time spent on it.

Perceptions of effectiveness for something that isn’t a priority medium are understandable, but despite that, other niche activities have their moments of glory – or at least of effectiveness. Extranets perform well in terms of relationship building, online video waves the flag in terms of raising brand awareness and strengthening thought leadership. The mobile picture looks consistently underwhelming.

And yet, the word on the street is that Smartphone adoption, 3G penetration and unlimited data plans have driven a surge of mobile media consumption across geographies and deepened the integration of mobile devices into everyday life1.

We believe that in a year’s time the picture may be different, particularly given the predictions that by 2014 mobile internet will have taken over desktop internet usage2. Give us your view #wwwb2b

Sources: 1 - Gigacom - Mary Meeker: Mobile Internet Will Soon Overtake Fixed Internet 2 - The comScore 2010 Mobile Year in Review


26 26

Digital is seen by almost all as important in achieving their priorities...

Critical! Important

Lessimportant

Notrelevant!

(44%)(51%)

(3%)

(1%)


Yet three fifths of marketers spend less than 40% of budget on digital

percentage of marketers that spend...

11%

17%18%

17%

8%

11%

6%

8%

5%

2%

25%

0%

0-10%

10-19%

20-29% 30-39% 40-49% 50-59% 60-69% 70-79% 80-89% 90-100%

percentage of budget


Time and money are holding digital back

95% of respondents believe digital marketing is critical or important in achieving their marketing goals...

...but only one third of respondents give the lion’s share of budget to digital, and only 15% spend significant proportions.

This is reflected in some of the issues raised by respondents in terms of the most significant challenges they faced in relation to B2B digital marketing.

Financial constaints are closely linked with resource issues - money is needed, but so is the resource to do it properly.

Budgetconstraints

Internal resources

Adequateresources

Cost

Budgetsand lack of

them

Physical people

resource

Lack of budget

Lack of funds to find

experts to implement (strategy)

The cost and time that needs to be

allocated to doing it properly


Definitions of effectiveness

95% 85% 56% 51% 51% 44% 37% 34% 29%Web analytics/traffic Lead generation Conversion rates Sales pipeline Spend per campaign Brand awareness Closed sales Cost per enquiry Profitability

Two metrics are used by more than 80% of B2B marketers

As might be expected in a study on what works where, we were interested to know how people were measuring the effectiveness of their activities and 59% of marketers use a range of monitoring tools to provide this information, with a further 34% planning to do so.

However, of those who currently measure return, 83% say it’s not with the accuracy they’d like.

It’s useful to think of the metrics as splitting between the two immediate, ‘easy to measure’

activities (web traffic and lead generation), and those which are harder to measure but are more closely linked to business performance, particularly closed sales or profitability.

The approach used by the majority of respondents is to supplement the two ‘immediate’ metrics with two or three other metrics of their preference. Some measure only the immediate metrics, while others measure as many as possible, with particular focus on the most valuable, difficult to measure metrics.

Unsurprisingly those in the latter grouping are most likely to be the ones with the highest marketing budgets.

The fact that most marketers use a combination of metrics (the mean is just under 5), would suggest that there is no one clear way to assess effectiveness and it’s often a judgement call. This would seem to be backed up by the fact that only 1 in 10 respondents were confident in the accuracy of their ROI measures.

Q: What metrics do you use to measure return on digital investment?


Definitions of effectiveness

0%

7%10% 34%

49%

50%

The majority of marketers measure ROI, but few are confident in its accuracy

Q: Does your organisation currently measure return on digital investment?

Don’t measure ROI, no plans to start

Measure ROI, and confident in its accuracy

Don’t measure ROI, but plan to start doing so

Measure ROI, but not with the accuracy we’d like

What are the most significant challenges you face in relation to B2B digital marketing?Our final area of investigation was to establish the most significant challenges faced in relation to B2B digital marketing. There were four particular areas into which the vocally expressed challenges fell overall - money, time, ideas that work and organisational structures.

As has been mentioned earlier – a consistent theme among B2B marketers is the challenge to increase and manage resources behind delivery, but a second significant area coalesced around the need to create cut-through, produce quality content or engage with the audience more effectively.

Marketers, it would seem place high importance not just on reaching people but on engaging them effectively when they do. The third area of consistency was around organisational structures – whether the challenge of scaling projects globally or breaking through the internal silo mentality.


What’s stopping us?

Managing resourcesChannel coordination

Keeping content relevant

Measuring ROI

Getting buy-in internallyPrioritising time

Creation of quality content

Cost for return

Data quality

Doing something differentInsights

Regulation

Finding experts

Ensuring the right channel mix

IT challengesCutting through the noise Acting quickly

Internal silos

Reaching the right people

Global scale

Client engagement

Q: What are the most significant challenges you face in relation to B2B digital marketing?


Conclusions

We know that digital marketing is seen as an essential part of achieving the marketing priorities of our sample. 95% of respondents believed that it was critical or important. On one hand this might seem obvious; these are digital marketers after all. On the other, many of the objectives are not necessarily ones which are only achieved by digital means. Deepening customer relationships has traditionally been the province of sales, account or relationship managers. Raising brand awareness has formerly relied on above the line media, or strong presence at key industry events.

So digital is now firmly part of the B2B marketing canon. Even social media has arrived firmly in the list of channels which are seen to contribute positively to marketing success.

In conclusion, digital is a central part of the B2B marketing toolbox. Three channels in particular seem to be well-established, and are utilised to achieve a variety of marketing goals.

Yet the research highlighted three interesting disconnects which are worth bearing in mind. First there is evidence that B2B marketers don’t seem quite sure how to approach digital marketing as a whole just yet. Indeed, it’s not always clear that B2B marketers invest in the channels they see as most effective for the marketing goal they would like to achieve.

Beyond corporate websites, email and social media, other digital marketing techniques are underutilised and not being aligned in support of the main goals. This problem is perhaps reflected by the trouble B2B marketers have measuring the return on the investment they’ve made.

Secondly, activities would seem to be more orientated towards pushing messages out than deepening the customer experience, despite this being a key priority. In particular, the goal of engaging the organisation with the brand, and behaviours that might be required, is curiously missing.

Third the lack of importance placed on mobile belies the attention it is receiving elsewhere. And yet, if it follows the path taken by social media it could appear as a major contributor in future years.

We hope this report has been useful in highlighting just what people are doing in terms of their digital activity – and will help B2B marketers work out What Works Where for their own particular case.

We welcome your views on #wwwb2b and look forward to your involvement with www 2012.


The research was undertaken with senior B2B marketers who were screened to ensure that they had some responsibility for the development of digital marketing strategy and spend, and worked in B2B marketing.

It was undertaken via an email campaign with members of The Marketing Society and other established members of the B2B community. It was also posted on key social media forums including Linkedin and The Financial Services Forum.

The survey was conducted during February and March 2011 by Circle Research on behalf of Omobono Limited. We would particularly like to thank the team at Circle, and The Marketing Society, for their invaluable input.

Acknowledgements

www.marketing-society.org.uk

www.circle-research.com

www.omobono.co.uk


35 35


To find out more about how Omobono can help you maximise the effectiveness of your digital activities:

please call Fran Brosan on 01223 307000

or email [email protected]

www.omobono.com

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What Works Where in B2B Digital Marketing [2011]