Having witnessed all this first hand, plus all of the expenditure that has obviously been made, it was extremely insightful to have a judge’s perspective on this – and this being (with all due respect) a relatively niche awards ceremony, I can now understand a little better the sheer scale of investment that must go into some of the big ones. I’m normally on the other side of the fence, and in fairness as a very poor sportsman I’m normally a disgruntled loser uttering insinuations of skulduggery or unprofessionalism.

Having seen the effort that goes into judging I feel a great deal more empathy now, but I also got some interesting insights into what makes a successful entry or not. Considering many of the entries were produced by agencies I was disappointed by the level of presentation of many of them (cobblers’ shoes springs to mind). The well written, clearly signposted entries that address the qualifying criteria practically selected themselves.

Where entries did not clearly answer these criteria, my tendency to subjectivity increased hugely, and being like a magpie I tended to gravitate towards more ‘shiny’, nice looking work rather than category adherence.

I was saddened though by the quality of the submissions in general, most particularly from a creative perspective. It’s a shame that some of the bigger players didn’t get involved and push the bar up a few notches – and as a company that entered only one category we share that criticism. I guess to an extent that the quality and quantity of entries has been driven to by the economic climate, in so far as there is less work in general being commissioned, the work is by default less brave, and agencies are saving budgets on “nice to do” award submissions.

Note to self: must try harder next year.

And for the record I didn’t get to judge our own entry for B2B Agency of the Year!

By
Danny Turnbull
Managing Director, European B-to-B practice leader
GyroHSR North

The summit premise was simple (and long overdue): Bring together the top minds in B2B search for a day of focused discussion and networking. I was excited to attend and honored to be asked to speak on the case study panel.

After the show, and as I reflected on the day, it occurred to me just how practical and applicable much of the content was. That’s something many conferences can’t claim.

What follows are highlights of the most interesting and practical nuggets shared at this insightful event.

Technology Enables Change
Gord Hotchkiss of Enquiro kicked off the event during his opening keynote by introducing some of the main discoveries from Enquiro Research’s “The BuyerSphere Project.” Seeing and hearing Hotchkiss walk through this material was fascinating.

Of everything that Hotchkiss discussed, the piece that stood out to me most was his conclusion that “technology doesn’t cause change; technology enables change …” As B2B marketers, we’d be wise to remember that chasing the shiny, new object isn’t necessarily the best approach. There is always a lag between technological change and audience adoption/behavioral change.

The use of technology to help shape and inform purchase decisions among a C-suite executive audience is one behavioral change that has been documented. The C-suite had previously been considered somewhat removed from the information-gathering process that precedes a transaction. Hotchkiss referenced that shift, a discovery that was introduced formally in a 2009 study, “The Rise of the Digital C-Suite.” Proof that accessibility of information has changed a key component to organizational buying patterns.

Expert Hot Seat
The Expert Hot Seat session was purely Q&A; there were no formal presentations, just dialogue between the audience and panelists. There were representatives from Google (Frederick Vallaeys), Microsoft (Valerie Bolduc), Business.com (Patricia Neuray) and Enquiro (Hotchkiss). Of note:

•    Microsoft: They’re set to release new tools within its adCenter platform that can better enable the B2B search marketer to reach its audiences.
•    Google: Better mobile device targeting is coming soon. Think ad formats for specific mobile platforms. Frederick also gave the somewhat ambiguous promise that Google is “committed to help advertisers make sense of the data available to them.” This statement followed a comment that, generally speaking, many advertisers are overwhelmed with the amount of data that is accessible via AdWords and Analytics.
•    Business.com: They offer advertisers campaign tracking that ties together display and search, and also shows the linear progression of touches that lead to conversion, enabling simple attribution modeling for better campaign optimization.
•    Enquiro: Hotchkiss commented that during later stages of purchase consideration, people begin searching for brand queries that revolve around understanding more about an organization: How do they treat employees? How do they treat customers? Favorably answering these questions across landing pages and websites could net more sales for the savvy B2B marketer.

Effective Landing Page Optimization for Lead Generation
Lance Loveday, Closed Loop Marketing, presented three client examples as exemplary of the type of conversion optimization work his firm does. Closed Loop’s landing page optimization methodology revolves around the “3 Cs of LPO”: Credibility, Clarity, Call to Action. Focus your testing and optimization efforts around the “3 Cs” in order to effectively communicate to and convert your website visitors.

Loveday also emphasized that conversion optimization isn’t a destination, and he shared a case study where total conversion improvement has increased by six times through ongoing refinement and refusing to be satisfied.

PR: The Oft-Forgotten Piece of B2B Online Strategy
Greg Jarboe, SEO-PR, presented an intriguing case study of a client whose small budget prevented it from advertising against the traditional industry keyword searches, where competition was fierce.

The solution? Create a new category of keyword phrases through online public relations and then “own” that new category.

His case involved online news release optimization and distribution, coupled with engaging web videos that were placed across YouTube. By effectively using free or cheap online promotional tools, he successfully created awareness and interest in a new set of keyword phrases, in which his client dominated the search results. It netted his client more than $1 million in sales before the product was even available.

When you can’t compete for queries, create your own.

Why Blogs and Social Media Should Be Part of Every B2B Marketer’s Toolkit
Lee Odden, TopRank Marketing, closed out the conference with an interesting take on B2B social media best practices. He advocated that B2B organizations consider positioning the corporate blog as the hub of their “social SEO” strategies. Then, through what he called the “Cycle of Social and SEO,” organizations would capture more social exposure, fans, friends and followers, as well as search links and referrals.

The entire concept is predicated on the belief that creating content to appease Google is the wrong strategy. Rather, create content that your customers would appreciate and that aligns with business objectives.

Practical lessons from a collection of industry veterans, and the first in hopefully a long string of B2B-focused search events.

Ryan DeShazer
Vice President
Global Practice Leader – Search

*Originally posted on Search Engine Watch:http://searchenginewatch.com/3640792

These are exemplary of some typical frustrations voiced by B2B search marketers.

The truth is that B2B search can be challenging. The satisfaction of delivering new customers and demonstrating near-term revenue is often missing.

The known keyword universe appropriate for most B2B search programs is typically much smaller than in B2C. And with online conversions usually removed from actual offline sales, the inevitable question of “how’s our program performing?” is much more difficult to answer.

But B2B search is more satisfying for those reasons. It’s difficult. It’s challenging. It’s also much more rewarding when everything comes together and the strategic importance of search can be properly demonstrated.

Let’s investigate B2B search’s real challenges and overcome them one at a time.

Challenge 1: Lengthy Purchase Consideration Process
This one you’re likely familiar with. I even touched on it briefly in my last column, which called for more accountability from B2B SEO.

As B2B search marketers, we don’t have the luxury of operating in fluid transactional environments. Our courtship process takes time and success in search rarely equates immediately to success with sales. We have clients whose markets often see purchase decisions stretch beyond 12 months. But search is still a highly influential and important marketing channel; you can’t ignore it because you find success difficult to measure.

It’s important to stay in front of prospects with relevant and timely messages. Search plays an equally important role at every phase of consideration.

Start first by dividing your keyword targets, ad units, content and offers into “early-” and “late-stage” consideration buckets. Don’t feel obligated to over-engineer this. Keep it simple for now with two buckets; over time this will become more sophisticated and granular.

Measuring success is slightly trickier. The ultimate state of nirvana is for marketing and sales to be working in tandem with one another, sharing data, holding hands and skipping through the hallways. That rarely happens (especially the hand-holding and skipping).

If we then assume that the search teams likely aren’t privy to sales automation or CRM data, if it even exists and is properly maintained, then how do we connect those “early-stage” offers to “late-stage” offers? One simple way is to use statistical regression modeling to confirm or deny a causal link between two activities. If you find that people are downloading your white paper assets en masse, yet none come back to buy your product, your value proposition is likely lost on your prospects.

Challenge 2: The Community of Customer
The most critical component to successful B2B search is acknowledging that no one individual within a typical B2B organization has absolute decision-making authority when it comes to purchases. For marketing communications to succeed, multiple stakeholders across the organization must agree on the vendor or product chosen.

That’s not insignificant. For search, that means not only must we introduce a relevant and timely message across various stages of purchase consideration, but also tailor those messages to speak uniquely to various roles within the organization! All of a sudden, the placement of our cute little text ads becomes infinitely more complex.

These audiences also tend to speak different languages. It’s imperative that our search efforts not only address the needs of our intended audiences, but also speak their respective languages.

Take the concept of cloud computing for example. Generally speaking, we’ve discovered that an executive level audience will search on the term “cloud computing” and its derivatives, while an IT audience will search for more technical themes like “server infrastructure virtualization.”

If you do your homework, and properly construct a search program that speaks uniquely to all audiences, then you will be able to effectively troubleshoot problem areas.

For example, if you’re generating double digit conversion rates among an engineering audience at every phase of consideration, but are falling short with the early-stage IT audience, go investigate! You might find that your message is off or that your offers aren’t very compelling. A quick check of the competition and their web content and offers can help too.

This more sophisticated approach to B2B search will put you in a position to report back on highly qualitative insights. Your boss or client will love you for it.

Challenge 3: Psychosocial Motivations of Stakeholders to the Purchase Decision
In his book “The BuyerSphere Project,” Gord Hotchkiss of Enquiro called this “The Risk Gap.” Distilling Gord’s much more complete exploration of this topic, B2B buyers tend to face high risk with little reward potential when participating in a vendor review process. If the wrong selection is made, those on the purchase committee face internal scrutiny. They may even lose their jobs.

When the right decision is made, and the product/service solves the needs of the organization, there’s little immediate personal benefit to those responsible for making the right call. They aren’t always promoted, they don’t always receive praise (after all, it was their job to pick the right vendor!), there’s no high-fiving, not even a beer Friday to celebrate. It may make some look good in the eyes of others over time, but there’s no immediacy to that “reward.”

So in B2B search we’re left to work within an environment where risk aversion is often a central theme to our benefits positioning.

This was especially true during the lows of the recession last year. Throughout 2009 (and still well into 2010) we’ve had incredible success with search programs where risk aversion is a key theme. Across landing pages we point to third-party validation, testimonials, and awards; all in an effort to say, “Hey, we’re the safe play here!”

Challenge 4: Need for Integrated Communications
Search doesn’t happen by accident. People don’t just happen to perform random Google searches and discover websites and brands. Some other macro-level environmental triggers are required to then give the user reason to turn to search in the first place. This is true in B2C communications; it’s even truer in B2B.

In an integrated program, the coordination of multi-channel communications often places search at the strategic center. As audiences turn to search engines after being exposed to messaging through other channels, search can then vet the entire user experience.

Which keyword terms are people searching for? Which ads generate the highest click-throughs? Which landing page environments yield the greatest conversions?

Future iterations of all communications are then enhanced by what we learn through search. Without integration, search can’t possibly deliver all that.

Wrap-Up
Over the course of the coming months I intend to explore these themes much more completely, relying on real-world cases and data. Hopefully we can arrive at an end-point where there are no B2B search challenges too difficult to overcome.

Ryan DeShazer
Vice President
Global Practice Leader – Search

*Originally posted on Search Engine Watch: http://searchenginewatch.com/3640499

There was clearly some kind of counsel strike going on….Each day a fresh layer of black and blue bags piled up; resembling some kind of gruesome flower display. As it went on, I started to feel a bit offended by the sight and smell, and a bit sorry for the visiting tourists confronted by the mounds of ugly rubbish. Not what you really want to see on your holiday.

…you can call me stupid, but after a week and a half it suddenly dawned one me that the bin men weren’t the problem, we were. We’re the ones who produce all this rubbish, they just take it away and put it somewhere we can’t see it. The problem is society is obsessed with buying and consuming, but very little thought goes to where it all goes when we’re done. We make ourselves feel better with token gestures, putting our used papers in the recycling bin, our green bottles in the green bottles bin, using recycled paper… you get the idea.

So I woke up one morning with the thought in my head that maybe the rubbish strike was a great opportunity to make a point and get people thinking about what happens to our rubbish, so that they might spend a bit less time producing it.

I jumped out of bed (not a usual occurrence) and ran to the window hoping that the bin men hadn’t decided to “unstrike themselves” and went and did a little scouting to make sure the rest of the city was still covered in rubbish. It was.

Headed to work and had myself a 8:30 brainstorm with the team. Then a couple of hours later, props and camera in hand we found ourselves wandering through the red light district of the city looking for the most photogenic rubbish piles.

View the video here (YouTube Video)
Even being caught red handed in the middle of the red-light district stuffing a pair of purple tights with bubble wrap by the police didn’t stop us. Uttering the stock phrase, “student project” which sent them happily on their way, smiling and waving at us to carry on.

We set up our little stunt and stood back to see what happened. We got a lot of attention, with people stopping and asking questions and taking photos. We even got onto the Amsterdam news site. Did it make people think any more about the rubbish they produce, I’d like to hope so.

http://www.at5.nl/gespot/41051/it-s-big-and-it-stinks

By
Michelle Henley
Creative Director
GyroHSR Amsterdam

Download a copy of the slides here http://www.seminarstreams.com/files/iw10/gyrohsr.pdf

Don’t leave money on the table: investing in organic search from GyroHSR on Vimeo.

Those tasked to manage the SEO requirements of the corporate website are, after all, judged by their ability to secure prominent rankings for keyword phrases deemed to be important. And it seems fairly logical. What better way to measure the quality of SEO work than to view where the website ranks for target keyword terms on the likes of Google and Bing?

But there’s an incredible flaw in that approach: it doesn’t take into consideration whether the SEO work actually has a positive impact on the organization.

That’s a frustrating conclusion to draw, because there’s incredible opportunity (and money) awaiting the B2B organization that does SEO right. Consider this: in May of last year, Hitwise reported that 92 percent of all search-driven clicks in that month came from the organic set of results. Plus, JP Morgan and the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization (SEMPO) reported that approximately $39 billion per year is spent on PPC advertising, compared to just $1.4 billion per year spent on SEO.

It’s safe to say that search is out of balance because SEO isn’t being held accountable.

To see the search balance of power restored, organizations must demand more accountability from SEO. This past week, I shared my thoughts on the four steps to SEO accountability to a standing-room-only crowd at the UK’s largest digital marketing conference, Internet World, in London. Here are the highlights of the discussion.

1. Place SEO in Proper Hands
SEO has never been well understood by most B2B decision makers. Often, SEO is made the domain of the webmaster, web agency, or IT department. Even in 2010, new client prospects say, “We optimized the website for search when we built it. We’d prefer now to focus on PPC.”

The truth is that SEO is deserving of a far more strategic role within an integrated marketing communications plan. Placing it in the hands of the web development or IT staff is not proper SEO.

SEO needs to be iterative and evolutionary. It should learn from itself and its PPC sister to become more targeted and relevant to the intended audience.

Over time, SEO should perform better. In short, it should operate just as other forms of digital marketing operate. After all, SEO is digital marketing.

2. Set Realistic Expectations
I can recall a pivotal conversation in my career. I was in an unsatisfying job and was having a drink one afternoon with a friend who was pitching me on a new business he was starting and wanted my help with.

I was eager to entertain any new job opportunity so I met with him and listened as he explained everything. He wanted to start an agency where companies would hire him to make their websites “pop up” when certain searches were performed on Google, Yahoo, and MSN.

To this day I remember my disappointment — and my naivety.

“I don’t think businesses are really going to need that,” I told my friend.

At that time, I believed that when you built a website, Google magically knew you were there and knew to give you your fair shot at relevancy for industry keyword searches.

In many B2B organizations, that mentality still exists. When a new website or piece of content is created, some expect that content to immediately shoot straight to the top of the results. Not so. SEO isn’t a quick hit tactic; it’s a long-term investment.

For SEO to become accountable, it can’t be saddled with unrealistic expectations. Give it some time to develop its legs.

3. Pick (Keyword) Fights You Can Win!
SEO isn’t about getting your website to rank in the first position for the industry keyword phrase. SEO is about achieving maximum visibility for the set of keyword phrases that drive tangible business results to the organization.

Attempting to rank for the definitive industry keyword term is often a fruitless exercise; it’s either a difficult or impossible task, or once-achieved it only brings tire-kickers to the website. To be accountable, SEO must produce results and the organization has to expect the channel to perform.

4. Optimize For Conversion Performance
A logical extension to selecting keyword fights you can win, optimizing around conversion performance is a B2B SEO’s primary indicator that you’re winning some fights! The unfortunate thing for B2B SEO in particular is that the buying environment is far less transactional than is often the case with B2C.

Typically, we don’t see purchase decisions made on a whim or after a single exposure to a search result. Still, a mechanism is needed to help quantify the positive impact SEO has on the organization, determining SEO’s role in effectuating or influencing an eventual purchase. This is where micro-conversions become essential.

It’s fairly intuitive that while asking for the sale at first touch may not be the best move, some form of engagement or conversion can be expected of our SEO-referred visitors. Micro conversions are more passive ways for website visitors to interact with a website and brand, and indicate an interest to buy ahead of an ultimate transaction.

The key here is to really understand your target audiences, their needs, and motivations. Set up your website and offers to nurture site visitors through the courtship process. Once sales eventually start to come through the pipeline, a simple set of regression analysis tests will confirm (or discount) the correlation that your micro conversions had on producing an eventual sale.

Summary
Admittedly, these thoughts are distilled for brevity, and only touch on some fairly advanced constructs. But if your B2B organization can embrace these four steps and put them to use across your SEO initiatives, you’ll undoubtedly be light years more advanced than you were when the only SEO report you cared about was the rank report.

Ryan DeShazer
Vice President, Global Practice Leader – Search

*Originally posted on Search Engine Watch: http://searchenginewatch.com/3640233

It’s a cool role with a great team, great clients and a generous package for someone doing a similar ATL / Integrated / Digital role today (or wanting to step up from a Senior Planner position) but the CVs just aren’t flying in.

Apparently it’s all down to the economic environment and a natural tendency of planners to be more cautious as a result. Really? I thought Sir Martin had called the bottom?

Anyway, the hunt goes on ……richard.mabbott@gyrohsr.com

Recent research has shown that the financial services industry is trying to understand the value of new Web 2.0 tools. Although many in the industry are experimenting with various social media and networking tools, determining a measurable impact remains a challenge. For those firms focused on business-to-business communication, finding the right role for these tools can be even more difficult. In my presentation I explore how social networking tools can be applied to supporting complex business-to-business sales processes and strengthening customer relationship management.

I’m excited for both of these meetings, as I always enjoying meeting new people who enjoy b-to-b marketing as much as I do. Upon my return, I plan to share the learnings I gain after speaking with these two groups, so stay tuned.

Scott Gillum
Senior Vice President – Practice Leader, Channel Marketing, GyroHSR

1/ 0.02mm is interesting in the right hands. Especially if those hands are the D&AD award winning team behind Sagami’s ‘Love Distance’ campaign

2/ Markets can behave irrationally. How else can we explain UK bookmakers making England second favourites for the World Cup? (Yes I know, it’s the punters not the market that are behaving irrationally).

3/ We’ve gone real time. We’re texting, twittering, facebooking like …. It’s all about ‘Now’. Admittedly Vodafone cottoned onto that a while ago but Samsung tapped into that nicely with ‘impatience is a virtue’

4/ Hash can be bad for your health – hash tags that is – as Habitat found out earlier in the year when trying to use coverage of the Iranian election to sell sofas.

5/ The success of a campaign can be judged on recall of a TV execution? That was the argument some experts made to explain why an ad by ‘Confused.com’ had performed better than one by ‘Compare the Market’. Missing the point I think when you see that Mr. Aleksandr Orlov now has well over 600K facebook fans.

6/ That being said, TV advertising is far from dead. Comcast proved that without question – simply genius

7/ There is more than one way to skin a cat. Or launch a new car. As VW showed with the Golf GTI in the US

8/ You really are only as good as your last burger. See Fallon + Sony + Balls.

9/ Baku is interesting the first time you visit. On each subsequent trip it is blustery, dusty and a long way from home. Bakcell were doing well when we left them though.

And finally, one other thing that I now know all too well:

10/ Nappies are easy. Not pleasant, but easy. Thanks for every one Avie x.

Richard Mabbott
Group Head of Planning
GyroHSR

In the second phase of our research, entitled “Minding the Eco-Gap”, we’d like to uncover what marketers currently think about the green consumer. Our questionnaire comprises of nice short questions that should take no longer than 10 minutes to complete.

You can complete the questionnaire by visiting http://green.gyrohsr.com

For every completed questionnaire, we will donate £1 to MacMillan Cancer Support.

By

Patrick Danaher
GyroHSR
Marketing Manager