By John Robbins, Account Executive, Anvil Media, Inc.
According to Business.com, on average, 13 different people within an enterprise level organization touch a purchasing decision before final approval. Even within mid size companies, those 13 people are likely spread throughout the organization horizontally, and, even more so, vertically. Because of this, only targeting upper level management is a short sighted and typically ineffective model for advertising for a B2B provider. By understanding how each level of an organization searches for your solution you can effectively target multiple management levels by advertising to their needs, desires, and wants.
Middle Management
This is the level of a company where most pain points for day-to-day operations come to a head. Because of this, these managers are likely to perform searches that are solutions based and are attempting to solve a specific problem.
How do they search?
For example, your company is offering document management software solutions and a potential customer is experiencing issues with processing document approvals efficiently. A mid-level manager may not be familiar with industry jargon or terms and instead performs a query for “help with document approvals”. This is a very broad query as they may not even be aware there is a software solution out there to search for.
How do you reach them?
Unless you are using broad match, in your PPC efforts, on a term like “document approval” you would miss this impression and this initial touch opportunity. Using the search query tools provided can help you ensure you are not missing opportunities at a broad match/very general keyword level.
Also, these searchers are seeking education and solutions. The messaging and landing pages for these keywords should reflect this need. While seeking information, this level of management is less likely to provide contact information as they often do not desire or feel comfortable being the original contact point. However, that doesn’t mean you should not track how they interact with the site. Tracking paid visitors that used these keywords and creating specific KPI’s for them can help ensure your first impression is a good one. While these visitors may not convert often, understanding and tracking how they interact with the site is still important and they should be given specific KPI’s that track their on-site engagement through metrics such as time on site and page/visit.
Upper Management
When a need for a solution to a problem reaches this level of management, it usually is receiving some significant attention by the organization. However, the focus will be on product specific queries as they will already been given a list of 2, maybe 3, options of solutions with recommendations potentially already made. While using jargon can be a dangerous proposition in marketing, if the search volume is there, there is no reason not to go after it as long as the messaging is not overloaded with it. Besides jargon, more specific industry terms will also fall into this bucket as upper level management will either have, or have been given, information/research about these terms.
How do they search?
This level of manager doesn’t have the time or even the need to research solutions based keywords (as this has already been completed). Where lower management is often seeking solutions to specific problems, upper management makes the shift to searching for the products that provide these solutions. Instead of searching for “help with document approvals”, upper level managers will search for “document management software”. These types of keywords are likely your current bread and butter for generating leads and this is for good reason – you are now speaking to those who are decision makers and instigate conversation with potential vendors.
In addition to product specific keywords, these folks will also use branded searches to quickly find the site for review. Ensuring your branded campaigns are properly optimized and the ad messaging is speaking to the big picture solution your company provides will help to ensure these final searches are effective. For example, say an Information System Manager participated in your webcast and is the initial lead, remember they have likely passed that information on to at least 2-3 other people that will be involved with the decision and they are now searching via branded terms (either company or products).
How do you reach them?
As the goal of this keyword group is to have a high conversion rate, focusing on providing options to convert will allow the highest opportunity to produce a viable lead. This level of management is where real lead generation begins and the conversion points should reflect this by collecting as much contact information as possible through a wide range of capture points on the site – webcasts, downloads, white papers, sign-up forms, etc.
While this strategy focuses on tracking keywords based on management level, don’t forget about the content network. This strategy can be augmented to target placements based on what each level of management is reading online.
Now, I am not recommending you change how your PPC accounts are organized as this method is about tracking keywords and their reach and effectiveness at driving the next touch point. What this really comes down to is Attribution – tracking your many touch points within an organization using broad terms to reach mid-management, using product and branded terms for upper management and high level executives. By understanding why each management level is searching for your solutions and providing a targeted message to each, you can ensure your brand is presented to each level of the decision making process.
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John Robbins is an Account Executive at Anvil Media, Inc. John graduated from Portland State University with a BS in Marketing. John has been working with Anvil Media in Portland since 2008. John has extensive experience with both B2B and B2C clients, specializing in developing SEO, social media, and PPC strategy to increase client visibility and ROI.
