B2B search marketing has changed how businesses interact with their customers. For example, instead of calling or sending handwritten thank you notes (still good ideas by the way), a firm may send an e-gift card or an email.
But, there is one thing that rules when it comes to customer service – making it personal. Following are two ideas on how to use video to do that in this high-tech, B2B search engine marketing world.

B2B Search Marketing: If You’re Not On YouTube, You’re Missing Out

YouTube is just five years old, but earlier this year it surpassed the 2 billion video views per day mark. Two billion!
Use this to your advantage to personalize – and broadcast– your message to your customers. For example, you can do a “Weekly Specials” broadcast; a “Daily Tips” broadcast, or a “Monthly Deals” broadcast. Instead of sending out a staid old email, send a video cast. It gets your voice in front of your customers.

As any B2B search marketing expert will tell you, customers who come to know, like and trust you buy more from you. Personalizing your messages in this manner completes this cycle that much sooner.

B2B Search Engine Marketing Made Easy: Create a Tutorial

Another way to use video effectively is to create tutorials and/or videos that offer more in-depth information about your product or service.

The vast majority of consumers – as high as 88% depending on the niche and/or product/service they’re interested in buying – conduct online research before making a purchase. The more info you give them, the better chance you have of making a sale.

What better way to do this than via video – which is one of the easiest B2B search engine marketing strategies you can use to get more traffic and sales.

Want to get the inside scoop on B2B Search and Social Media Marketing? Join the b2b Search Strategy Summit  fast approaching on June 23 in San Francisco, CA.

PPC Summit is gearing up for the b2b Search Strategy Summit  – an all-star lineup of B2B Marketing’s best to lead the intensive, full day of strategy sessions set for San Francisco on June 23, 2010. Top B2B Marketing Strategists will share best practices and proven lead generating techniques in the forefront of B2B marketing including; Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Online PR, Social Media and Blogging strategies. Senior level B2B Marketers are invited to join this exclusive one day Summit to learn the necessary steps to take their Search Marketing, Online PR, Social Media and Blog strategies to the next level. Attendees will have exclusive access to insider B2B industry trends including buying behavior habits that will cut the lengthy B2B sales cycles.

“It’s crucial for B2B Marketers to understand buyer behaviours and how online marketing is influencing buying decisions,” said Gord Hotchkiss, CEO of Enquiro. “Attendees will hear first hand our latest B2B market study results on buying practices from the BuyerSphere project, and they will learn the most important takeaways on how B2B marketers should be leveraging online assets.”

b2b Search Strategy Summit All-Star Session Line-up

Morning Keynote: Welcome to the BuyerSphere
by Gord Hotchkiss, CEO, Enquiro
Hotchkiss will share insights on B2B buyers and their buying practices garnered from the “BuyersSphere” project. Attendees will learn amazing B2B lessons that they can adapt and apply to their business immediately.

Afternoon Keynote: Future of B2B Search Marketing
by Jay Middleton, Senior Manager Worldwide Search Marketing, Adobe
Middleton will address B2B Search Marketing campaign metrics and measurement, examples of mapping keywords to lead scoring and how sales can utilize search and keyword insights for lead qualification improvements.

Case Study Session: Hear From B2B Peers, Learn Their Secretes to Success
Attendees will hear from the expert panel as they explore B2B client case studies that achieved top results, exceeded client goals and increased ROI– incredibly effective in benchmarking against competitors.

Expert Hot Seat Most Pressing B2B Search Questions Answered:
Uncover the biggest marketing challenges b2b marketers face — converting leads to sales, measuring and justifying SEM and Social Media budgets, integrating Online PR and Social Media and more.

Seating is limited to 150 senior marketing professionals. Regsiter now and save $300 at
b2b Search Strategy Summit.

Everyone has inherent traits that affect their job performance. Before you wonder if you’ve landed on the right blog (yes, this blog is about pay per click marketing), let’s explain how this can help – or hurt – your Google AdWords PPC marketing success.

For example, if you’re super competitive, you may have to do some ego checking at the door. Why? Because it can cause you to get into a bidding war – not because the keyword phrases are the absolute best ones for you to use – but because you want to command the top spot on Google.

This not only costs you time and money, it can cost you Pay Per Click sales as well. How? As stated in the post, Recession-Proof Your Pay Per Click Campaigns:

. . . research has proven that being number one isn’t necessarily the best spot to be in. . . . Because you get  a lot of curiosity seekers who’ll click on ads in this spot. An ad in the third, fourth or even the fifth spot can convert [even] better.

Luckily, Google’s Pay Per Click program makes it easy for you to control costs. If you do your part (eg, controlling inherent impulses that can lead to negative campaign results), Google does the rest by giving you tools like:

(i) the ability to set a daily ad budget so you never have to worry about overspending;
(ii) in-depth reports to track how your campaigns are going; and
(iii) and the ability to start, stop and/or change your ad campaigns at any given moment.

This is what makes pay per click marketing with Google an ideal choice for new and experienced online retailers.

To learn more about how to fast-track your AdWords success, attend the AdWords Advantage free preview webinar on March 2 to learn money-making tips from the experts!

The title of this post sounds like an oxymoron, we know. But we’ll explain why it’s really not. You really can use your Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign to drive free traffic to your site.

Successful Affiliate Marketer Explains How Pay Per Click Marketing Drives Free Traffic
No matter how much money you invest in pay per click marketing, only a certain percentage of it will come from these efforts. Now, it may be significant, for sure. For example, one successful affiliate marketer says that about 60% of her traffic comes from PPC advertising.

She goes on to explain that she uses PPC to drive traffic to her sites initially. And then, something amazing happens. She says that once you drive traffic using this paid method, the search engines stand up and take notice of your site. The reason is simple – search engines pay attention to sites that get traffic; they rank them higher.

Now, it’s like that success feeds on itself. Once you start to get traffic, search engines notice. Once search engines notice, they rank your site higher – which means it gets even more traffic.

This last part is significant because it means you start showing up higher in organic traffic results – ie, getting free traffic.

The bottom line — even with a small budget, pay per click marketing is a great way to start getting traffic to your site. As discussed here, this initial push can get you on the path to getting free (ie, organic) traffic.

Many pay per click marketing consultants speak of keywords as a monolithic group. They’re not. Here, we discuss two types and why you should know about them: branded and non-branded keywords.

What are Branded Keywords? Branded keywords are those keywords associated with a particular brand, eg, Nike, Gatorade.

What You Should Know about Branded Keywords to Improve Your Pay Per Click Results

While branded keywords are most often used towards the latter part of the buying cycle, how and when you use them will depend heavily on your business model.

These are usually the highest converting keywords – and have the highest value.

Note: Don’t use branded keywords just for the sake of pulling in traffic. You could be wasting money if they don’t convert. So, make sure that it fits within your marketing model.

What are Non-Branded Keywords? Quite simply, these are keywords not associated with a brand. They are industry-specific. For example, if your company produced a well-known electric car, say the GreenMobile I, then some non-branded keywords for that would be “electric car” or “energy efficient car.”

What You Should Know about Non-Branded Keywords Increase Your PPC ROI

Non-branded keywords are an excellent way to bring in “inquiring minds,” or potentially first-time customers. They allow you to build your brand. This is because if someone doesn’t know your brand specifically, by using non-branded keywords, they can find you via terms that relate to your industry.
If you’re not using non-branded keywords, you’re missing out on a lot of traffic.

Non-branding Keyword Research Tip: To find the best ones, research the language that your target audience uses when conducting searches. Knowing this will allow you to choose high-traffic, high-converting keywords.

The bottom line: Branded and non-branded keywords are important to your pay per click marketing efforts. Knowing when to use which can significantly increase your PPC results.

The reason Pay Per Click advertising is so popular is that everyone can do it – with a budget as little as $50 or $100 (or less). But, not all clicks are created equal. Some can cost mere pennies, while others can go for tens or hundreds of dollars each.

So, how do you determine how much you want to spend per click? Well, it’s an art.

Pay Per Click Marketing: 2 Tips on How to Spend Little and Gain Big

Budget: Start with the amount in your budget to determine how many clicks you can get. For example, if you have a $100 per month budget and you bid on a keyword that is 25 cents per click, then you can afford 400 clicks per month.

If you bid on a keyword that is $5, then you can only get 20 clicks. So obviously, the larger your budget the more clicks you can afford. And, this is why you’ll always see the big boys at the top. You won’t be able to outbid them.

Now comes the cool part though that does allow you to spend a little, and still gain a lot.

Position Smartly: As in, don’t even shoot for being number one. As we discussed in the post, Pay Per Click Marketing: 3 Tips for Quicker Results, “research has proven that being number one isn’t necessarily the best spot to be in . . .because you get a lot of curiosity seekers who’ll click on ads in this spot. . . . [but won’t buy].”

This wastes money.

The best strategy is to position yourself high enough to bypass the tire kickers, while keeping your cost per click as low as possible. In order to do this, you have to know which keywords to use to get you in this “sweet spot.” It’s an art, and takes time and testing, but well worth learning. 

At PPC Summit, we teach you this and a whole lot more about how to be successful as a pay per click marketer.

We’re excited to introduce the Pay Per Click (PPC) Summit blog where we’ll offer successful strategies and insider techniques for Search Engine Marketing (SEM) best practices on Google Adwords, MSN adCenter and all the search engines. PPC Summit is the leading SEM conference that delivers two days of educational training for online marketers eager to learn how to reach the most customers at the lowest cost per click. Now, we will connect you with SEM hot topics, expert advice, education and training through our blog coverage.

We invite those who truly want to learn the facets of successful Search Engine Marketing and stay abreast on PPC trends and strategies to participate in our blog. Our goal is to provide How-To guidance and tools to increase your internet marketing results. We look forward to sharing exclusive Search Engine Marketing and Pay Per Click information, answering your questions and providing exclusive strategies to ensure higher campaign results!

To Your Success,
Mary O’Brien, PPC Summit Founder

PPC Summit, Search Engine Marketing Conference, founder Mary O’Brien and the PPC Summit expert trainers have educated thousands of online marketers around the U.S. during two days of SEM training sessions covering case studies, best practices, client tactics, test results and strategies for successful campaign management. We look forward to seeing you at the next PPC Summit in LA on Sept. 25-26, 2008!

PPCSummit.com

More Clicks. Higher Conversions. Insider Secrets.

Register now for Los Angeles, Sept 25 – 26, 2008