This guest post comes from Lysa Miller, Partner and VP of Sales & Marketing at Ladybugz Interactive Agency.
Your business-to-business campaign takes on a different form when implementing paid search. Optimizing a strategy to integrate paid efforts within your current digital marketing plan requires careful planning and research.
There are many helpful tips to explore that encourage integrating a successful paid search campaigns to your B2B marketing efforts.
Potential Mistakes With Digital Marketing Strategy
Before you start a paid search campaign, it’s important to look at your current digital marketing strategy to make sure the elements you have in place are in line with what you need for an effective paid digital campaign. Since you are paying for each click, you need to make sure that your goals align with what a user expects when clicking on your ad.
Some of these mistakes could include not aligning your content keyword strategy with your PPC strategy, keyword guessing and improper keyword research, not having proper landing pages to accommodate paid keyword phrases, not identifying what the competition is doing or spending or a poor user-experience on your website that hinder your desired goals.
If your current plan is lacking the key elements that provide for a successful PPC campaign, your paid campaign could a waste of time and money.
User Content
In the development of your paid strategy, it's important to truly understand your users. Only 41% of executives are using engagement techniques for advising a marketing strategy. Your customer engagement is what keeps your customers coming back. Familiarize yourself with a variety of user search methods. This helps you understand user behavior and intent behind search phrases. This is also where you should consider the action that you're intending for your user. Search for "how to" phrases or reviews of the service/project to get an idea of what's being searched. Use simple, friendly language while focusing on customers' experiences.
Remarket to Your Traffic
Another excellent way to drive paid search in your B2B digital marketing strategy is targeting specific clients who frequent your site. Instead of reaching everyone, reach out to those looking for what you offer. For example, if a customer visits your site for plumbing-related content, you want to remarket an ad for plumbing. Another great avenue is video. You can speak directly to customers by engaging in their needs through video content.
Ad Copy
Not everyone searches the same way, using the same keywords. You may want to revise your ad copy by adding another filter strictly for companies when that is the direction of your business. You may stick with keywords that suggest "transform your business" or "your business...." Bidding on your brand costs less in the long run and closes any opportunity for competitors.
Quality of Your Leads
While it's nice to see those generated paid leads, you can be doing a bit more to check their status and quality. If you can sync your CRM (customer relationship management) with your paid advertising, you can see what is or isn't generating.
Utilize Google Analytics
If you haven't used Google Analytics as a digital marketing strategy for your business, you may want to familiarize yourself now. Your Google AdWords and Google Analytics should be linked to allow you to view your site's metrics and see where you stand and what needs changing. This feature also plays a role in seeing how long viewers stay on your site and what your bounce rate looks like.
Explore Your Options
Chances are that competitors will come across your tactics and drive up the cost per click, which will eventually drive up the cost per conversion. For a successful paid strategy, it's imperative to explore your options for multiple advertising venues. Social platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram are beneficial for customers to find the target business professional and locate your personal brand. Your business is changing and so is the marketing industry, which means some other network might work better for you than the one you're currently using. Don't resist the ad networks or tactics that may help you in the long run.
Don't Go It Alone
You may feel that you and your in-house team have it under control, and maybe you do, to an extent. But your leads may stop converting, and things start to snowball into other issues. Don't let logistics of PPC steer you in a negative direction. If your campaign stays dormant (no involvement at all), you could end up wasting money in the end. This also leaves room for your competitors! Trust a marketing team to give you the full support and guidance with your B2B marketing.
Are you ready to take your digital marketing strategy to the next level? Maybe you agree that the above list is what's lacking for your business. When looking to integrate paid search into your B2B marketing, a PPC specialist can help you turn your brand into successful leads.
