B2B Marketing: Finding the missing link

B2B MARKETING

Taking an integrated marketing approach has become the norm for companies spruiking their wares to business clients. "Integrated marketing is no longer the exception, it is now the rule," according to a report by the Economist Intelligence Unit's business development department on the Ten Megatrends in B2B Marketing, which takes an in-depth look at the challenges facing marketing executives across the world.

The report published in 2008 showed more than 60% of the B2B firms surveyed currently manage and budget their marketing activities on an integrated basis, and forecast that the figure will rise to 75% over the next three to five years.

Integrated marketing is defined as the closer co-ordination in delivering your messages consistently across a range of communication channels such as face-to-face meeting, webcast or print advertisements. Increasingly, B2B companies are using digital channels such as microsites and blogs to reach wider audiences at a relatively low cost. Due to the interactive element of digital channels, companies are now given the opportunity to build executive communities and collaborate with target markets.

However, to what extent are B2B firms using digital or social media channels to reach business clients, and what other best practices are companies implementing to stand out from the crowd?

Christina Splinder, director of international corporate communications for Alibaba.com Hong Kong, claims the company's marketing approach is "truly integrated recognising the interoperability of each key component". The online marketplace for small and medium-sized (SME) companies to identify potential trading partners and conduct business uses a wide variety of marketing channels, from print and broadcast advertising, online such as display ads, rich media, social media and search engine optimisation (SEO), PR, trade shows, member events to training and promotional overlay that includes viral components.

Despite the downturn, Splinder says Alibaba has stepped up its marketing efforts by announcing that 2009 would be a year of investment and launched a US$30million global marketing campaign to acquire new buyers.

She says the downturn has made it possible to seek new opportunities this year. "In the case of advertising, we are able to keep our tactical plan in place while maximising the media expenditures since the media properties are much more apt to consider new types of agreements and even new types of ad units in today's market," Splinder says.

In addition to employing an integrated marketing strategy, Alibaba uses brand response tactics with a focus on call to action to allow for more effective campaign measurement while simultaneously building the brand. Splinder says the company uses multiple metrics to create a macro view of its results from buzz, formal surveys, engagement and response conversion to get a better picture of how and when its tactics are working.

Alibaba also believes in understanding and respecting its target audience to understand their needs, business cycle and motivations for using the online marketplace and then offer them the right services to help them thrive. Other best practices include educating business clients by providing rich business content, sharing industry intelligence and cultivating an active community where they can share experiences and learn from each other.

Additionally, the company uses social media to listen to relevant conversations and gain real-time feedback about product launches and keep its community abreast of upcoming events.

"It gives us a very real pulse check on how our users are feeling and what they're thinking about which in turn helps us better serve them," Splinder says.

The external social networking sites Alibaba uses include YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, while its own site hosts forums and other networking tools to allow members to interact and share their experiences and best practices with each other.

In the IT sector, computer chip maker Intel takes an integrated approach for marketing using various tactics and media to create relevance at the various stages of the sales funnel. In May this year the company took a different tack for its largest marketing investment in three years to launch its first brand campaign, anchored under the slogan of ‘Sponsors of Tomorrow', that rolled out across the globe and in major markets of Asia Pacific this month. Tim Bailey, Asia Pacific marketing director at Intel, says the campaign will incorporate creative for the business clients in the second half of the year.

Bailey explains the sales funnel begins with generating awareness and relevance through benefit-led assets. The tools used include print ads, word of mouth, social media, blogs, PR and major events such as Intel Developer Forum and Computex. The following phases of the sales funnel are education, consideration, evaluation and IT community engagement that are all targeted to highlight its product features and create deeper understanding of product benefits.

"A significant portion of our efforts are invested for the online medium to generate the highest ROI," Bailey says.

Intel also scales its marketing activities via indirect marketing with Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) and Independent Software Vendors (ISV) through joint marketing programs and market development funds.

Bailey says online, search engine marketing and webinars have always been part of Intel's integrated marketing approach over the past few years. To stay relevant in the ever changing marketing environment, the company constantly conducts market research and pilot programs to seek out optimal tactics and media to go-to market.

In the highly competitive IT industry, Bailey says the world of marketing is very complex and it's not a single tactic that can generate the best ROI for them. Intel uses an integrated approach "to drive synergistic benefits" using various tactics and media to work seamlessly together. It also uses blogs, e-newsletters, online seminars, live chat, interactive online games and viral marketing, and devised a point value system to measure the level of engagement its end customers experience with the Intel brand as a result of its digital marketing strategies.

3Com, an enterprise networking provider that sells to SMEs, has announced plans to aggressively expand its Chinese H3C subsidiary, driven by its leadership in China with more than 30% market share, into the rest of the world.

John Vincenzo, vice president for corporate marketing at 3Com, says H3C is geared towards larger enterprises targeting higher level executives. He advocates an integrated marketing campaign that involves industry analyst influencers, employees, public announcements, PR, social media such as Twitter and Facebook, a new website and a corporate blog by executives of the company.

Vincenzo says 3Com has positioned H3C as a fresh new brand that is "disruptive to the marketplace" challenging the traditional way that large enterprises do business by offering a lower total cost of ownership to energy efficiency and ease of management that are all focused on "driving customer intimacy".

However, he points out the biggest challenge is to ensure the branding and messaging is clear and concise, which can be customised for particular markets in various regions with the major elements remain consistent.

For Microsoft Advertising which targets Asia's advertising community, the company combines print, online engagement with community events to stay connected with its partners. This include regular contact with the region's trade media, providing seminars and sharing research insights aimed at reaching both existing and new clients.

Kenneth Andrew, marketing director for Microsoft Advertising, Greater Asia Pacific, says the company primarily sells inventory on social media sites and it needs to constantly share the latest products and services with marketers and media planners that are trying to understand and incorporate social media into their digital campaigns.

It is no surprise that Microsoft Advertising Asia Pacific has a Facebook page and shares its latest news via Twitter. Andrew believes one of the biggest ways social media can help the company is by extending their relationships.

"While we have regular contact with close clients and partners, by being involved in social networks like Facebook and Twitter we are reaching a new audience and engaging with them directly," he says.

When the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival kicks off in June, Andrew says Microsoft Advertising will make it a priority to share information with key stakeholders in Asia as many are unable to attend. He says the company will provide real time updates from the event via a new dedicated site posting photos and video links so that the community here in Asia can be a part of Cannes.

At Cable & Wireless Worldwide, the telecommunications company's marketing is skewed towards personalised, direct engagements with key decision makers from large MNCs within its customer and prospect organisations.

Nick Lambert, managing director of EMEA, Asia Pacific, India and the US for Cable & Wireless Worldwide, says that the nature of the business requires the company to look long-term, build lasting and trusted relationships - "which are still best done via traditional off-line models of marketing and customer engagement".

However, he says they are beginning to look at online platforms and tools too. In the B2B telecom and network space in particular, Narayan says social media is still a nascent tool and they're currently studying opportunities to use it as effective marketing tools. This is perhaps due to the company's challenge in providing customised solutions from its complex, bespoke offerings that makes it a difficult proposition to communicate via marketing in general.

Narayan says what works extremely well for the market are the regular council sessions, round-table discussions and industry analyst driven engagements that the company organises. He adds that all parties find value in such sessions as they get to hear from their customers how to better serve them and help meet their business needs, while customers share and learn from industry peers and informed industry analysts.

In wholesale banking Elizabeth Armstrong, global head of marketing wholesale for Standard Chartered Bank, says what you market to clients is predominantly your people - their expertise, knowledge of the clients' business and deep domain knowledge of the markets in which the clients and the bank operates.

The main forms of marketing for Standard Chartered are day-to-day interactions between clients and employees supplemented by sales support materials, proprietary events, sponsored events, advertising in trade and mainstream press, online and TV, hospitality and media.

Armstrong says the bank's business strategy and marketing tactics have remained unchanged in light of the economic crisis. It continues to organise business events and advertising more online with media owners creating applications for iphones and Blackberries that the bank is testing out.

She reiterates that the most effective marketing tactic is its front line - the people who interact with clients everyday. Historically, the bank has not invested a huge amount of money in making an overt message via advertising and media to tell clients how it wants to be perceived.

"This has all been delivered by our people and based on the fact we are one of the most successful international banks in the market today, I'd have to say that's an excellent marketing ROI," Armstrong says.

While industry-focused marketing channels such as participating in trade shows, industry websites, trade magazines and organising customer events are common forms of B2B marketing, Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL) invests heavily in corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives such as sponsoring arts and cultural events as well as environmental care.

Stephanie Lin, corporate event and promotion manager for OOCL, says the shipping and logistics company supports the arts and leisure industries and regularly assists with providing transport and logistics solutions to large international theater productions. For example, it was the official ocean carrier for the Cats musical by moving the stage sets and ensuring that the supplies arrive on time at every destination from Australia to Taiwan, Korea, Thailand and China for performances in 2007 and 2008 as well as the forthcoming performances this year.

The company also dedicates resources for wider environmental efforts from reducing emissions, promoting environmental care to conserving resources. In recent years, Lin says the company has focused less on mass media and more on industry focused channels such as trade shows, magazines and industry websites as well as organise customer events to strengthen client relations including seminars and luncheons. For digital channels, there is increasing focus on its corporate website to keep it updated on customer service sales and marketing content. However, social media is an area they actively monitor but have not used it on a strategic level.

Jolene Tan, senior business analyst for Synovate Business Consulting, observes that large MNCs or smaller outfits use social media such as business blogs, Twitter or Facebook to reach people, but thinks there is media hype on Web 2.0 that is reserved to more tech savvy customers.

Tan says the downturn has caused B2B firms to become more stringent where they spend their marketing dollars and to consider downgrading channels or re-evaluate marketing budget allocation. For instance, some are re-evaluating their investment with Google Adsense and search marketing to see if these are effective channels to generate good leads.

She adds some business clients are overwhelmed by the number of webinars and conferences early this year and advises companies to have compelling topics or "you'll just be generating noise and that's not positive marketing". However, she expects B2B firms to hold more events to keep in touch with old clients to generate business leads and "keep relationship warm without resorting to hardsell".

Tan says the biggest challenge for B2B marketers is to understand what clients look for when choosing a B2B service.

"It boils down to knowing their client profile types well like where do they learn their messages and which channels are important such as dailies, email or a good website that appeals to B2B clients."

Her concern for companies that jump on the social media bandwagon such as Twitter might struggle to have an idea of how company-centric they should be in they put in their tweets or Facebook pages. Tan says companies need to consider if they are just tweeting about their products and services or should they be talking about the industry in general.

"If people choose not to follow anymore, you just lose your audience," she warns.

According to a B2B marketing on social networks report from e-Marketer, marketers will spend US$80million in the US this year to advertise to a business audience on online social networks. The report states that B2B marketers are reconsidering the social network environment as more business people join LinkedIn with Facebook becoming a de facto business network.

It expects marketers to spend far more over the next few years to create and manage their own social networks for business customers, partners, suppliers and vendors.

Douglas White, founder for social media agency Prosperity Research, admits Asia tends to lag behind US and Europe when using social media in business marketing. White believes Asia has not picked up significantly in social media marketing yet as the region is risk adverse and prefers to adopt a "wait and see" attitude. Once success is proven in other regions, these practices and processes will be more readily adopted for local use.

White is confident that the same factors that propelled social media in the B2C sector will have similar impact on the B2B sector very shortly as the financial downturn requires business to be more aggressive, innovative and budget conscious to maintain sales.

He points out a key misconception about social media would be its confusion with B2C viral marketing.

"Businesses may not want to be associated with silly videos and ads or be seen as frivolous by spending time on places like MySpace and Facebook but they may think that this is what social media marketing is."

CASE STUDY

Servcorp's ‘Three Keys to Success'

social media campaign

Brief

The aim of the blog was to increase brand awareness globally, build market recognition of Hong Kong and China as a desirable location for trade, create a buzz and essentially drive traffic to its website.

The target demographic consist of SME business professionals aged 30 to 55, degree educated from geographical regions such as Europe, America, London and Australia.

Campaign elements

The idea behind the message of the social media campaign came about by identifying the demographics of its client base and recognising their concerns and address these concerns openly via a forum.

Servcorp clients often have their head office in other countries and utilise its services when expanding overseas. Moving to a new country posts more challenges then simply setting up an office.

The Servcorp "Three Keys to Success" utilised thought leaders in specific industries to give advice, guidance and their personal three keys suggestions that could assist future individuals moving to Asia and ensure a smooth transitional period.

The campaign was executed via short two minute videos posted on a blog between November 2008 to January 2009 with supporting literature of Industry Leaders from the areas of recruitment, finance, property, security and business registration.

Results

In total the campaign received more than 1,200 hits on the blog, 10,000 video views and 186 selected social sites hosted its video with a minimum of 1,186 postings.

The campaign has helped increased brand awareness and Servcorp is currently analysing statistics to investigate in a full scale campaign for the Asia Pacific region.