How to use Google Adwords as more than just a way to pay the two-hour parking meter

Filed under Case Study by Kate Brodock on 11 December 2009 at 15:22 {no comments}

I normally don’t like to repeat content, but I wrote a post earlier this week over at Other Side Group on when to start using Google Adwords for their B2B company website. Since some sort of pay-for advertising is pretty run-of-the-mill in many B2B industries, this ends up being an interesting topic.

The case company had a very old, static, and simple website that hadn’t changed in five years, has old and weak SEO, had no metrics or analytics installed or was any web activity being tracked….. yet they were still paying a large hunk of money each month for PPC ads.

So what do they do while they’re redoing their website? Do they stop Adwords?

I use the following analogy:

They’re simply paying the meter to reserve a parking spot, and hope they don’t have a cop come around and write them a ticket or tow the car away. Because that’s what would happen the minute they stopped paying the meter if they’d relied on their existing website.  The Adwords are only giving them short-term benefits while they’re still paying.

What we’re working towards is building their own parking lot where they won’t have to worry about paying the meter: An architecturally strong website, with sophisticated SEO, continually updated content, metrics in place to determine how people are accessing and using the site, and developing more paths for people to get there.

It’s about creating a strong, long-term foundation through an architecturally sound website (SEO, keywords… all that good stuff) and only then supplementing it with the short-term gains felt by PPC.

You can find the full discussion here, and I’ll be sure to update you as we move through the process.

What have been your experiences with Google Adwords?

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B2B Case Study: ShipServ

Filed under Case Study by Kate Brodock on 29 April 2009 at 12:27 {6 comments}

The social media program that this case study is based upon was a joint effort between ShipServ and Velocity Partners, a London-based B2B Marketing agency specializing in technology markets.

So what works for a B2B company? Let’s start by taking a look at a campaign that’s been pretty successful so far. This campaign was driven by John Watton, the VP of Marketing for ShipServ, an internet trading platform for the shipping industry. ShipServ has a global audience and a dispersed community of purchasers who are, believe it or not, quite eager to network.

Goals of the campaign:

  • Raise the awareness of the ShipServ brand amongst our target audience
  • Increase traffic to shipserv.com by 50% in three months
  • Engage with the audience and start to build community

Challenges faced:

  • Limited budget
  • Conservative target audience, late to adopting the internet and Web2.0 technologies

ShipServ’s Strategy:

  • Build an online community of advocates
  • Move communications from broadcast to discussion, engaging the audience in ongoing,open dialogue
  • Nurture prospects through drip feed of relevant content
  • Establish key themes on a quarterly basis, and develop rolling thunder of editorial content

Tactics Used:

  • Launch of the ShipServ Maritime Trading Network Group on LinkedIn in December 2008
  • Joined five other maritime groups on LinkedIn
  • Launch of the ShipServ blog as a container for opinion pieces
  • Opened up a twitter account, taking direct feeds from the website
  • Undertook keyword planning, optimized the website and developed landing pages for SEO
  • Revamped company newsletter to be more point-of-view oriented
  • Distributed humorous viral video

  • Underpinned site with lead nurturing system (marketo) to track visitor behaviour and nurture leads
  • Developed six themes, each of which manifested itself in:
    • A discussion posting on the LinkedIn groups
    • A social media release, distributed via PitchEngine
    • A blog posting

Results:

Building the community

  • Built a community of nearly 400 on LinkedIn
  • Attracted nearly 300 visitors to blog postings
  • Attracted over 50 relevant followers on Twitter
  • Over 600 views of the viral video, 62% of which came via email distribution and 18% via shipserv.com/linkedin distribution

Web site stats:

  • Visitors went up by 59% (increase in quantity)
  • Page views went up by 70% (increase in quality)
  • Average time on site went up by 25% (increase in quality)
  • Linkedin and Twitter went from zero to being in top 20 traffic sources
  • Number of leads passed to sales increased by 400%

This is a great example of using social media as a low cost way to build brand awareness and encourage engagement in a B2B space. Ship Serv, and John Watton, are instituting pioneering strategies with social media in a what is usually considered a pretty conservative industry.

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