B2B Internet
Marketing: How it
applies to
the B2B sector

Competitive Internet marketing for B2B industries: A factual opportunity or a hoax?

Internet marketing is a much misunderstood subject and, to some degree justifiably, a despised area of expertise as well.

Negativity toward Internet marketing stems from a small number of people who send out millions of unsolicited e-mails daily with not necessarily very well planned messages.

These about 200 people work for what's known as "affiliate commission" — you sign to be an affiliate of some site selling something, receive your own web address that identifies you so that every time someone clicks YOUR link and buys, the site owner will pay you a commission.

The "logic" in this unsolicited bulk mailing is that if you send out a million messages then there's bound to be a few who are new to the Internet and susceptible to this type of advertising.

So they send 20 million e-mails a day in order to receive a handful of sales, each perhaps 15-30 dollars.

That's not Internet marketing. It's unsolicited e-mailing which is not only destructive to any existing company but also illegal.

So, with that said, let's look at some of the legal and useful techniques of Internet marketing.

B2B Internet Marketing: A free information web site

First and most important of all Internet marketing tools is to establish a web site that has lots of content in form of free articles on the subject of your expertise.

This is a web site created solely for the purpose of PROSPECTING:

To offer a lot of useful information which produces many realisations in the reader, educates them discreetly into understanding your products / services better and sets them up to demand the KIND of qualities you offer.

This two-pronged approach to web design — having TWO sites, one which is the traditional and visually impressive company site, the other being a PROSPECTING site — is discussed in detail in the article "B2B web design — the two-pronged online strategy" elsewhere on our site.

Without this type of prospecting site containing LOTS of articles, you cannot really conduct any effective marketing on the Internet. Such a prospecting site is necessary to act as the source of information where you DIRECT all the visitors your Internet marketing pulls in.

So that's the first thing to set up, after which come the other Internet marketing techniques.

B2B Internet Marketing: Posting articles on related B2B online forums

One of the most useful techniques of Internet marketing for B2B companies is posting articles on forums which are frequented by the clientele of your industry.

First one must find these forums, of course. Next, one must join them so you can post articles.

And then comes the important part:

You need to write articles that conform with the rules of that forum AND are of interest to their visitors... and then sign your articles with your URL so that those who want can follow the link to your web site.

The general rules of what you can post on such forums involve the length of the post (some allow only 2,000 characters, for instance) and, more importantly, a distinct forbiddance of ADVERTISING your services.

You cannot promote your services or your products, in other words... or else your article will not get posted and you may even be banned from the site.

So what then?

Well, you need to give useful tips to your readers so that they find your text interesting and beneficial.

You aim at acknowledging their hard work, bringing forth a viewpoint that AGREES with your readers and generally aspire to offer information they will consider valuable and positive.

Make their work easier. Make their viewpoints right by agreeing with them, take responsibility for the mistakes made by your whole industry and work towards positioning yourself as "the exception that proves the rule..."

See. Whatever negative generalisations and fixed ideas they have about your industry will NOT get handled in one article. That would be an educational task of huge proportions lasting decades... and why would you do it anyhow?

You need to let them KEEP their preconceptions and simply AGREE with them in order to make them see you are "the exception."

This all while you ensure that your article includes enough food for thought WHILE not stepping on any "know-best-expert's" toes... and all this must be achieved without negativity or putting down the competition... and in a positive frame of mind!

Now you see that it's not that straightforward to write these articles. It takes some learning but, once you can do it or have someone else do it for you then it will produce a lot of interest toward your services.

B2B Internet Marketing: Offering articles to other sites & newsletters

Find web sites that offer articles on your subject.

Locate online newsletters that welcome well-written articles to help them fill their weekly quota of interesting content for their publication.

Then just write articles more or less the same way as if you posted them onto a forum.

The difference is that here you can take a more open and direct approach as the authority of the publisher will help you avoid criticism and drive home the message.

B2B Internet Marketing: A link exchange programme

Every successful web site has an extensive link exchange programme.

This simply means that they actively search the web for RELATED sites and suggest the exchange of links to these.

There are two reasons for this.

The obvious reason is that your target group will find those related sites and then hopefully follow the link there pointing to your site. Thus, having a lot of links pointing to your site on related web sites will produce a continuous flow of targeted visitors.

The less-obvious point of a link exchange programme involves search engine listings. The main search engines evaluate the RELEVANCE of (those tens of thousands of) web pages that fit a search according to several aspects, one of which is "link popularity."

Link popularity means "how many related sites have posted a link pointing to your web site?"

Let me explain. The Internet is really a library and search engines look for web pages that have INFORMATION and, above all, RELEVANCE (of meaningful substance) to the subject for which people search on the search engines.

The thinking is that the more related sites link to you, the more important your INFORMATION is considered by your "industry."

With "industry" here we mean "web sites whose contents relate to yours in one way or another."

Essentially, search engines prefer web pages that contain a lot of relevant information considered valuable by those who also have web sites in that same subject matter.

All right, this is a huge subject and I've actually written several manuals on it, so we are forced to remain very brief here.

But you see why lots of content works for Internet marketing, right?

And that's why openly commercial web pages (which really are but a form of "online brochures") do NOT achieve high placing on search engine listings. These pages contain very little text and usually have no links pointing to them... and they're also not optimized for specific search terms.

A workable link exchange programme would start on YOUR site in that it would need to have a link page and another page for leaving their link-exchange suggestion.

B2B Internet Marketing: Optimizing your site for search engines

This subject is discussed elsewhere on our site in more detail so I won't go deep into it here.

In brief, search engine optimization (aka "SEO") is the art of finding which key words / search terms are most popular (searched for by most people on the search engines) and then optimizing each of your web pages for ONE such term (or one main term while also using some of the most common secondary terms for the same thing AND the most common misspellings).

Now, usually when a professional web designer creates your site they don't even KNOW about SEO let alone bother try optimizing your pages.

In fact, many (visually gorgeous and technically impressive) B2B web sites don't even have their web pages NAMED, let alone that there would be a 200-character page content description (both as the first thing on that page AND in the HTML "head" content meta tag) which would appear under the page name when listed by a search engine.

Thus, if the page was ever found in a search, its name would be "Untitled" and the following 200-character description would be whatever is first on the site OR some cryptic code... totally intelligible for the viewer, in other words.

(You can check this yourself by opening one of your web pages and looking at the top of your browser where the page name is visible. Does it have a name... or does it say "Untitled document?")

Of course, none of this really matters IF your web pages have little content which isn't optimized for any search terms.

It matters not because IF the page is listed at all then it will be something like number 2,255 in order of relevance of all the (one million or so) pages that a search lists.

It matters not even if you're number 50 or even 31 since usually people click a page link that comes up among the first 10-20 pages.

Unless you can get among those then your page won't be found.

If you can get it listed among the top 10 or 20 then it is VITAL that the page headline AND content description make the person choose YOUR page as the first one or among the first he visits.

B2B Internet Marketing: Putting it all together so it works

On top of these there are many Internet marketing & search engine optimization techniques and tricks.

However, think carefully before assigning the optimization or marketing of your site to a company or a freelancer.

You do NOT want them to use various gimmicks to TRICK the search engines into placing your site higher.

That's because such tricks have a very short lifespan, and soon enough, your site drops out of the ratings.

But most importantly, there's little point in spending money or exerting energy to drive visitors to your site if the SITE ITSELF does not DELIVER.

The web page must grab the visitor's attention, it must DELIVER what you promise in your listing (page headline + content description) and it must offer something NEW and worthwhile for the visitor to REMAIN on your site.

In the final analysis, whether or not you secure factual RESULTS (in form of new prospective clients) is down to what your WEB PAGE (and the site) does.

So don't be fooled into paying good money for gimmicks. In B2B Internet marketing, it really is a question of "all or nothing." Otherwise, you may well end up paying for lowering the image of your company...

Start with creating a web site that offers lots of free articles... and base these on certainty of knowledge about the viewpoints of your target group, acquired by conducting a proper market research survey.

That's the best policy, one that will produce results continually.

B2B Internet Marketing: 24/7 marketing to a constantly grown audience at no cost

Before dismissing Internet marketing for B2B companies, consider the fact that the Internet is already the biggest communication medium for the B2B sector and its traditional role is "source of free information."

To put it plainly, there are more members of your target group on the Internet than you could find anywhere else... and that's continuous and at any time of the day.

They're looking for FREE INFORMATION online. That's the purpose of Internet and that's why people go online... to find useful and free information.

So... why not utilize this forum and GIVE them what they want?

It's free. It's there 24/7, available at all times.

It could really change your marketing forever.

If you're interested to find out how your web site conforms with the basics of Internet marketing, why not check out our Internet Marketing & Search Engine Optimization Analysis to see what that could offer you?

And if traditional marketing is more interesting at this point, click here to read the introduction of our B2B Success Marketing Analysis which could open new ways to bring your services and/or products onto the B2B market.

Give Internet marketing some thought. Implemented wisely, it has the power to do a lot of good for your company... and those who get in NOW will secure the advantage!

Best wishes,

Harry Kafka
HDK Consultants Ltd
32 Manning Close
Richmond Square
East Grinstead RH19 2DR
West Sussex, United Kingdom
Tel. 01342-328 116
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