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B2B Advertising Going Increasingly Online

B-to-B Magazine: Outsell: B-to-b digital ad revenue to top print revenue by 2009 – The report said b-to-b print revenue is expected to account for 34.3% of total b-to-b media revenue in 2009, compared with a 38.6% share for digital products. Events are expected to account for 27.1% of total revenue.

If you haven’t already, you should consider putting more of your advertising budget online. This data is from advertisers, but the Internet is already the type of media used the most often at work and where decision-making buyers turn for more information and research. You want to be where your customers are – online.

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B2B Tagging

You’ve seen the tags that you can add to your Flickr pictures, YouTube videos, blog posts, submissions to Digg, etc. These are important because they change how we can find and use information:

Why is tagging important? Because you no longer to have to “file” information in one “folder.” Information can be tagged with multiple keywords or keyphrases and then “exists” within these multiple places. Usually you can search for information based on words included within it, meta information (usually invisible information used to describe the type of information), and the keywords. This allows multiple ways to find information and usually results in a more satisfying search experience (more – we still have a long way to go).

Tagging on a customer-centric website allows your visitors to determine how to organize your information (instead of you), which leads to a more satisfying experience (so they’re more likely to come back). Tagging can also be used to tie various pieces of content together which you can use to show your customers what other people tagged with the same tags, most popular content, etc. which also gives your customers a sense of community.

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B2B Sales Leads

Having a website is supposed to increase your sales (if done properly). How do you know who is looking at your site and who is interested in your products?

One popular way is to put some type of login/registration requirement in place in order for people to see some type of information or content that they are looking for. This seems like an excellent idea from a sales or marketing standpoint, except now you’re dropping all pretenses of having a customer-centric website. Remember to think about what your customer wants. If they are searching for some information on your website (or came from a search engine) and have to register or login before they can get it, how many of them will just leave your site entirely (with a bad taste in their mouth) instead of giving you that information?

Instead, only collect personal information when it is in the customer’s best interest to do so. Offer a form or online chat where people can request more information that includes as little information as needed to help them. This is not the time to get their full contact information, date of birth, credit card, and what color their bath mats are. Name and email or phone are plenty. And guess what? You now have a sales lead that was willingly given to you – this customer is much more interested in your products and services. They are probably further down the sales funnel and therefore a much more valuable contact than just throwing up login requirements to get lots of names.

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