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The BuyerSphere Project: Understanding B2B Buyer Patterns
One of the session that I plan to attend at SES San Jose is “The ByerSphere Project: Understanding B2B Buyer Patters” on Wednesday, August 12, 2009, at 4:00 p.m.
The moderator of the session is Gord Hotchkiss, President & CEO, Enquiro. I started speaking on panels with Gord way back at SES New York 2004.
And I can’t tell you how many search engine marketers — including me — have taken his eye tracking research and presented it to their clients over the years. Although I always give Enquiro credit for the findings, if Gord were getting residuals, he’d be rich.
At SES San Jose 2009, the speakers at Gord’s session are:
— Mark McMaster, Senior Planner of B2B and Technology Markets, Google
— Ben Hanna, VP Marketing, Business.com
— Chris Golec, Founder and CEO, Demandbase
— Jon Miller, VP Marketing, Marketo
— Dr. Matthias Blume, Chief Analytics Officer, Covario
All of them have just concluded a major B2B research initiative, which was conducted by Enquiro with input from Google, Business.com, Covario, Marketo and DemandBase. The so-called BuyerSphere Project showed that most marketers aren’t effectively leveraging online assets to their best potential. Are you shocked, shocked by these findings?
Among other things, the notion of a strictly followed, traditional buying funnel is simply not accurate in many instances, risk dictates buying behavior, search is incredibly important as an integrator across online and offline channels and face-to-face persuasion is still necessary in many high risk, complex purchases. The BuyerSphere Project looks at how online strategies became artificially separated from traditional best practices, how they can be more effectively integrated and the part search plays as a major influencer. That’s worth knowing, don’t you think?
Now, this panel at SES San Jose will review the research from over 100 face-to-face interviews, hundreds of eye tracking sessions and over 3,000 survey responses in total. The project represents a major step forward in understanding B2B buyer patterns and the part online marketing can play in influencing them.
So, I couldn’t wait get a “sneak preview” because, well, I’m a competitive kind of guy. And if Enquiro’s research is worth borrowing, I mean, worth understanding, then it’s worth finding out about ahead of time.
So, I was delighted when Byron Gordon of SEO-PR interviewed Gord Hotchkiss earlier this week and uploaded the video to SESConferenceExpo’s Channel on YouTube. Gord discussed Enquiro’s three phase research project that incorporated interviews with more than 100 BtoB buyers before the survey was even put together. The goal was to discover how purchasing decisions get made within a company.
Gord says it was previously thought that BtoB purchasing is based on rational decision making but this is not always the case. He says influences maybe online or offline but they all play a part in determining how purchasing decisions are made.
Gord also discusses the advance of a generational shift in behavior, described as the “digital natives” and the “digital immigrants.” Online usage differs between the two segments. Hey, you might as well watch the video interview below to hear for yourself what he has to say.
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Gord Hotchkiss, Enquiro, on the BuyerSphere Project in advance of SES San Jose 2009
And if you want even more details, the head over to the Enquiro site and click on New Research on B2B Buying: The BuyerSphere. You will find White Papers, webinars, and other information.
Why am I plugging this now when you could just attend the The BuyerSphere Project: Understanding B2B Buyer Patterns at SES San Jose 2009? Let’s just say that I — like many, many other search engine marketers — owe Gord big time for all the research we’ve borrowed from Enquiro to persuade a B2B client to rethink his or her assumptions.
Hey, a plug and a link is the least that I can do to “repay” Gord for his groundbreaking research on B2B buying and B2B marketing. And it’s a lot more affordable than paying residuals.
SES San Jose Offers Sessions for Veteran Search Engine Marketers
Last week, I said “SES San Jose Offers Conference Sessions for First Time Attendees.” This year’s Search Engine Strategies conference offers lots of sessions for veteran search engine marketers, too.
SES San Jose 2009 can cover both ends of the spectrum because it has five concurrent tracks. So, whether this will be your first show or the fourth SES event that you’ve attended in 2009, you’ll find tons of new content worth learning.
For example, sessions oriented toward advanced marketers include:
• Search: Where to Next sums up what the future holds for the search industry with a veteran panel of industry insiders.
• The Next Wave for Online Video presents the importance of optimizing for video search and looks into tactics for copywriting, keyword research and more.
• Don’t Call it a Comeback: Semantic Technology and Search focuses on the reality of true semantic technology and the recent application of the “Web 3.0″ tag.
• Beyond Googling: Where Will Your Customers Be Searching in Five Years? presents a long-view look at weak signals and trends that appear to point in new directions.
• Launching a Global Website presents key issues critical to successfully developing, optimizing, and launching the global websites that meet next generation marketing goals.
• Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues explores the potential problems and pitfalls of running mirror sites and offers solutions.
• Landing Page Testing and Tuning discusses how to twist and tweak your landing page to covert site visitors into buyers.
• Real World Multivariate Testing helps attendees understand how landing page optimization, through multivariate testing, can quickly affect the success of any online acquisition campaign, and how simple changes to a landing pages can dramatically increase online sales.
• Ads in a Quality Score World looks at quality factors and studies how to increase the perceived relevancy of your campaigns.
• Follow the Carrot: Cool Mobile Apps examines the effect of mobile applications, their usefulness from a business point of view, and where they may be going in the future.
• Images & Search Engines: Getting the Full Picture explores image searching along with image-links, geo tags and other considerations for capturing targeted traffic.
• Search Becomes the Display OS includes a discussion and case studies focusing on the idea that the only thing that can save display advertising is making it more like search.
Although I should disclose that SES is a client, I’m not the only one who thinks that there is lots of sessions for veteran search engine marketers at SES conferences. For example, Lee Odden, an SES Advisory Board member and CEO of TopRank Online Marketing, says, “Search Engine Strategies in San Jose is the epicenter of what’s current and useful in the search marketing industry when it comes to advancing internet marketing knowledge. I’ve attended SES events for years as a delegate, speaker, moderator, and now as an Advisory Board Member. That continued investment for me and my agency staff has resulted in bottom line growth of our digital marketing consulting business by staying current with search strategies and tactics, attracting new clients and talented staff. We’ve gained tremendous value from SES San Jose as a source of content for our top rated blog and of course, priceless networking with search engine employees, vendors and other smart internet marketers.”
And earlier in the year, Odden did an escalator pitch — which is like an elevator pitch, only faster — at SES New York. Check out what he had to say at SESConferenceExpo’s Channel on YouTube or by watching the video below.
This page contained an embedded video. Click here to view it.
Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank Online Marketing, on the benefits of attending SES New York 2009
Okay, so Odden was talking about SES New York in his escalator pitch, but he could have said the same things about SES San Jose.
For more information about the largest search engine marketing conference and expo on the West Coast, go to the SES San Jose 2009 website. Register through July 24 to save up to $200 with the early bird rate.
North Korea Using Cyberattacks Against US, South Korea
Since last weekend some government websites in the US and South Korea have been cyberattacked, the New York Times reported. While the NYT has not concluded who is responsible beyond they “appear to have been launched by a hostile group or government”, “the South Korean news agency Yonhap reported that the spy agency had implicated North Korea or pro-North Korea groups,” NYT noted.
“The Treasury Department, Secret Service, Federal Trade Commission and Transportation Department Web sites were all down at varying points over the holiday weekend and into this week, The A.P. reported, citing officials inside and outside the American government. The fact that the government Web sites were still being affected after three days signaled an unusually lengthy and sophisticated attack, the news agency reported, citing anonymous American officials.”
Running these attacks during the 4th of July weekend and the Michael Jackson memorial is almost like the Vietnamese Tet offensive – a push during New Year;s celebrations.
The attacks were made through infected computers – seems that malware can really cause problems when aimed at certain targets.
Travel Search Sites Offer Competing Deals
There’s been a flurry of updates in the travel search world and they all have to do with finding great deals. Whether you’re a travel provider, advertiser, or just plain need great airfare tix to SES San Jose in August, here’s what you need to know:
Mobissimo has added student and youth travel fares to their site. Students can now compare those special fares to normal fares. Hey, you never know when a low-priced carrier might even beat out a student fare on a “bigger” airline. So, definitely check that out.
DealBase.com is all about hotel deals and now offers a personalized newsletter. Get emails that pertain only to the destinations, hotel star ratings, and price range that you select.
Last but not least, Tripeedo.com is a new site entering the competitive travel search niche. Tripeedo is kind of the Dogpile.com of travel search. It searches the search sites, as well as the individual airline sites, hotel sites, etc. However, most of the search sites already offer price comparisons on competing sites. And most of the time, all of the sites have the same prices. What would have sold me on Tripeedo is if they didn’t open the search results in different windows. That’s, again, what all of the other sites do, but that just clutters up my browser and desktop.
Having said that, Tripeedo’s interface is very nice and makes it one of the easiest travel search sites to use. If they ever get the results to load on one page instead of multiple tabs or windows, they might just become my default travel search engine.
Tripeedo has their work cut out for them. In a normal economy, you would see sites compete in this manner, but there’s a certain urgency seen in these updates perhaps related to the current not-so-normal economy. It’s not just about beating the competition these days, it’s about suriviving.
YouTube Biz Blog Touts Social Media and Video Strategies Forum
How cool is this? On Monday, I posted “Social Media & Video Strategies To Be Held With SES San Jose:. It broke the news that ClickZ, YouTube and Google will be holding an event on August 11, 2009, in conjunction with SES San Jose 2009.
Then on Tuesday, the YouTube Biz Blog posted “Join Us at the SES Social Media & Video Strategies Forum.” Kristin Kovner, the Industry Marketing Manager at YouTube, said, “We’re excited to be a part of this first-time ever event. SES is one of the best places for businesses to learn about search; now that YouTube has millions of searches each day, it’s only fitting that ClickZ and SES are expanding the agenda to include a full day dedicated to video and social media.”
Just as importantly, the YouTube Biz Blog embedded the featured video on the SESConferenceExpo’s Channel on YouTube. Views of the video, which was uploaded four months ago, shot up immediately. You can see the video for youself below.
Search Engine Strategies Conference & Expo
This illustrates the link between search and social media that I mentioned on Monday and Mike Grehan writes about in his cover story in the latest issue of SES Magazine.
Additional evidence can be found in research conducted by TubeMogul entitled “How do people discover videos online?” Here’s the gist of what they found:
– 45% of all videos are found on a video site, i.e. going to YouTube and doing a search or clicking around featured and related videos.
– 44% of all videos are found embedded in blogs.
– 6% of all videos are found with search engines, like Google.
– 2% of all videos are found in social networks, like Facebook.
– 2% of all videos found in social bookmarking sites.
– Less than 1% of all videos are found with video search engines, like Google Video.
So, optimizating the title, description and tags of your YouTube video is half of the success formula. But the other half is engaging what Google calls “the buzzing blogger community.”
I mentioned this a year ago at SES San Jose 2008 during a video interview with Liana Evans, who was then with KeyRelevance and is now with Serengeti Communications. Looking at it again a year later, I wouldn’t change a word. (And I can’t anyway.)
This page contained an embedded video. Click here to view it.
VSEO – Video Search Engine Optimization – with Greg Jarboe at SES San Jose 2008
So, stay tuned. Because this year’s events — as you can see in the SES San Jose 2009 agenda and the Social Media and Video Strategies agenda — are likely to demonstrate the link between search and social big time.
FeedBurner CEO Leaving Google
Dick Costolo, the cofounder and CEO of FeedBurner, may be adding the day he left Google to his stand up comedy routine soon, as he is supposed to depart the corporation sometime this week.
Costolo who joined Google when they bought his company seems to have timed his exit strategy with the usual 2 year overseeing that goes with such buy outs. Maybe he can join a reality show – Google Helped Make Me A Millionaire But I Want Another Job.
Dick how about doing some stand up at SES San Jose. I know people throwing parties that could be interested. Or maybe just late night at the Marriott bar – you would have an enthusiastic audience.
Ask.com’s Restless Pursuit of Search
With all the attention that Google gets for its mammoth search market share, you would think it’s impossible for anyone else to survive. But share does not determine profitability and, indeed, 4th place Ask.com is holding steady despite the volatility of external factors.
Despite Google’s stronghold, the recent launches of Wolfram Alpha and Bing have exposed what many think are glaring holes in the search experience. But plugging these holes is something Ask.com has been attempting to do for years, with solutions similar to those put forth by Wolfram Alpha and Bing.
For its part, Wolfram Alpha is built on providing data and facts, but Ask.com was already providing those answers in their results. Bing appears revolutionary, unless you searched Ask 3D during its brief run.
They say imitation is flattering, but most searchers don’t care whether Bing and Ask.com wore the same dress to the prom. What they want is results.
“We’re not going to be satisfied until every user is,” insists Ask.com President Scott Garell. It’s one of his many iterations of a prevailing mantra: We won’t rest.
In fact, Ask.com’s consumer-centric strategy runs at full speed. Literally.
This year, Ask.com embarked on a large-scale NASCAR campaign. They’re the official search engine for NASCAR, sponsor the #96 car driven by Bobby Labonte, and serve up crawl questions on the bottom of the screen during televised broadcasts of races.
NASCAR fans are one of the most loyal demographics in the United States. 25% of the country self-identifies as being a NASCAR fan and 17 out of the top 20 sporting events for attendance were NASCAR races.
The result of Ask.com’s foray into NASCAR has been a positive one. There has been an uptick in searches for NASCAR-related keywords and the searchers are more likely to stick around and use Ask.com again.
It’s not the first time Ask.com reached out to a passionate demographic. Previously, they skinned their front page to promote Autism Speaks, a nonprofit advocacy group. The skin is still available for users who wish to keep it permanently on their front page.
In May, they skinned their home page in a barter agreement with the movie Night at the Museum: Battle at the Smithsonian. Ask.com was featured in the movie in exchange for the 2-day flash image appearing on the home page. So far, the movie has made $167,706,959 at the box office.
Garell hinted at forthcoming marketing campaign similar to the NASCAR one, but thus far remains mum on the details.
These campaigns are just the tip of the iceberg for Ask.com. When Garell says he won’t rest, he means it. Last year, Ask.com acquired the Dictionary.com sites and recently launched an new advertising campaign with Toyota Prius where they choose keywords for their display ads. Toyota has liked what they’ve seen so far and has bought more advertising inventory on the site.
Ask.com is also working on their Sponsored Listings. While Google is a partner in that effort, Ask.com decided not to renew their contract with LookSmart. They’re working on the next generation of their Sponsored Listings platform, yet one more restless project on the Ask.com to do list.
Of course none of this matters unless searchers find good results. A few weeks ago, Ask.com announced that it’s Q&A database had 300 million question and answer pairs. The questions come from answers sites all over the web. Since so many searchers on Ask.com type their query in the form of a question, the Q&A database is an integral part of the Ask.com strategy. Many of the Q&A pairs are also included in the main search results.
With all of these projects going on, it might be easy for the 6th largest network of sites to lose track of the little things. But Garell sees the whole picture, including the fact that it still takes searchers too many queries and too many clicks to find the answer they’re looking for. He wants Ask.com’s semantic technology to better understand searcher intent so that users find the answer they need the first time every time.
It’s a big mission and one that not even larger search companies have been able to solve. Just like a good NASCAR race, you never know when an underdog is going to come along and shake up the leaderboard. And if Scott Garell has anything to say about it, the race ain’t over ’til the checkerboard flag waves.
Google Finally Rips the Beta Bandaid Off of Apps, Including GMail
You probably don’t even notice it anymore. You know, the little Beta tags that Google attaches to its Apps like GMail and Google Talk. But it’s been there, faithfully reminding anyone who’s really cared that the products weren’t technically ready for prime time.
Now, Google has finally come to the place where they feel okay about removing the label. So, beginning today, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Talk will lose the “Beta” that has been accompanying their logos for years.
How do you feel about the change? Are you going through Beta withdrawal? Let us know by leaving a comment.
Yahoo! Launches Search Pad, a Personal Research Tool
Yahoo! has launched a new note-taking research tool called Search Pad. The tool is designed to automatically detect research intent among people using Yahoo! search.
Once the intent is detected, searchers are prompted with an invitation to use Search Pad. The tool uses drag and drop but includes the ability to write free form notes as well.
This is a great concept because alternatives require opening separate documents and applications or taking handwritten notes.
The tool is rolling out today to several countries. I personally couldn’t get a Search Pad prompt yet today. Could you? Let us know by leaving a comment. Here are the countries Search Pad is rolling out to:
United States Canada Australia New Zealand Singapore Malaysia Philippines United Kingdom France Spain Italy Germany Brazil Mexico Argentina
SES Webcast with Charlene Li, Co-Author, Groundswell, Tomorrow
Interested in finding out how to integrate social media into your business strategy? Sign up for the SES Webcast with Charlene Li, the co-author of the best-selling business book “Groundswell” and founder of the Altimeter Group. The Webcast will be held Wednesday, July 8, 2009, at 1:00 PM EDT/10:00 AM PDT.
Li presents a wealth of data accumulated while she was at Forrester Research as well as original research in Groundswell: Winning In A World Transformed By Social Technologies. She explains how to turn this social media threat into a new business opportunity. More importantly, she specifies what companies can do to turn the social media trend into a competitive advantage.
This one-hour webcast will cover breaking social media trends, discuss how to create customers who “evangelize” for your company, and how to establish and support relationships between and among your customers. Li will give Webcast participants opportunities to ask her their most burning social media trend questions!
One other note: Li will give away 10 copies of her latest book to the best questions fielded during the Webcast. So, register for the Charlene Li Webcast today.
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