Four States Small Business Blog

It's no secret that digital marketing continues to gain market share, especially as new, data-driven methods of bringing traffic to your website are developed all the time.

Welcome to the second installment of our B2B marketing best practices blog. With the first article, we introduced ideas like thoughtful buyer personas, the buyers journey and marketing funnels and how to use them, and the value of local SEO here in Joplin, MO.  

Twenty years ago, B2B marketing meant cold calls and constant prospecting. It was a long and costly process. But the advance of the internet has changed how businesses market to each other, and thank goodness for that! 

This view holds that traditional marketing is noted for its focus on product, price, place, and promotion -- the 4Ps.  These 4Ps were designed to guide marketers as they developed strategies for growth.  Some marketers are suggesting that the 4Ps be expanded to include other factors such as process and people to make the traditional 4Ps fit into a digital marketing strategy.

If you are researching the best advertising method for your company, you may have seen arguments that promote digital marketing.  Many articles claim that digital marketing is a better way to advertise because it is cheaper than traditional marketing and provides more measurables.  

When developing a three-month marketing budget, you might think it's better to advertise on as many channels as possible.  However, this tends to be ineffective. Many advertisers end up wasting money on marketing channels or advertisements that have little to no impact on branding or sales.  Others waste money by spreading themselves too thin in a single quarter.

Many company leaders tend to view a marketing budget as a discretionary item, liable to cuts as needed. However, such a viewpoint is ultimately self-defeating. The reality is that a marketing budget is an investment that can yield rich dividends in the near future and in the long term.

If it seems your marketing job description is changing faster than trending videos on YouTube, you're right.  Every change in consumer behavior (think, for example, of the 900% increase in "near me" searches in Google over the past two years) means you need to adjust your strategy. 

When calculating a brand's value, one of the most important metrics is awareness. While most businesses are concerned about raising brand awareness, not everyone realizes that there are different levels of awareness. The most important distinction is between top of mind (or unaided) vs. aided awareness. In order to identify these differences in awareness, you need to ask certain questions. There can be dramatic differences in the results produced from different types of awareness. In one study of car purchasing behavior, a Nielsen study found that top-of-mind awareness drives 90% of purchasing intent. 

The popularity of Google for search has made Google Ads the default choice of some marketers for digital marketing. According to statcounter.com, Google's share of the search engine market held steady at 92% in 2019. Google has helped drive up the desirability of advertising on its applications through new initiatives like local service ads (LSA), "Google Guaranteed" badges, and Google My Business (GMB) profiles in addition to the original Google AdWords program. But is Google Ads a comprehensive marketing strategy? Even though Google Ads is used by about 35% of all websites, its effectiveness depends on the need of a customer for a product or service. While Google Ads can capture a customer who has an immediate need, it may not be the optimal advertising channel for those who are not actively seeking a solution. In fact, comparing it with radio, social media, and video advertising, and even simple Search Engine Optimization (SEO) indicates that Google Ads is not necessarily the channel with the best ROI.