So, it has happened…online BtoB advertising has recently surpassed print advertising in overall revenue dollars. Even in the high-tech and industrial markets, where there is an older engineering demographic that prefers print, online advertising still makes up a significant percentage of media spending.

But this shift isn’t necessarily bad news.  As media data has shown, most BtoB pubs have two sets of readers: those that go online and those that still like to flip pages, and the overlap is very minimal.  Online advertising not only provides the exposure to the segments of our target markets that tend not to read print magazines, but also can generate pretty heavy-duty leads, depending on the publication…an integral feature we use in our comprehensive media analysis.

So, just like in the good old days of bingo cards (any of you youngsters know what they are?), we can measure our return on investment for a given advertisement based on how many readers respond for information.

And the news keeps getting better – more publishers are taking advantage of advancing tracking technology to capture more detailed prospect information.

When banner ads started popping up on the Internet, measuring results was limited to the number of times an ad was viewed on a website (impressions), and the number of times someone clicked on the ad and went to the advertiser’s site (click-throughs).

When e-letters started making their appearance, we received similar information – how many recipients opened the e-letter, how many bounce backs occurred and how many recipients clicked through to the advertiser’s website.

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Advertising, Articles, Online Marketing Advertising, leads, Marketing, Measuring ROI, Web

The Simon Group has been appointed agency of record for Elsys Instruments to implement a new public relations campaign in the U.S. to help continue the global expansion of the 30-year-old company. Elsys Instruments is the U.S. headquarters of Switzerland-based Elsys AG, a leading manufacturer of custom and standard fast, high-precision data acquisition systems.

“When we decided to look for an agency to coordinate our PR campaign, my first thought was The Simon Group,” said Klaas Vogel, Sales Manager of Elsys Instruments. “Having successfully worked with them while with a different company, I knew The Simon Group would deliver a comprehensive, well-managed program with consistently high results. The proven PR methods at The Simon Group are sure to get our company where we want, and need, to be.”

Download the Full Press Release (Word.doc 158k)

Public Relations, TSG Updates Branding, Marketing, PR, Social Media

The proliferation of social media has finally infiltrated the world of B2B and you know what, it’s not as bad as we thought it would be. I used to think social media and B2B were like the sun and the moon…never the two shall meet.

But, leave it to the web to once again alter the landscape and shake the tree of traditional marketing.  Just as the proliferation of email and websites started to fragment the way in which we could talk to an audience, RSS feeds, Twitter, Facebook and even the blogosphere are providing new ways to talk with those people who are interested in our clients’ products and technologies, and actually engage them in the process.

Isn’t social media for business really just customer relationship management (CRM) on steroids? It does have applicability and gives companies direct feedback from the audience they most want to reach—people looking to buy a product or service. Imagine the impact of harnessing that firsthand input and applying it to product development to meet market needs!

The good news is that even though the pie keeps getting sliced into more pieces, there’s still enough pie to go around.  The bad news is keeping up with it all can be mind boggling.  An easy way to start is to apply these new social media tactics to one aspect of your campaign and grow it from there.  We tend to get our clients’ feet wet by first integrating social media with our PR program.  From there, once you’re familiar with the lay of the land, the process just snowballs and pretty soon, social media has become an integrated, and valuable, part of your marcom program.

So, next time you get friended or someone asks for your Twitter name, remember this is the environment your customers are operating in.  Like it or not (but we’ve come to like it), social media is enhancing B2B communications.

Read the post “Mixing in Social Media” for more info.

Articles, Integrated Marketing, Public Relations Facebook, Marketing, PR, Social Media, Twitter

By Marty Simon – CEO

One thing’s for sure in the marketing communications business: nothing is forever. Not even the very best accounts. Here at The Simon Group, we’ve been privileged to work with dozens of great and near-great companies in our first 24 years of business. And, before that, I had the pleasure of working with a bunch more for 19 years at my previous agency. A lot of those clients came with me when I started The Simon Group. One of them was with me for almost 40 years…not a bad run…we helped each other grow and prosper for sure before we shook hands and moved on.

This story is about the accounts we’ve lost over the years because we simply did too good a job for them. Well, that’s not quite true…we did the job they asked us to do: we made them very profitable and very famous in their markets and they went and got bought out by much bigger companies! Not that we begrudge them that…after all, that’s kind of what they hired us to do.

So, while it is painful to lose a successful and profitable account, it’s not always a losing proposition. First, there’s the extreme satisfaction from knowing that you just helped some of your colleagues score the biggest sale they may ever see in their careers. We’ve had lots of thanks and praise and “you guys have made my career!!” kind of responses from our now-sold clients.

And it doesn’t even always end there. Sometimes, our primary contacts, for one reason or another, move on to a new company and they don’t forget the job we did for them at their previous company. Frequently, The Simon Group has been transferred from one great client to another because our key contact moved on and insisted on our moving with him. As long as there’s no conflict of interest, we’re delighted to do just that!   It’s quite a compliment and certainly an acknowledgement of the success we had for that client.

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Articles, Business Marketing

Thought online advertising meant just web versions of print ads? Think again!

Although print advertising is still effective, it’s important to tap into the new world of online advertising, since this is the prime source of information for some market segments.  And, research from various sources (Nielson, MRI, eMedia Strategist, and our own analysis of media kits and publication data over the years) repeatedly shows there’s minimal overlap between people that get their information from the web and those that obtain it from print, so if you want to reach your entire target audience, you need to use both advertising channels.

Online advertising takes many forms – e-newsletters, banner ads, webinars, white papers, virtual trade shows, videos, podcasts, social media, pay per click…the list goes on.  With all the technology available, an advertisement can be much more than just words or an image.  Online ads can incorporate motion and sound—something a print magazine ad is incapable of doing.

Online Advantages
A major advantage to online advertising is accessibility.  Unlike print, where the ad reaches only a certain amount of people, online ads have virtually no limit and can reach anyone in the world around the clock. Long after the advertisement is posted it can continue to brand your product or company.

Online advertising also provides something print advertising could rarely deliver: information about the people who are actually responding…clicking on your ads, downloading your whitepapers and tuning in to your webinars. While print advertising can provide you with circulation data and readership details, it can’t provide the names and contact information for the last 10 people who really, actually viewed your information (though the amount of data provided varies by publication).

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Advertising, Articles, Online Marketing Advertising, Analytics, Facebook, leads, Marketing, Paid Search, Social Media, Twitter, Web

If you are not using Google Analytics to monitor the traffic on your website, you should be. It’s free and easy to use. It’s all transparent to those viewing your site, but provides you with a great deal of good information. After spending the money and resources to send potential customers to your website with various marcom tactics, measuring the effectiveness of those efforts is the next step in a strong campaign.

So, what information can you glean from Google Analytics?

Average Page Depth
There is a Content Optimization>Content Performance>Depth of Visit report that tells you the average number of pages on a site that visitors view during a single session. This report lets you see if your site architecture is working properly as well as if people are finding what they need and taking actions suggested by your content.

Bounce Rate
The bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who land on a page and leave from that page without going to any other page. Seeing bounce rates on home pages of around 50% are typical in our experience. This can be (most likely) that the visitor is not looking for what you have (perhaps a wrong click or misinterpretation of a search engine listing) or the visitor found what he or she was looking for, like a phone number or address (you always put your phone number and address on each page of your website, don’t you?).

Hits
Many people misinterpret a hit as being a visitor. It’s not. A hit is a request by the visitor’s browser for a file – a file of any kind. If you have an older site that was built in “slices,” opening a single page could deliver dozens of hits. These files can be an HTML page, an image, a video, a script or many other file types. This is important information for those analyzing traffic data, but other reports, including page views, new visitors and unique visitors, might be more useful for general business purposes.

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Articles, Online Marketing Analytics, Marketing, Measuring ROI, Paid Search, terms, Web

The ultimate goal of marketing is to gain new customers. You spend both money and resources to educate your prospects about why your products and services are the best out there. The problem is that most of the time, people seeing your ads or reading your whitepapers and press releases aren’t entirely ready to commit. They need guidance, encouragement. The application in your case study is really interesting, but they may not have that specific application right now.

It’s these situations that expose the weak link between marketing and sales; the gap that exists between broad marketing techniques and closing a sale. You’ve met your marketing communications goal by targeting the right audience and gaining interest, but you aren’t quite ready for the sales team to take over. You’re stuck in the “in-between” when there isn’t one specific person responsible for the next phase.

Often, leads are passed on to sales without a second thought about whether or not all critical data has been obtained. A sales person gets incomplete information or a contact that isn’t ready to move to the sales-side of the deal, so the sale doesn’t move forward. How can you turn an inquisitive reader into a real buyer?

Fortunately, when given some light, that “in-between” grey area of lead management can reveal tried-and-true steps to follow. Lead management can educate buyers, help you understand your customers’ needs and ultimately generate revenue when a comprehensive and effective strategy is used.

These simple steps can turn that weak link into one of your most effective strategies by coordinating efforts between the marketing and sales teams. One group or one individual just won’t have the time, or the knowledge, to take care of everything.

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Articles, Online Marketing Advertising, Branding, leads, Marketing, sales

Jena Stauffer has recently taken on the role of Marketing Specialist, specializing in expanding the company’s online marketing programs, including online advertising, social media outlets and other web venues. Jena enters this position after initially joining The Simon Group as an intern in May 2008. She will also continue to provide account support for all areas of marketing, such as strategic planning, research, advertising, public relations, collateral, direct mail and new business development.

Download the Full Press Release (Word.doc 187k)

Press Releases, TSG Updates Advertising, Marketing, press release, Social Media

The list of social media is virtually endless, with big names like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn dominating the landscape, and the infinite amounts of blogs on every topic imaginable.  All of these different social media sites have one thing in common; they never deject conversation, comments and feedback as many consumers feel email and other websites do. In fact, they encourage interaction.

B2B marketers should view social media as a new way to interact directly with customers, in addition to employing traditional marketing techniques to generate even more brand awareness.

Follower-Driven
Social media can take traditional electronic communications, such as email, to the next level. On Facebook and Twitter you can encourage customers and prospects to follow you and be on the look out for your news and product announcements to help generate buzz early on by providing useful content and pertinent updates.

Community-Based
A B2B blog can be another useful type of social media by surpassing the one-sided limitations of a mass distributed press release to provide different elements not available with traditional press release distributions.

A B2B blog can provide:

• A user-friendly environment
• Two-way conversation capability
• Increased SEO (search engine optimization)
• Daily exposure to unique users

And, B2B blog users do not need to be confirmed as “friends”, like on Facebook or a fellow “tweeter” on Twitter, or even on the PR or marketing firm’s exclusive e-mail lists, so many times this format is viewed as a less intrusive means of communicating on industry happenings and technology developments.  It can also encourage a good problem/solution community, where customers and the company alike can share information to make products and services better and align future development with specific industry needs.

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Articles, Online Marketing Branding, Facebook, Marketing, SEO, Social Media

Advertising may seem expensive, but when done correctly, it’s a great way to broaden your company’s brand awareness and increase sales, especially in down economic times when your competition may be cutting back on their frequency or ad sizes!

As part of an integrated marcom program, advertising is a highly effective way to get your message seen by customers and potential customers. Because you specifically control the message and where it appears, it tends to be more expensive than other marcom tactics, like PR.

And it’s interesting to note that most publications carry separate circulations for their online readers and print readers. There is still a subset of people that rely on print to learn about emerging technologies and products, while others rely more heavily on websites and e-newsletters.

Determining where to advertise can be a bit tricky. Here are three helpful hints to make your advertising program more effective.

First, determine your target audience; who do you want to reach? Narrowing your target audience helps you identify what trade magazines and web sites fit your company best. Look past the raw number of people that receive the publication as well as the click-throughs and impression statistics typically found in a media kit and understand who is reading the magazine or visiting a web site. Pick a publication where the circulation is representative of your target audience – job title, industry or market segment, what products they specify or other relevant criteria. Independent third party audits, such as BPA or ABC statements, are a great source of data if they are available, but there are other ways to obtain this info, too!

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Advertising, Articles Advertising, Branding, Marketing, Media Analysis