Avatar

B2B Online Spending – Top 5 Investments in 2014

7 August 2014
No Comments
5,452 Views

Our 2014 digital dollar shift infographic shows the top five investments B2B companies made this year in online spending.

Digital Spending

 

 

Here’s why you should be investing in them too:

1) It’s no surprise to see ‘website’ among the top investments made by B2B companies in 2014. Not only is your website your biggest marketing channel, it’s often the first place a user goes after searching for your business online. First impressions matter. According to Taylor & Francis Online, it takes no more than 50 milliseconds for users to form an opinion about your site. Therefore, investing in your site can increase the time a user spends on your site, maximize conversions and create a higher ROI.

2) Email remains a powerful medium for B2B marketers and is still the best way to reach buyers. Even though there’s a lot of chatter about social media right now (which also made our list!) KISSmetrics reports that there are almost three times as many email user accounts as Facebook and Twitter combined! This is a huge direct audience. In addition to that, Experian found that for every $1 spent, $44.25 is the average return on email marketing investment. Now those are numbers we all want to hear! 

3) The days of social media being a luxury are over. It’s now a necessity. Not only does it improve social signals (a factor in the search ranking algorithm) it also has many other benefits including:

 

Improved brand awareness
Increased customer loyalty and trust
Word-of-mouth advertising
Improved audience reach and influence
Improved customer service

 

Social media should be an important part of your digital marketing strategy. Social, done right, will drive traffic to your optimized website where you can then capture leads.

Here’s a Tip: once you capture these leads and create email campaigns, be sure to include social sharing buttons! Emails that include social sharing buttons have a 158% higher click-through rate. (GetResponse)

4) Why should you invest more in search? 9 out of 10 B2B buyers say when they are ready to buy, they will find you (DemandGen Report) and 81% of those B2B buyers start that process with a web search. Investments in targeted search marketing, including SEM and PPC, are a necessity so that you’ll be found.

Here’s a Tip: make sure your website has an optimized blog and great website content (like guides, videos or white papers). This will allow you to rank higher in search and set your company apart as an industry leader.

5) In this day and age of visual media, it’s no surprise that video makes it into the top 5 investments of 2014 for B2B companies. The good news is, video no longer requires expensive equipment and time consuming editing. Any company with a smartphone can pull off a B2B video content marketing campaign.

Marc Apple of Forward Push Media says he uses business marketing videos for:

 

  • YouTube presence: YouTube’s searches and related videos mean that any video on their site can live on indefinitely.
  • Search marketing: Google and other search engines give a greater weight to video results. In addition, video-specific searches produce an independent search avenue that stand apart from general web search results.
  • Social marketing: Videos shared through social media produce a call to action more than a simple text update.
  • Email marketing: Studies have shown that email blasts with the word “Video” in the subject receive higher click and open rates.


You should be using video for these reasons, too!

 

All five of these investments go hand and hand and should be a part of your overall digital marketing strategy. Which investment do you see your business spending the most on this coming year? With all the talk about mobile right now, we predict that mobile will push ahead! What are your thoughts?

About Kristin Walker

Kristin is an Account Executive at SISDigital with extensive experience in social media marketing and online community management. Connect with Kristin on Twitter

Like What You Are Reading? Subscribe To Read More

Like What You Are Reading? Subscribe To Read More

Join our mailing list to receive the latest news and updates from our team.

You have Successfully Subscribed!