Depending on the term, it could be 90%+ of these searches not being relevant, and at $5-10 a click, that’s a lot of irrelevant clicks to pay for to find a winner, even if that winner will pay you $10,000 for a new website.

The biggest problem with B2B is that when someone types in “dentist”, you don’t know if they are a dentist or if they are looking for a dentist.

The die-hard PPC folks will argue that you’re just not choosing the right keywords (go for more specific terms), don’t have enough negative keywords (exclude anyone searching with city terms—since these are likely consumers), or you’re not writing specific enough ad copy (supposedly, consumer won’t click on your ad if your title is “Hey Dentists!”) While these comebacks are true, they are missing the big point.

In B2B marketing, you must target WHO the user is, not WHAT they are searching on.

In search, you don’t know who the user is, but you have a clue by the nature of their search terms. In social, you know WHO the user is and you’re catching them before they search.

STEP 1: Isolate the Target

So while you can get a ton of consumer traffic by targeting “dentist” in Google, when you interest target “dentist” on Facebook, you’re targeting by job title and profession.  Try it. In fact, try a number of job titles and see just how many chiropractors, teachers, plumbers, administrative assistants, and marketing managers there are out there.

Voila!  Now you’ve pinpointed all the dentists, dental assistants, students studying to be dentists, retired dentists, and folks who have a dentist fetish—all of them on Facebook. Now narrow down to the specific target you want by age, location or even specialty—maybe you want to talk to just cosmetic dentists in California.

Add in lateral targets—magazines they read, associations they’re a part of, and so forth.  You can read more about micro-targeting here.

STEP 2: Get Your Testimonials and Trust Signals

You probably thought I’d next talk about ads, which is what most people do.  Nope, in social people don’t search—they are interrupted with banner ads. You can focus on ad copy in Google PPC because people are actively looking. In Facebook, you have to gently nudge people to take a look at you and momentarily distract them from spying on their friends, or whatever they happen to be doing on Facebook.

So you need distraction-worthy content, which comes in the form of what their friends are doing. If that potential dentist client of yours is perusing through what her friends did yesterday, she might be persuaded to click on news where those very friends are talking about your business—maybe how they used your software to get more traffic to their website, streamline billing operations, etc.

When you have a TON of testimonials (across Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, and so on), paired with content that you’ve published in major outlets, paired with positive things that other reputable organizations have said about you—then it’s more likely they are coming to you versus you coming to them. Some people call this “inbound” or “pull” marketing because you’re leveraging that prospective friends to do the selling for you. Because, despite your Harvard MBA and years of business experience; sorry Charlie, they trust what their friends have to say more.

Ideally, get this content to live on your website or Facebook page, although this is not completely necessary. Let’s say that you wrote some compelling article in an industry journal. Send ad traffic directly to that site so you can leverage their trust. If you wrote your article correctly, the by-line (about the author piece at the end) will have a line or two about what you do. And if you did a good job creating real value in that article, as opposed to selling, they’ll contact you. No need to scream at them or place popup windows in their path—they’ll find you.

Step 3: Turn Your Ads On 

You wouldn’t have a grand opening party without first making sure your place has plenty of food and drinks, right?  In the same way, make sure you have the compelling content from Step 2 before you start advertising. Otherwise, you’re just wasting money.

Take the interest targets that you set up in Step 1 and pair it against the content you have in Step 2.  Think about WHO you are talking to, not WHAT they might be searching on. For example, if they are a dental hygienist, what content is most compelling to them? What if they are a receptionist—what might they find interesting? You’ll find that you might not have super relevant content for everyone. That’s okay—you’re just testing at this stage. Later you can mix and match what combinations work best.

Note that this is NOT landing page optimization, which is more superficially about elements that comprise the landing page—the image, the size of the button, the headline, and so forth.  We’re talking about the whole lead gen. lifecycle—creating a clear path between the targets, what we say to them, and what we want them to do. That last piece is the landing page—to get them to call the phone number, fill out the form, watch the video, etc.

Step 4: Run the Math

Set your Facebook campaign budgets low, perhaps $10 a day. Use the default CPC bids, since you don’t need to get into the nuances of how bidding works—this is not Google. What you care about is your Cost Per Click and conversion rates.  CPC divided by conversion rate is your cost per lead, by the way.  We created a calculator for your use, in case you are rusty on first semester statistics:

This is B2B, so your cost per lead could be over $100. Maybe you’re at $2 a click and 1 in 50 clicks results in a phone call.  Maybe it’s a lot more because you’re selling something that costs thousands, so that a hundred dollars is an acceptable price. Or maybe you’re competing in New York City, where the price is exorbitant from all the advertisers that overlap one another from poor targeting.

Whatever the case, if you’re doing this on Facebook, you have to be prepared for seemingly negative ROI for the first few months.  Why? Because we are catching people well before they are searching, so it could be months before they want that new website, CEREC machine, billing system, or whatever it is you’re advertising. With Google, the conversion timeframe might be that same visit. This is unlikely in your case, unless your product is an impulse buy and also under $100.

Some final thoughts:

We are often asked a common set of questions, so let’s address some of them here:

How big should my interest target be? You don’t need a thousand ads—just a handful that target just the people that you want to hit. If your interest target is over 10,000 people, then either you’re doing something wrong or your audience is nationwide.

Do I need new landing pages for Facebook? Probably. Video is what converts nowadays, so you probably need to fix your other landing pages while you’re at it. Camera shy? They aren’t choosing you for your good looks, so get your Flip video, some good lighting, and film a 2 minute intro. Say what you’d say if that dentist was sitting right in your office—don’t be “fake” or talk like a newscaster.

Will BlitzLocal do this for me? Sure, if you have at least $10k to spend in fees, not counting advertising budget. If you’re a dentist, we require only $2k a month in total (labor plus ad spend), since we’re targeting just one region and because our dental campaigns can be replicated. If we have to build something that is not reusable across many clients, then we have to charge more for it. We are not the cheapest game in town.

Do you offer free articles and training?  I would love to use your service, but cannot afford it. Sure. Send a note to info@blitzlocal.com and we’ll send you some of our internal training materials. You can also post a question at facebook.com/blitzlocal, where others can see and benefit from what you ask.

 About the Author:

Dennis Yu is Chief Executive Officer of BlitzLocal, a Webtrends partner that builds social media dashboards to measure brand engagement and ROI, specializing in the intersection of Facebook and local advertising. You can reach him on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, his blog, or good old-fashioned email at dennis@blitzlocal.com. BlitzLocal is a leader in social and local advertising and analytics, creating mass micro-targeted campaigns. Mr. Yu is an internationally sought-after speaker and author on all things Facebook, and has been featured in National Public Radio, TechCrunch, Entrepreneur Magazine, CBS Evening News, and other venues.

Original at Marketing B2B via Facebook: The Most Common Mistake You’re Probably Making BlitzLocal

Hopefully, at this point, he stops throwing money at the world, and learns a better way to advertise that stands a far better chance of resulting in positive ROI for every dollar he spends. If so, then at this point, he learns that his ads should be shown only to the group of people who are not only most interested in his products or services, but who are also most likely to respond to whatever offer he is presenting.

On this journey of discovery, he adds two new words to his marketing vocabulary — “targeted” and “qualified”.

What is targeted traffic? Users who are specifically interested in the products or services he provides are the users he wants to target. The chances of converting those users are much higher than the chances of converting a user who landed on his site accidentally and has no interest in what he has to offer. It suddenly becomes obvious to the entrepreneur that if he only spends money advertising to people who already have a strong interest in what he has to offer, then his conversion rate will likely be high, and the return on his investment will likewise be high.

What is qualified traffic? Qualified users are those who are not only interested in his products or services, but are able and ready to actually to to buy. It’s the difference between “looky-loos” and those who have a real need for the product, the budget to acquire the product, and the authority to approve the purchase of the product.

Now our entrepreneur can begin to shed his “newb” status and start launching marketing campaigns that are aimed at targeted, qualified individuals.

Let’s take a look at an example how our businessman can effectively accomplish this new goal.

Our fictional company owner has created a specialized dating service aimed at matching wealthy singles who are both into adventure and extreme sports, and wants to advertise his service on Facebook.

Before he understood the merits of showing ads only to targeted, qualified individuals, he probably would have designed an that sounded exciting or intriguing, but aimed it at everyone. What kind of traffic would he have shown that ad to?

Now that he is a little more savvy, he can begin to narrow that number down.

First, he chooses to only show ads to people interested in sports.

After thinking about it, he realizes that’s still way too general, so he narrows that down to people who enjoy extreme sports.

More thought, and he realizes that he forgot to only target singles, so he adds that to mix.

Finally, he knows his service is pricey, so he wants to pre-qualify his targeted audience as much as possible. Facebook doesn’t have an “I’m rich” category, but our now-savvy businessman can make some educated guesses on finding those people who are more likely to be qualified to pay his steep prices. So he’ll also target various interests, such as yachts, for example.

Now he’s narrowed his ad campaign down to a very targeted group of people who are more likely to be qualified as well. He can choose many different interests besides yachts, of course, honing his campaign until he finds the sweet spot of targeted, qualified users that are most likely to sign up for his specialized dating service.

Suddenly, our online entrepreneur has become a businessman who no longer empties his pockets while chasing everyone in the world. He now understands why the terms “targeted” and “qualified” matter, and is currently enjoying his own extreme adventure.

Related articles:

How To Use Facebook’s New Power Editor For Ads

How to run an effective Facebook campaign for $5

Original at Why The Terms Targeted and Qualified Matter BlitzLocal

Many Brands Within The Brand

Some large brands consist of many sub-brands. Let’s consider P&G as an example brand. They have many sub-brands, 23 of which have over a billion dollars in annual sales. Some of these sub-brands include Tide, Bounty, Pampers, Duracell, etc. Ideally, this type of megabrand should have a portfolio of sub-brands that tie back into a central hub page. The central hub is often weak, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but strengthening the hub will usually result in strengthening the brand overall.

When measuring the power of the megabrand, especially when comparing against their competitors, be sure to include their overall portolio (i.e. P&G vs. Unilever), as well as brand-to-brand comparisons of the sub-brands, such as Duracell vs. Energizer.

Targeting and Relevancy

When designing sample Facebook ads, remember that success with Facebook relies on being SUPER relevant to users. Let’s take a look at a few examples of how this can be applied.

Utilize Brand Connections

If the user is already familiar with the brand via a related connection, target those users specifically. For example, Tide has sponsored a car in Nascar for a long time. Fans of Darryl Waltrip and Ricky Rudd are then likely to also be fans of Tide, so targeting the fans of those Nascar champions is an easy win.

Leverage Existing Campaigns

We can leverage the power of a brand’s existing advertising. For example, if the brand is Yoplait yogurt, you know that they’ve spent a huge amount of money on the pink lids for breast cancer ad campaign. By targeting Susan Komen, breast cancer, and related interests– and then pairing that targeted base with a message that Yoplait supports breast cancer research, you can make their existing non-Facebook ad campaigns work double-time here. Send users to an appropriate web page that has a Like button on it (preferably on the Facebook page), to solidify that connection.

Harvest Celebrity Endorsements

Someone else has already done the footwork needed to attach a celebrity’s fan base to the brand, so harvest that base. For example, Carrie Underwood uses Olay, so target Carrie’s fans with relevant messages and landing pages for the Olay brand on Facebook. There is a LOT of celebrity traffic – a lot more than people who say they like laundry detergent or batteries or skin care products – so harvest that mass of low-hanging fruit.

Milk The Competitors

There’s nothing wrong with actually reaching out to the fans of the competition. For instance, if they like the Energizer Bunny, it’s possible they’ll also like Duracell. This can be hit or miss, as some fans are loyal to a fault and won’t have any desire to switch, but you won’t know without testing. Many fans are on the fence and can be pretty easily persuaded to flip.

Manage The Audit Process

The simplest tool to have on hand during the audit research phase is the spreadsheet. First, research a list of the interests that are related to each of the brands. Create a spreadsheet consisting of one row per interest, using four columns:

• Interest
• Audience Size (shown in Ad tool)
• Relevant Brand Fan Page URL
• Relationship Between the Interest and the Brand

The relationship column should include things like:

• Is the interest a competitor of the brand?
• Is the interest a non-profit that the brand supports?
• Is the interest a celebrity that endorses the brand?
• Is the interest a current advertising campaign that the brand is using?

When possible, ensure the spreadsheet includes at least a dozen interests. If the brand is a huge megabrand, you might end up with perhaps a hundred interest targets, all in the same spreadsheet.

With smart, highly relevant targeting, you can show the benefits of a Facebook campaign to any brand – big or small.

Original at Create Rock-Solid Facebook Audits Every Time BlitzLocal

“After performing a Google search for ‘local blue widgets’, I found your sponsored ad toward the bottom of the first page. Your ad looked more professional and appealing than the others even though it wasn’t at the top. I clicked on the ad and it brought me to a page that had great information on blue widgets. It was exactly what I was looking for, as if you somehow knew what I wanted…”

In the past when print media was the primary marketing channel, asking your prospects was a much more viable way to track your leads. You would get answers like “The billboard near my house”, “Your ad in the local newspaper”, “The Yellowpages”, or “The flier I got in the mail”. These things are easy for a viewer to remember. Online Marketing is different: when you browse through 20 different pages in ten minutes, it’s difficult to remember how you stumbled upon a website.

Unfortunately, with Online Marketing your typical answers like “The Internet”, or “A Google search”, simply aren’t enough information. You have no way of knowing if it was an organic result or a sponsored ad that they clicked on, and you can’t tell which page on your website they first landed on, or what keywords they searched. The fact of matter is that you can’t depend on prospects to tell you how they heard about you. We’ve seen folks say they searched Yahoo! for “Denver liposuction”, when we don’t even advertise on Yahoo! for that client. They’re not lying– they just don’t remember.

Here are 5 ways to track your online leads, the first being least effective and last being most effective:

1. Ask them how they heard about you: Even if the client had proper recall, the folks at the front desk aren’t always consistent. Do it anyway, but don’t rely on this data alone.
2. Use a “click to call” technology: For example, Google Voice allows you to embed a widget that will connect both parties. However, folks over 30 (the ones with money to spend on professional services), prefer seeing a phone number and dialing it. Plus, not seeing the phone number on the website will hurt your SEO– the search engines won’t see it as necessarily being local. If you’re in NYC, use a NYC area code; if in San Francisco, use a San Fransisco are code etc. This method is great for tracking leads, but you’re going to miss out on some sales or conversions. People want to see a phone number.
3. Use rotating extensions: So maybe you want to buy only one phone number. To track the source, you can have each page be a different extension– Press “1″ for “Denver Hair Removal“, press “2″ for “Denver Smart Lipo“, and so fourth. This does have its drawbacks; putting clients through another step is going to cause some portion of the leads to drop out.
4. Use multiple phone numbers:  Buying a web-only phone number guarantees that if they called that number, then they were on the site.  You can forward that web-only number to your regular number, so it’s no extra work for your office.  There are a bunch of vendors that provide call tracking, charging from $10 per line per month to $35 per line per month.  If you have 10 numbers, one to track each type of traffic, it becomes a large expense for a small business.  However, if you have just ONE phone number on the site, how are you going to track what keyword they came in on? Though it may be expensive, this is an extremely accurate and easy way to track your leads. You also wont have to worry about prospects dropping calls out of confusion or frustration like you do with multiple extensions.
5. Use a coupon code: For example, when visitors are on a Botox landing page, tell them to mention “BOTOXDOCTOR” to get $50 off their next procedure. Have a different code for each of your different landing pages. Good old fashioned coupon codes that provide an incentive for customers don’t cost you a thing, and is a simple way to effectively track your leads.

I find it surprising that more people don’t use coupon codes. Google Local Business Center and MerchantCircle as well as a few other directories have begun integrating coupons into their advertisements, making it easy for business owners to determine whether a new lead came from Google Maps, MerchantCircle, or some other source.

Original at 5 Ways to Track Leads From Online Marketing BlitzLocal

Researching Facebook’s site was the most fun I’ve had at work in a long time.   I wasn’t nearly as familiar with Facebook as some of my friends.  The site is so addicting I’m not sure I want to know it too much better than I do now… Some of my Facebook savvy friends had hundreds of friends and were sending me Mafia Wars weapons, IQ Quizzes, and cause invitations before I even ‘friended’  my wife and daughter.   The quizzes are entertaining, the games are worse than crack, and the ability to re-connect with long lost friends sucked me in.  The site combines the best features of classmates.com, linkedin.com, Picasa, (photo sharing) chat, charities, fan clubs, causes, and games.  Additionally Facebook brings all the best features of these sites to a new viral level.  But the one thought that kept nagging at me was: folks on Facebook are not there to research products so how can we reach them while they’re socializing on this site?  The marketing challenges seem insurmountable:

• Finding my B2B audience among the 250 Million
• Getting their attention while they’re ‘playing’
• Not interrupting or peeving them in the process

Facebook’s Headquarters in Palo Alto have all the trappings of a typical Silicon Valley start up: high ceilings with exposed ventilation ducts, a gourmet kitchen open all hours, and a virtual United Nations of employees all spread out in desk areas without walls.  None of them appears older than 28, and some are moving about on skateboards and razors on smooth concrete floors.  Our conference room was a candy colored assortment sofas that swallow your bottom surrounding a 60-inch LCD TV serving as our demo screen.  Despite the trendy trappings, Facebook had much more substance than met the eye.

One of the mid twenty somethings presented to us that Facebook an incredible lineup of user demographics and can target them on no less than 19 different parameters including:

1. Country
2. State
3. Age
4. Gender
5. Interests
6. Activities
7. Music
8. TV Shows
9. Education
10. High School
11. College
12. Major
13. Workplace
14. Relationship status
15. Books
16. Moms/Parenting
17. Small Business
18. Pet Enthusiasts
19. Sports

Demographics didn’t quite convince me but I was getting warmer.  Facebook connects more than just people to people; it connects:

• People to companies
• People to organizations
• People to products
• People to classmates
• People to social groups
• People to causes
• People to hobbies and interests
• People to brands

While all this reconnecting/socializing/chatting/sharing/gaming is going on, the viral aspect of Facebook is also thrown into the mix. Word of mouth is powerful.

For example, when someone goes out to eat, buys a car or any product or service for that matter, do they trust the reviews they see on Yahoo!, Cars.com, or Amazon?  No disrespect to these fine websites, but I don’t trust their reviews any more than I trust restaurant reviews from TV “Phantom Diners.”  Disappointing sushi shops are more the rule than the exception when I believe American restaurant critics who purport to know something about sushi.  The fact is, I trust my friends, especially my very meticulous Japanese friend’s sushi restaurant recommendations.  So when I’m connected to friends on Facebook and one of them recommends a good sushi shop, they’ll usually tell a friend.  That friend tells friends and soon the word on the best sushi shop spreads around like a virus.

Now let’s take that virus and multiply it.  Let’s say the sushi shop we’re raving about runs an ad on Facebook with a $10 off coupon.  My friends are more inclined to click on the ad because of my recommendation.  CTR and Conversions increase because the social context increases the probability of intent to purchase, (by a multiple).  Ok, I’m getting warmer, but it’s still a B2C example.  What about B2B?

Through Facebook’s Pages, businesses can create a page to connect with customers and create a community.  Company X can, through Event Ads, let its community know that it’s attending the next Comdex or E3.   The company can run an ad on its corporate page with a lottery for a prize to be announced at its booth.  Company X could have speaker announcements on its Facebook Page.  Why would a company want to do this?  Company Fan Sites or Corporate site Pages are Voices – 1/3 of your fans will see what you put up on your site.  30% of your fans will read what you’ve launched on their individual home page.  If they comment on that announcement on their wall, it’s seen by all their friends following their comments.  How’s that for reach?

Engagement Advertisements

On the right side of the home page, (Engagement Ads) “become a fan,” Ads can be video, static, Users can comment on ads or video on the user’s profile page.

Celebrities and Industry Experts

Company X can capitalize on its unique content and celebrities.  If Company X has industry experts who’ve published technical articles and how-to application notes, it can feature these experts as Celebrities on Facebook.  If your company has a celebrity or expert who can create fresh content for you, that content can be launched as an update on the corporate Facebook page or the expert can have his or her own Facebook page.

Favorite Pages Application

The Favorite Pages Application can be used as a corporate sponsor.  The Afflac Duck fan site posts photos of the Duck visiting famous places all over the world such as the Eiffel Tower in Paris or the pyramids of Giza.  All the photos posted on the site of course are taken from the Duck’s perspective, i.e., from 1 foot off the ground.

If Facebook is the social networking site where everyone is, why not take advantage of the fact by becoming part of it?  The B2B aspect became clear: start a corporate Facebook page, populate it with useful unique content that users can’t get anywhere else, and make sure the content drives traffic to and from the corporate web site.  Facebook Profiles enable brands to connect with fans.  Videos, Comments and interactions get organically put back on users sites.  Companies can ask users for feedback.  They can make an offer once a day and make a pitch in the voice of a character

• Papa John’s Pizza gained millions of impressions and 130k fans in 24 hours
• They thanked the fans with exclusive offers – and the redemption rate was higher than email offers
• Built brand loyalty

I’m convinced.  Now can I convince my colleagues at work?

Meanwhile, I’ll just have some fun.

Original at B2B Advertising on Facebook BlitzLocal