January 15, 2001
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*** MarketingSherpa.com's B-to-B MarketingBiz.com ***
Practical News & Tips for B-to-B Marketing on the Internet
Jan. 15, 2000 Vol. 2, Issue 3
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1. NEWS: Trade Show Sites Proven Successful for Advertisers
2. MORE HEADLINES
3. CASE STUDY: Welocalize.com's "Free eQuote" Web Site Button
Generates Sales Leads from the Global 2000
4. INTERVIEW: Anthony Muller's Top Five Tactics for Getting
Higher Search Engine Rankings (Part II)
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NEWS
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* Advertising on Trade Show Web Sites Significantly Lowers
Businesses' Cost Per Sales Lead
Do ads on trade show Web sites really work? Stuart Stafman,
CEO of PackExpo.com, a trade show site for the packaging
industry that's expanded to become a year-round B-to-B exchange,
says almost 50% of the 55,000 tickets sold for the PackExpo
show last year were sold online.
If other trade show sites share even remotely similar stats,
that means thousands of your company's best sales prospects
are buying their tickets online. Stafman recommends business
marketers take advantage of this guaranteed traffic by putting
up banner ads, and purchasing enhanced company listings on
sites with exhibitor directories. For example, businesses
purchasing enhanced listings on the PackExpo site are
generating sales leads for less than $19 each, as compared to
an average of $230 for a lead generated at the show itself.
Stafman also recommends you work with trade show sites in your
industry to find ways they can help you generate leads before
the show, so you can use the show itself to, "do the touch and
feel stuff that closes the sale." Many major shows are run by
associations; and we'll bet if you can plant an executive on
the volunteer show committee you'll be able to influence the
future of that show's Web site in your favor too.
http://www.packexpo.com
http://www.associationcentral.com
*****
MORE MARKETINGSHERPA.COM HEADLINES
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Learn how to make the most of your online advertising
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* How Moreover Got 100,000 Web Sites to Carry its Headline
News Service
http://www.contentbiz.com/sample.cfm?contentID=1327
* Interactive Agency Lounge Lizard Gets 4-5% CTRs on Email
Newsletter Sponsorships
http://www.marketingtowebmarketers.com/sample.cfm?contentID=1339
* Survey Results: Best & Stupidest British Internet Marketing
Campaigns of 2000
http://www.marketingsherpa.co.uk/sample.cfm?contentID=1334
* B-to-B MarketingBiz.com's Archives Online
http://www.b2bmarketingbiz.com/archives.cfm
*****
CASE STUDY: Welocalize.com
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CHALLENGE
Although they have many smaller clients,
Welocalize.com's target market are the Global 2000 -- large
multinationals willing to pay six figure amounts for their Web
sites and intranets to be accessible and appealing to staff,
clients and partners in many countries. However, Welocalize
has a very limited sales team -- in fact the company only had
a single sales rep on staff from 1997 to 1999!
CAMPAIGN
Company CEO Smith Yewell tried space ads in
industry magazines, but he says, "We yanked them. We kind of
found out that most industry magazines are really read by
competitors. We did get some good employee leads but not a
whole lot of new business."
So, Yewell decided to focus all his marketing resources on the
Internet. He began with what he calls a "rudimentary html
site" which he built himself four years ago at itlink.com.
Yewell says, "It's nothing fancy, but the search engines like
it and people can find the information they need very quickly.
They catch a word they're looking for, the see a couple of our
client names and then in a matter of 20 seconds they click on
the eQuote button to receive more information."
As the company grew, Yewell added another site,
wetranslate.com, which he describes as "middle of the road."
The site was also designed in-house with gathering new sales
leads as its sole objective. Yewell says, "The whole site is
designed to drive traffic to the phone or to our online eQuote
form." Finally just last year the Company launched a
corporate branding site at welocalize.com, which features
highly professional Web graphics and a slicker design. Yewell
explains, "It's the only site that doesn't make our marketer
cringe."
All three sites have one common element -- an "eQuote" button
prominently displayed on every single page. This button
reads, "Click here to get a prompt eQuote or call
800.370.9515 -> "
Yewell says, "It's convenient. Rather having to dig deep and
read a whole bunch of stuff to figure out who to call, this
jumps right out at you." The button drives traffic to a
deliberately simple form promising immediate response.
Yewell notes, "We really tried to make it as easy as possible,
so we don't ask for address. We only ask for name, phone
number and a couple of questions about the work to be done."
RESULTS
Welocalize.com's client list reads like the who's who
of big business, including General Electric, Nokia and Adobe.
Yewell says, "95% of our business comes in from leads
generated at our sites."
The three sites return about 2-3 qualified leads a day, which
have consistently resulted in a high sales ratio. Yewell
says, "We landed clients like Cisco, Xerox and MCI WorldCom
through our Web site. I've sold six figure jobs to those
clients without ever having seen them face-to-face."
Ninety percent of the Company's site traffic is driven by
search engines. The three sites share very similar traffic
patterns, ranging from 5,000-10,000 user sessions per month
with an average visit length of three minutes and thirteen
seconds. Although the eQuote button prominently features a
toll-free number, three times more inquiries come from the
online form.
NEXT: Yewell is so pleased with his sites results that he not
only plans to leave all three up, he also plans to launch
thirteen more this quarter. He explains, "The concept is
surface area. We want as many hooks out there as possible."
http://www.welocalize.com
http://www.itlink.com
http://www.wetranslate.com
*****
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Anthony Muller, Web Mercs
*****
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* Search Engine Optimization Tips for B-to-B Marketers from Web
Mercs' Anthony Muller (Part II)
Anthony Muller, President Web Mercs, specializes in search
engine optimization for a handpicked group of clients. In
Part I of our interview last week, he revealed the most common
myths and blunders of optimization. (See the link at the end
of this article for Part I.) This week, we ask Muller to give
us an overview of what does work when it comes to optimizing.
Q: What are the most successful ways to get a site ranked high
by search engines?
Muller: We use five basic tactics:
1) Meta tags -- A very small percentage of people out there
actually have meta tags on their sites even though they can
increase your rankings tenfold. They're not the only answer,
but they make a difference. Bad meta tags are ones using
vague terms like "business" or "cars." You need to be really
specific with meta tags, this is your niche, your description.
Also, make sure you put the most important keyword in front
so if the engine clips the description short, the important
words are still there.
2) Link popularity -- Some search engines rank you according
to how many other domains link to your domain. You're not
looking for humans to find you at the other site, the only
thing you're looking for that page to do is have a search
engine spider it. The engines give you points for link
quality. For example, a free-for-all links page will give you
one point whereas a link on CNN would give you like 100. A
quality link is worth much more than lots of non-quality
links. So, you need to find people who will trade links with
you.
3) Hotboosting -- This is a tricky little tactic I only use on
certain search engines where if you don't get any clicks you
disappear. So you have to go to it yourself and click on it.
You don't want to do it a million times because search engines
know what you are doing and they know your IP address. But
if you do it once and a while, it can help.
4) Link assassinations: If somebody is ranked above you in a
search engine and they are using spam tactics to get there, we
report them to the search engines so they disappear and you
usually move up in rank.
5) Page mirroring -- You need informational pages targeting
specific keywords. However, each one will work will on
certain engines and not others. So, we'll create a very
similar page targeting the same keyword but it's built in a
way to appeal to a particular search engine. You only submit
that page to that one search engine so the others won't frown
on you for spamming.
Q: We've heard it can be hard to keep on top of optimization
because the search engines are constantly changing their
rules. How true is that?
Muller: A lot of people use that line to scare you so they can
charge you high maintenance fees every month. Some engines
change every six months or a year. For example, Altavista is
adding a few new features right now and this is about their
third generation since they launched. Other engines rarely
change. For example, Excite hasn't ever made any immense
overhauls. On the other hand HotBot was created by some great
engineers, who knew how to keep throwing wrenches into the
works and making changes, so people won't catch on and trick
the engine.
Q: All of this sounds more complicated than many marketers
have time for in their busy schedules. How much should a
consultant cost if marketers decide to outsource this?
Muller: If optimizing was easy then everybody would be doing
it themselves and I'd be out of a job!
There are some consultants out there who get $65-$100 an hour.
You should ask them exactly what they'll give you for that
and how much the total job will cost you. Our costs are
fairly reasonable. Creating information pages and submitting
them to sites will run you around $50-$60 per page created.
Each page we create is specifically targeted towards 1-2
keywords. Then we'll charge you a little for ongoing
maintenance, such as resubmitting to search engines that drop
you, etc.
The average budget for a small commercial site would be about
$1,500-$7,000. A larger commercial site would run anywhere
from $7,000-$12,000.
Unless you have a million different things on your Web site,
there really isn't a need to go nuts. The only way you get
into massive fees is if you have massive pages. A
hypothetical example would be a company like Dell that has a
whole bunch of products they want to sell. Then, you're
probably looking at $15,000-$20,000 a year, if you really go
berserk.
Q: Ok, once I've hired a consultant how long should it take
before I see real results?
Muller: The time it will take varies on different engines. As
of right now Altavista will rank pages within two-four weeks -
- and that's the fastest you'll see it done. Some other
engines take three-to-six months, and some even longer. So
there's no quick and easy fix unless you go to GoTo.com and
buy a keyword.
Part I of this Interview:
http://www.b2bmarketingbiz.com/sample.cfm?contentID=1310
Web Mercs:
http://www.web-mercs.com
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