Expert's Corner
The #1 Rule of SEO
Brian Makas, Manager of Business
Intelligence for ThomasNet, shares his perspective on how industrial companies
can be found online.
No matter how much time you spend on Search Engine Optimization (SEO),
if you don't write, in detail, about what your products and services
can do, you won't be found by buyers looking for that information. This is
the #1 rule of SEO.
What might buyers be looking for and how can you ensure that you're
found? Buyers most commonly search in one of three ways:
Search Type #1
If they are already aware of you, they will search for your
company by name
Search Type #2
If they know exactly what they are looking for, they will search for a
specific product or service
Search Type #3
Buyers may have a problem that needs to be addressed but don't know exactly
how to solve it yet. In this case, they will search for the solution to
their problem.
The last search above – when buyers are searching for
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Client Spotlight
Gaining New Customers Every Single Day
"Our online catalog is delivering new customers to us every
single day," says Ken Tumblison, President of Ohio-based
Buckeye Shapeform. "Ultimately, more people are
coming to our site, more people are staying, and more people
are buying as a result of our online catalog." With the help of
ThomasNet, Buckeye Shapeform redesigned their website and created an online
catalog including 15,000+ product configurations.
View Buckeye Shapeform's
video testimonial
Read more...
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Stop Losing Your Customers
Retaining your customers is just as critical – if not more critical –
than seeking out new customers or growing your customer base. According to an
eMarketer
survey, 44% of marketers said their most important advertising goal in 2009 is
to increase customer retention.
There are several reasons why customer retention is so important. Research shows...
The cost of acquiring new customers is much higher than
the cost of retaining current customers. According to Customer Relationship
Management, "In the B2B context in particular, ongoing relationship maintenance
costs such as selling and service costs can be low relative to the costs of
winning the account. Therefore, there is a high probability that the account
will become more profitable on a period-by-period basis as tenure lengthens."
Loyal customers will continue to spend with you if they
see value and trust you. Their level of comfort in dealing with your company
may also help to increase their spending with you well into the future. B2B
buyers estimate that 78% of their budgets in one quarter were spent on Repeat
(50%) or Repeat Modified (28%) purchases.
Competition is fierce, particularly in these times when
buyers are sourcing with tighter budgets and in a shortened time-to-market. The
ThomasNet Industrial Purchasing Barometer shows that 73% of engineers research
three to five suppliers on average when a purchase need arises. The same survey
reported over 68% of industrial buyers make or influence purchases for $50,000+
each year, and almost 33% of these buyers make or influence purchases for
$250,000+ each year. If you determine the lifetime value (LTV) of just one of
these customers, it's easy to see why customer retention is critical to the
continuing success of your business.
Understand Your Customer’s
Lifetime Value (LTV)
A customer’s lifetime value
is often used to determine
the appropriateness of the costs to acquire the customer, but it’s also a
valuable metric to use to retain customers. In general, if a customer’s LTV is
greater than it costs to acquire that customer (or another new customer), the
customer is deemed to be profitable and thus, it makes
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2 out of 3
engineers spend 1 or more hours
per week looking for product news.
Click here to learn more...
Source:
ThomasNet's August 2009 Industrial Purchasing Barometer
News
Protect
Your Business from Cyber Threats
Increasing computerization of production methods
and greater reliance on digital data systems have made cyber security a
significant concern for manufacturers, according to IMT. How can businesses
deal with the new wave of cyber threats?
Read more...
Social Media Monitoring Can Benefit B2B
Learn more about your customers' needs,
wants, issues and frustrations through social media monitoring, a recent article
on SearchEngineLand.com advises.
Read more...
How to Get Good Testimonials
A post on WebWorkDaily.com shares the
features of good testimonials and tells you how to get them.
Read more...
Online
Marketing Eats Into Traditional Media
InternetNews.com reports, "Interactive
marketing will near $55 billion and represent 21 percent of all marketing
dollars spent in 2014 as advertisers shift money away from traditional media
to search marketing, display advertising, e-mail marketing, social media and
mobile promotions, according to a recent study by Forrester Research.
Read more...
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