04 | October | 2011 | Fearless Competitor

B2B Demand Generation | Why Search Marketing is a small part only

Recently I spoke with a business owner who had hired a search engine optimization firm. That firm had done a fine job, and this owner thought his marketing was in good shape. What he failed to understand is this:

There’s a world of difference between Search Engine Optimization and B2B Demand Generation.

Despite the claims of search engine optimization folks, visitors to your website are NOT qualified sales leads.

The purpose of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is to make your website appear at the top of results when a user types keywords into a search tool like Google.

Check out the results for “Life Insurance New York” The colored sections at the top and at right are paid ads. So AARP and Prudential, as well as MetLife on the right are “buying clicks” with paid ads. But New York Life has the most respected position - #1 in organic search.

While ranking highly gets you a lot of traffic to your website, it is not B2B demand generation. Look at this image of a revenue cycle (compliments of Marketo)

Notice the All Names and Engaged stages. All Names mean they visited (but not qualified) and Engage means they are active on your website. At best, Search Engine Optimization covers only these first two stages of the Revenue Cycle.

SiriusDecisions calls the entire revenue cycle the Contact to Close process - from the time we first meet till they are inked as a customer. They urge their clients to focus on that entire process - and we at Find New Customers agree.

The critical element in B2B demand generation is looking at the entire revenue cycle and moving the prospect through every stage. That means attraction strategies to drive Awareness, like SEO. But it also means Lead Nurturing, Lead Scoring and Content Marketing , as well as Sales Enablement and so forth.

What do you think? Do you think companies confuse SEO with B2B Demand Generation?

We love comments and those who share. Lastly, we invite you to check out the Full Lead Generation program from Find New Customers.

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Jeff Ogden (@fearlesscomp) is the President of the B2B lead generation consultancy Find New Customers. Find New Customers helps companies dramatically improve revenue results by transforming the way they attract, engage and win new customers. Contact Find New Customers by calling (516) 495-9350 or sending an email to sales at findnewcustomers.com.

“If more companies listened to (Find New Customers) a lot more would be sold.” Dan McDade, Pointclear.

One of the most difficult things entrepreneurs and salespeople struggle with is describing

Mike Schultz

the value of what they offer. And this is a biggie when it comes to sales success because you can’t sell what you can’t describe.

I’m not talking about the features and benefits - customers don’t care about those. I’m talking about the value you bring to the table and the results you can help buyers achieve. So many entrepreneurs and salespeople get tripped up early in the process trying to describe their value that it makes it impossible for them to succeed.

To help you build and communicate a compelling value proposition that sells, the folks over at RAIN Group just released the second free video in their Entrepreneurial Selling video series that teaches you how to do just this.

You don’t want to miss it – not only because it’s free – but because you’ll walk away with new knowledge and skills that you can apply right away to improve your value proposition and to communicate it with buyers. (Click on Watch the Videos)

P.S. Be sure to check out the 7:57 mark in the video to learn the 3 keys to building a value proposition – this is great stuff!

Full disclosure: This post contains affiliate links and Find New Customers may receive compensation for anyone that signs up. But we wouldn’t promote anything that we didn’t think was quality and well worth your time.

What do you think? We love comments and people who share.

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“If more companies listened to (Find New Customers) a lot more would be sold.” Dan McDade, Pointclear.