According to an email marketing expert, online marketing executives should consider boosting their existing B2B email lists by offering incentives.

Founder and chief strategy officer at website analytics and marketing firm SeeWhy, Charles Nicholls, told BizReport that business to business email marketing was one of the most successful ways to convert possible clients into paying customers.

Obtaining quality B2B data is the starting off point for a successful email marketing campaign, so obtaining a strong list – without any mistakes or outdated information – is crucial and should be taken very seriously.

There is no point in spending a fortune on the email campaign further down the track if the basics are not in place to ensure that it reaches the correct audience and appeals to them.

Mr Nicholls went on to say that, whilst B2B email marketing was crucial, it could take several attempts in order to achieve a conversion from potential client to paying client. Because of this, the B2B data and business email lists are essential in order that the prospective customers can be offered incentives to keep coming back to – and interacting with – the brand.


The expert said, “New traffic may not lead directly to a sale, but if it leads to a micro-conversion, such as a newsletter sign up, registration or social login, then it is very valuable.”

1 way of offering incentives is through incentivised newsletter sign up. As email plays such a crucial role in converting traffic, ensuring that the newsletter sign-up is prominently displayed is essential.

Don't bury it in amongst the small print at the bottom of the page where it may well get overlooked, rather place it in a location that's easy to spot, near the top of the page. As many website visitors will happily hand over their email addresses in exchange for the chance to pick up promotional offers, this could be a good tactic to follow to.

Email firm ExactTarget recently revealed that the majority of customers – 67 per cent – subscribe and share their email addresses in order to receive promotions and discounts. Fifty-five per cent do so in order to receive a freebie, whilst 50 per cent do so in order to receive the latest updates on coming sales.

Incentivising the registration page on a website is also a good way of attracting email addresses. Try to keep the registration process short so that potential customers do not lose interest and give up halfway though completing the form. Design the registration form so that the email address is captured as early on as possible. That way, if the web user does not total the form, JavaScript can still be used to save the email address, so all is not lost.

1 other way of incentivising new clients is to utilise social logins on a website. These logins – which allow users to use their social network accounts to log into a site – are a strong way of capturing email addresses and gleaning information about the user.

According to some experts within the sector, up to 300 per cent more web users will login via their Facebook account than would have used a registration form on the site.

Certain firms are uncertain when it comes to language in search marketing, new figures have shown.

According to recent research conducted by Hydra, 70 per cent of firms are keen to spend more time reviewing their keywords and phrases on a more frequent basis. It is clear, therefore, that the majority of firms understand the importance of well-targeted and thought-out keywords.

However, 55 per cent of those surveyed claimed not to know which words or expressions are most valuable to their market and therefore worth spending time and money on. Martyn Jobber, Hyrda chief executive, commented, “Companies have multiple people doing multiple tasks, in different ways, across the same set of words, all with the same goal of acquiring customers and engaging them in the language they use.”

Search marketers determined to put some worthwhile effort into their keyword research can look at either free or paid-for tools to determine the best phrases to focus on.

Another thing for marketing people to consider is the range of search engines on offer. While Google is still very much the dominant player, different sectors watch different levels of search activity with alternative sites.

For example, research from Rosetta recently revealed that Yahoo! is actually quite important for websites in the retail sector, accounting for over 24 per cent of related search engines. But the B2B market would be less likely to spend time investing in Yahoo! search marketing, since just 11.79 per cent of searches relating to its sector come from this engine.

The health industry, on the other hand, was found to be very heavily dependent on Google, with 75.37 per cent of its related searches coming from the internet behemoth. Just 14.57 per cent of health searches were put through Yahoo!.

Microsoft’s Bing accounted for just 7.32 per cent of health searches. It held a similarly minor proportion of searches for B2B and retail, suggesting the newbie to the market has someway to go before search marketers will prioritise its results.

Even so, Rosetta advised marketers to keep Yahoo! and Bing in mind when looking at their campaign. While it is clear that all industries are going to see the most benefit from “focusing on Google to increase their share of organic search engine traffic”, the two smaller search engines can also provide a “great source of leads or conversions”.

Google’s new ‘+1’ button could also help marketers push their websites up the rankings. The social plugin allows surfers to indicate that they approve of a particular link. This approval can then be signalled to their friends through the Google+ social network, which is still in its infancy. As a result, adoption of the ‘+1’ button is also just beginning to take off, but it is certainly something to keep in mind as the network’s popularity grows.

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New guidance issued by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) aims to raise the strategic importance of mobile marketing among B2B marketers.

The white paper, created by the IAB’s B2B council – which comprises Google, Ernst and Young and Simply Business – addresses the popular misconception that mobile is mainly a B2C channel and aims to educate marketers about what makes a successful B2B mobile campaign.

The Mobile in the B2B Space white paper also set out eight best practice rules which marketers should follow, which included having a mobile website, focusing on short, ‘snackable’ content, creating two minute video case studies to be consumed on mobile, recording audio podcasts, offering 160-character SMS alerts, developing a mobile social strategy, integrating mobile in to the marketing mix and simplifying messaging and calls to action.

IAB project manager, Chris Probert, said, “Through the collation of research, best practice and strategic guidance, the B2B council has produced a timely guide for the B2B industry to help boost confidence within this channel and prove that it is not too late to be early with mobile advertising.”

The white paper comes following news from Gartner, the research company, which predicted that mobile phones would overtake computers as the most common way of accessing the internet as soon as 2013. A recent Forbes study – which was carried out in tandem with search engine giant Google – also revealed that a good number of senior legal executives carry around an average of three.46 mobile devices each.

The IAB's B2B council's new chair, Hanne Tuomisto-Inch, said, "With B2B professionals always on the move and heavily reliant on their mobile devices, now is the time to tap into this growing market, which is why the council has invested significant time into research activity.

“In my new role, I want to address the gap in B2B digital marketing advice, to help the community drive growth and make sense of the myriad of digital opportunities available,” she added.

Ms Tuomisto-Inch also confirmed that the IAB's B2B council is also currently working on producing additional white papers which will cover social media and video marketing. These white papers will be published over the next few months.

According to internet trend monitoring site Net Marketshare, mobile phones and mobile tablets such as iPads account for more than five per cent of all web searches carried out these days.

Internet browsing using mobile devices is even higher in the US, with the Net Marketshare report also finding that eight.2 per cent of all Internet browsing carried out in the US is done through a mobile device of some sort.

To carry out the research, Net Marketshare collected data from 40,000 global websites tracking 160 million unique visits a month. It found that the most commonly used device is the iPhone, with 2.nine per cent of the eight.two per cent of mobile internet browsing in the US being carried out through the Apple device.