When Web Advertising Doesn't Work

Microsoft Sharepoint being advertised (I had to look twice) under the header "How Brilliant Ideas Destroy Companies". That's ironic. And kind of humorous!

SES Toronto Day 2

Couldn't attend all the sessions but got to a couple of good ones.

From the session on B2B, learned the following:

• 80% of buyers say they found their vendors - not the other way round - 45% say they found their vendors on-line
  
• Google - no surprise - is their dominant starting point
• vertical search engines like business.com are huge - with 70% of B2B buyers surveyed saying they go there for insight and info
• word of mouth - via the internet - and reputation management must be key marketing considerations for B2B vendors
• when buyers go looking on-line, the three biggest things they're looking for are products, pricing and features
• content on B2b websites must reflect the roles in the purchasers organization during the buying cycle

Interesting stuff. Almost every client I've worked for has had a reason for not wanting to put their pricing, or some form of 'starts at...' pricing on-line. Feedback from the conference is that this is a BIG mistake.

From the session on Web 2.0 and search engines, learned about new ways to add 'context' to web content - making it easier for the search engines to distinguish between Paris Hilton and the Paris Hilton.

Also heard the term SEO 2.0 for the first time. This makes sense to me. Search is evolving significantly as the web and 2.0 type applications like Flickr become main-stream. Learning how to integrate these into search marketing strategies will be fundamental - just as text, tagging and keywords are now.