PPC is an amazing tool to reach your potential customers when you deal with consumer goods or services.

 

But what happens when your customers are organizations?

 

PPC can be used to reach your business to business audience, but your strategy must be adapted to the organizational consumer behavior.

 

First of all , we must understand how organizations go about searching for vendors.

Organizations have what we call a buying center that goes through a complex decision making process.  This is even more true in today's economical environment.

 

Someone within the organization will identify the need for a new product or service. That someone will either look for the service himself/herself or will delegate the search task to a subordinate or purchasing manager.

 

The Enquiro’s 2007 Business to Business Survey confirms that search engines are a strong influencer in B2B deals at every stage of the buying cycle (from the information gathering process through to the actual purchase order issue).

Based on this survey's findings, 51% of organizational customers start their research process on general search engines before refining their search.

 

Your leads are online – are you?

 

Again, what we need to remember when targeting B2B customers is that the customer is not one person, but a group of people: the buying center. Therefore, when setting up your PPCcampaign you need to remember that you are talking to different people, seeking the same product or service, and that each of them has different interests and parameters in mind when gathering information.

 

Each member of the buying center has a different agenda according to his/her position in the buying cycle.
As a marketer you need to target each buyer, each stage of the buying cycle and therefore have different targeted campaigns in place.

 

You will need to select different messages, keywords and ads for each phase of the buying cycle to make sure to reach all the decision makers you are targeting.

 

This is not an easy task. But it can be done.

Here are a few tips:

• • Use one word keyword for the beginning of the buying cycle
• • Use longer key phrases for advanced stages of the buying cycle
• • Always stay on the 1st page results but bid low on more general terms and higher on more complex and industry specific ones
• • Choose the appropriate call to action terminology
• Remember to bid on your brand name, this will bring you cheaper qualified leads.

 

A few more things you should remember... Your sales cycle may typically be longer than for consumer products. Therefore, it will be harder to measure results at first. Keep track of your PPC leads in your CRM tool for long term evaluations. Be true to your brand. Set up specific landing pages for your PPC campaigns but don't 'trash' your brand in the process.

 

Ultimately remember that SEO can save you a lot of your advertising budget in the long run.
Also your website will get more credibility if potential customers can find it in the organic search results!