Finding B2B Sales Leads Online: Interview with Gord Hotchkiss

Social Media's Role in B2B Sales Lead Gen

Larry Chase: Can you give me some examples where Social Media helps the B2B sales process?

Gord Hotchkiss: Let's say there are a lot of people in your industry who use similar solutions. You can crowd-source opinions on the products or services you are considering. That's happening fairly often in LinkedIn now.

LinkedIn also has communities built around different industries. There could be a LinkedIn group or forum or people you follow on Twitter where those opinions are shared.

The more specific the industry and the product you're looking at, the smaller the potential group and the more qualified the opinions you get.

Using Hidden Keywords in PPC Campaigns

LC: You talk in your book about hidden keywords and how to uncover them. What do you mean by that?

GH: In a B2B context, maybe a person is looking to reequip a sales team with laptops so they're searching on "laptops" or possibly a brand. They're really looking for rugged laptops that will withstand the trials of road warriors, but they don't tell you that in their searches.

However, if you know that within your target market, rugged construction, bulletproof warranty programs and buyer backup are important to your buyers, those are the hidden keywords you can use in your text.

That will separate you, performance-wise, from competitors who haven't included those hidden keywords in their text.

Do B2B Buyers Prefer Email?

GH: This is potentially generational, but it could be shifting. They're usually people who adopted technology rather than grew up with it. Email is an easy paradigm for us to grasp. We've adopted it wholeheartedly. Most of us build our to-do lists around our in-boxes and use email as a way to sort tasks and attack our day.

You're speaking in their language if you use email. Anytime you adopt a new technology, you have to relate it to something you already know.

They might be struggling a bit more with Social Media options. It's not that they don't use Twitter; it's just not as natural a fit.

'Digital Natives' versus 'Digital Immigrants'

LC: Do you see email timing out?

GH: Potentially. In our book, we describe the differences between "digital natives" and "digital immigrants" [two terms coined by futurist Marc Prensky; see definitions at the end of this interview]. We are starting to see a shift in preferred communications.

LC: What would "digital natives" use instead of email?

GH: They're more comfortable with real-time text or online chatting. It's where they are in their lives and what they're doing.

The way you communicate shifts dramatically through your life to accommodate new priorities and demands. It's difficult to distinguish between changes that result because they're at certain stages in their lives and changes that are part of their generation and attitudes toward technology.

LC: Do you see a shift away from email with "digital natives?" Do they use it mainly to communicate with bosses who are "digital immigrants?"

GH: "Digital natives" segment their lives in their interactions with technology. They use email for more formal communications. A lot happens through their social networks, like posting Facebook messages and real-time group conversations.

As a "digital immigrant," I'm the opposite. I live in my inbox, and I'm on my Facebook page maybe a couple days a week.

Why Most Vendor Websites are Awful

LC: Many vendor or manufacturer websites aren't known for their usability or slick interfaces. Is this why people will continue to use search engines or comparison tools?

GH: In the B2B world, most vendor websites are terrible. Manufacturers used to rely on partners to do their distribution and sales. Now that's changed.

They think, "We have to have a website," but they don't have the marketing frame of mind to make their sites attractive and useful to the user. They take their spec sheets and put them up online in some form or another, but they just don't have a user-centric frame of mind.

So, navigation is nonintuitive; the sites aren't attractive, and they are hard to get through. The copy is dense and not always appropriate. If the vendor has a broad product selection, internal search is usually abysmal.

So, after struggling with the site, the user will give up and go to Google to find what they're looking for within the site they've just been to.

Distributors have to be smarter about usability, structure their sites in a logical way and have an effective search tool. It's a rare find in the B2B world.

What Happens When You Aren't Top-of-SERP

LC: You say that the brand gets hurt if it's absent from the top results on a search engine results page (SERP). Why?

GH: We have this weird trust relationship with search engines. We use them to qualify our own concepts of our consideration sets.

For example, if we have two or three brands in mind, we match them internally with what Google brings back. If one of the candidates in our internal picture doesn't appear on the first search results page, that raises doubts. We trust Google's algorithm to pull out relevant results.

If I search for laptops, for example, and Dell isn't there, but another brand is, you have another opportunity to introduce a new candidate into your consideration set.

So, it's important for brands to maintain their position in the search engines. Top of page equals exposure.

LC: What percentage of searchers goes to Page 2 of their search results?

GH: Most studies show 85 percent never go past Page 1.

How B2B Buyers Find Their Way Online

LC: You also mention the way-finding process. What is that?

GH: This is another example of how we adapt existing internal mental structures in new environments. Humans have to learn the most effective ways of navigating the landscape. The same is true online.

We look for landmark sites in new territories. These landmarks are popular sites within a category. We use them as jumping-off points to explore other places. Search engines can be intersections in this journey.

As we get more comfortable with the new space, we remember paths we've taken through them. That's why people introduce the same search over and over on a search engine.

You might not remember the name of a site you visited, but you remember when you searched for it, it was the third result down the page.

So, you go back to Google and keep searching for the same thing. You remember the paths you took to get there. Then, you create a mental grid and use that to navigate this space without knowing all the paths.

About Gord Hotchkiss