Survey Shows that Business to Business Marketing Publicity Targets 96% of where Customers Learn about New Products and Technology

Who wouldn't like to reach 96% of their target market with one business to business marketing plan? According to a survey published in the September 1, 2005 issue of "Electronic Design" magazine, it can be done.

When asked, "Where do you find the most useful information about new products and technology?" the respondents ranked print magazines (54%), Web searches (23%, Google primarily), and E-mail newsletters (19%, which includes RSS feeds) as the top three sources. This covers 96% of the bases, relegating trade shows (2%) and word of mouth (2%) to being almost inconsequential. This comes as good news for anyone using business to business marketing publicity for lead generation.

"My conclusion from these numbers is that print is roughly equal to the Internet in value; you can't neglect either without significantly hindering your marketing campaign," says John Elliott, CEO of Power PR, a business to business marketing public relations firm that now offers clients a complete search engine optimization program including RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds.

Elliott speaks from personal experience, as his public relations firm is one of the few grounded in generating large numbers of print articles. Since its inception in 1991, Power PR has facilitated the publication of over fifteen thousand articles for clients.

Of the electronic half of the marketing publicity equation, Internet searches on Google account for a slightly larger percentage. However, unless done correctly, simply posting "optimized" releases on the Web will not necessarily land a company on the first page of a search.

Elliott explains the limitations this way: "Most everyone has done some search engine optimization for their site, so the playing field is level. A public relations firm must help clients to the next level by ensuring these optimized releases go out on major wire services with embedded links to the client's home page. That's one of the best ways to favorably impact ranking."

Rounding out a close third are Internet newsletters. In particular, RSS newsletters are quickly becoming an excellent marketing tool as this medium makes it easy to display high-quality, relevant news on a company's Website, and to syndicate its news and content elsewhere.

Just as for news releases, though, anything written for RSS must employ all available SEO techniques critical to reaching the browsers and e-mail clients of prospective customers. Once correctly optimized, major search engines seek out RSS feeds and view them as legitimate news sources.

Here lies one of the greatest strengths of any marketing publicity effort: that customers readily recognize the editorial copy of electronic or print media outlets as fairly objective arbiters of the "real" story. For this reason, editorial copy is read six times more than advertising according to some studies.

"Without print, optimized press releases and RSS feeds, there will be gaping holes in your business to business marketing strategy and it will be difficult, if not impossible, to get to the 96% saturation level,” says Elliott. "But once accomplished with the right business to business marketing publicity plan, lead generation should more than take care of itself"

To learn more about marketing publicity, contact John Elliott at 3711 Lomita Blvd., Suite 200, Torrance, CA 90505; (310) 787-1940; fax (310) 787-1970; or www.powerpr.com.

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