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Analyzing the Value of
Content Marketing for
Business-to-Business
By Gergina Hristova · Namics AG
“Marketing isn’t going to go away.
Nor should it.
But it needs to evolve, rapidly and thoroughly,
for markets have become networked
and now know more than business,
learn faster than business, are more honest than
business, and are a hell of a lot
more fun than business.
The voices are back, and voice brings craft:
work by unique individuals motivated by
passion. What’s happening to the market is
precisely what should – and will – happen
to marketing. Marketing needs to become a craft.
Recall that craft-workers listen to the material they’re
forming, shaping the pot to the feel of the clay,
designing the house to fit with and even
reveal the landscape.
The stuff of marketing is the market itself.
Marketing can’t become a craft until it can hear the
new – the old – sound of its markets.
By listening, marketing will re-learn how to talk.
”
Doc Searls and David Weinberger (2009) in
‘The Cluetrain Manifesto. The End of Business as Usual’
Index
Executive Summary
1 – Introduction: Content Marketing – Digital Revival of an Old Concept
2 – Methods of Information Gathering and Analysis
3 – The Development of Marketing 3.1 Content Marketing Definition
3.2 Social Media Definition
3.3 The Importance of Content Marketing for B2B
3.4 Goals and Hypothesis
4 – Background of the Research Interest
5 – Presentation of Findings on B2B and Content Marketing
5.1 Understanding the Major Characteristics of B2B and B2B Marketing
5.2 B2B Communications and the Promotional Mix
5.3 Content Marketing: Just Hype?
5.4 Content Marketing in the B2B Sector: Examples
5.4.1 Trivadis: Content Marketing for High Turnover Increase
5.4.2 Accenture: Content Marketing as Thought Leadership for Better Customer Outcomes
5.4.3 Indium: Content Marketing for Customer Contacts Take-Off
5.4.4 Distribion: Content Marketing for a Revenue Boost
5.5 Content Marketing and Its Fit in the Overall Marketing Strategy
5.6 Steps toward B2B Content
5.7 Content Marketing’s ROI
5.8 What About Social Media?
6 – The Importance of Content Marketing for Some Swiss Companies
7 – Conclusion
8 – Bibliography
About the Author – Gergina Hristova
Executive Summary
T
his work aims at identifying and analyzing the value of content marketing for business-to-business (B2B) companies. The limited available
evidence so far suggests that content marketing or corporate publishing – as it
is sometimes called in Europe – is not only well established, but of considerable
importance both in the United States and in the European German speaking
countries (Switzerland, Germany, Austria).
Assuming that marketing is being enriched with relationship marketing, mass
customization allows organizations to produce for market segments of one. At
the same time, new technology allows for new media giving the customers a
voice. Empowered consumers actively seek and contribute information online
before making purchase decisions. This presents a transformational challenge
for many strategic marketers who need to go beyond utilizing the Internet as a
tool toward its redefinition and transformation. Content marketing as the creation and sharing of content for marketing purposes presents itself as a means of
dealing with consumers‘ new empowerment. Answering customers’ questions
online and providing valuable content on companies’ websites, blogs and social
network sites to meet their information needs can have a positive influence on
customers’ purchase decision making process. In combination with social media, content marketing can help quality content reach and accordingly influence desired communities.
B2B marketing as the creation and management of mutually beneficial relationships between organizational suppliers and organizational customers
can profit from content marketing in that content can help explain complex
products and services, share know-how and demonstrate competence, support
the building of long-term relationships between suppliers and customers and
serve highly specific information needs with relevant, interesting and even
entertaining content. As there is always more than one decision maker involved
in the purchase decision making process, there’s time to build momentum for
one’s relevant content as the longer sales cycle gives B2B marketers the opportunity to engage customers on a regular basis.
Content can be used to support the overall promotional mix of the B2B marketer
and augment more traditional promotion tools and advertising campaigns. We
deliver examples of B2B content marketing success stories supporting this assumption. However, considering that content marketing requires considerable
investment of time and financial resources as well as a broad cultural integration
across the enterprise, content marketing still has to find a way to cogently prove
its return on investment (ROI). This work gives an overview of some approaches
to determining content marketing‘s ROI.
After briefly presenting insights into some Swiss companies‘ awareness and
estimation of content marketing’s importance today and in future, the work
comes to the conclusion that content marketing - even at this early stage of B2B
marketing with limited empirical evidence – is present in the marketing plans
and budgets of many marketing executives. Content marketing is becoming
manifest and companies that can figure out how to market with content to attract and retain customers can contribute to positive business results. Creating
great content might be a good start, but making it work for the business goals
and proving its worth is an ongoing challenge. Setting clear objectives and
tying content to measurable results contributes to proving content marketing’s
worth for the company.
Given that communication is the core of marketing and content is at the core
of communication, content marketing may turn out to be vital to the future
of marketing itself. This work makes a first step toward assessing the value of
content marketing for B2B organizations. However, fundamental research on
content marketing still has to be conducted in order to analyze the basic questions raised here.
< Back to Index
1. Introduction: Content
Marketing – Digital Revival of
an Old Concept
C
ontent marketing as a concept isn’t new. For many years, it has been
known as customer publishing, corporate publishing, custom content,
custom publishing, custom media, corporate content, brand journalism,
customer media and many others (Pulizzi and Barrett, 2009: 6).
In print, content marketing has a long tradition. The oldest customer magazine
in the United States “The Furrow” by agricultural machinery producer John
Deere dates as far back as 1895 (Pulizzi, in Lieb, 2011: XVI) while its German
counterpart – the “Mitteilungen der Berliner Elektricitäts-Werke“ (“Information
of the Berlin Electric Power Station”) published its first issue in 1905 (Antiquariat
Hohmann, 2012).
Since 2001 when Joe Pulizzi, a US American marketer from the Content Marketing Institute, started selling content marketing services, the publicity of the
term content marketing has slowly and continuously been on the rise in the
United States. However, it was not until April 26, 2007 that Pulizzi decided to
stick with it as “it seems to be the term that’s most understandable to marketing
professionals” (Pulizzi and Barrett, 2009: 6) and advocate it in the North
American market by developing a “boatload of content” around the idea and
practice of content marketing (Pulizzi, 2012). The global Google search volume
index relating to content marketing has been incessantly on the rise since 2009
(Google Trends, 2012). This supports the assumption that Pulizzi might have
successfully contributed to promoting content marketing as a term.
Today, content marketing seems to be gaining momentum – not only in the
United States but increasingly so in German speaking Europe (Switzerland,
Germany, Austria) where it has been called corporate publishing (Koob and
Lohmüller, 2011).
The long history of the customer magazine and corporate publishing and its
recent digital revival as content marketing is reason enough to explore the concept
behind it, to challenge it and analyze why marketers and especially business-tobusiness (B2B) marketers commit to it in the first place.
Questions about the definition, use and relevance of content marketing for
businesses arise – including the worth, applicability, integration in the marketing
mix and success of marketing with content:
·Is content marketing just hype or is it here to stay?
·How is content marketing to be leveraged for the B2B sector (excluding government bodies, nonprofit organizations and institutions like
hospitals) and what are the promising strategies?
·How is content marketing to be integrated with existing marketing
strategies?
·What’s the cost of content marketing, how is it to be measured, and
what is its return on investment (ROI)?
·How is social media connected to content marketing and what is its
importance for B2B?
To complicate matters, scientific answers are still rare (Ford, 1998). B2B marketing research generally and B2B research on content marketing specifically is in
its very early stages and therefore in short supply – a fact possibly pointing toward the prevailing lack of awareness of content as a marketing means.
This work doesn’t claim to deliver rock-solid answers and standardized rules of
content marketing for B2B professionals. It doesn’t promise all-embracing strategies or come up with colossal representative studies, and it doesn’t pretend to
have a crystal ball. But it aims to shed more light on the sense and use of content
marketing for the B2B sector, uncover a trend, and initiate the discourse in the
European B2B sector on a marketing form that isn’t new but has experienced a
revival contributing to a new understanding of marketing since the advent of
the Internet (Kotler, et al., 2010).
– Chapter 1: Introduction –
< Back to Index
2. Methods of Information
Gathering and Analysis
F
or the purpose and goals of this work, an encompassing research of academic literature and marketing business publications, including Internet
research and the business and management resources has been employed to
gather insights into the value of content marketing for the B2B sector.
Given that empirical research on B2B topics is limited due to the early stage of
B2B marketing as a discipline, empirical information gathering on a fairly new
top in marketing – content marketing – is next to impossible. That is why the
cited authors have a scientific background whenever literature was available, but
other sources like research from consultancies had to be taken into account, too.
However, we have found and scrutinized hundreds of articles in academic journals and marketing business publications, and have cited sources only after carefully considering their reliability and importance to the topic of this paper.
This literature research and analysis as secondary data shall be completed with
some primary data of a marketing survey with customers and employees on
awareness of the brand Namics by the Swiss consultancy of the same name by
Barbara Deucher (2012) who has integrated some questions on content marketing into the survey. For the purpose of this work, only the results of questions
concerning content marketing shall be considered. Awareness of the term
“content marketing” as a marketing tactic in German speaking countries like
Switzerland, Germany and Austria is still in its early stages. This observation
is supported by the lack of scientific literature on “content marketing” and
the focus on corporate publishing (cf. chapter 5.3) or public relations. However the survey by Deucher (2012) demonstrates that some Swiss companies
are already aware of content marketing and its importance for business (cf.
chapter 6 of this paper).
We believe that content marketing as a tactic is slowly but surely appearing on
the marketing plan of many marketing executives in the B2B and B2C sector
in Switzerland and hope to deliver some insight (cf. chapter 6) by drawing on
the results of Deucher’s survey (2012).
– Chapter 2: Methods of Information Gahtering and Analysis –
< Back to Index
3. The Development of
Marketing
B
efore delving into the matter and presenting findings to answer the
questions introduced in chapter 1, we need to take a step back in order
to elaborate on the development of marketing from its early stages to today to
be able to accordingly analyze the importance of content marketing.
Aiming at a definition of marketing, we need to keep in mind that definitions
are changing over time and according to the predominant societal discourses:
According to David Weinberger (2011: 89-90)
· All knowledge and experience is an interpretation
· Interpretations are social,
· There is no privileged position (that is there are many ways to interpret anything),
· Interpretations occur in discourses (that is in contexts guided by implicit rules and expectations), and
· Within a discourse, some interpretations are privileged.
Given that marketing has as many definitions as the marketing management
research field has authors, there are no two equal definitions of marketing. According to Philip Kotler and Kevin Lane Keller (2006: 5) “marketing deals
with identifying and meeting human and social needs” while the leading
management theorist Peter Drucker (1973:64-65) sees marketing’s role as
knowing and understanding the customer so well that the product or service
fits him and sells itself. Philip Kotler et al. (2009:7) define marketing as a
“societal process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and
want through creating, offering and freely exchanging products and services
of value with others”.
Many authors like Keith (1960), Kotler, et al. (2010), Morris, et al. (2001),
Kotler and Keller (2006), and Lieb (2011) describe marketing as going through
different stages, phases, developments or (r)evolutions. The underlying premise
can be traced back to Alfin Toffler’s wave theory (1980) asserting that human
civilization can be divided into three waves of the economy: the agricultural age
with agricultural land as the most important capital, the industrial age following
the industrial revolution in England and the rest of Europe, where machines and
factories are the essential kinds of capital, and the information age, where mind,
information, and high tech are the imperative types of capital.
At the core of third wave is “new wave technology” consisting of cheap computers
and mobile devices, low-cost Internet, and open source (Kotler, et al., 2010:5).
This technology not only enables connectivity and interactivity but allows individuals to express themselves and collaborate with others. The information age is
therefore defined by participation turning consumers into “prosumers” that is
producers and consumers at the same time (cf. ibid.). Consumers now actively
participate in the creation and production of news, ideas, and entertainment. The
central factor allowing for this development is the rise of social media (cf. ibid.).
Similarly to the three economic waves, marketing is seen as having evolved
through three stages (excluding the agricultural and beginning at the industrial
age). Kotler, et al. (2010:6) describe them as product-centric marketing (marketing 1.0) with a one-to-many transaction with consumers, consumer-oriented
marketing (marketing 2.0) with a one-to-one relationship with consumers, and
values-driven marketing (marketing 3.0) with many-to-many collaboration
between consumers and organizations. It is important to stress the concurrence
of the different marketing approaches considering that many marketers practice
one or more marketing forms at once.
Accordingly, marketing strategies have evolved from a focus on product management (in the 1950s and 1960s) to a focus on customer management (in the 1970s
and 1980s) to a focus on brand management in the 1990s and 2000s (Kotler, et
al., 2010:25).
Bartels (1962) and Sheth and Gardner (1982) systematized much of the early
thought on marketing depicting a shift from marketing as a subset of the discipline of economics with the marketer not the consumer as the initiator of
marketing activities and programs to a more comprehensive values and customer
centric axioms of marketing.
According to Rust and Oliver (1994) the advent of new technologies resulting in
the fragmentation of media and markets, and the empowerment of consumers
bring about a new communications environment where a new media network
which is high capacity, interactive and multimedia is replacing traditional mass
media advertising. The growth of direct marketing, integrated marketing, the
expansion of the service sector, and the development of flexible manufacturing
have been challenging the traditional consumer goods mass marketing approach
(Rust and Oliver, 1994:71-72). The “old industrial paradigm of mass production
(which also created mass media, mass audiences, and mass advertising)” is being
transformed to one of relationship marketing (targeted services and offerings by
direct mail) and mass customization allowing organizations to produce for
market segments of one which calls for a “radically new form of detailed, information oriented communications, as opposed to the image-oriented 15- or
30-seconds spot” (Rust and Oliver, 1994:72). Rust and Oliver point out that in
today’s context of intelligent products and informationally-empowered
consumers the value-added of many traditional products is their information
content” (ibid.). New technology allows for new media which put the customer
in control (Rust and Oliver, 1994:73).
Much of traditional advertising is based on a central control of the message accompanied by mass dissemination and consistent re-enforcement which has
been associated with intrusive push marketing tactics. According to Sinha and
Rosenthal (2009:247-248) push marketing is characterized by an overexposure
of the brand to the media through countless ads, aggressive salespeople, sales
promotions, and overextensions, too much over-franchising, and too many strategic corrections and tactical implementations, all of which have diminished the
qualities that stood in lieu of the brand in the first place. Sinha and Rosenthal
discern pull marketing as the idea of not pushing or foisting the product on the
customer but allowing him to come to it of his own volition and discover it on
his own terms (ibid.). According to the authors, it is a much smarter strategy to
make one’s products and service so appealing that buyers “gravitate to them on
their own” using pull marketing tactics which require “creativity, authenticity,
and a touch of genius” (Sinha and Rosenthal, 2009:247). This rationale supports
Drucker’s above mentioned definition of marketing as making products so appealing that they sell themselves (1973:64-65). However, many authors identify
the value and importance of advertising. For instance, Eng and Keh (2007:91100) find that spending on advertising results in better brand sales and brand
profitability while Rubinson (2009:220-226) present evidence suggesting that
impressions from TV advertising appear to be as effective as ever, even possibly
increasing in effectiveness. What’s more, in his classic text “The Practice of
Management”, Drucker himself states that the “purpose of a firm is to create
and serve customers” (1954:6) which emphasizes the creation of customers and
not just the serving of them. According to Morris et al. (2001:4) “many B2B
marketers have discovered that organizational customers frequently don’t know
what they want, nor do they always conceive of what is possible”. This rationale
supports advertising and contradicts Sinha’s and Rosenthal’s suggestion to let
customers discover products on their own terms. Products and services often
shape markets rather than the other way around (Morris et al., 2001:4). Looking
at the development of the advertising market, there’s also no evidence that advertising is in demise. Especially the online advertising market is growing continuously. According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau Europe (IAB Europe,
2012a), Europe‘s online advertising market grew 14.5% year-on-year to a market
value of €20.9bn in 2011, despite the continued weak macroeconomic conditions
across Europe and globally. By comparison the overall European advertising
market – excluding online – grew at 0.8% in the same time period.
It is interesting that push and pull marketing weren’t value-laden opposites in
the first place. Peter and Donnelly (2002) and Dowling (2004) elaborate on
push and pull marketing as different strategies or styles of marketing: While
with push marketing most marketing activity is directed at distributors and
retailers to promote the product, pull marketing directs most of marketing activities to target consumers to create interest in and desire for the product and
service and motivate the consumers.
Push and pull seem to have gained their negative vs. positive connotation
with the ascension of digital media distributed via the Internet: Truong and
Simmons (2009:239-256) find that pushed digital advertisements on the Internet and mobile platforms like pop-ups, banners and non-personalized and
irrelevant email marketing are viewed as intrusive and negative in relation to
brand association.
Traditional advertising is viewed as pushed because it follows a scripted one-directional flow within a one-to-many communication model, in which a single
promotion is sent by one source, and seen by many recipients without the opportunity for immediate feedback (Rowley, 2004). The Internet is empowering
consumers given that it allows them to take the lead within a non-linear communication, pull from a free flow and exchange of information, and pursue
opportunities for two-way flows with firms, and with other consumers, on a
one-to-one or many-to-many basis (Phippen, 2004; Pitta & Fowler, 2005;
Rowley, 2004).
Research findings suggest that customers are positive in relation to brand associations, when they have control over what, when and how they source product/
service information on Internet and mobile digital platforms (Truong and
Simmons, 2009:239–256). According to Brady et al. (2008) this presents a
transformational challenge for many strategic marketers who need to go beyond
utilizing the Internet as a tool toward its redefinition and transformation. Or as
Truong and Simmons (2009:250) put it: “Marketing managers will need to be
creative in how they respond to this challenge, effectively tapping into the empowerment and control that consumers now have and want, in the digital world.”
3.1 Content Marketing Definition
Content marketing presents itself as a means of dealing with consumers’ new
empowerment. The change from analog mechanical and electronic technology
to digital technology that has taken place since about 1980 and continues to
the present day has brought content marketing to the fore because it’s based on
pull marketing tactics. According to Lieb (2011:1) content marketing is the
marketing of attraction. “It’s being there when consumers need you and seek you
out with relevant, educational, helpful, compelling, engaging, and sometimes
entertaining information” (ibid.). Lieb et al. define content marketing as a term
referring to
“[…] the creation and sharing of content for marketing purposes. In
digital channels, it refers to content that resides on properties the
brand or marketer owns (e.g., a website) or largely controls from a
content perspective (social media channels, syndication)” (Lieb et
al., 2012:6).
According to the Content Marketing Institute (2012) content marketing is “a
marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content
to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience - with the objective of driving profitable customer action”. Heidi Cohen’s
overview of 21 definitions of content marketing (2011) shows that content
marketing is an umbrella term for many marketing formats fostering customer
interactions through content. According to Cohen content marketing provides
consumers with
“[…] useful information to aid purchase decisions, improve product
usage and entertain them while achieving organizational goals
without being overtly promotional. Content marketing’s major attributes are:
1
2
3
4
5
Embodies
an
organization’s
core
brand
elements.
Uses a variety of media formats such as text, video, photographs,
audio, presentations, ebooks and infographics to tell your brand
or company’s story.
Can be read on a variety of devices including computers, tablets,
smartphones and others.
Is distributed via owned, third party and social media platforms.
Provides measurable results through the use of appropriate
calls-to-action and promotional codes” (Cohen, 2011).“
Interesting about this definition is that content is “useful information” which
coincides with the relevance and value mentioned in many other definitions of
the term (Cohen, 2011) and that content encompasses a very diverse span of
media like text, video, audio and many others. It is distributed through a variety
of platforms including social media. The definition of content marketing also
encompasses entertaining content. Handley and Chapman (2011:129) highlight the fact that many companies selling “dead-serious products” have figured out a way to market them by using a little humor or entertainment to drive
awareness about invisible services or products that exist in the background of
business infrastructure like technology products or security services. According
to Christina Capadona-Schmitz (2010)
“content marketing activities include the production and publishing of
creative, compelling and relevant content, including, but not limited to:
— Articles
— Blogs
— Case studies
— Custom print magazines
— Desktop applications
— Digital magazines
— eBooks
— Email newsletters
— Microsites
— Mobile applications
— Press releases
— Print newsletters
— Photos
— Podcasts
— Videos
— Webinars
— White papers
— Wikis.
“Content marketing is based on fulfilling customers’ needs through
compelling, relevant and entertaining content in many forms, on
many devices when the customer reaches out for it, opts in or signs
up. Content marketing aims to create value and help people by
answering questions and delivering foundational information as well
as entertaining them. “It makes customers and clients more
educated and informed, so they feel they can make purchase decisions, or, in organizations, to recommend purchases to colleagues
or superiors” (Lieb, 2011:2). It strives to provide that value-added or
information content Rust and Oliver mentioned (1994:72).
Content marketing is used by large and small companies from the B2B and
business-to-consumer (B2C) sector. According to Lieb content marketing aids
in brand recognition, credibility, and loyalty, and it can contribute to upselling,
cross-selling, renewals, upgrades and referrals (2011:2).
3.2 Social Media Definition
Content marketing and social media marketing overlap given that some content is being delivered by means of social media platforms and blogs amongst
other things. Social media play an important role in content marketing because
they help to foster interactions with customers and prospects and further the
conversation with them.
According to Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein social media is
“[…] a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological
and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content” (2010:59-68).
Bhargava (2008) explains the concept of social media marketing as optimizing a
website in such a way that written content garners links, which essentially acts as
a trust mechanism and endorsement. This means that the content of a website is
shared to social media and network sites, which contributes to increasing the
visibility of a brand, product and service online and helps drive clicks that is
traffic from the social media outlets to the company’s website. Hence, social
media marketing helps build brand awareness and raise visibility for the marketed product or service (ibid.).
Weinberg points out the facilitation of content discovery and the pull marketing
tactics as a reason to engage in a social media strategy in addition to traditional
marketing strategies:
“Content crafted properly can be exposed to hundreds of new website
visitors, from the casual surfer to the extreme enthusiast, in a very
spontaneous fashion” (Weinberg, 2009:6).
Social media lets visitors view content that is not necessarily associated with commercial intent (Weinberg, 2009:6). Content marketing and social media seem
like the perfect fit given that social media marketing can help quality content
reach the desired communities. Leveraging the social media community is one
possible and potentially effective way to spread the marketing message by means
of reaching individuals who will absorb it and pass it on (Weinberg, 2009:15-16).
3.3 The Importance of Content Marketing for B2B
Business buyers buy goods in order to make or resell a product to others at a
profit (Kotler and Keller, 2006:11). Given that more than half of the revenues
earned by the average industrial firm are spent on purchases, business buyers
are increasingly more sophisticated and technically trained (Morris et al.,
2001:18). Companies selling goods and services to such business buyers must
be compelling, continuously deliver on their promises, and demonstrate how
their products and services will help these buyers achieve higher revenue or
lower cost (Kotler and Keller, 2006:11). Advertising might play a role in convincing business buyers but due to the specific nature of business markets with
fewer, larger buyers, closer supplier-customer relationships, several buying influences (cf. Kotler and Keller, 2006:210), and due to the general challenges
facing B2B markets like the proliferation of similar products and services, the
increasing complexity and incredible price pressure (cf. Kotler and Pfoertsch,
2010:41), the sales force, price, and the company’s reputation for reliability
and quality can play a stronger role on convincing business buyers (cf. Kotler
and Keller, 2006:11).
Faced with multifaceted, knowledgeable buyers, it is critical that B2B marketers
demonstrate a high level of expertise in all of their interactions with business
buyers. In addition, the increasingly complex market offerings lead to an information overload that strains the time and resources of business buyers (Kotler and
Pfoertsch, 2010:42). Communicating relevant information that cuts through the
clutter and delivers the answers specific business buyers are looking for, seems like
a good means to not only demonstrate expertise but also convince business buyers,
improve the customer relationship, and increase customer loyalty with consistent, value-added, meaningful content when business buyers need it. This
leads us to assuming that content marketing plays a vital role in the B2B sector
given that it is set to do just this: deliver compelling, relevant information so
customers feel informed to make purchase decisions.
3.4 Goals and Hypothesis
This work aims at analyzing if and why content marketing and B2B are a match.
— We assume that this is the case given that content has a vital role in
the offerings of B2B marketers due to the informational richness
and complexity of products, services and solutions.
— We also assume that content marketing is a necessary part of the
B2B marketing strategy in today’s online environment of interaction,
collaboration, and social media as fewer, larger and sophisticated
business buyers search for answers and solutions in an increasingly
competitive environment where price pressures, information overload and the proliferation of similar products and services are the
order of the day.
— Last but not least, we assume that content marketing for B2B can
contribute to search engine optimization, customer engagement,
differentiation and expertise demonstration as well as lead generation and conversion.
However, we expect to find content marketing for B2B as being at such an
early stage in the scientific discourse that available empirical evidence is still
limited or missing while best practices remain to be set up and proven by
agencies, consultancies and the businesses themselves. We claim that content
marketing for the B2B sector in Switzerland and other German speaking
countries in Europe is a clear trend that will play an important role in future
B2B marketing strategies.
– Chapter 3: The Development of Marketing –
< Back to Index
4. Background of the Research
Interest
T
his work is motivated by the increasing interest of professional businesses
in Switzerland and Germany in content and marketing through content
which the Web services provider Namics has been witnessing for years.
With more than 400 employees in Zurich, St. Gallen, Munich, Frankfurt,
Hamburg, Namics is Switzerland’s biggest Web consultancy specializing in IT
services, online marketing, communications, website conception, and creation.
Its clients belong to the top 500 companies of Switzerland and Germany. In the
18 years of its existence and by means of its core services consulting, technology,
and design Namics has realized countless B2B projects including the redesign
and relaunch of company websites, the development and implementation of
digital asset management, content management and product information management systems, the conception of e-shops, the realization of online marketing
campaigns, and last but not least social media and content marketing services.
The rise and success of Namics is based on the ascent of the Internet, and as
such its business is deeply rooted in the above mentioned “new wave technology”
of connectivity, interactivity and collaboration (cf. page 8). Given that Namics
has always applied the “interact” strategy of the customer and technology focus
grid (Berthon et al., 1999:37-58) working closely with its customers to conceptualize and design products, the agency has been very perceptive of their needs.
This is how Namics noticed the increasing importance of content in its clients’
marketing strategies caused by a growing effort to distinguish their products
and services from competitors, make their offerings easily detectable, comprehensible, and relevant, and convince their business buyers of their professional
expertise and competence. Responding to these needs, Namics has recently
launched its content services (cf. Content Services, 2012).
The following analysis aims at exploring the reasons of this development and
gaining insights into the use of content marketing for the B2B sector in order
support clients to better leverage content for their businesses.
– Chapter 4: Background of the Research Interest –
< Back to Index
5. Presentation of Findings on
B2B and Content Marketing
I
n order to put the topic of this work into context, we first depict some key
figures concerning the economic size and importance of the B2B sector as
well as the significance of the Internet before moving on to explore key concepts of B2B markets and marketing as well as content marketing.
According to forecasts by different market research companies like IDC and
Gartner, the global business volume of the B2B sector is not only much bigger
than the one of the B2C sector, it is also growing faster (cf. ECIN, 2000). The
projected business volume numbers are very diverse which points to different
methodologies but the volume concerns single-digit billion US dollars (from
2.2 billion US dollars according to IDC to 7.29 billion US dollars according to
Gartner for 2004, cf. ECIN, 2000). A recent Forrester survey with 864 marketing executives at North American and European B2B companies with 100
or more employees finds that B2B marketers are increasing marketing budgets
6.8% on average in 2012 (cf. Ernst et al., 2012). Across various industries in
Europe and the United States, B2B marketing investments are presumed to
grow in 2012: high tech services (+9%), manufacturing (+7%), business and
professional services (+7%), high-tech products (+7%), finance and insurance
(+5%), and pharma, medical devices, and biotech (+2%) firms are all counting
on marketing investment increases in 2012 (cf. MarketingProfs, 2012). These
figures allow us to highlight the importance of the B2B sector to the overall
economy on the one hand and to marketing spending on the other hand.
At the same time, the Internet plays an increasingly important role in marketing
(Morris et al., 2001:382; Kotler, et al., 2010:5). The latest findings from Mediascope Europe, the industry standard European media consumption study
by the Interactive Advertising Bureau Europe (IAB Europe, 2012b), substantiate this development and reveal that
65
%
Or 426.9 mill.
of Europe use the Internet, spending weekly more than 14.8 houres online
37
%
access the Internet using more t han one device
40
%
think the way a brand communicatesonline is important
96%
87 %
research online for purchases
shop online
51%
choose better products/ services
47%
are inclined to find out more about products they see advertised online;
46%
say they often visit the website of their favorite brands
41%
agree that the way a brand communicates online is important
In addition, decision-makers in companies are increasingly relying on the Internet as information seeking and gathering tool: A study by Forbes Insight and
Google (Forbes, 2009) surveying 354 executives with C-level titles (the so called
C-suite of CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, and other C-level executives) at US companies
with annual sales exceeding $1 billion, found that
— a generation shift is occurring in the C-suite that is transforming how
they use the Internet (accessing it more frequently, seeing greater
value in emerging Internet technologies, and retrieving information in
different ways, such as via video or through mobile device);
— the Internet is the C-suite‘s top information resource (more valuable
for locating business-related information than references from colleagues, personal networks, newspapers and magazines, TV and
radio, and conferences and trade shows);
—members of the C-suite search for information themselves;
—when they go to locate information, the C-suite first turns to mainstream search engines with six out of ten executives conducting
more than six searches a day willing to click around to locate information, and follow a path of links driven by search results, content,
and advertising;
—while text is still the preferred format for receiving information, videos,
webcasts, and similar formats are increasing in prevalence, especially among executives under 50. Similarly, although most executives
prefer personal contacts, they are increasingly willing to network and
seek advice through online communities;
—executives in IT are the most prevalent users of the Internet for information gathering;
—executives under 40 (Generation Netscape) are the most willing to
engage with emerging technologies such as blogs, wikis, Twitter,
mobile computing and online social networks;
The above figures let us assume that communicating and engaging customers
through the Internet is central to marketing and that decision makers spend
time researching online. The empowered consumers mentioned in chapter 3 are
evident here. They might first notice a product or service through traditional
advertising and move online to find out more about it where the right information could be delivered by means of relevant content answering their questions
and providing further insight into possible solutions. Marketers shouldn’t miss
the opportunity of targeting audiences online next to existent promotional
channels to further augment the marketing message.
5.1 Understanding the Major Characteristics of B2B and B2B Marketing
The 1990s emerged as the decade of B2B marketing (Morris et al., 2001:2). B2B
marketing is defined as the creation and management of mutually beneficial
relationships between organizational suppliers and organizational customers
(ibid.). Given that the exchange among buyers and sellers or suppliers and
customers is one where both parties to the exchange are organizations, the focus
of B2B marketing is on goods and services used in the production of other goods
and services or used to facilitate the operation of an enterprise (ibid.). Even
manufacturers of consumer goods have to sell their products to other businesses
(retailers or wholesalers) first. Kotler and Pfoertsch (2010:20) emphasize that in
one way or another almost all companies are engaged in business markets. That
is why B2B sales far outstrip those of B2C (Kotler and Pfoertsch, 2010:21).
According to Kotler and Keller (2006:210) the major industries making up
the business market are agriculture, forestry, and fisheries; mining; manufacturing; construction; transportation; communication; public utilities; banking,
finance, and insurance; distribution; and services. The differences between B2B
and B2C marketing are caused by the characteristics of business markets that
contrast sharply with those of consumer markets (Kotler and Keller, 2006:210211, Kotler and Pfoertsch, 2010:20-31 and Morris et al., 2001:22-27):
— Nature and complexity of industrial products and services: The products and
services being marketed in B2B tend to be more complex and more technical in
nature which entails that industrial products tend to be individual solutions that
require high levels of fine-tuning. To the B2B marketer this means that customers’ needs must be clearly understood and monitored; that all costs a customer
will incur with a product over its useful life must be considered; that product life
cycles are shorter because of technological change, necessitating continual product innovation; that product quality is critical; that distribution channels are
shorter and more direct; that there’s a need for technically qualified sales personnel and knowledgeable, specialized middlemen; that aftersales service, training,
and technical assistance are stressed; and that packaging is more functional and
less promotional (cf. Morris et al., 2001:23).
— The above argumentation lets us assert a high complexity and information
richness of products and services in the B2B sector. There seems to be a need for
personnel to demonstrate expertise which supports our rationale for the use of
content marketing in B2B as content marketing aims to create valuable content
answering customers’ questions and helping them make purchase decisions
(cf. chapter 3.1).
— Nature and diversity of industrial demand: The demand for business goods
is derived from the demand for consumer goods which means that business
marketers must closely monitor the buying patterns of ultimate consumers. The
demand for business goods and services tends to be more volatile than the demand for consumer goods and services as small increases in consumer demand
can cause much larger increases in the demand for plant and equipment necessary to produce additional output. At the same time, the total demand for
many business goods and services is inelastic that is not much effected by price
changes (cf. Kotler and Keller, 2006:211). The products being marketed affect
the operations and economic health of the B2B customer. To the B2B marketer
this means that delivery reliability is critical; that buyer/seller negotiation skills
are crucial; that formal contracts are drawn; that strong vendor loyalty exists;
that conservative attitudes are encountered in purchase decision making; that
size and cost of purchases are large; and that marketers should strive to develop
long-term relationships and lower the buyer’s perceived risk (Morris et al.,
2001:23).
Developing content to support the building of long-term relationships between
suppliers and customers can be a useful means in B2B marketing as it could
contribute to reassuring customers of the supplier’s competence and reliability.
— Significantly fewer numbers of customers: B2B companies usually have
fewer customers than B2C companies. Normally, a small number of buyers is
providing the vast majority of the turnover and sales volume considering that
many B2B companies only have a hundred or fewer valuable customers (cf.
Kotler and Keller, 2006:211). This implies that a major customer can have a
strong bargaining position, placing the marketer in a vulnerable position
(Morris et al., 2001:23). The relatively small number of customers in B2B compared to B2C allows for creating specific content for clearly defined target
groups, thereby increasing the content’s relevance for the customer.
— Closer and longer supplier-customer relationships: Fewer customers also
means closer and longer supplier-customer relationships given that due to the
small customer base and the power and importance of the larger customers,
suppliers are frequently expected to customize their offerings to individual
business customer needs (cf. Kotler and Keller, 2006:211). The closer and longer
lasting relationship between suppliers and customers in B2B enables B2B
marketers to better know their customers’ needs and interests and adjust their
content to fit them accordingly at certain stages of the buying cycle.
— Buying behavior: This is one of the most important differentiation points
between the B2B and B2C markets. When the customer is an organization,
purchases typically involve a number of individuals, the so called buying center.
A buying decision might involve inputs from a large number of people in engineering, production, finance, marketing, R&D, and purchasing departments. This means that the buying process can be lengthy and very political,
and the salesperson is placed in a difficult position trying to figure out where to
concentrate sales efforts to reach the key decision makers (Morris et al., 2001:25).
The decision to purchase from a supplier in B2B may take a long time, from six
months to two years. Also, once the purchase decision has been taken and a
supplier is agreed upon, customers are likely to stay source-loyal unless significant problems arise. At the same time, customers are interested in spreading
orders among a few suppliers (Morris et al., 2001:26). As there is always more
than one decision maker involved in the purchase decision making process,
there’s time to build momentum for one’s relevant content as the longer sales
cycle gives B2B marketers the opportunity to engage customers on a regular
basis. By making content sharable and engaging and showing the human side
of the organization, buyers will have the possibility to get to know the people
they might be doing business with.
5.2 B2B Communications and the Promotional Mix
Another very important distinction between B2B and B2C – and perhaps the
most interesting from the point of view of this work – is the communication
process. The communication process concerns all of the above mentioned key
characteristics of business markets and has implications on the promotional
mix or blend in marketing.
Given the complexities of B2B products and B2B buying and the nature of supplier-customer relationships less advertising is used (Morris et al., 2001:26)
which appears favorable to the deployment of content marketing (cf. page 10).
Instead, personal selling by means of the seller going to the buyer is predominant in B2B and supported by promotional means like trade journals, catalogs,
trade shows, videos, direct mail, websites etc. which legitimizes the use of content marketing as it encompasses a wide range of media (cf. page 10-11). The
communication process between buyer and seller is lengthy, depending on
personal contact by means of social negotiation and on two-way interaction.
What’s more, different media are more or less effective depending on the stage
of the buying process. According to Morris et al. (2010:26) trade shows might
be effective in creating awareness, while the Internet is used by buyers for information gathering, and closing the sale is done by personal selling. Content
marketing allows the B2B marketer to reach out to buyers and prospects in the
information gathering phase on websites, blogs, through eBooks, downloadable
whitepapers and search engines, but also to interact with them through social
media like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and YouTube (cf. Lieb,
2011:2-3).
B2B marketers need to develop messages addressing the diverse needs and
orientations of different decision makers in the buying center which can be
difficult. Argumentation and appeals are often more factual and descriptive,
based on facts and functions with less emotional or symbolic content (Morris
et al., 2010:26) while it is not unusual to appeal to the buyer’s sense of pride,
security, intelligence, and innovativeness (ibid.). The factual and informationbased orientation of B2B marketing clearly complies with content marketing’s
goal of providing customers with value-added, relevant information.
The promotional mix of the B2B marketer is organized in four major components: personal selling, advertising, sales promotion, and publicity. Personal
selling is the most important sales factor that is supported by the other components of the promotional mix. Morris et al. stress that on their own, none of
these promotional areas is sufficient to accomplish a sale (2001:353-389).
Rather, all of the components of the promotional mix support the general sales
effort by generating customer interest, influencing customer attitudes, and
reassuring customers after the sale (ibid.). Therefore, content can be used to
support the overall promotional mix and to augment more traditional promotion tools and advertising campaigns (Lieb, 2011:2).
A fact supporting the reasoning of content marketing is that recipients block
out advertisement or are distracted by other stimuli, which is why advertising
is evaluated critically by management (Morris et al., 2001:380-381). The Internet and its graphical interface – the World Wide Web – is not only the key component of electronic commerce that is playing an increasing role in the B2B
promotional mix, it also provides opportunities for organizations to enhance
their business effectively and practically. (Morris et al., 2001:382). The Internet
serves to reach new markets, better serve customers, distribute products faster,
solve customer problems, and last but not least – communicate more efficiently
with both customers and business partners while it is also especially useful for
dispensing information about one’s company and products (ibid.). The Internet
perfectly supports the personal supplier-buyer contact by allowing for personto-person networking “where the quality of the information provided and the
credibility of the organization making the effort are everything” (Morris et al.,
2001:382). This implies that the company’s website is the mirror presenting the
desired image providing current, correct, and quality information to the prospective customer. Using the Internet for content marketing appears to be at the core
of serving prospects’ informational needs. The empowered customer who is pulling the information he needs from the Web is also mentioned by the authors:
“Another noteworthy characteristic of today’s Internet users is that they
tend to hunger for information, yet they are highly resistant to traditional,
aggressive advertising. That is, potential Internet customers do not
like to receive “spam” or unwanted electronic solicitations and advertisements. To effectively utilize this medium, perceptive industrial
advertisers have learned to behave more “low-key” by making their
Web sites into value-added information services for consumers”
(Morris et al., 2001:382).
The above argumentation clearly supports the reasoning of content marketing
as a marketing technique of delivering relevant, interactive, value-added information to service customers, solving their problems, answering their questions,
and providing them with a useful basis for decision-making.
5.3 Content Marketing: Just Hype?
The limited available evidence so far suggests that content marketing or corporate publishing – as it is sometimes called in Europe – is not only well established,
but is also here to stay, both in the United States and in the European German
speaking countries (Pulizzi and Handley, 2011:1-17; Koob, 2010:1-9).
According to a recent survey of 1092 B2B marketers worldwide conducted by
the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs in August 2011, content
marketing ranks highly in the list of priorities of B2B marketers (Pulizzi and
Handley, 2011:2-4). Considering that the Content Marketing Institute is not
an independent and scientific research authority, the following survey results
are to be taken into account as reference points allowing some insight rather
than representative conclusions. The key findings of the survey suggest that
9
out of 10 B2B Marketers use content marketing to grow their businesses,
using eight content marketing tactics to achieve their goals, the most
popular out of which being
79 74%
%
Articles
Social
65% 63%
58%
Blogs
eNewsletter
Media
Case
Studies
56%
In-Person
Events
— while marketers are confident about the value of content marketing,
they are challenged to demonstrate the effectiveness and impact of
individual tactics and distribution channels;
— content marketing uptake is high across industries, with no single
industry reporting below 70% adoption;
— web traffic is the most widely used success metric (58%), sales lead
quality (49%) is the second-highest used metric;
— B2B marketers dedicate approximately 26% of their total budgets to
content marketing initiatives;
— the greatest reported challenge is “producing the kind of content that
engages prospects and customers” (41% of respondents);
— the best in class (40% of the surveyed B2B marketers) allocate 31%
of their budget to content marketing, compared to less effective
marketers who invest 18%; the best in class are 50% more likely to
consider the “stage in the buying cycle” when developing content,
whereas less effective marketers are less likely to tailor content in
any way; and the best in class benefit from substantially more buy-in
from senior members of the organization.
— last but not least, 60% of respondents report that they plan to increase
their spend on content marketing over the next 12 months.
A representative study by Koob (2010:1-9), the corporate publishing basic study
02 on behalf of the European Institute for Corporate Publishing, covering
digital media in B2B and B2C companies with more than 250 employees in
German speaking countries (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) addresses the
deployment, the target groups, the internal and external organization, the
impact, industrial differences, and tendencies of digital corporate publishing.
The key findings reveal:
— Corporate publishing in general and digital corporate media specifically are of great importance:
· 93.5% of the companies surveyed practice corporate publishing, 88% make
use of digital media in corporate publishing.
· The average yearly marketing budget for corporate publishing adds up to
EUR 350,000, the average marketing budget for digital media amounts to
EUR 132,000.
· Overall, the yearly investment in corporate publishing adds up to EUR 4.4 billion. 64% of those (EUR 2.8 billion) are allotted to print, 36% (EUR 1.6 billion)
to digital media.
— Digital media – frequency, target groups and goals:
· The most frequent digital media used for corporate publishing are: websites
(80%), online newsletters (67%), and videos (40%) ahead of online social networks (33%) und e-magazines (31%). Highest is the investment in websites,
followed by online newsletters, videos and e-magazines.
· Websites, online newsletters, and online social networks are particularly applied
in B2B marketing while audiovisual content is mainly used in B2C marketing.
E-magazines are used both in B2B and B2C marketing.
· The main goal of corporate publishing with digital media is establishing and
supporting a positive corporate image. Goals further encompass creating valueadded for target groups, delivering information and furthering customer loyalty.
— Focusing on websites, e-magazines and audiovisual media:
· Websites: Overall yearly corporate investments in websites in Germany, Austria
and Switzerland amount to EUR 870 million). The majority of the companies
have a corporate website and intranet platform. On average, companies run seven
specific websites (e.g. for certain brands, products or countries).
· E-magazine: Overall, yearly corporate investments in e-magazines add up
to EUR 110 million in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Half of the companies surveyed publish just one e-magazine, a quarter issues more than two
different e-magazine titles, the remaining companies bring out more than
two e-magazine titles.
· Audiovisual media: The overall yearly audiovisual media investments of companies in Germany, Austria and Switzerland add up to EUR 210 million (EUR
170 million for videos, and EUR 40 million for audio). According to the companies surveyed, audiovisual media are effective on an emotional level.
— Corporate publishing strategy and future development:
· 80% of companies appraise digital media corporate publishing as preeminent
addition to print media, while 76% harmonize the deployment of traditional
media and digital media.
· Cross-media corporate publishing concepts will further gain in importance.
The majority of companies are planning to increase their digital media investments in the future. This increase will only partially lead to budget shifting at
the expense of print media.
These findings suggest that content is essential to marketers in the US and the
European German speaking countries supporting our hypothesis that content
plays a vital role in marketing. Important parts of marketing budgets are already invested in content marketing initiatives highlighting content marketing’s importance.
5.4 Content Marketing in the B2B Sector: Examples
In order to be able to exemplify some successful approaches to content marketing and its deployment in B2B companies as well its effectiveness (that is the
question if content marketing is really working for B2B organizations), we briefly
turn to look at four different examples.
5.4.1 Trivadis: Content Marketing for High Turnover Increase
The Swiss B2B IT services provider Trivadis with more than 550 employees in
Switzerland, Germany and Austria (according to www.trivadis.com) achieved
80% increase in turnover, 93% more orders, and 10% more website traffic
through a combination of blogging, some social media (Twitter only) and search
engine optimization (SEO), as well as a little bit search engine marketing (SEM)
(Schärer, 2010). Trivadis offers many IT courses and trainings which are promoted mainly by SEO given that course providers are numerous in German
speaking countries (more than 43,000 competitors offering similar courses). On
its corporate website, Trivadis strives not for clicks but for conversions of its
courses. A boost of conversions has a direct impact on margin. SEM is only deployed for a short time for product releases but not for brand advertising. SEO
is the most important customer acquisition tactic. Essential in the strategy of
Trivadis is the blog where many experts and specialists from within the company
contribute valuable content on technical topics for free, exchange knowledge and
demonstrate competence. The focus of the blog is the furthering of know-how
sharing and customer dialogue, the latter by posting testimonials and success
stories. Next to the blog, a free download area provides over 3500 presentations
and white papers by employees. Both blog and download area generate many
backlinks and turn out as very useful and effective search engine optimization
tactics that not only contributes to the Trivadis’ reputation as professional IT
services provider but helps selling many of its IT courses (cf. Schärer 2010).
Continues on the next Page
– Chapter 5: Presentation of Findings on B2B and Content Marketing –
< Back to Index
5.4.2 Accenture: Content Marketing as Thought Leadership for Better
Customer Outcomes
Let us have a look at Accenture, the world’s largest consulting firm providing
B2B management consulting, technology services and outsourcing, with over
246,000 employees in more than 210 countries with headquarters in Dublin,
Ireland (according to www.accenture.com). Accenture as one of the leading
consultancies worldwide, has not only successfully realized one of the most ambitious re-branding efforts ever undertaken in the B2B industry by changing its
corporate name after separating from its parent Andersen Consulting in 2001
(Kotler and Keller, 2006: 366-367; Kotler and Pfoertsch, 2006:19-20; 290-294),
the company is also heavily engaged in producing high-quality content for free
within the scope of its thought leadership program (Koch, 2006). An extensive
library of regularly updated research, many whitepapers, articles and insights as
well as knowledge exchange in blogs in combination with advertising, and
social media contribute to bringing attention to the firm, raising awareness in
the industry for its offerings, furthering the dialogue with customers and prospects, and strengthening Accenture’s innovative image. We have to highlight the
fact that Accenture’s thought leadership is tightly connected with a marketing
message and must bring value to the business (Koch, 2006). The developed
thought leadership content is aligned with Accenture’s core brand value – “High
Performance Delivered”. The company is auditing itself regularly on the “Three
Cs” (Koch, 2006):
— Content: Is Accenture developing a sufficient amount of deep content on topics that matter to the market?
— Channels: Are the channels Accenture is using to reach connoisseurs of its thought leadership the right ones?
— Connectivity: Do Accenture employees know what thought leadership is available and in development?
Accenture has developed key activities which relate directly to the
“Three Cs” (Koch, 2006):
— Thought leadership community: Accenture’s thought leadership
community of marketing leaders meets regularly via conference
calls to review content development and planning, and to ensure
that the various teams are up to date, informed, focused, and aligned.
— Ideas mart: Accenture’s knowledge database is accessible any
time of the day for all of its employees and allows them to “slice and
dice” all the major thought leadership in any way they want – e.g.,
by industry, geography, or topic.
— Outlook family of services: Accenture’s direct channels to distribute
its thought leadership content to the market place. One of these
channels, My Outlook, is an e-mail vehicle that is customized for
each individual’s stated content preferences. 99% of subscribers
get a unique e-mail.
Accenture measures the worth of its content marketing by tracking the use of the
above mentioned key activities, for example the use of the Ideas mart, and particular articles, publications, and most popular topics within it in order to find out
what is being used and what is not being used and why. However, the content
marketing Accenture’s deploying within its thought leadership program is far
more an expression of Accenture’s attitude and way of thinking with a focus on
getting better outcomes for its customers than an activity designed to “fatten the
pipeline” (Koch, 2006).
Accenture recognizes the need of continuingly evolving its thinking in order to
stay on the cutting edge, despite its reputation for excellence in thought leadership. One central approach to ensure this is work with patterns to drive new
thinking that moves its customers and society along (Koch, 2006).
5.4.3 Indium: Content Marketing for Customer Contacts Take-Off
Indium Corporation, a privately held manufacturer of chemical compounds
for the global soldering industry, based in Clinton, New York, sells electronics
assembly materials globally to the electronics, semiconductor, solar, and other
markets (according to www.indium.com). As part of its marketing, it publishes
white papers, a Facebook and LinkedIn page as well as a Twitter and YouTube
channel. It runs a very impressive blogging program with 73 blogs on highly
specific industrial topics, which has been the key driver of business leads. According to Lieb et al. (2012:10) and Handley and Chapman (2011:259-262),
Indium’s director of marketing communications researched what drove traffic
to Indium’s website and learned that visitors found the site using 73 different
keywords. Rather than creating one blog for all of those keywords, Indium decided to create a blog for each individual keyword. Indium’s employees, highly
skilled engineers who possess detailed domain knowledge, were asked to share
this knowledge by writing blog posts including the specific keywords. Every
time an Indium blogger writes a post that includes any of the keywords on the
list, the content is automatically posted to that keyword’s blog. If the post contains two of the 73 keywords, it is posted to two blogs, and so on. The results were
astounding. Indium’s customer contacts increased 600% in a single quarter.
What’s more, every time customers contact authors of a blog post to ask a question or make a comment or download a white paper – they willingly opt into
the Indium database, making it easier for salespeople to close a deal. Additionally,
Indium’s blogs have won awards, individual bloggers have achieved celebrity
within their industry, and offerings have been expanded by a free online
knowledge database and YouTube series of interviews titled “What ‘From One
Engineer to Another’ Means to Me” (Lieb et al., 2012:10).
5.4.4 Distribion: Content Marketing for a Revenue Boost
Distribion is a marketing automation company in Dallas, Texas, serving highly
regulated industries such as healthcare, insurance, financial services etc. with a
product allowing the sales channel to access corporate-approved marketing materials to send to prospects (according to www.distribion.com). In February 2011,
Distribion started implementing an encompassing content marketing strategy in
order to build the brand and create awareness about its highly specialized product
(Kirkpatrick, 2012). The effort included (ibid.):
— creating a blog (http://distributedmarketing.org/) to offer best practices
in the field;
— creating a resource library on the website;
— reaching out to strategic partners to increase the content volume;
— looking for spin-off opportunities to spread the content beyond the
company assets;
— setting goals to the effort;
— using press releases to improve SEO and drive blog and website traffic;
— offering content for a wide range of people;
— creating multiple items of content at the same time (the actual content
piece, the press release, 10 to 12 tweets linking back to the content,
and abstracts for other social platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn and
Google+).
Over the first 12 months of the effort, Distribion’s blog traffic increased more
than 2000% with weekly blog traffic improving from 700 to 117,000 visits per
week. Distribion’s revenue grew 40% last year while cost-per-acquisition went
down 15% from the previous year (Kirkpatrick, 2012).
5.5 Content Marketing and Its Fit in the Overall Marketing Strategy
From the examples in the above chapter and many other content marketing
success stories (cf. Pulizzi and Barrett, 2009:77-229; Lieb et al, 2012:10-13;
Handley and Chapman, 2011:217-266) it is clear that content marketing can be
an important and effective part of the B2B promotional mix next to advertising,
social media, sales promotion and publicity as well as personal selling. According to Lieb et al. (2012:7) effective and sustainable content marketing requires more than writing skills and content creation. Content marketing “must
be deeply integrated with broader marketing strategy and initiatives, including
advertising, and it must become ingrained in company culture” (Lieb et al.,
2012:7). The authors outline the four fundamental steps toward content marketing success (Lieb et al., 2012:3-7):
— Understanding that content marketing is not free: Effective content initiatives are not only continual rather than episodic, they also require significant
investments in internal staff, production and distribution resources, and often
new sources of strategic support.
— Implementing broad cultural integration around content marketing: Deep
departmental integration and cultural shifts across the enterprise, but also education, training, and new digital skills for staff within and beyond the marketing
organization are necessary for successful content marketing.
— Integrating content marketing with advertising: Content marketing and advertising should be integrated or interrelated. In tandem, they can more fully
express a brand story. This supports the rationale presented in chapter 5.2 that
content marketing and advertising are both legitimate parts of the promotional
mix which can contribute to the overall positive result. What’s more, marketers
can’t rely on good content alone. Content also needs promotion in order to be
found and consumed. Be it by means of social media, public relations, press
releases (like in Distribion’s case) or advertising, the targeted audiences should
be informed about new content, especially when content initiatives are fairly
new and unknown.
— Avoiding bright, shiny objects: It is important to avoid distraction by channels and technology at the expense of strategy and marketing fundamentals.
Instead of distributing content on all the major social platforms without a real
strategy or method of consistency, resources should be focused on a few relevant
platforms that make most sense for the marketing strategy and the targeted audience. Tools for measuring performance should be chosen wisely and carefully
in order to avoid an overload of metrics and therefore a loss of focus leading to
confusion. The number of key performance indicators one is looking at should
be reduced to the most relevant for one’s purpose focusing on the metrics that
matter most to one’s business.
5.6 Steps toward B2B Content
Developing content for B2B requires answering fundamental questions – why,
who, what, when, how, and where (Handley and Chapman, 2011:123-138):
Why: Clarifying objectives for B2B content is critical in order to be able to
measure and legitimate the marketing investments. Each piece of content
that is being produced and distributed should be tied to a short-term goal,
for example encouraging the reader to sign up for a specific webinar. This
content should also be associated with the company’s strategic objectives,
for example increasing sales by 10% in a certain specific market. What’s
more, measurement provides insights into the relevance of content and the
interest it is able or unable to produce with customers or prospects.
Who: Understanding who the audience is and what their issues and in-
terests are, is central to delivering relevant and valuable content. By developing buyer personas – profiles of ideal customers or major roles involved in the buying process based on existing knowledge of the current
customer base and prospects – content can be produced for specific targets in the buying center. For example, content can be developed for the
individuals who will use the product or service, the ones who will implement or manage it, and the one(s) who will pay for it. By consulting the
customer database and customer care center (phone agents, sales people),
conducting polls and surveys of the customer base, and monitoring online
conversations in fora and discussion groups, comments in blogs or mentions and conversations on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn groups, the
B2B content marketer can learn as much as possible about the questions,
interests, needs, problems and issues of his buyer personas. This data can
be supplemented with industry research on trends in particular industries.
What: Next, the B2B content marketing maps out the buying process by
determining how the buyer personas think of the buying cycle, who is
involved, and what their information needs are at each stage of the buying
process. The concerns of each buyer at each stage of the buying process
are matched with the content formats buyer personas prefer. Handley and
Chapman (2011:128) provide a plausible approach to mapping out the
prospects’ and customers’ information needs and content preferences for
each buyer stage and buyer role.
When: Creating specific content for different buyer personas is important,
but so is providing it consistently at every stage of the buying cycle, using
an editorial calendar with a production schedule for the project team to
follow for each individual project. Including a call to action that points
buyers to the next logical piece of content and hence further along the decision process is essential. Ideally, each content asset will be associated
with a unique landing page because this helps prospects find exactly the
information they’re interested in.
How: Crafting interesting, informative and entertaining content calls for
doing something unexpected or even using a little humor and entertainment. There are many examples of companies selling serious products that
have figured out a way to market them in a way that drives viral sharing
and enhances the company’s personality (Handley and Chapman, 2011).
Competitive comparisons, case studies and success stories, and frequently
asked questions are content ideas worth considering. So is reimagining
content assets in various formats and across various platforms. A good
way to interest and engage buyers might be to bundle related products
together in a downloadable how-to tool kit (featuring for example a how-to
webinar, a choice of important articles on the topics, worksheets and checklists, a collection of customer success stories etc.).
Where: Content should be made easy to consume and share. E-mail and
social media sharing options can be even embedded in PDFs and eBooks.
Using web analytics and data available from URL shorteners, traffic
from various referral sources can be tracked and analyzed (Handley and
Chapman, 2011:123-138).
5.7 Content Marketing’s ROI
Given that content marketing is a new approach in B2B marketing which itself
is a fairly young discipline (cf. page 14) there’s hardly any empirical research on
the return on investment (ROI) of content marketing in B2B. However, determining objectives and deciding upon metrics to measure success contributes to
identifying the ROI of content marketing. Blanchard provides a good overview
of what ROI is and isn’t (2011:215) and defines it as:
ROI = (gain from investment – cost of investment) ÷ cost of investment
ROI is traditionally expressed as a ratio, percentage, or a relationship between
investment and return. Blanchard sets a few basic rules when it comes to ROI
(Blanchard, 2011:218-220):
— ROI is a business metric, not a media metric
— ROI is 100% media-agnostic which means that the definition of ROI
doesn’t change from one medium to the next. Whether one calculates
the return on an investment in stocks, in machinery, real estate, content marketing or a social media program, ROI is always calculated in
the same way with the above mentioned equation.
— The values used in the ROI equation are nonvariable. If the cost of
investment is calculated in a particular currency, then the gain of investment must be calculated in the same currency.
— Every resource assigned to a project has a monetary value. Typically,
these resources include personnel, technology, time and miscellaneous costs (like training programs, consultant fees, industry reports
etc.).
— ROI can only be calculated after the investment has yielded a return.
It cannot and must not be estimated beforehand.
In digital channels many things can be measured. This is why detecting what is
essential enough to be measured is such a big challenge. According to Pulizzi and
Handley (2011:9-10) B2B marketers are adopting content marketing to achieve a
variety of goals, the most important ones being brand awareness, customer acquisition, lead generation, customer retention, website traffic, engagement,
thought leadership, sales, and lead management/nurturing. Measurement
criteria for content marketing success include website traffic, sales lead quality,
direct sales, sales lead quantity, qualitative feedback from customers, SEO
ranking, and inbound links (ibid.).
According to Lieb (2011:202-203) the first step in setting up a plan for measurement is establishing key performance indicators (KPIs) or core goals which
are foundational to success, relevant to business and marketing goals and
measurable. Examples are newsletter sign-ups, whitepaper downloads, leads
from a contact form, increased website traffic, higher search rankings, inbound
phone calls, increased online orders, higher brand, product or services awareness,
more inbound links, and keyword value. Each KPI should have a monetary value
assigned to it. KPIs are to be reviewed and amended, while new ones are to be
established for new projects (Lieb, 2011:203). Measurement and analysis require
time and resources which is why setting aside a budget for measurement is
necessary (ibid.).
Let us briefly look at the measurement criteria for content marketing success
mentioned above (cf. Lieb, 2011:204-206):
— Website traffic: When examining website traffic, it is important to analyze
its quality, not only its quantity. What users do when they’ve landed on a website really matters. The question is if they’re exhibiting desired behaviors such as
downloading content, sharing or commenting it, signing up for a newsletter, or
even establishing contact and calling the call center. Google Analytics (www.
google.com/analytics) is a powerful tool to not only answer these questions but to
test the conversion of different versions of content in order to find out how well
these versions work in getting one’s visitors to accomplish specific goals. Google
Analytics is useful to determine bounce rates (cf. Glossary of Online Marketing
Terms, page 5) and average time spent on a page in order to assess if users bail off
the page immediately or not. To measure engagement one is to define it first: it
might be a user who viewed many content pages for 3 or more minutes, who returned to the content multiple times or who shared the content via social media.
Google Social Reports, a new component of Google Analytics, contribute to
identifying the value of traffic from social sites and how they lead to conversions,
understanding social activities happening on and off the website to optimize
social key performance indicators, and making better, more efficient data-driven
decisions in social media marketing programs (Barone, 2012).
— Sales: Sometimes, it might be easy to tie content directly into sales, but frequently as with many B2B sales cycles, there will be secondary and tertiary
steps in the sales cycles (Lieb, 2011:205). Building attribution methods into
content marketing initiatives is important in such cases. Online forms, registrations, the discrete integration of 800 numbers to different pieces of content are
means to proving the worth of content by demonstrating which content is
furthering sales or shortening the sales cycle (ibid.). Sales lead quality is another
possible measurement criterion which has to first be defined before it is measured. Content marketing initiatives crafted to engage and educate a target audience can be very effective at driving high value leads most likely to convert to
sales (Lieb, 2011:206). A high-quality lead might be someone who’s consumed
a piece of content (e.g. downloaded a whitepaper) prior to getting in touch.
— Qualitative customer feedback: Feedback in the form of comments on content, product reviews, likes and tweets can lead to improving and refining
content and products, while customer Facebook fans or positive Twitter mentions can aid in branding and awareness or in perception of the company or its
executives as credible thought leaders.
— Search and social media ranking: A central goal of content marketing is increased search awareness (Lieb, 2011:206). Search engine optimization (SEO)
strives not only for mere visibility and a high ranking of the company and product name in organic search results but also for ranking for the relevant keywords
and phrases searchers use to find the company’s content or offerings. Optimizing for the right keywords connects content to the right visitors who are
most likely to engage with it and to convert. Social media visibility also boosts
search rankings and can increase awareness and other key metrics around a
brand, product, or service (ibid.).
5.8 What About Social Media?
As already depicted in chapter 3.2 social media are important channels for the delivery and sharing of as well as interaction and engagement with content. A recent
survey of executives at more than 200 North American companies with annual
revenues of $1 billion or more by Accenture (Quiring, 2011:1-11) reveals that
B2B companies (65% of respondents) generally agree that social media is an important mechanism for interacting with customers, business partners and other
stakeholders. However, few of them, are using social media to its fullest potential
across marketing sales, service and innovation (ibid.). While executives of B2B
companies in the resources sector were least likely to report that social media is
important to their organizations, financial services executives were most likely to
perceive social media as extremely important which is not surprising considering
the declining customer loyalty and trust in financial institutions as well as the
recent economic crisis (ibid.). More than half of respondents cited improving
customer engagement, enhancing the company’s brand and creating new revenue
opportunities as prime motivators for launching a social media program (Quiring,
2011:1). Only 8% of B2B companies were found to be heavily engaged in social
media (Quiring, 2011:2). Companies in the communications, high tech and media sectors exhibited higher-than-average rates of adoption which is plausible given
that they are often not only in the creation of social networking tools, software
components and platforms, but also in the very business of enabling collaboration
and sharing of content. At the other end of the spectrum were companies in the
resources sector, which confirmed the lack of importance they placed in social media with their limited engagement: no respondents from that industry cited heavy
social media usage (Quiring, 2011:3). Respondents indicated their intention to
boost social media actions across sales, service, partner collaboration and vendor
collaboration (ibid.). There are many perceived barriers to adopting and taking
full advantage of social media. Greater investments in several areas are needed,
including new tools and technology investments, skill development, marketing,
sales and service collaboration, measurement capabilities, budget, IT collaboration, and CEO conviction (ibid.). It seems that B2B companies understand the
important role of social media but simply don’t know how to proceed.
Content and conversations are important in social media. Many companies in the
B2B sector have successfully demonstrated the worth of integrating content and
social media by building and nurturing a community or network around its brand,
products or services:
— Aiming at enhancing its visibility and image, Bank of America, for example,
has created an online community (cf. Small Business Online Community, 2012)
that helps small businesses by providing them with coaching from professionals
and exchange of ideas and information with peers. The online community has
over 71,000 members and relies on user generated, but also curated content.
Curated articles, forum discussions on specific topics of relevance for small
business owners, and featured stories as well as events add up to a platform rich
in valuable information (ibid.).
— American Express OPEN, also dedicated to supporting small businesses,
provides business advice through a blog, videos and a forum for members to network with one another and with industry experts (www.open.com and Kotler
and Keller, 2006:210). Social media like Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and
Google+ are integrated in the platform.
— Microsoft uses social media to enable its professional customers to freely
share their knowledge, real-world experience and feedback to help other
customers use the company’s technologies more effectively (Quiring, 2011:6).
— Cicso’s I-Prize is an annual initiative by means of which Cisco invites external
contributors to join its online community of innovators by submitting big-bet
business concepts that Cisco might be able to develop further. An innovation
blog and a Facebook group complete the initiative. According to Breed (2011:2),
in 2010, nearly 3000 people submitted 824 innovations. From these entries, two
billion-dollar ideas emerged that have been funded and are under development.
What about the use of social media in Swiss companies? An online survey with
the chief communication officers of 104 leading national and international B2B
and B2C companies conducted by the Swiss full service web consultancy Namics
(cf. chapter 2) in 2011 with a response rate of 49% (51 questionnaires) reveals –
without claiming representativeness but rather providing some insights – some
big differences in the handling of and approach to social media by the top 500
Swiss companies, depending on their self-perceived maturity in using social
media for business purposes (Namics, 2011). 29% of the self-perceived social
media “beginners” (that is inexperienced companies) indicate at least one member
of top management to actively use social media vs. 83% of social media experienced companies (the so called “benchmarks”). 83% of “benchmarks” also have a
social media strategy vs. 36% of beginners. Also 83% of “benchmarks” create
content specifically for social media channels while 50% of beginners do the
same. Social media performance is measured by 100% of “benchmarks” and
only by 43% of beginners (Namics, 2011). The limited resources, the unpredictability of topics, the production or provision of enough relevant content as
well as a corporate culture that doesn’t fit with social media as well as a competence lack of social media performance measurement are the main perceived
barriers to a successful social media adoption. For the leading “benchmarks”,
the creation or curation of sufficient relevant content is identified as biggest
challenge in social media marketing. The social media beginners see the limited
resources available as the main barrier to social media adoption (Namics, 2011).
According to Weinberg (2009:120-122) blogging is one of the oldest and most
successful approaches to social media as blogs not only penetrate the online
space but can also be very influential. “For business purposes, blogs are a great
way to connect with an audience and to attract customers and individuals already loyal to your brand” (Weinberg, 2009:121). Blogging platforms are more
powerful than static web pages because
— bloggers don’t need extensive HTML skills,
— blog software includes built-in RSS functionality, so that readers can
consume blogs on their chosen platforms (e.g. mobile phones or
customized start pages like iGoogle)
— blogs can ping search engines and blog engines which usually results in rapid indexing of blog content in search results
— it’s easy to integrate comment and contact forms, social media
sharing options, “ask the readers” columns, contests, and polls and
surveys (Weinberg, 2009:122).
Having a corporate social media strategy with best practices for community
engagement and blogging is a smart option for companies (ibid.). Creating,
curating as well as sharing and interacting with relevant content appears to be
at the core of blogging, of social media, and therefore of content marketing.
– Chapter 5: Presentation of Findings on B2B and Content Marketing –
< Back to Index
6. The Importance of
Content Marketing for
some Swiss Companies
A
fter presenting and analyzing the available literature and research on
content marketing, our interest briefly turns to the situation at home.
Within the framework of a survey concerning the image, branding and reputation of the Swiss web consultancy Namics (cf. chapter 4 of this work), we asked
48 Swiss companies (active in the B2B and B2C sector) to assess the importance
of content marketing for their organization (Deucher, 2012). The online survey
with the tool SurveyMonkey (www.surveymonkey.net) which doesn’t claim representativeness due to the small sample size provides some insight into Swiss
companies’ awareness of content marketing and its importance. Out of the 48
started surveys 66.7% or 32 surveys were completed. The following two questions were asked concerning the importance of content marketing:
1
What current importance does content marketing have for your
company?
– The answer options for this question were: very great importance, great importance, some importance, and no importance.
2
What future importance will content marketing have for your
company?
– The answer options for this question were: will be much more important, will
be more important, will be less important, and will be completely unimportant.
Given that we expected to find that there’s no awareness of content marketing,
the questions yielded interesting answers:
1
Current importance of content marketing:
18.8% of the respondents indicated that content marketing is of very
great importance for their company; 28.1% declared that content marketing
is of great importance for their company; 25.0% attributed content marketing
some organizational importance while 28.1% allot no current importance to
content marketing for their company. This means that 46.9% of respondents
(those who claim content marketing to be of very great and great importance) assess content marketing as significant for their company today while a quarter
of survey participants think it to be somewhat important. Hence, 71.9% or
the majority of respondents attribute content marketing a certain importance
vs. 28.1% who indicate that it is currently not important to their organization.
2
Future importance of content marketing:
Even more clear-cut are the answers concerning the future importance
of content marketing. 30.3% of the survey participants assess that content
marketing will be much more important to their company in future while 45.5%
indicate that content marketing will be more important. 21.2% of respondents
think that content marketing will be less important while only 3.0% rank
content marketing as completely unimportant to their company’s future.
Hence, altogether 75.8% of respondents think that content marketing will be
important in future vs. 24.2% thinking the opposite.
– Chapter 6: The Importance of Content Marketing for some Swiss Companies –
< Back to Index
7. Conclusion
T
his work has provided some insights into the value of content marketing
for B2B companies. The author has gathered data to support the hypo-
thesis that content marketing can be a valuable part of the promotional mix
and support – not replace – the other components of the promotional mix, including advertising and personal selling.
B2B companies have very specific needs and high expectations, and they carefully consider their buying choices, given that the purchase of business solutions
can have an enormous influence on their business outcome. B2B customers
spend significant time researching their options before making a purchase, and
the B2B marketer trying to sell them something is dealing with not just one person in the organization but with a committee of buyers who will want to evaluate or vet the alternatives. Content marketing can have a positive influence on the
purchase decision by not only providing specific and value-added information
to different B2B buyer personas but also by demonstrating the competence and
know-how of the solution provider as well as entertaining prospects.
Relationship building starts long before the first call, namely when the B2B decision makers start gathering information, which they very often do online. If a
company can deliver content that its prospects find interesting and informative
and entertaining, they might begin to see it as a trusted source of information
– as an adviser, which might increase the likelihood of winning the deal. In such
cases content marketing can prove immensely valuable.
Considering the closer and longer supplier-customer relationship due to the
customized and highly specific solutions business buyers purchase, winning the
deal once may be equivalent to an enormous financial gain for many years to
come. B2B buyers and sellers deal with each other in a more direct way than
their B2C counterparts. Very often, they get to know each other personally.
Hence, sellers can craft content that ideally matches their customers’ needs.
That is how content might contribute not only to engaging the customers’ interest but also to follow-up purchases and a positive overall relationship between
buyer and seller given that content marketing is an ongoing effort and content is
created to not only support acquisition but also help deepen the relationships
with existing customers.
The author of this paper presented evidence to support the assumption that content marketing is not just hype but an explicit trend in the marketing strategies
of professional companies both in the United States and German speaking European countries like Switzerland, Germany and Austria. Content marketing is
already part of the overall marketing investments which comes as no surprise
considering content marketing’s long tradition and its revival with the rise of
digital interactive media. Companies that can figure out how to market with
content to attract and retain customers can contribute to positive business results – as our examples of organizations which succeeded with content marketing like Trivadis, Indium and Distribion showed.
However, we also highlighted the fact that content marketing calls for significant investments considering that not only know-how and man-power but also
deep departmental integration and cultural shifts across the entire organization
are needed. Creating great content might be a good start, but making it work for
the business goals and proving its worth is an ongoing challenge. Setting clear
objectives and tying content to measurable results contributes to proving content marketing’s worth for the company.
Given that content and conversations are important in social media, we also suggest that content marketing can be made more powerful by integrating it with
social media and social online networks. Blogging can be a good way to demonstrate expertise, positively influence search engine optimization and increase awareness for the solution provider and its services.
As we’ve seen in the examples of Trivadis and Distribion, content marketing
can have a real and positive influence on revenue.
This work has made a first step toward gathering information, providing insight
and assessing the value of content marketing for B2B organizations. However,
this is only the beginning. Fundamental research on content marketing still has
to be conducted in order to analyze the basic questions raised by this work:
— What can content marketing really contribute to the overall organizational performance?
— What’s content marketing’s concrete value and cost?
— What’s at the core of content marketing success and which content
marketing strategies are driving desired actions that help companies make or save money?
— What is the effectiveness and impact of individual tactics and distribution channels?
— How is content marketing being applied today and what will its
future implications on marketing be?
— Which metrics are essential in content marketing and how are they
to be integrated in the overall marketing plan and performance
measurement program?
Communication is at the heart of marketing and content is at the center of communication. Therefore, content marketing might prove to be an essential part
– and maybe even the core – of marketing itself. The limited available evidence
has to be broadened and enriched with much more data on one of the topics that
may turn out to be the future of marketing as we know it: content marketing.
– Chapter 7: Conclusion –
< Back to Index
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– Chapter 8: Bibliography –
< Back to Index
Gergina Hristova studied media and communication sciences at the University
of Zurich and speaks seven languages. She joined Namics as senior consultant in
2011 after four years as chief editor of the Swiss real estate portal homegate.ch and
dedicates her time and passion to developing and implementing content marketing and social media strategies for her clients. In 2013, she successfully completed
her Master of Business Administration study at the University of Wales.
Namics is a leading web full service agency in Switzerland and Germany with
offices in St. Gallen, Zurich, Frankfurt, Hamburg and Munich. More than
400 employees provide professional high-quality e-business and marketing
services contributing to intelligent and innovative solutions for profitable web
experiences and sustainable online communication.
Contact the author:
Gergina Hristova
Senior Consultant
Namics AG
Bederstrasse 1
8002 Zurich
Phone: +41 44 228 67 91
gergina.hristova@ namics.com
www.namics.com
blog.namics.com
www.namics.com/expertise/themen/content-services
Namics creation:
Alain de Veer and Alex Huldi
© 2013
This Namics e-book is copyrighted to the author. Third-party publication is permitted if the source is
fully indicated.