Ogilvy PR launches digital influence offering for today's B2B buyer journey

Ogilvy Public Relations (Ogilvy PR) has announced the launch of a new global digital influence service called Digital Influence for B2B, designed to help business-to-business (B2B) companies adapt to the changes that have occurred in how B2B buyers are seeking information and opinions of others when considering a purchase.

The new service for driving awareness and sales consideration is led by an integrated, global team of specialists including:

• B2B communications experts
• Social media experts
• Sales enablement experts

“B2B companies, especially B2B technology companies, are inherently sales-driven organizations. Social media has undeniably changed the B2B buying process as much as it has impacted the B2C process,” saidAmy Messenger, Managing Director of the U.S. Technology Practice at Ogilvy PR. “We saw a need to evolve and expand our existing B2B social media efforts into an integrated offering that reflects today’s B2B buyer behaviors and puts brands in the best possible position to be considered at a variety of touch-points along the customer journey.”

The Digital Influence for B2B buyer journey-based service launches with six solutions:

• Content driven thought leadership
• Search and content optimization
• Socially enabled sales force
• Community marketing
• Influencer engagement and activation
• Social product marketing

"We know that B2B buyers are seeking information, opinions and the experiences of others before they initiate contact with sales teams. With today’s B2B buyer journey it is critical that communications, sales and marketing come together and use innovative social practices to build profitable customer relationships,” said John Bell, Global Managing Director, Social@Ogilvy. “With our new, integrated B2B social communications team, we have methods and tools to effectively connect socially-enabled communications with meaningful sales-related goals."

The new offering is firmly grounded in the B2B customer journey, and an appreciation of how it has changed with the advancement of digital communications and social media. One dramatic change for sales organizations is that the average B2B IT buyer needs to consume five pieces of content before they are ready to speak to sales. (source: IDG Enterprise Customer Engagement Research, 2012). This speaks to the critical nature of quality content that is optimized for organic search. In addition, 82 percent of B2B technology decision makers say colleagues within their organization influence their purchase decision-making process. (source: Forrester Research, Inc., 2011 Social Technographics for Business Technology Buyers, October 2011). This highlights an untapped opportunity for many B2B organizations to expand development of advocacy programs in social media to share the opinions of employees, customers and partners.

The interdisciplinary team includes Ogilvy PR’s Technology Practice, Social@Ogilvy and Leopard (www.leopard.com), Ogilvy’s B2B sales enablement group. The team’s combined experience provides clients with unmatched understanding of the roles that content, customer sentiment and endorsement, and channel uniquely play within B2B environments.

Ogilvy’s Digital Influence for B2B service is unique and valuable to clients because it offers:

The Social Media Engagement Approachrefined by Social@Ogilvy over the last eight years.

• A Deep Understanding of the Unique B2B Marketing and SalesEnvironment honed over 25 years of work in B2B across Ogilvy PR’s Technology Practice and Leopard.
• A Global Network of Social and B2B Expertisewith Ogilvy PR and Social@Ogilvy professionals.
• A Content Strategy to align marketing and sales content with customer needs along the buyer journey.