Business-to-business (B2B) marketing executives may comfort themselves that they don’t have to think about social media because, “That’s for consumer products.” That excuse has just been exploded by Forrester Research. Although no one should storm into an uncharted jungle unprepared, Forrester advises that B2B marketers had better start donning their pith helmets and sharpening their machetes.

In research findings released last month, Forrester reports the following:

If you’re a B2B marketer and you’re not using social technologies in your marketing, it means you’re late. … [Although there are some strong b2b companies doing well in the social media space], a lot of the blogs, communities, and other social outreach from business to business companies is less than mature, to say the least.

This is your chance to stand out. Take this report and show it to your boss to convince her that it’s time to get started.

This chart shows the Technographics of the B2B buyers they investigated. Although they are an admittedly “plugged-in” audience (they are technology buyers for the most part), Forrester discovered that 91% of the group were Spectators, the highest percentage they’ve ever witnessed in a Social Technographics Profile.

Even the overall Creators (i.e., bloggers, forum posters, etc.) and Critics (those who use social media to rate products and post reviews) are quite high, at 43% and 58%.

The Takeaway

The way businesses buy is changing fast, and in the direction of ignoring the marketer altogether. Instead, they’re talking amongst themselves, in conversations that B2B marketers should ignore at their peril.

Testing in the online world has never become easier or more affordable. It’s therefore no surprise that many assumptions about online ads are being reconsidered. Today, Enquirio and Google announced the validation of one such tenet. It had been assumed, through common sense and improved response rates, that an ad displayed in the context of similar subject matter will do better than one with no relationship to content.

What do we mean by contextual ad placement? The premise is that if I’m an executive who influences a decision to purchase construction equipment, and I see an ad as I review a construction industry portal site, I am more likely to recall the message — and the brand — than if I saw the same ad on an unrelated site.

In research by Enquirio and commissioned by Google, this assumption was validated. The research methodology included randomized test subjects, given tasks related to the content of the sites they were reviewing. Some sites contained ads that were relevant, others contained the same ads but had no connection to those ads’ subject matter.

Results were gathered in the form of questionnaire answers and aggregate eye scan heat maps of the sites being reviewed.

Two key take-aways:

• Through contextually relevant business-to-business (B-to-B) ads, purchasers are 52% more likely to associate your message with your brand
• With contextually relevant B-to-B ads, it is 28% more likely that your brand “will make the cut” and be shortlisted.

The Enquirio site has the whitepaper available for download.

A recent survey of 7,100 executives revealed a secret C-level indulgence: video games. PopCap Games conducted the survey, and here is a summary of their findings:

This representative sample suggests that as many as 80 million white collar workers play casual games. Of those white collar workers surveyed, nearly a quarter (24%) said they play “at work” — with fully 35% of CEOs, CFOs and other senior executives saying they play at work.

Tameka Kee of MediaPost points out the most promising implication for business-to-business (B2B) marketers: “These ad-supported games reach their targets on an unexpected, but increasingly popular medium.” In other words, they reach the men and women who screen their calls, have someone else sort through their mail and block unknown emails.

At last we know what they’re doing behind those closed doors.