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A Study on the Digital and Social Media Marketing of online B2B portals with relevance to E-Commerce
1. A STUDY ON THE DIGITAL AND SOCIAL
MEDIA MARKETING OF ONLINE B2B
PORTALS WITH RELEVANCE TO
E-COMMERCE
College Guide: Dr. Shivaji Banerjee
Office Guide: Mr. Amit Surana (Business Head)
BY AYAN DUTTA
ROLL NO: 97 ROOM NO:
2. TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF LITERATURE
CHAPTER 3: THEORETICAL FOUNDATION
CHAPTER 4: COMPANY PROFILE
CHAPTER 5: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
CHAPTER 6: FINDINGS
RECOMMENDATION
CONCLUSION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
3. CHAPTER 1:
INTRODUCTIONWhat is a portal?
A portal is defined as an access point to World Wide Web. A portal is a combination of web pages,
features and services which become a primary destination for users. The word was first used to
describe the sites of popular Internet access providers or search engines such as AOL, MSN and
Yahoo! At a later stage, the word “portal” evolved into something bigger covering business
websites, where a corporate portal or enterprise information portal acts as a base for employees,
customers, suppliers and other associates of a company to access corporate information and web
services. A B2B portal is a distinct kind of website with features to conduct electronic business
and manage significant parts of corporate business processes.
A web portal is most often one specially-designed web page at a website which brings information
together from diverse sources in a uniform way.
What is an Online B2B Portal?
An online B2B portal is a platform set where one business serves the needs and requirements of
another business. Online B2B marketplace has become a perfect place for all the respective buyers
and sellers to meet and fulfil various trading purposes involving minimum effort. This method has
revolutionized the ways in which trading was done earlier.
Specifically talking about the Indian B2B portal, the Indian market has come up as a major
marketing tool, which is used to give benefits to every distributor, manufacturer and supplier. This
advanced way of trading has helped the traders to generate revenue so as to add productivity to
their business. This in turn offers greater scope to manufacturers to cater the needs of suppliers,
distributors both nationally as well as globally.
4. OBJECTIVES OF THE
STUDY
Determine for AlCircle Pte. Ltd., the following:
To highlight the importance of online B2B portals in the current market scenario and their
relevance to e-commerce.
To determine the scope of online B2B web portals enlightening on the major players, their
market share and future prospects of the same.
To provide a detailed analysis on how B2B portals help in increasing operational efficiency
and reduce costs to enable customer retention.
To give an overview of how online B2B portals operate and make lives easier for
companies and consumers by establishing a global platform for easy communication.
To discuss in detail how AlCircle Pte. Ltd. {www.alcircle.com}- the comprehensive
aluminium portal creates a niche for the aluminium market and brings all leading
aluminium player from all over the world under a single platform.
To elucidate on the relevance of www.alcircle.com in the current B2B market, its
competitors and the scope and prospects of the company.
To give a brief report on my work in the company during the period of my internship
discussing in depth the findings, methodology and limitations of the research.
To provide an insight on the statistical analysis of major players in the B2B marketplace
and their share in this field.
To signify the importance of AlCircle Pte. Ltd. and its position in the market with the help
of statistical data.
5. LIMITATIONS OF THE
STUDY
• The first and foremost limitation of my research is that the online B2B aluminium markets have limited
scope for expansion. They are restricted to aluminium and do not deal in other products.
• The E-Commerce market is still nascent and not yet taken off with regard to the online B2B portals.
• Indian registered customer database is heavily skewed making it difficult for online B2B marketers to create
an impact.
• AlCircle Pte. Ltd. has limited manpower with a working committee of 1-10 members and there is
vulnerability to turnover.
• Since AlCircle Pte. Ltd. is a start-up, it has limited reach in the aluminium market and must commence its
operations under intense competition from other dedicated aluminium portals.
• Since Aluminium is a metal industry, there is always a touch and feel look that companies expect while
transacting their product. Therefore, buying/selling through a web portal may not give that level of
confidence to the marketer and hence, he may be rigid to advertise on internet portal.
• E-Commerce is not suitable for every B2B business in the online market
• B2B firms have less leverage over their customers than B2C firms.
6. CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF LITERATURE
COMMON B2B SEO MISTAKES AND HOW TO SOLVE THEM
By Lee Odden
Working with a variety of companies large and small, local and international, B2B and B2C, on SEO
projects over the past 12 years has revealed a variety of common obstacles to success. For many reasons,
B2B marketers often lag behind B2C in terms of tactics and adoption of new marketing
technologies. The customer acquisition and buying cycle are very different for business to business
than consumer oriented products and services.
Since SEO presents the biggest opportunity to generate a high quantity and quality of B2B leads, more
B2B marketers are speeding up their ability to test innovative search engine optimization
programs. Unfortunately, there are a mix of common mistakes that persist. Here are 5 common
mistakes and how to avoid them.
• Using keywords more important to you than your customers
• Content is not reachable by search Bots
• Lack of new content
• Keywords missing in Content and text links
• Not monitoring KPI’s and Ongoing Optimization of Content Marketing
MOTIVES AND BARRIERS FOR SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
By Nicole Busscher
Motives - Research has acknowledged that social media could be valuable and essential for B2B
companies and that especially social networking sites (SNS), such as Facebook and LinkedIn, could be
used for the communication with customers and suppliers, for relationship and trust building and for
identifying potential partners. Furthermore, social media can also be used to increase traffic to the
corporate website, disseminate significant information, attract new customers, gain feedback, fostering
customer relationships, and establish a two-way conversation, which provide the marketers some help
with getting insight in the preferences and the loyalty of the buyers and promoting the brand identity.
7. CHAPTER 3: THEORETICAL
FOUNDATION
The popularity of social media marketing is spreading like wildfire across the world of B2B commerce. A
new report from CMI shows that B2B marketers have increasingly recognized social media as an essential
platform for initiating relationships with new business accounts. As one would expect, LinkedIn reigns
supreme over the pack, with over 90 percent of B2B marketing professionals distributing content on their
site. Not far behind is Twitter, at 85 percent.
Of course, these are social media platforms, so marketing on them requires a certain finesse and
premeditation. At the same time, many B2B companies have found out the hard way that simply being
present on social media isn’t enough. If you want to raise awareness and increase impressions for your brand
on social media, it’s absolutely crucial that you plan out a content strategy in advance.
Here’s a breakdown of three key angles to keep in mind when plotting your B2B marketing push on social
media:
1. Building brand awareness
2. Showcasing your expertise
3. Making contact for sales
The online brand that will be delivered in social must align with a B2B organization’s brand promise,
mission, and value proposition. Choosing the appropriate channel(s) depends on a number of factors
including:
Audience breakdown of network.
Target audience types.
Content types by audience.
Purpose of social network.
Tone of network.
Engagement levels of network.
8. SEARCH MARKETING
Search marketing should be a top priority for organizations in any industry. But B2B search
marketing efforts take a slightly different form than the tactics used in consumer focused SEO
and PPC programs. Typically, B2B markets are smaller, products and services are more
complex, and sales cycles are longer. Therefore, B2B marketers must think a bit differently in
terms of target keywords, online content and link building.
‘Top Rank’ has worked with many companies using search marketing to reach Business to
Business audiences over the past 8 years. The 5 B2B search marketing tips that can help
companies maximize their results are as follows:
a. For B2B Companies, getting found is just the beginning
b. Content is key for B2B websites
c. B2B target keyword glossaries must be more robust
d. B2B organizations must think outside the box when it comes to link-building
e. B2B search marketing efforts have to speak to multiple entities within a business
CHAPTER 3
(CONTINUED……)
9. CHAPTER 4: COMPANY
PROFILE
AlCircle Pte. Ltd. (www.alcircle.com) is global aluminium industry portal which was formally launched for
operations in June 2010. With its registered office in Singapore and its editorial, technical and commercial
operations located in India, the site has gained considerable popularity within this short time and its
registered user population has reached the critical 10,000 and daily hits have crossed 1 million with many more
unique visitors coming in on day to day basis.
www.alcircle.com covers the whole ecosystem and value chain of the global Aluminium industry starting from
Bauxite mining to Alumina refining, Aluminium smelting, finished and semi-finished products and recycling.
The aluminium ecosystem is modelled on the basis of natural ecosystem where a network of industrial
processes extracts resources from the earth and transforms those resources into commodities which can be
bought and sold to meet the needs of humanity. In that sense, www.alcircle.com covers all the interacting
organizations and individuals within the aluminium ecosystem. The member organisms include raw material
suppliers, lead producers, mid-stream and downstream product manufactures, recyclers, and at the end of the
day consumers. Based on a smart B2B platform, the portal lets you access news, event information, price
updates, directory data and business, service and HR leads on the aluminium industry with the help of
smooth icon based interface. Created by industry veterans and experts, alcircle.com aims to be a highly
professional for the industry players to support their decision making needs.
• AlCircle is the leading comprehensive aluminium b2b portal company.
• The parent company of AlCircle is JIWANRAM SHEODUTTRAI GROUP.
10. CHAPTER 5: RESEARCH
METHODOLOGY
SEARCH ENGINE SHARE
SEO for www.alcircle.com
SEO for www.alunet.com
SEO for www.aluplanet.com
SEO for www.alu.com.cn
SEO for
www.aluminiumnetwork.com
WEB PORTALS SEARCH ENGINE
SHARE
www.alcircle.com 32%
www.alunet.com 64.70%
www.aluplanet.com 61.90%
www.alu.com.cn 47.20%
www.aluminiumnetwork.com 35%
A Pie Chart determining the Search Engine Share of major B2B
aluminium Web Portals in SEO
11. 0 10000 20000 30000 40000 50000 60000
www.alcircle.com
www.aluplanet.com
www.alunet.com
www.alu.com.cn
www.aluminiumnetwork.com
COMPANY LISTING
COMPANY LISTING
WEB PORTALS COMPANY LISTING
www.alcircle.com 55000
www.aluplanet.com 3446
www.alunet.com 5570
www.alu.com.cn 2212
www.aluminiumnetwork.com 5680
A Bar Diagram showing the number of
companies enlisted under each Web Portal
12. A Column Chart showing the Registered
User Base of each Web Portal
0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
30000
www.alcircle.
com
www.alu.com
.cn
www.alunet.c
om
www.aluplan
et.com
www.alumini
umnetwork.c
om
REGISTERED USER BASE 10000 30000 8500 25000 28000
AxisTitle
REGISTERED USER BASE
13. A Line Diagram showing the Daily Hits of
respective Web Portals
www.alcircle.com www.alu.com.cn www.alunet.com
www.aluplanet.co
m
www.aluminiumn
etwork.com
DAILY HITS 1000000 120000 40000 90000 25000
0
200000
400000
600000
800000
1000000
1200000
AxisTitle
DAILY HITS
14. Graphical Presentation of the RANK of Top
5 B2B General Web Portals of the World
RANK
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
AxisTitle
Alibaba
(www.alibaba.com)
Manta
(www.manta.com)
Indiamart
(www.indiamart.com)
made-in-china
(www.made-in-
china.com)
dhgate
(www.dhgate.com)
RANK 81 758 1145 1170 1186
RANK
16. Branding
Website Traffice Building
Community Building
Product/ Event Promotion
Search Engine Optimization
Competitive Intelligence/ Listening
Lead Generation
Customer Feedback
Sales/ Revenue
Product Development
69%
58%
58%
56%
45%
45%
42%
41%
24%
23%
ACHIEVEMENT
ACHIEVEMENT
CHART: What marketing goals are Social Media most effective in
realizing?
18. CHAPTER 6: FINNDINGS
i. The online B2B market is flourishing at a steady pace through social
media marketing. However, Linkedin still remains the primary target for
B2B marketers and is fetching them maximum business. The other sites
for marketing like Facebook, twitter, Youtube, etc. has still not made
considerable impact.
ii. Internet has not yet reached the remote areas of India and e-commerce
still remains a dark entity in some parts of the country without having
much of an effect. Broadband facilities are not available everywhere.
iii. AlCircle Pte. Ltd. is still a start up and has not yet captured the online
aluminium market. It’s contents and services are of international
standards. With a variety of circles under its belt and a customer query
chat option, it is moving towards personalized services to better serve
the enlisted aluminium companies and a huge customer database of
more than 10000 registered users.
iv. B2B aluminium portals are still not predominant. Therefore, not much
information is available for the same.
19. RECOMMENDATIONS
For AlCircle Pte Ltd, my first recommendation will be to maximise on the Search Engine
share which is still at a 32% and is a concern considering its other competitors. This can be
done through extensive social media marketing by making the consumers aware of the
portal and the benefits derived from it. The goal of the Portal should be to be the first
reference point in the aluminium industry.
www.alcircle.com is basically a news and information portal for the aluminium industry,
bringing the aluminium market under a niche with variety of verticals like the news circle,
HR circle, value circle, business circle, event circle, etc. My suggestion to the company will
be to give priority to a particular circle which will yield maximum return for the company.
According to me, more emphasis should be given to event circle. AlCircle can tie up with
various exhibitions & events held around the globe with respect to the aluminium industry
by being a media or event partner which will enable the company to achieve recognition and
increase customer database thereby increasing scope for more advertisements since the
portal mainly relies on advertisements for revenue.
A B2B portal survives on its contents. Therefore, my third recommendation is to strategize
on the contents of the site which is suitable for the portal and appreciated by the market in
large. Up to date information and news about the market is a must for any B2B portal.
Since www.alcircle.com is primarily based on advertisements and corporate page for its
revenue, its advertisement costs are quite high with only 9 advertisement spaces. It must
therefore increase space and decrease costs to generate more revenue by being economical
and providing full value for money.
20. CONCLUSION
From the above slides, we may conclude the following:
Search Marketing of B2B web portals is very crucial because it is the first step to
recognition and holds a major role in the success of any portal. Thus, every B2B
marketer much work upon their Search Engine Share.
B2B web portals play a major role in modern day E-Commerce and make lives easier
for the companies and customers dealing with it by providing a global platform for
easy communication, personalizing for one click access to critical information,
increasing awareness among buyers and sellers, growing business through
E-Commerce and providing exposure to the world’s leading businesses.
E-Commerce is still at early stages, there is immense scope for growth and creativity
for B2B web portals.
As seen and established, all B2B platforms must concentrate on providing the right
content for its site according to the dealing markets. B2B marketers must focus on
content marketing. Rightly so, it occupies 91% of marketing programs.
21. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Search Engine Journal- Online Magazine
www.alcircle.com- the comprehensive aluminium portal
www.alunet.com
www.aluminiumnetwork.com
www.aluplanet.com
www.alu.com.cn- China Aluminium Network
Relevanza
War of Words: Myth-Busting Social Media, SEO & Content Marketing
Bit Rebels
Word Press Hosting SEO
Linkedin (www.linkedin.com)
www.alexa.com
Google fight
Marketing Charts- online magazine
www.heidicohen.com
