Oil and water. Mars and Venus. Search and branding.

Not long ago (or still?), brand marketing and search marketing were viewed as two polar opposites in the marketing mix. Many diehard pros specializing in one or the other of these areas still struggle to understand find value in, or even imagine, using search marketing to build or reinforce a brand message.

“The 10 blue links of the search results page are simply not a worthwhile medium for building brands,” say the brand marketers.

“Who cares about building brand awareness and preference when we’re driving conversions!” say the search marketers.

We address this debate for B2B brand marketing and B2B search marketing pros in *NEW* Business.com whitepaper “Building B2B Brands through Search Marketing“.

Here’s a quick summary:

The purpose of this whitepaper is to provide a straightforward overview of how to build your business-to-business (B2B) brand through search marketing, and to provide several best practice tips for finding and leveraging brand-building opportunities in the context of search marketing. Specifically, we cover the three fundamental ways paid search and SEO connect with B2B brand campaigns:

1. Brand initiatives provide key inputs for search marketing campaigns

2. Search marketing delivers an impactful, branded experience

3. Search marketing impressions, CTR and conversion rates are affected by brand campaigns

And, in the process, review the mounting research supporting the impact of a strong B2B brand presence in search results on search marketing ROI.

We don’t get into the “which is better” debate that branding pros and search marketers so often fall into. As you review the research it quickly becomes apparent that this debate is a waste of time - brand marketer and search marketers absolutely need each other to deliver the best possible ROI for their companies.

Visit http://www.business.com/info/b2b-online-marketing/building-b2b-brands today to get your copy of “Building B2B Brands through Search Marketing”.

And once you’ve had a chance to read through it, we’d love to hear your impressions below.