Two weeks ago GoDaddy’s outage knocked numerous sites offline for an extended period of time.

On the same day, this site (B2B Digital Marketing, in case you are reading this elsewhere) received more search traffic than ever before.

Google search traffic was up 20% over the previous one-day high and was nearly 40% higher than the average from the prior three weeks.

The increase wasn’t because of great search engine optimization. It wasn’t because of great content. It was because other good (or better, according to Google) sites were simply not available, offline because of the GoDaddy outage. Traffic that would normally have gone elsewhere ended up here.

The B2B Marketing Implication

As a marketer, you have objectives that may range from sales to leads to unaided awareness. However, a significant portion of your success is beyond your control.

The moves your competitors make, the regulatory changes that impact your industry or the overall economy can multiply your results or sour your best laid plans.

The question is not necessarily what your plan is, the question is what will your plan be and will you be able to move as quickly as your competitors and your marketplace?

Agility in B2B Marketing

Today, more than ever, B2B marketing needs to be well planned and flexible. Chances are your industry is going through more upheaval today than it has in decades.

If you are in recruiting, lightweight solutions like HiringThing are bringing new low-cost options into the market.

are bringing new low-cost options into the market. If you are in IT services, SaaS or Managed Services like ZenDesk are not just challenging your solutions but also rewriting your revenue models.

If you are RIM, just 2 years ago you were still the smartphone market leader and this week you were begging developers to wait for your BlackBerry 10 introduction rather than give up on you (and your 9% market share) completely.

Like in these examples, many of the most important changes and the biggest opportunities you face will stem from changes that are beyond your control.

Are you ready to respond to these threats and opportunities as they come up? Does your strategy and infrastructure position you to respond to changes as they happen?

Your Turn

Today, are businesses better served by executing a well thought out plan or developing a business and marketing infrastructure that is nimble enough to respond throughout the year to the changes around them?

Share your perspective in the comments below or with me on Twitter (@wittlake).

Photo Credit: by Marcus74id on FreeDigitalPhotos.net