Marketing Minute: Why Your Company Needs an Instagram Account
To view other videos from Sonnhalter, visit our YouTube channel here and let us know if there’s a B2T marketing topic you’d like us to cover.
Are You Using Landing Pages?
No matter what kind of promotion you’re doing, when going after the professional tradesmen, the bottom line is you want them to ask for more info and ultimately make a sale. You can’t do that in an ad (print or digital) by itself. You need those that are interested in whatever it is you’re selling to go somewhere to get more info. Effective landing pages make it clear what the visitor is going to get by visiting the site.
A landing page is ideal for a next step in the lead process. A good landing page will target a particular audience using a unique page that allows visitors to download the appropriate content (you wouldn’t have the same offer for say a tradesman and for a design engineer). They also help you track and monitor activity by offers so you know what works and what doesn’t.
Landing pages help segment markets, capture leads and make it possible to monitor advertising effectiveness.
- By directing them to a specific page with an offer and the appropriate form to fill out, it makes it more likely that they will complete the form and convert to a lead.
- If your visitors decide to download your offer, why not invite them to share your content?
- Lead nurturing is a very important part of the process. 50% of those who respond aren’t ready to buy just yet.
- 78% of sales that start with a web inquiry get won by the first company that responds.
- By sending a follow-up thank you to those that downloaded material, you have the opportunity to offer them additional info and downloads, as well as asking them to share it with others via social media.
If you like this post, you might want to read:
Are You Using Landing Pages to Help Qualify Leads?
Tips on Making Your Landing Pages Better
Are You Using Automation Tools to Help in Social Media?
We’re all trying to do more with less. When it comes to social media, it’s no different. We should be focused on content and use automated tools to help spread the word on social platforms. Every industry is different but following are some automation tools you should consider and an infographic on the best times to post.
Here’s a list of tools that will help you schedule and post your content at the best time:
- SocialOomph – Provides scheduled social posting services for individuals and teams. Has been around since 2008.
- HootSuite – Allows you to manage up to 50 social media profiles, schedule your content and report your analytics.
- Sendible – Allows you to efficiently craft tailored posts for each social media platform and collaborate with your clients and teams.
- AgoraPulse – An easy-to use-social media management software that allows you to drive engagement and build authentic relationships on one platform.
- Buffer – Helps you manage multiple social media accounts at once and easily schedule content.
- ManageFlitter – Tools that help to optimize your Twitter account and identify your Twitter accounts’ prime time.
- Facebook Insights – Provides information about your Facebook audience and how they are interacting with your page.
- Later – Founded as the first-to-market Instagram scheduler in 2014, Later (formerly Latergramme) has grown from a simple Instagram tool to the number one visual marketing platform for Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.
The following infographic by Zenesys will give you a ballpark of the best and worst times to post on various social media platforms.
B-to-B Video is on the Rise: Are You Taking Advantage?
Does your company have a presence on YouTube? If not, consider these stats:
- 2 billion monthly active YouTube users
- 30 million daily active YouTube users
- 5 billion videos watched each day
- 500 hours of new videos are uploaded every minute
- 500 billion videos shared to date
We’re a visual society and everyone loves to watch videos. Of B-to-B companies who are using videos, 80% of them reported positive results. From a manufacturing perspective, this should be a no-brainer. The key is to have a strategy and create compelling content. How-to videos, troubleshooting, new product launches are just a few that come to mind.
Some of the biggest challenges many B-to-B firms face are lack of manpower and budgets, followed by creating compelling content. Videos don’t have to be long or be made into a Hollywood production. There are inexpensive cameras (including a recent iPhone) and simple editing software that enable most videos to be created in-house. The key is content. You must provide the viewer something he or she can use. Keep the message clear, to the point and short.
Here’s an example of one of our Marketing Minutes:
According to a recent study by Demand Metric, the most important objectives of videos are:
Certainly, these top three objectives fit into your marketing strategy. So, what are you doing about capitalizing videos to enhance your marketing efforts?
If you like this post, you might want to read:
Why Should You Use Short Videos to Attract Professional Tradesmen?
12 Tips for Effective Tradesman Videos
SEO Checklist for 2020
Today we have a guest post from Pete Kever, president of K6 Digital Marketing, who has been leading the SEO, search marketing, website development and digital marketing for its clients. He’s been at it since before Google.
The World Wide Web has reached its “thirtysomething” birthday and is the base of the world’s digital information infrastructure. Today, according to websitehostingrating.com, there are over 1.74 billion websites containing many trillions of documents. With so many websites clamoring to deliver information to their target audience, search engine optimization (SEO) is as important as ever.
SEO is the art and science of attempting to gain a listing of website content on page one of Google, the world’s most popular search engine. If your content is not on page one, your competitors are getting their messages in front of your potential customers instead of you.
SEO helps businesses put their messages in front of people right at the moment they are searching for it.
SEO is Important to Every Business
Trades marketers and manufacturers need to care about their search engine rank. According to a recent Google study:
- 71 percent of B2B researchers start their research with a generic search
- On average, B2B researchers do 12 searches prior to engaging on a specific brand’s site
- 89 percent of B2B researchers use the internet during the B2B research process
- Nearly half of all B2B researchers are millennials
- B2B researchers who are not in the C-suite influence purchase decisions
- 70 percent of B2B buyers and researchers are watching videos throughout their path to purchase
While there are a number of marketing strategies and services available to get the attention of online viewers, such as social media marketing, pay-per-click advertising, email marketing and digital banner ads, SEO still offers the most long-term value.
We have developed a checklist of important technical and creative SEO tactics.
Pick Relevant, Focused Keywords
Based on your products and services and on what people are actually searching for, select a list of keywords and phrases that will lead people to your site who most likely will buy. This list becomes your keyword roster and is monitored; over time your rankings should increase for the important terms. Online tools are available for conducting keyword research and for monitoring rankings–a popular one is SEMRush but there are others.
Be sure to choose a mixture of highly popular, but more difficult keywords and long-tail keyword phrases–specific terms that are not used as often, but are less competitive and that tend to bring qualified traffic.
Write Useful, Engaging, Unique Content
Once you know the terms that are actually being used to find your products and services, you need to build content containing those keywords and phrases throughout your site. Professional SEO writers are valuable here, as they understand tactics like semantic search and keyword iterations and can weave keywords into on-page copy for the search engines that also help drive action from users.
Your site needs content that is both sales- and value-based, as well as educational. The sales and value content is optimized for keywords and focused on pitching your products and services. The educational content builds your organization as a thought leader and is useful for providing helpful resources that eventually drive purchase decisions.
Educational content–such as a blog–is also great for social media sharing and building awareness.
Make Sure All HTML Tags Are Optimized
Some HTML tags are absolutely essential for any SEO campaign and MUST be utilized if you want SEO success. Title tags feature keywords from your roster and are useful to search engines in understanding the context of each page. The description meta tag gives more detail on the page’s content is usually a reader’s first encounter with your website in the listings on search results pages.
There are rules and best practices for character-count limits and what to include in these tags if you want to maximize their effectiveness. Search Engine Journal offers a good primer on these essential tags for your online presence.
Build Inbound Links
The more links from other sites that link to your website, the better. The logic here is that other sites respect your site and are referring their traffic to your site. Your website is thus a healthy and participating component of the Web.
Be aware: links that are deemed “toxic” by Google and other search engines can actually harm the SEO rankings of your site, and disavowing bad links is an aspect of SEO that needs to be followed. Google Analytics can help with this SEO task and many others!
Make Sure Your Site Is Mobile Friendly
Google has begun displaying mobile content more predominately and is thus very interested in ranking websites that work well on a mobile platform. Google has even created a “mobile friendly test” tool to get insight into whether individual pages on your site pass basic mobile checks.
Make Sure Your Site Is Fast and Responsive
Since Google’s business relies on being the “front door” to web content, they are constantly looking to rank websites that have short wait times, load correctly and respond well to users. Therefore, it is important to constantly be checking your site for slow-loading pages, images that are very large, broken links and more.
Stay Connected with Customers and Prospects via Social Media
Social media sites like LinkedIn and Instagram are powerful tools to connect with your customers and prospects, and to increase your brand awareness. Social media does not directly influence your search engine rank, but well-known brands tend to get more clicks and engagement than unknown entities.
These platforms are other digital destinations where searchers can find out about your business and often you can provide a link on these platforms to come to your website. Just as “all roads lead to Rome,” many roads can lead to your website. Social media platforms are also useful in promoting special campaigns and offers.
Video Marketing
YouTube is owned by Google and indexed by Google with great regularity. More importantly, video content is highly popular–YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world behind Google. 68% of YouTube viewers have watched a video to help them decide upon a purchase. Having your company content on YouTube is a smart marketing strategy. Also, videos keep site visitors on your web pages longer.
Staying on top of SEO is an expense, but the long-term ROI is one of the highest among all forms of advertising and marketing. Once your website has been optimized and you continue to follow SEO best practices, you will see a payback over time, whether your goals are increased brand share, more leads, or more sales.
Make no mistake, whether you decide to pursue SEO or not, some of your competitors absolutely will.
Would you like to engage with Sonnhalter for SEO services for your industrial or manufacturing business? We’re here for you – please contact us to get the conversation started.
Marketing Minute: Trade Show Pre-Show Activities
We’re in the midst of trade show season, and admittedly, trade shows can be overwhelming. Sonnhalter is here to help. In the first installment of our series of Marketing Minute videos on trade show best practices, Matt Sonnhalter reviews some of the pre-show activities that you can take advantage of to help make your next trade show a success. From reminding your contacts through e-blasts, e-newsletters and social media and sending postcards to the preregistered attendee list, to leveraging the editorial contacts in attendance, trade shows are great marketing opportunities when properly taken advantage of.
To view other videos from Sonnhalter, visit our YouTube channel here. Let us know if there’s a B2T marketing topic you’d like us to cover.