Influencer Marketing Continues to be a Hot Category for Marketers in 2021

by Kylie Stanley, Public Relations Technician

Influencer marketing is one of the top forms of marketing, especially in 2021. With influencer marketing being in demand, marketers must use it to seek their target audience.

In a recent report from Linqia, “State of Influencer Marketing,” they outline some of their key findings. While this report is focused on enterprise marketers, these broader B2C influencer marketing trends eventually make their way down to the B2B market.

Here are some of the key highlights:

  • Interest in using TikTok in influencer marketing campaigns rose 325% in just one year
  • 90% of enterprise marketers wanted to work with micro-influencers
  • Marketers are working with significantly fewer influencers than three years ago
  • 86% of respondents are already using shoppable links to allow consumers to go from inspiration to purchase instantly
  • 65% of respondents indicated that measuring ROI continues to be the biggest pain point in influencer marketing

It’s no surprise that the top two platforms are TikTok and Instagram as video content is continuing to grow within influencer channels. In fact, one in three marketers said it is extremely important.

Influencers are more than just their audience; they also create compelling content across channels and this is why they’re so effective.

What changes are you making to your Influencer Marketing Program for 2021?

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How Public Relations Can Benefit Your Business

How Public Relations Can Benefit Your Business

by Kylie Stanley, Public Relations Technician

Are you looking for new customers or want to increase business?

Well-developed public relations can be an effective tool to boost your business and help reach your desired audience. You will be able to establish an emotional connection to your audience through your brand’s marketing.

There are many ways that public relations can benefit you, but today we will be focusing on four methods. Michelle Garrett analyzed these four methods in a post she wrote for Thomas, “Why Public Relations Matters to Manufacturers.”

Educates – Public relations helps to teach your audience about who you are and why your company should matter to them. It also provides the information to your market about your products and services.

Image and Reputation – Public relations can aid in building trust and to establish your brand in the industry. By creating a strong reputation, it can lead to credibility and provide you with lifelong customers. If your customers know what your brand stands for, they will be more likely to engage with your business.

Awareness and Visibility – Potential customers will know that your brand exists, and campaigns can spread awareness of the work that your company is doing. With awareness efforts, you can change public opinions and promote your brand’s value.

Interest – From awareness we can create interest for your brand and products. Interest helps to pull customers in and make them want to learn more about your brand or be involved.

No matter how big or small a story is, it can help to elevate your brand and increase business. Let’s take some notes by looking at some examples of past public relations stories that have created visibility.

Associated General Contractors

Associated General Contractors of California partnered up with BuildOUT California, the world’s first industry association for sustainable growth of LGBTQ+ owned and certified business. This partnership is impactful for their audience and shows that the company cares about diversity and inclusion.

Partnerships can be rewarding and can help your business stand out against your competitors.

Mergers & Acquisitions

HEPACO is a leader in environmental and emergency response services that acquired Summit Field Services from Summit Environmental Services, LLC. This expansion helps to boost business development and to add value to your brand.

In the News

RMH Systems, a turn-key automation packaging and material handling integrator, announced Ryan Howard as their new president. With newsworthy information, your customers will want to hear about any changes happening within the company.

When using all these public relations efforts, we can create powerful results and assist in your brand’s marketing.

Need help with utilizing public relations? Contact us and check out our website for more tips.

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5 Tips for Communications During the Coronavirus Crisis

5 Tips for Communications During the Coronavirus Crisis

By Matt Sonnhalter, Vision Architect, Sonnhalter

As we’ve learned from the fallout regarding the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), this is a very unsettling time for businesses, and it has created many challenges for manufacturers, as well as their team members and customers. It’s important during times of crisis, such as we are experiencing, to maintain a calm, collected brand voice and keep the channels of communication open with customers, team members and stakeholders.

Here are five tips for effective communications during the COVID-19 crisis:

Form a Communications Leadership Team

Have representatives from every aspect of your business—C-suite, Marketing, HR, Operations, Sales, Legal, etc. so that you receive input on the different perspectives of how the crisis is affecting the individual departments and their functions. This team can vary in size based on the size of your company and should include a chain of command. From this team, appoint one or two official spokespersons that will be the only ones providing information on behalf of the organization. (more…)

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Crisis Communications: If a Crisis Hits, Do You Have a Plan?

The recent coronavirus pandemic reminds us that at any given time, organizations, communities, states and even countries can be faced with a crisis that requires effective communications with a strategic plan. Today seemed like a good time to dust off a past guest blog post from Nancy Valent of NMV Strategies on crisis communication.

 

Your phone rings.

It’s a CNN reporter wanting to know why your facility had an explosion, which injured five of your employees.

What is your response?

Probably the first reaction you have is to say: “No comment.” It seems harmless and a good safety net to buy you some time. In reality, your “no comment” starts a snowball reaction of assumptions that you are trying to hide something or go on the defensive.

Spokespeople who use this phrase are subliminally communicating that they are not being proactive or stepping out to really tell the truth. This type of response drives both consumers and business clients away and starts to degrade your brand and corporate identity faster than just saying in a very truthful tone: “I will get back to you in an hour with the facts and information, which I can confirm.”

Too many large, medium and even small manufacturing businesses operate under the philosophy that a company crisis will never happen to them. But, if it does it won’t get media attention and somehow they will ultimately handle it. If you research any of the past company crises that get national attention and talk to the manufacturing operations people who have lived through it, they will tell you everyone should be prepared for the sudden and the smoldering crisis…it can happen to you. (more…)

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How Effective is Your Social Media Strategy in Reaching the Professional Tradesman?

By Andrew Poulsen, Content Engineer, Sonnhalter

Social media has been an essential cog in every consumer brand’s marketing machine for more than a decade, but manufacturers in the trade industries have been slow to embrace the many marketing advantages that come with social media. I believe this comes from the perception that social media had originally only targeted the younger generations, and with the average age of the professional tradesmen skewing higher and higher, these manufacturers felt more comfortable using more traditional methods with their marketing dollars.

However, with Facebook and Twitter both grossing hundreds of millions of users, it quickly became clear that almost any brand had customers and prospective customers on these platforms. While many companies in the trades have adapted and are actively using Facebook and Twitter to connect and engage with its audience, there are plenty of other digital and social platforms whose features can be useful to companies in these industries. And with only so much time, effort and money available, brands should examine all of these platforms and their potential and effectiveness in reaching the professional tradesman.

Here is a rundown of some of the most popular social and digital tools out there, how they help reach the professional tradesman and how well they do it.

Facebook

Despite its well-documented PR hiccups, Facebook still casts a wider net than any other social media network…for now. Facebook has more than two billion users, and there are more than 65 million businesses using Facebook Pages. Because of the sheer volume of users, every company should be on Facebook to regularly promote new products, announce trade show appearances, share positive media coverage and company news, etc. (more…)

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The Scary Side of Public Relations

By Rosemarie Ascherl-Lenhard, Public Relations Foreman

It’s that spooky time of the year — so it seems like a good time to rehash some of the aspects of public relations that can be the scariest to clients.

We find the realm of public relations to be fun, exciting and consistently fresh, but some areas of our field can be scary to our clients. Here are the top five fears people have about public relations, and why you shouldn’t be spooked by them.

1. You can’t control what the media does with a story once you’ve given it to them.

“Earned media” is highly credible because readers know that you didn’t purchase the space to promote your company. Public relations and media relations professionals cultivate positive relationships with media, we work with these folks on behalf of multiple clients most of the time so we’ve built the foundation for positive coverage before they even get your story. In B2T public relations, we’re working with trade publications primarily and their goal is to be a source of helpful information for their readers.

It can be scary not to see the actual article before it’s published, but with long lead times of trade media, it can be a sweet surprise to see your words in print.  

2. Negative comments on blogs and social media. 

Your responses to negative comments offer an excellent opportunity to show off your wonderful customer service. Negative comments happen, and if they happen on your social media, you can control the outcome with your response and the community response from your other fans. It’s actually scarier to hide your head in the sand or cover your ears when it comes to social media.

(more…)

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