by tradesmeninsights | Sep 17, 2014 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Social Marketing
For those who follow me on a regular basis, you know I’m a big supporter of blogs. It seems that most companies now are at least considering doing a blog.
Here are a few good reasons you should consider a blog for your company:
- Websites are mostly static – Once a contractor has been to your website, why does he need to go back? He knows who you are and what you do. If you don’t get him to follow you on an RSS feed or fill out a form to be on a mailing list, you basically have lost most visitors.
- Thought leadership – One of the main objectives of a blog is to set you and your company apart. What better way to increase your brand awareness and generate new leads?
- Keep your customers/prospects coming back – When you publish new content on a regular basis, customers and prospects keep coming back. It also allows for interactions with both categories.
- Re-purpose content – You can take a current post and use it on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to gain additional exposure.
- Blogs can provide additional in-links – Once you establish yourself as a thought leader in a category, others will begin to link back to you and this will alert search engines that you must be saying something important.
Blogging is a collaborative process. You need and want to interact with your audience.
Here a few tips on writing a good post:
- You need a catchy title – Like anything else, if you can’t spark an interest, folks won’t click on to read your words of wisdom.
- Know your audience – Know what issues are affecting them on a regular basis.
- Have an opinion – People follow you because you give them a unique insight. Set yourself apart.
- Be yourself – Let your personality shine through. Write like you talk. Inject some humor when appropriate.
- Engage your readers – Ask for opinions, or if the subject matter is somewhat controversial, ask for a counter viewpoint.
Blogs are a lot of work, but if done properly, can set yourself apart in your market and ultimately get you new customers.
by tradesmeninsights | Dec 4, 2013 | Marketing Tips, Traditional Marketing
Most B-to-B companies don’t take connecting with their customers on an emotional level as a serious tactic in their branding strategy. They contend that customers base decisions on facts, not opinions or not on silly things like emotion.
Yes, it’s important to talk about quality and the features and benefits that set you apart from the competition. But contractors and tradesmen as a whole are also influenced by other outside influences, both in making personal as well as business decisions.
You need to set yourself apart from your competitors and have customers not only remember you, but want to buy from you.
Let’s take an example of buying a motorcycle. If you went on the facts about performance, you’d probably buy a BMW; if it was reliability, you’d buy a Honda, and if you wanted to be cool (emotion), you’d buy a Harley.
Harley’s brand is built on emotion, and those contractors buy that Harley because emotions play an important part in the decision-making process.
Manufacturers who realize this have built a brand that includes using emotion as part of their overall strategy. Emotional branding is a business imperative because emotions are inevitability part of the decision-making process.
So when planning your next marketing effort, what will you be riding?
by tradesmeninsights | Aug 20, 2013 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Traditional Marketing
I have this running conversation with clients about which is better, a traditional direct mail program or an e-blast. It’s a tough question to answer and I’m not too sure there is only one answer.
There are challenges for using both methods and we have seen it become more and more difficult to get emails delivered even if we use opt-in lists from trade publications and have them send it out under their name.
I think that when reaching out to our target market, the professional tradesman, you have just as good if not better of a chance of reaching them with the traditional snail mail.
We recently did a sampling program for a client who wanted to focus more on the electronic side of things and wanted to use more, if not most, in this media. They assumed that direct mail was a thing of the past and was too costly (neither of which are true). We convinced them to give both a try and the results were surprising.
The DM portion of the program outperformed on average 3 to 1 over the e-blasts. We used the same criteria for both lists and did both within 2 weeks of each other. We’re doing a second test using the same message and list parameters and it will be interesting to see if it still holds true.
We’ve all used both of these marketing tools. My question to you is have you found one better than the other in reaching contractors or the professional tradesman?
