LinkedIn Groups: Your Blog Away From Blog

By Chris Ilcin, Account Superintendent, Sonnhalter

According to a recent survey from The Content Marketing Institute 89% of B2B Marketers use LinkedIn as a way to distribute content.

But if a potential customer isn’t already following you, all you’re doing by posting it to your company page is having a closed conversation with friends. While that’s good for strengthening relationships, it’s not an effective strategy for growing business, brand or thought leadership in your industry.

So, short of requiring all employees to share everything you post, what’s a marketer to do?

Join Groups.

If you’re not familiar with them, LinkedIn Groups are smaller “communities within the larger LinkedIn community where people and companies can connect by shared interest rather than work or personal connections.”

The advantage here is that instead of waiting for people to find you or your company, you can use your industry, process or other qualities to go out and find them.

How do you find the right group, and what do you do once you’ve found them? A lot of things you’re already doing. (more…)

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Learn My Name!

By Rachel Kerstetter, PR Architect, Sonnhalter

78_3294477-HelloThere’s a woman who I know from a local professional organization. We’ve been “formally” introduced multiple times. After the first time we met, I knew her name, her face, we traded cards and connected on LinkedIn.

The next time I saw her, I said “hello” and she introduced herself as if we’d never met. I wasn’t really offended because not everyone has a knack for names and faces. I let her know we’d met before and where.

Meanwhile, I’ve been getting emails and LinkedIn messages from her to support her nonprofit organization through monetary donations or volunteering. At least twice a month, I get a message from this woman asking me for something.

The third time we “met” I was a little annoyed at her re-introduction and didn’t spend much time after shaking her hand, because I felt like she would ask me for something again.

Then last week, I was at an event with a colleague and she entered the room and greeted my colleague, who then asked her, “Do you know Rachel?”

She said “No” and tried to introduce herself for a fourth time.

On a personal level, it’s extremely frustrating to seem so forgettable. These four introductions and constant digital “asks” left me screaming internally, “LEARN MY NAME!”

It says a lot about you as a communicator if you can’t actually build a relationship with your audience. If you want something from me, I’m more likely to give it to you if I feel like you know me, you get me and you might have something to offer me in return.

Before you inundate your audience with promotional messages, make sure you know them. Who are they? What problems do they deal with? Can you be a help to them as well or do you just want their dollars? You can’t have a one-sided relationship with anyone. This woman is no longer a part of my professional network because clearly she doesn’t want to be a connection… unless I’m giving her something.

How do you engage with your audiences in a way that builds a relationship rather than tears it down?

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Don’t Get Lazy

By Rachel Kerstetter, PR Architect, Sonnhalter

705_3550791Sonnhalter has used several services for a very long time… as in decades. I’m not sure how we started working with these services, but  I had to assume there was a reason.

However when I took over the contracts with these services, no one seemed eager to provide the most important service of all… customer service. Coming into my new role, I wanted to understand our various contracts so I reached out to the most recent person assigned to us. No answer. I reached out to the company referencing our account number. No answer.

I attended a conference and visited the service provider’s table, and immediately got attention because they thought I was a new customer. The sales person apologized up and down and said our rep would be in contact with me. He was able to look up answers to some of my questions. More than a week after the conference, I had no contact.

When it comes to your customers, it’s crucial not to become lazy. Don’t expect your relationship to maintain itself just because you’ve been with them for years. Don’t focus all of your time and attention trying to win new business that you forget your current business.

As I learned in Marketing 101 in college, it’s cheaper to maintain an existing customer relationship than to build a new one.

When you ignore, forget or don’t serve your current customers the way that you should, you are in danger of losing them.

At the conference I met with several competing service providers who would be happy to have me as a customer, what makes our current providers think we’ll stick with them if there’s someone else who isn’t lazy?

In your personal life, if you were to call your mechanic for general maintenance on your car and they never called you back to schedule an appointment, you’d probably consider finding a new mechanic, right? It’s the same in the business-to-business world.

Your customers want to be valued, whether they’ve been working with you 5 days or 50 years.

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