by tradespeopleinsights | Mar 31, 2009 | Marketing Tips
Industrial marketers are looking for ways to communicate with prospects while not breaking the bank. E-mail marketing is being used more as a cost-efficient tool, but marketers should be aware of some things that might make those efforts less effective.
I read an article recently by Curtis Jackson from Quell Group that outlines 10 mistakes when doing e-mail marketing. Here are some highlights from the article:
1. You must have strategy. Why are you sending it, who is the target audience, what are the key take-aways and what type of metrics are you using to measure it?
2. Lists. Make sure you have a good list of opt-in names and a system of flagging those who opt-out. There are several services, like Constant Contact, that will help you not only deliver your messages, but will help you manage your database and give you metrics to see how successful your programs are.
3. Relevant content. Ask yourself about the target audience – is the message important to them? Your subject line is your 3-second window. If the reader doesn’t see value, you’ll end up in that deep dark hole called “delete.”
4. Don’t ignore metrics. You can see almost instantly whether or not your prospect “got it” by looking at open rates, opt-outs, etc. You can then resend to those who didn’t open it using a different subject line to help increase your open rates.
5. Timing. When sending an e-mail, consider timing especially if you’re using an international list. Research has shown the best times to send e-mails are on Tuesdays or Wednesdays between 10AM and 2PM.
E-mails are a great, inexpensive way to communicate. You just have to remember there are some do’s and don’ts you need to watch out for. If you’d like to read the entire article: What are the top 10 e-mail marketing mistakes?
by tradespeopleinsights | Mar 28, 2009 | Marketing Tips
Blake Cahill, VisInsights blog, posted a review of a report from Forrester Research by Jeremiah Owyang, Josh Bernoff, Sean Corcoran, and Steven Noble: Bold Predictions on Social Computing in 2009 from Forrester Research.
Three of the most important highlights from this report that are of interest to Industrial Marketers:
- Social Technology becomes universal. “By end of 2009, more than 85% of US online consumers will be reading or interacting with social content.”
- New technologies will arise that allow platforms including email, the Web, and mobile devices to connect with communities and brands will begin to integrate social applications with traditional marketing campaigns and revise campaigns based on social feedback.
- Static advertising gives way to the flexible marketing campaigns.
Read the report: Bold Predictions on Social Computing in 2009 from Forrester Research
by tradespeopleinsights | Mar 28, 2009 | Marketing Tools
How many times have you heard the sales department say sales leads are no good. What they are really saying is they may not be ready to buy now and therefore they aren’t a good lead (as defined by helping me make my numbers for the month).
Ironically, over 50% of all inquiries do have an interest level in what you’re selling, but aren’t ready to buy. What’s aggravating, according to research, is that 80% of not-sales-ready leads are being ignored!
Think about that for a second. If you could convert 10% of these down the road into sales, what would that mean for the company, not to mention the marketing department.
If you’re a manufacturer that makes left-handed widgets for a plumbing application, who in their right mind would inquire about that product unless they thought it would have some application in what they do. Just because they aren’t ready to buy on the spot doesn’t mean they aren’t a qualified lead. The prospect might want more info to see if the application is right for him. If it is, he might want a demo or want to read about how other professionals have used the product.
Angela Hribar, who is the CMO of GlobalSpec, a specialized vertical search information services and e-pubishing company, said in a recent article:
“Senior management can play a vital role in ensuring that a sales team understands the importance of prompt lead follow-up and what it means to business, more so now than ever. Responding to leads in a timely manner can result in increased sales, while delayed follow up can lead to lost opportunities and resources.”
Angela provides 4 tips for effective lead management:
- Assign responsibility. Make lead management a priority and assign someone who has authority and influence with both sales and marketing to be responsible and accountable for it.
- Respond appropriately. Create a central repository for leads, responding to leads in a timely manner, and distributing leads appropriately for follow-up.
- Distribute leads for proper follow-up. Define who is responsible for updating the status of a lead so that at any given time you can determine what’s working and what’s not in terms of lead generation and lead management.
- Monitor leads throughout the sales cycle. Marketing should take control of these (not ready) leads and “nurture” them by sending relevant information and offers: keep them interested with white papers, articles, product announcements, Webinar invitations and other useful information.
B-to-B clients spend billions on advertising activities to generate leads. You can’t afford to allow those leads to slip through the cracks if they are not yet ready to buy, especially in a down economy.
Read Angela’s article: Optimizing Sales Lead Management In The Industrial Marketplace
by tradespeopleinsights | Mar 28, 2009 | Marketing Tips
Industrial marketers are often more concerned with how their web site looks than how it will be found. So you did a new site two years ago, included some key words and then put it on auto pilot. SEO is an important component to generate traffic to your site and shouldn’t be neglected, especially in this economy.
Search engines are continually changing and upgrading the ways spiders do their job. I read an article recently by Stephen Riegel. These are his four quick tips to increase your web site’s traffic:
- Eliminate navigation barriers. Spiders prefer easy-to-navigate sites.
- Create an XML sitemap that allows spiders to see what pages exist and how often you update them.
- Check your code. If spiders can’t understand it, they might miss important information.
- Check your title tags as they are among the most important elements of search engine algorithms.
Taking the time to review your sites for SEO is one of the most efficient investments of your time and budget that you can make.
To read Stephen Riegel’s article: Key tactics to maximize your SEO efforts
by tradespeopleinsights | Mar 28, 2009 | Marketing Tips
We need to realize that social media is not a fad. The faster B-to-B manufacturers realize that social media isn’t just for “consumers,” the better off they will be.
Social media allows manufacturers to engage customers in more creative ways, build relationships and stay ahead of their competitors.
According to the “The ROI on Social Media Marketing” report from the Aberdeen Group, that Visible Technologies sponsored, 63% of the companies in their survey planned to increase their social media marketing budgets this year. eMarketer estimated that social network advertising alone will rise over 17% this year to $2.35 billion, up from $2 billion in 2008.
“Things are finally starting to change. Companies are learning how to leverage social media and tap into the rising tide of consumers participating in social network sites, blogs, wikis and Twitter.
Marketers have developed the tools and methodologies to drive
marketing ROI by listening to and learning from customers and
prospects. As so, the dollars are following this rising tide,” says Blake Cahill, Visible Technologies.
Five Compelling Facts from the Research, Providing Actionable Benefits for Readers:
- 58% of companies have dedicated resources devoted to social media marketing.
- 61% of companies have online community platforms (e.g., discussion forums, ratings and reviews, etc.).
- 68% of companies increased their investments in social media marketing, while 34% are keeping their investment level the same as last year.
- 84% of companies aim to track and measure the ROI of their social media marketing activities.
by tradespeopleinsights | Mar 28, 2009 | Marketing Tips
When marketing to tradesmen, don’t outspend your competition, outmarket them. Target marketing is more cost-effective and provides better leads.
Most B-to-B marketers have a very finite market, and even within those markets, they have many different audiences and messages to deliver. Sometimes even a targeted trade publication or web site targeted at a specific industry may be too broad a reach.
Today’s technology allows you to specifically target industries, job function, buying influence, geographic and the list goes on and on.
To maximize your budget and generate solid leads, think outside the box from the traditional tactics you’ve used in the past. Here are a couple of examples to kick-start your thinking:
Print Advertising
Instead of taking an ad out in a vertical publication with a circulation of 100,000 design engineers when your product only has applications to a small percentage of the total circulation, why not consider doing an insert targeted at those specific NAICS codes in the magazine, or a targeted e-mail campaign where you can be very specific about the features and benefits and how they could meet their needs.
If your product is technical in nature, again using these targeted techniques, get them to a webinar where you can demo the product with some of the experts back at corporate that know the product inside and out, but don’t have an opportunity to interface with customers very often.
Engineers like to talk to other engineers. They feel more comfortable. Let them set the hook and then let your salesmen begin reeling them in.
Outdoor Advertising
Most B-to-B manufacturers wouldn’t think about using outdoor. But outdoor could be pinpointed so that your message would be seen several times a day. Here’s an example: Suppose a manufacturer of a building material wanted to increase its share in a certain market to union electricians in a certain city. Outdoor could be used outside their union halls or nearby major new building sites where your message could be seen several times a day for an extended number of days.
You get the idea, don’t do the same old thing. To outmarket your competition, you don’t have to outspend them.
Have other examples? Share them in the comments section below.
by tradespeopleinsights | Feb 17, 2009 | Marketing Tools
As the economy softens, all of us are looking for opportunities to expand or protect our position in the marketplace. Researchers and analysts all indicate that digital spending will increase or at least remain the same for 2009.
Marketers are still spending advertising and marketing dollars online because this channel is extremely measurable and can be tied directly to return on investment. To maximize your investments, here are the top 5 ways to invest in your digital channel for 2009:
1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Outside of your own primary web site, Google is the next important to most companies. Making sure you rank high for the kind of content your target audience is searching for is critical to generating leads. Every search engine optimization (SEO) strategy begins with the basics: search engine-friendly site design and architecture, and the fundamentals of key word research and content development. Take your SEO strategy to the next level by implementing best practices and staying on top of emerging optimization tactics.
2. Paid Search (Search Engine Marketing)
Targeting key words and phrases for your marketing campaigns can pay off in both the short and long term and is a great complement to SEO. Search advertising with Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Live Search and other providers can be an efficient and effective way to advertise online. Starting with the fundamentals and advancing to expert tactics, you’ll learn how to build and optimize successful pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaigns. Engaging with a partner in your paid search campaigns can yield 40% or greater ROI.
3. Landing Page Optimization
A landing page is the page that appears when a potential customer clicks on an advertisement or a search-engine result link. The page will usually display content that is a logical extension of the advertisement or link, and that is optimized to feature specific key words or phrases for indexing by search engines. By optimizing your landing pages for SEO, paid search, and e-mail marketing, you can significantly increase conversion and lead capture rates.
4. Don’t Waste Leads
Stop wasting leads that aren’t sales-ready and start using lead nurturing to build relationships so that when they are ready to buy, you’re positioned to win. In a recession, new prospects are less likely to be looking to purchase right away — which means they are less likely to want to talk to a sales rep. Lead nurturing is even more critical in a recession to ensure you convert the precious dollars you spend acquiring prospects into revenue.
5. Engage Your Customers in a Relevant Dialogue
People are looking online for relevant content to their current problems. Start thinking of your web site in terms of what is and what is not relevant to your end-customers and identify and extract thought leadership in your organization. Thought leadership is found in people, not departments and roles. Most organizations have certain employees that always have ideas or are a step ahead of the organization. Incent those employees to come forward and start providing content through your web site to provide value for your customers.
by tradespeopleinsights | Jan 16, 2009 | Marketing Tips
The economic downturn can actually be a blessing in disguise. Marketing departments now have a chance to shine by showing how to work more effectively as well as to measure and account for their marketing decisions.
You don’t need a rocket scientist to tell you business is soft. The question is, given your resources and budget, how are you going to make your marketing work more effectively?
If we’re all truthful with ourselves, we’d have to admit that over the past 5 to 7 years, marketing budgets haven’t been scrutinized as much as they should have been. In today’s economy, those marketing budgets are in the crosshairs. Moving forward with the same-old, same-old is not an option.
Below are six ways you can make your marketing to tradesmen more effective:
1. Focus On What You Can Control
You can’t control what’s going on in Washington, the economy or most other market factors. However, you do have control over your marketing. Recognize where the demand is and go after it. Don’t be afraid to try something new.
2. Re-Evaluate Your Marketing Goals
Based on what’s happening with the economy, are your company’s marketing goals achievable? It may be time to re-state and re-prioritize your goals.
3. You Can’t Manage What You Can’t Measure
Take a hard look at the performance of your marketing plan. I know something like ad awareness is costly and hard to measure. But things like trade show leads, direct mail and online programs are measurable. Look hard and, if needed, reallocate and optimize your budget. You can’t afford underperforming programs.
4. Fish Where The Fish Are
You know who your customers and potential customers are. Make the most of your marketing investment and increase your visibility through targeted vehicles where your prospects will see your message and take action.
5. Integrated Marketing
We’ve always been advocates of tying your messages to various touch points for your customers. This synergistic method allows you a better bang for the buck! And don’t forget to bring the sales team up-to-speed as to what you’re doing. They’re an extension of your marketing efforts.
6. Focus On Quality
More is not necessarily better. The quality of your sales leads is far more important. If you adhere to the previous five suggestions, you will deliver better-quality leads, which will improve your bottom line and make everybody happy.
by tradespeopleinsights | Dec 18, 2008 | Marketing Trends
TRADESMEN INSIGHTS GOES MOBILE!
Mobile web is huge. There are over 2.8 billion handsets in circulation. Far more mobile devices than PCs. It’s a global phenomenon.
Beyond the numbers, there is vast potential of the mobile web by the way people use these devices:
They’re always on.
They’re always at hand.
They’re always personal, rarely shared.
No other marketing medium can say any of these things.
With the help of a great new service called MoFuse, founded by David Berube, Tradesmen Insights is now available in a mobile version.
MoFuse, or Mobile Fusion, is a web application that allows you to easily and instantly create a mobile version of your company’s blog or web site.
If your blog or web site has an RSS feed, they will use that as the main source of content for your new mobile site. This will allow you to create your mobile site using MoFuse and forget about updating it. All you have to do is keep posting to your blog!
You can also create static content pages. This gives you the ability to have pages like About the Blog, Contact, etc.
Users can customize almost every aspect of their mobile site. They can also upload their own custom logo or header image!
MoFuse will create a static link to your mobile site for you to share, it’ll look something like this: . You can put a link to your mobile site on your blog for your mobile visitors to click to be redirected to your mobile version. You can also use your own domain name.
Mobile Tradesmen Insights
by Sonnhalter | Mar 22, 2007 | Documents
Sonnhalter is one of the hottest and leading business-to-business marketing communications firms in the Midwest. Our annual revenues are $5 million and we have 30 FTEs. Our clients include 15 key, blue-chip companies who target the professional tradesman working in markets such as construction, industrial and MRO.
We develop “big ideas” for these clients by utilizing technology to tap into the best talent in the world and to identify the most appropriate delivery vehicles.
The agency’s office is an inspiring space which fosters the collaborative development and creation of these big ideas. It is headquartered in a part of Northeast Ohio which is vibrant with activity and rich in people, places and things to do.
The agency’s office is an inspiring space which fosters the collaborative development and creation of these big ideas. It is headquartered in a part of Northeast Ohio which is vibrant with activity and rich in people, places and things to do.
by Sonnhalter | Mar 22, 2007 | Documents
Sonnhalter is a business-to-business marketing communications firm which creates custom marketing programs powered by big ideas.
We work with small- to medium-sized companies who believe in the value of marketing and have, or desire, integrated programs. This includes, but is not limited to, companies who target the professional tradesman in the construction, industrial and MRO markets.
We deliver the highest-level creative product, where “good enough” is never an option. Utilizing a collaborative process, we strive to develop the most effective marketing communications plan which allows our clients to grow their brands and maintain their leadership position.
Our goal is to transcend the traditional client/agency relationship by becoming an extension of the client’s marketing department. We do this by always exceeding their expectations, constantly serving up proactive ideas, understanding their business as well as their customers and increasing their overall quality of marketing. We simply deliver more.
by Sonnhalter | Mar 22, 2007 | Documents
COLLABORATION
“None of us is as smart as all of us” –Ken Blanchard.
No one person has all the answers at Sonnhalter and we develop better work as a result of our collaborative approach. Employees have the desire and willingness to work with each other. Especially when developing ideas, because these ideas can come from anyone within the agency. This team approach extends beyond the agency walls to our clients. It is not an “us” vs. “them” approach in developing work…it is a team approach, where a good idea is a good idea whether it comes from the agency or the client.
BALANCE
“Work hard…play hard”.
At Sonnhalter we are serious about developing great work and ideas for our clients, but we don’t take ourselves too seriously. We always try to have a smile on our faces as well as an optimistic attitude among the agency and with our clients. We believe in order to develop better work for our client there must be a balance in our employees’ work and personal lives.
INSPIRATION
Sonnhalter enables the flow of creativity and ideas.
This is seen in everything the agency does….from the talented employees, to the type of clients it chooses, to its space and most importantly the products and services it creates.
PASSION
Working at Sonnhalter is more than just a job or a pay check.
Employees are enthusiastic about their jobs and feel their contribution, no matter how small, helps make the client’s business and the agency that much better. There is an energy within the agency that is infectious. Whether it’s from the people playing darts while brainstorming on a project or the heated discussion in the lunch room about who was kicked off the latest reality show. We are passionate about our work and will defend it; even to the point of sometimes making our clients feel a little uncomfortable.
GROWTH
We are never standing still, but always looking to get better and improve
We are never standing still, but always looking to get better and improve…whether it is the level of our work, our current and future clients or our people, both professionally and as human beings. We are not afraid of taking chances in the name of growth and even though we may sometimes make mistakes, we are always looking to learn from them.
by Sonnhalter | Sep 17, 1996 | Documents
Brand Essence:
Sonnhalter is comprised of real, unpretentious people who are unbridled in their passion and who always strive to collaboratively exceed the needs and expectations of the brands they serve, themselves and one another.
The Brand Experience:
In a fast paced world where ROI is no longer a luxury, but a necessity and where your competitors are not only next door, but across the world, it’s hard to stand out and grow your business without standing out amongst your competitors. Sonnhalter works to give a voice to our clients’ companies and ultimately help them succeed. Our ideal client is our partner, one who is as determined to grow their business as much as we are and one that we can also call our friend. They believe in us, our thought leadership, and trust us to do our job, just as we trust them to bring ideas to the table. They feel that we are a vital link to making their business succeed and we know that they are our lifeblood. It is a relationship of mutual respect, and mutual success and it is this spirit of reciprocity that we uphold in our interactions with our clients, and with each other. And we stay focused on what we truly know – the niche in the B2B world of businesses that
target the professional tradesman and the industrial environments and vertical industries that peripherally surround the trades. We embody a cradle-to cradle mindset, driven by an equal respect and weight given to great strategies and flawlessly executed tactics.
Brand Differentiation:
We have an attitude. But not the type of attitude one would expect from a marketing communications firm. We thrive on rolling up our sleeves for and with our clients to define, set, reach and exceed their sales goals, all the while solving the toughest of problems. From advertising to PR to stubborn sales and product issues, we pride ourselves on being right there in the trenches with our
clients—constantly, relentlessly disrupting, adapting and evolving on the slippery bubble’s curve encasing today’s fast-paced world. Just ask them. And when we fight the fight, we always, always keep one thing crystal clear—all those human beings out there known as the target audience. And nobody knows these target audiences better than us, because that’s what we’ve been doing for over 30 years. But don’t think that we have gotten complacent in our years of experience – we are always challenging each other and our clients to raise the bar, to never be satisfied with the status quo and to embrace a spirit of evolution.
One Lead Thought:
At Sonnhalter, we know who we are, and we get to know our clients and their markets better than anybody else. No one works harder and is as passionate about growing clients’ sales, and no one enjoys seeing their clients succeed more.
