by tradesmeninsights | Oct 14, 2015 | Marketing Tips
Today, we have a guest blog from Machinery Zone on some of the common pitfalls found in a company’s content strategy.
Every construction company with an online presence feels the pressure to create consistent, high-quality content. When done properly, it represents a great way to generate site traffic, build brand awareness and demonstrate your expertise to the world. Every blog post, article and other piece of content you generate is an opportunity to plant seeds that could eventually blossom into a steady stream of viable leads. Are you doing it right? Here are the seven mistakes to avoid in your content strategy.
1) Skipping the editorial strategy set-up phase
Too often, communication projects are missing a guideline. To create an efficient content strategy in sync with your goals, it is essential to set up a solid editorial strategy.
To whom are you going to address your content? What is its purpose?
What are you looking to accomplish?
What is your editorial line and tone?
At what frequency will you publish articles?
These questions will enable you to establish a work methodology and an editorial calendar. Measure your results along the way and adjust your actions according to your analysis, but remember to stay true to your core strategy.
2) Pushing forward commercially focused content
Sales pitches and presentations do not create emotional brand attachment. If you want to see a rise in customer loyalty, offer generous and (almost) disinterested advice and tips to your readers. Share and spread your knowledge. When you educate your customers, they see you as an expert. They trust you and, consequently, they are more likely to buy from you.
In order to produce successful marketing content, it is important to ask yourself:
Is my content truly original, does it offer any added value?
What content will be valuable to my audience and to my clients?
Instead of focusing on selling a product or a service, offer useful, educational content to your audience. Be simple, clear and concise. Forget about technical jargon. Adopt appropriate language and learn to popularize technical concepts. Be interesting and entertaining.
3) Overlooking your target audience
You are a specialist in the construction industry. You host a blog that is appreciated and recognized by professionals in your business sector. But are these professionals really those you want to sell your products or services to?
Knowing your target audience is key to successful marketing content. It is essential to analyze your Google Analytics statistics and clearly identify your clients, those who you are really interested in.
Who are they?
What are their needs and desires? What problems do they encounter?
What vocabulary do they use?
The more you will help your audience and offer solutions to the challenges they encounter, the more they will enjoy, comment and share your content on social media and become your ambassadors.
4) Publishing low-quality content
Long sentences, lack of keywords, poorly explained jargon, major spelling errors, copy and pasted text from the company brochure. These are the main characteristics of poor-quality content.
No matter how exciting the topic is, a poorly written article will not capture the reader’s attention. It can be difficult to read onscreen, create misunderstandings and exasperate industry experts. Worse, it can discredit your expertise.
5) Omitting content promotion
You’ve focused on writing an excellent article and posted it on your blog. But if you do nothing to promote it, no one will know just how great it is!
An effective content strategy does not only address content creation. It also involves distributing, promoting and optimizing content.
Carefully select your communication channels. Rather than dispersing yourself on every existing social network, focus on those on which your audience is present and active.
For example, if your target clientele consists of industry professionals, optimize your presence on Twitter and LinkedIn. If you are selling products where visuals play a major role in conversion rates (house building, gate installation), concentrate your efforts on social networks dedicated to images such as Pinterest and Instagram.
6) Neglecting existing content
You are planning to redesign your website? Before you delete everything, identify which content deserves to be saved, updated and optimized.
Quality content is always of interest to the reader and can be recycled. Obsolete articles may simply need to be updated with recent key figures. Also, when writing a new article, consider making a link to other content-related articles.
7) Failing to optimize content for search engines
The content you provide to your website visitors is the key to success, not only from a conversion point of view, but from a ranking point of view.
Your main goal should always be to satisfy your audience. However, properly optimizing your content by following a few simple SEO rules, ones that will not compromise the quality of your article, is essential to improve your ranking on Google.
For instance, search engines are more likely to offer better ranking to longer blog posts over 250 words. Work your target keywords in the SEO title, the URL, on-page headline and throughout the content without overkilling it. Add ALT text to your photo and invite your users to share their experiences. A post with an actively engaged comments section is a clear signal that the page has value.
Article by http://www.machineryzone.com/
by tradesmeninsights | Oct 13, 2015 | Marketing Tips, Tradesmen Insights
By Chris Ilcin, Account Superintendent at Sonnhalter
Ask yourself and a few other people in your organization to name your top-selling product. If anyone answers with a product number, you’re doing it wrong. Don’t think like your catalog or even your current customers. Think like the customer you don’t have yet.
A potential customer doesn’t know you or your company and certainly hasn’t memorized your product numbers. They may not even know that they need your product yet.
All they know is that they have a problem, and they’re desperately looking for a solution.
Help them find it – and you.
Start by not thinking about what you make, but why you made it. What purpose does it serve? What niche it fills? Or, what issues it helps resolve?
Use the answers to those questions as the basis for white papers, success stories and as key words in press releases, websites and YouTube videos.
Put all that out there, and when a customer with an issue starts searching for an answer, your crumb trail of keywords will lead them to you. Make it so that where your marketing efforts don’t bring your product to a customer. Have their search bring them to you.
The best part about turning the tables like this is that it can be a refreshing change of perspective for your entire organization. It makes everyone get out of their silo and put themselves in a customer’s shoes. That can affect not only marketing and SEO, but also product development, customer service and morale.
by tradesmeninsights | Oct 7, 2015 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Marketing Trends, Tradesmen Insights
By John Sonnhalter, Rainmaker Journeyman at Sonnhalter
First of all, do you have a lead nurturing program? If the answer is no, you may want to consider one and here’s why.
In a recent article in eMarketer.com, there were some interesting findings in a study done by Demand Gen Report (DGR) in July of 2015
- Over 50% of U.S. B-to-B marketers said nurturing programs outperformed their counterparts from 10-30%.
- These leads outperformed others in moving through the sales funnel, and respondents reported a 10-30% increase in sales opportunities.
The key in lead nurturing is being able to define specific markets and subsequent messaging. You need to be relevant. Email was the most widely used tactic with over 94% using it.
Another interesting stat is that 42% of consumers will delete an email if it isn’t mobile friendly, so keep that in mind.
So do some of these stats resonate with what you’re doing?
If you like this post you may want to read:
Lead Nurturing: What Industrial Marketers Need to Know.
For Your Lead Nurturing Program-Where do you Find Good Content?
What’s the Difference Between Lead Nurturing and Follow-up Calls?
by tradesmeninsights | Oct 6, 2015 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Trends, Social Marketing, Tradesmen Insights
By John Sonnhalter, Rainmaker Journeyman at Sonnhalter
We live in a society that expects immediate gratification. This spills over into our business lives, and companies expect an immediate ROI on almost everything today — Content Marketing is no exception.
Some companies are putting more eggs in the content marketing basket and are expecting big results in a short period of time. The problem is, to build a loyal audience, it takes time. They need to get to know, like and trust you and that doesn’t happen overnight.
If you want immediate results, use traditional outbound tactics like direct mail to generate short-term activity.
Joe Pulizzi, Founder of Content Marketing Institute found in interviewing a number of entrepreneurs for his book, Content Inc., that it took at least 15 months to grow a loyal audience.
This is no surprise for those of us who have been doing this for some time. For those that are trying to get a content program going they need to do some ground work to let management what to expect and when to expect it.
Joe offers some suggestions on getting in the game while you try to build a case for the BIG push.
- Do a pilot program – choose a market category and put metrics like increases search engine ranking or number of leads that will demonstrate to the bean counters that it’s working.
- Fear Factor – analyze your competition and make the case that your company is losing web visibility.
- Find a sugar daddy – identify solutions to key pain points for your sales leaders and you may find that they not only will become your advocate, but may find funds short term to fund your efforts.
The bottom line is that it takes time, so be patient!
by tradesmeninsights | Sep 30, 2015 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Marketing Trends, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing, Uncategorized
By John Sonnhalter, Rainmaker Journeyman at Sonnhalter
Contractors and professional tradesman often don’t have time to read the latest trade publication or look at the magazines’ website on a regular basis and might miss your message. Chances are, unless you only make one product, their interest at any given time may be on another product.
When they do go looking for things, the first place most go to is the internet, and the chances are that they are looking for a solution just as much as they are looking for a specific product. That’s why search is so important in the big scheme of things, and what makes you go up in search – good meaningful content!
Heidi Cohen had an interesting article regarding advertising vs. content driven messages that had some good points for the B-to-B market.
B-to-B lags behind the consumer counterpart in doing research before they contact a manufacturer or distribution point. But even at 57%, you’d better have some skin in the game from a search perspective or you’re going to be left at the curb.
Razorfish found that:
- 50% of U.S. consumers will do anything to avoid ads
- 75+% of U.S. consumers hate hearing or seeing ads multiple times
- 65% of U.S. consumers use a DVR to skip ads
Those are some scary numbers, and even though they are consumer driven, remember that those same consumers may be buying your products at their workplace. So what’s the alternative?
- 86% of U.S. consumers value brands that are useful over those that have interesting advertising.
Translation: give your customers the info they need when they need it. Here are some tips:
- Leverage the social media platforms where your customers hang out.
- Supply product info for potentials to seek out.
- Tap into sources your customers trust, like trade associations.
- Make sure the info you give prospects enhances the product value.
- Skip the promotion and show them best practices when using your products.
- Re-promote your content. Once is not enough.
So the question is, how much effort are you using to create great content?
by tradesmeninsights | Sep 29, 2015 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools
By John Sonnhalter, Rainmaker Journeyman at Sonnhalter
When developing content, manufacturers may be concentrating on the wrong types, making the results less than desirable. Many focus on product brochures and slide presentations as they are easily available.
These may be low hanging fruit for development, but they’re also not delivering the results they want. According to a recent survey by the CMO Council, NetLine and Content ROI Center, brochures only delivered 9% great leads and slide presentations only 15%.
A recent article eMarketer.com talks about ways to improve performance on developing content.
Content pieces that weren’t “salesy” drew much better numbers. It’s not surprising that white papers, industry reports, videos and webcasts scored better.
This should serve as a wake-up call for all those manufacturers that are trying to make an impact on contractors and professional tradesmen. Get away from selling and start helping them solve their problems.
If you want to get noticed and build up your credibility, this is the way to do it. Chances are you already have many of the assets needed to do most of these tasks, from how-to videos to webinars talking about a specific topic. I know you’ve got the brain trusts inside your company to either create the white papers or do the videos; why not capitalize on their expertise?
We also need ways to measure the effectiveness of these tasks and try to link back leads to actual sales. Landing pages are a great way to start collecting data and nurturing campaigns will help them through the selling cycle.
Let’s face it, we all have limited time and budgets and we need to make the most out of both.
