by tradesmeninsights | Jul 24, 2014 | Marketing Tips, Public Relations
By Rachel Kerstetter, PR Engineer
John and I presented a webinar awhile back, at the request of a client, about blogs. When it comes to blogs, the most frequent question we get is:
Should we start a blog?
It’s important to analyze the goals of your organization’s overall marketing plan to see if a blog fits into it. A company blog, like any other communication initiative, is a commitment. Blogs overall take time and energy to run, but they can provide a great payoff if they’re done well.
Here are 5 key questions to ask when thinking about starting a blog:
- Who is my audience?
- Who else is competing for my audience’s attention?
- What will be the blog’s focus?
- What are the goals for the blog?
- How will these goals be measured?
If you have those answers established and decide that a blog should be a part of your marketing plan, check out the presentation from our webinar below, or watch it on YouTube to get more information on the ins and outs of getting a blog going. And of course, our team is happy to help you get a blog off the ground as well!
by tradesmeninsights | Jul 23, 2014 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Trends, Social Marketing
When we think of utilizing social media in the marketing mix, SlideShare is probably the most overlooked and underutilized tool. There are over 60 million unique visitors a month to SlideShare sites with over 215 million page views.
Users are not only looking for good content, but also shared insights and SlideShare gives you a platform for both. Plus, you get the added bonus of using the other social media tools to promote your Power Points.
Lots of marketing departments, even if you tell them how great a tool it is, their push back very often is we don’t have time to develop one. My position is that between sales, marketing and the C suite, there are plenty of Power Points already existing that highlight and focus on issues that help differentiate you and help set you up as an industry expert. Here are some places to look:
- Industry or association speeches that a C suite executive have given regarding an important issue or trend and their position on it.
- Presentations to key customers on ways you can help solve their problems.
- General positioning Power Point on what makes you different.
- Distributor-focused Power Point that talk about ways you support them.
- Contractor-focused Power Point of the tools available to them from you to help them do their job.
- New products with features and benefits.
I recently read an article by David Waring in Social Media Examiner –7 Ways to Use SlideShare for Your Business, that I found to be very useful. He gives tips and examples on things as basic as creating well-designed slides, to how to work to get high rankings with key words and phrases by using key words in the file name and tag names. He also gives you tips on how to grab attention using how-to guides and list titles.
The long and short of it is if you haven’t tried it, you have nothing to lose. You may be surprised what kind of views and leads you may get. I’d like to know your thoughts after you’ve tried it.
by tradesmeninsights | Jul 22, 2014 | Marketing Tips, Traditional Marketing
Interesting question, isn’t it? I think everyone thinks because they built one, everyone will like and trust what you have up there.
I read an article from the Content Marketing Institute written by Dianna Huff entitled, Why 55% of Potential B2B Buyers Might Not Trust Your Website that highlights some interesting findings. These findings were from a KoMarketing Associates usability report and are worth discussing. The key in a B-to-B relationship is that trust and credibility be established up front. The more transparent you are, the better. Here are some highlights:
It’s the little things that can either make or break the next steps in the process. Their study showed that lack of phone number or contact info was the biggest stumbling blocks in building trust (55%). That one made me wonder. The next few were expected – lack of a true message, do it yourself sites and tiny texts were no surprises.
Content assets that helped establish credibility were lead by thorough contact and about us page. So I guess we need to carefully look at what we say about ourselves and give them several options on getting in touch with us. Email was the most preferred way (no surprise there) and phone came in second. The reality is vendors source suppliers online and if you don’t have a clear cut message and contact info, you’ll be passed over.
Here are a few key takeaways:
- Remove all barriers from people contacting you
- Include email and phone number on each page for easy access
- Include info about the people behind your company
- Consider the strategic importance of the “about us” page
by tradesmeninsights | Jul 16, 2014 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
What is Content Curation?
Content curation is the process of sorting through the vast amounts of content on the web and presenting it in a meaningful and organized way around a specific theme. The work involves sifting, sorting, arranging and publishing information.
Why is it important to Manufacturers who want to reach the Professional Tradesman?
Chances are you have lots of bits and pieces of information on your products/services. They are scattered all over from catalog, tech sheets installations sheets, presentations, etc. We as marketers are so focused on creating content, and in most cases, your first priority is to consolidate all relevant info on a product or service in one place. Once you see what you have, it will be easier to identify the pieces that are missing and need to be created.
Professional tradesman are always looking for help in solving problems, and it benefits both you and them if they can go to one source and get all their questions answered.
Wouldn’t it make sense for a potential customer who is interested in left-handed widgets to find one source that could:
- help evaluate your situation and options available
- give you an independent industry perspective on possible solutions
- give you guidelines on what products to consider for the project at hand
- give you tips on installation
- give you troubleshooting suggestions
- give you tips on maintenance
So if the number-one challenge to marketers is lack of time, doesn’t it make sense to organize first, then prioritize how you’re going to fill the holes?
Heidi Cohen wrote an interesting article, The Top 10 Reasons You Need Content Curation in Your Content Marketing Mix where she outlines her reasons to use content curation.
Here are a few that caught my attention:
- it provides a variety of perspectives which helps increase its credibility
- positions you as a thought leader in your field
- good content will be shared leveraging other people’s audiences
- builds your brand
- content can be segmented for social media and drive folks to your curated site with more information that they requested
So don’t take the ready-fire-aim approach to developing content. Take an inventory of current assets before developing new ones. Also don’t try to do everything at once. If you have products that serve several markets, pick one, do it well, document results and then plan the next one.
by tradesmeninsights | Jul 15, 2014 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Traditional Marketing
Hopefully, as part of your strategy to move prospects along the selling cycle, you are using landing pages in order to deliver on what you promised. It’s also a great way to track responses. It could also be a way of losing a potential customer.
Here are some tips that might help results:
- Keep it simple – Deliver on what you promised to get them there in the first place.
- It’s not about you – How can you help them with a problem that got them there in the first place.
- This is not an ad – They’re not looking for a sales pitch, but answers to specific questions.
- Powerful content – Keep it relevant. Don’t focus on key words. Instead, make what you say useful and valuable.
All too often folks want to talk about 5 different things and give them additional links. It won’t work. Just ask yourself – why did they click on a call-to-action that got them here? Then deliver what you promised.
If you want to learn more, you might want to read:
Are you Using Landing Pages?
Product Landing Pages: Tips on How to Improve Performance
by tradesmeninsights | Jul 2, 2014 | Marketing Tips, Traditional Marketing
In the B-to-B world that I live in, manufacturers have to balance their time and efforts when dealing with distribution, between the big boys like Grainger ($9.4 billion), Fastenal ($3.3 billion) and MSC ($678 million), and the independently owned small local distributors.
Here are a few facts about the independent distributors (ISA) that you might not have known:
They collectively represent about $153 billion in sales.
AD (Affiliated Distributors) members do about $25 billion and NetPlus Alliance more than 5 billion in sales.
Now I realize they need to sell both. The strategy and support for a big player is much different from that of the local independent distributor. Let’s look at the different personas of both.
Big Boys.
- Sell lots of stuff.
- Beat you up on price and delivery.
- Are more order takers than problem solvers.
- Most are high maintenance from a customer service perspective.
- Sales staff turnover high – most use sales as a stepping stone either inside that organization or for a position elsewhere.
- Because of the high turnover, it’s hard to train and build a relationship with them.
Independent Distributors.
- Collectively they sell more than the big boys.
- Usually you can make more margin.
- Are usually problem solvers not order takers (that’s their value proposition).
- Lower maintenance from a customer service perspective.
- More stable sales staff.
- Have actual relationships with local customers
- Able to train and build relationships with sales staff.
Logic and sometimes management says that we need to focus more time on the big boys as that’s where the biggest potential is.
Here’s a challenge for you.
Let’s take Fastenal for example. They have over 2,000 branches in North America. Besides calling on corporate, how many of the branches are stocking your product? What’s the average sale per year per branch?
Now look at the number of independents you sell to and what is the average annual sales for those that stock your product?
I think what you might find is that the independents will be outselling the big boys.
Now the next question is, what percentage of your sales teams times are being spent on both groups.
For those of you who do the exercise, I’d be interested if your results are similar to what I’m suggesting.
