B-to-B marketers are responsible for generating leads from various sources, among them today are social media. I read a report a few months ago by Pardot, a B-to-B cloud marketing automation software provider that said 42% of B-to-B marketers report zero social media leads.
I can’t believe that that high a percentage of users of social media aren’t getting any types of leads. I know some folks use social primarily for brand awareness, but for most of us, the end game (strategy) is to generate leads and eventually a sale. We target a very small market niche, and our blog alone gets 40-50,000 hits a year, many of which turn into opportunities for us.
I’d like you to take a quick poll to see if you’re getting any leads, and if so, do you know where from? Thanks, and you’ll be able to see responses from the other participants.
For those of you who read me on a regular basis, you know I’m high on LinkedIn and what it can do to help you grow your business contact list. With over 161 million business members, there are certainly opportunities there if you know where and how to look.
That’s why I’m always trying to improve how I use this important business tool. As Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn says, “It’s better to be the best connected than the most connected.”
Jeff Korhan wrote a great post recently in social media examiner that outlines and shows examples of 10 LinkedIn Tips for Building Your Business. All the tips are free to use. Here are some highlights:
Use appropriate key words and phrases in your heading and title – they are different and your heading gives you an opportunity to elaborate on your skills and areas of expertise.
Make sure your online and offline business network are housed within LinkedIn – By linking in other business contacts you ensure its completeness of your entire network.
Tag your skills and expertise – this helps reinforce your capabilities for those who come across your profile and you can use up to 50 tags.
Personally welcome those new connections – It only takes a minute and it’s the first step in starting a relationship.
Hopefully you are using and benefiting from using LinkedIn.
For those of us who write blogs, we do it with the sole purpose of sharing insights and tips that hopefully make your job easier. Our biggest challenge once the killer content is written is to make sure as many eyes as possible see it. Professional tradesmen are always on the go, and I want to make sure they get what they want in short concise bits of information.
It’s true optimization is usually associated with search, but you can insure that your content performs well on social media platforms. I recently read a post by Heidi Cohen, 11 Tactics to Optimize Your Blog that I found very interesting and wanted to share some of the points she makes:
Focus on just a few keyword phrases – prioritize them by the words you want to cover.
Create great headlines – you need to catch their attention so they stop and smell the roses.
Use good photos/graphics – It’s true a picture is worth a thousand words and it attracts readers.
Make your posts easy to read – use headings and bullet points. It also helps search engines.
Make content spreadable – RSS feeds, emails or social media.
It should come as no surprise to anyone that smartphones and tablets are changing the way we all communicate and do business. This couldn’t be more true, especially for small businesses like contractors. These guys are “time starved” and are not sitting behind a computer all day. They are out taking care of business.
A recent survey by Cargo and Inc. Magazine in emarketer.com showed the vast majority (915) of U.S. small companies place importance on wireless communications and smartphones for their businesses. Tablets were not far behind at (64%). You can certainly bet that contractors of all kinds are on the top of this list.
So, if you’re not considering mobile as a key way to communicate with those professional tradesman, you should be.
Here’s a simple tip to get started: Adapt your mobile web presence for Apple OS-based devices (iPads make up 79% followed by Android devices at 39%).
I bet for most of you it’s that you’re afraid you won’t be able to publish relevant content on a regular basis. I’m the first to admit starting a blog is a commitment, but one that’s well worth it.
Your blog can be the center of your social media plan where you can repurpose posts to your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts. We have found that consistent posts have helped us become the thought leader in marketing to the professional tradesman and have generated new clients from it.
Since content is usually the stumbling block to starting a blog, here are some suggestions on where and how you can get good content. You need to realize you don’t have to write everything. You need to be the “go-to” resource for your niche, so utilize other experts.
Try to do one original post a week.
Supplement other posts by sharing industry/association news with your insights.
Set up a Google Reader account where you can send RSS feeds of people you want to read on a regular basis and repost their articles with commentary and insights from your point of view.
Case studies and testimonials – Get your sales staff involved. These are great stories and it’s great when customers tell, in their own words, how you helped them solve a problem.
Stats/surveys – folks love to get industry info or trends. Start your own survey and share the results. It’s a great way of getting a conversation going.
Look internally – some of your best resources might just be down the hall. Talk with sales, customer service and engineering. They probably can give you more topics and issues to talk about than anyone else, and it’s relevant to your industry.
Those are some suggestions for getting great content, and don’t think you need to be the sole source of content. Make it a team effort.
We’ve talked a lot about mobile and what it means to both manufacturers and distributors when trying to reach the professional tradesmen. For those who are still on the fence about mobile and where it’s going, here is some useful info.
I recently read a few articles in emarketer.com on mobile that brought up several good points. emarketer.com interviewed Geoff Robertson from Grainger on how they are using mobile in their sales process.
Here are some highlights:
Over the past 12 months, Grainger has seen a 400% increase in mobile activity.
Beyond the location and availability issues, Grainger is trying to help companies streamline their workflow by giving those who are requesting the parts to list them, and then those responsible for purchasing can sign off all using mobile technology.
Over 50% of their users feel comfortable ordering over mobile devices.
Google has an entirely separate algorithm for mobile device searches.
Google reported that 1 in 7 searches are now done on mobile devices.
If you don’t have a mobile strategy in place, it should get on your radar screen soon or you’ll be missing lots of opportunities.
