by tradesmeninsights | May 6, 2010 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
For those of you who haven’t yet dove in to the social media arena, whether it’s because of fear of the unknown or the fear of it’s going to be too time-consuming, I have some friendly advice.
I can’t force you to try it, but I can tell you it won’t hurt and you can’t break anything. For those who are willing to give it a try but are worried about the amount of time it will take, I have some suggestions for you to consider.
Social media is about building relationships and becoming thought leaders in your category. So a rule of thumb would be to automate or delegate everything except the interaction portion.
Susan Baronini-Moe in a recent post on Social Media Examiner, What You Need to Know About Outsourcing Social Media, outlines her ideas on what should be done, and I think it would be a good read for you.
Here are some highlights:
What you shouldn’t outsource:
- Anything that engages the user you should be a part of. You should be the voice of the company. Any conversation should be started or answered by you. Reply to your tweets, Facebook and LinkedIn comments from the groups you belong to.
What to outsource:
- Profile Set-ups – on Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. These contain some pretty basic things and doesn’t require your personal involvement.
- Listings – setting up listings on Twitter directories, groups on LinkedIn and Facebook can be handled by someone else.
- Automated Updates – on Twitter, your blog or RSS feeds.
These are some of my thoughts, what are yours?
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by tradesmeninsights | May 5, 2010 | Marketing Tips, Traditional Marketing
All of us are getting inundated with e-mail, but studies show it’s still one of the best ways to reach out to people.
It does have its challenges with spam filters and internal firewalls. But I’ve found that by using some of the techniques for writing blog posts have come in handy in writing e-mails.
So here are some tips on how to more effectively use this tool:
- Subject line – This is probably the most important part of the message. Make sure you grab their attention.
- Preview pane – Preview panes shows a few lines of content. It’s important that you deliver on the subject line quickly. Let them know what’s in it for them if they continue reading.
- Make it scannable – I learned this from doing posts here on the blog. Use short paragraphs, highlight important parts of the message. The average time spent on an e-mail is somewhere between 2-5 seconds, so you don’t have much time to stop them.
- Go for quality not quantity – Put out fewer e-mails, but make them more impactful. If I know when I get an e-mail from you I usually get some good info, I’ll open it.
- Timing – It’s all about the timing. I’ve found that Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are the best for me. You need to test out what might be the best time to hit your audience. For contractors, the best time I’ve found is between 6:30 – 7 in the morning or later in the evening about that same time.
Those are some tips on how I try to make e-mails more effective.
What are some things you do?
If you like this post, please pass it on.
Other posts you might find interesting:
Will e-mail be replaced by social media?
E-mail and Social media are tools B to B marketers plan on using more of in 2010
E-mail marketing for Industrial Markets: Common mistakes to avoid
by tradesmeninsights | Apr 28, 2010 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Trends, Social Marketing
Those of us who have been blogging for sometime may be under the assumption that once someone finds our blog they become a groupie and read every one of our posts. Well, here’s a wake up call.
Would you believe that 80% of the people who come to your site are first-timers?
This is true for most bloggers. Even the big boys like Jay Baer and Jason Falls have 65% plus who come to their sites for the first time. Jay Baer wrote a recent post, 5 Ways to Make Friends with Strangers on your Blog, where he outlines his suggestions on how to capitalize on your blog.
This comes from new research from Compendium Blogware (I recently attended a webinar from them) that shows that for more than two-thirds of corporate blogs, new visitors comprise more than 80% of blog traffic. So once your ego gets over the fact that the number of groupies following may not be as large as you thought, what do you plan on doing?
I’m a believer that the glass is half full and that this provides all of us with an opportunity to convert those first-timers to regulars. Here are some things you should consider doing:
- Make your site easy to navigate – 80-95% of all clicks to your blog are organic which means they didn’t come directly to your URL.
- Make sure your blog is focused – so the new reader can easily identify what it is you are focusing on and make it personal (put up your photo).
- Keep talking about your key ideas over and over – Just because you wrote something last week, it doesn’t mean they see it especially with 80% plus being first-timers.
- Keep them on your site by referring them back to other posts you have written on the same subject – this helps you build thought leadership quickly.
- Make it easy to subscribe to your RSS feed – if they like what they’ve read, make it easy for them to read you regularly.
These are my thoughts. Do you have any to add?
Here are some other posts you might find interesting:
10 Engagement Tactics That Will Help B-to-B Marketers
Forrester Report: Most B-to-B Blogs Fail.
If you like this post, please pass it on.
by tradesmeninsights | Apr 27, 2010 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
“Build it and they will come,” is not the answer to generate traffic to your agency’s blog. You must employ proactive tactics to create awareness and interest among prospective tradesmen. The more traffic that you can generate from among your target audience, the more inbound new business leads that will follow.
Denise Wakeman, Online Marketing Advisor and Founder of The Blog Squad, has created an excellent list of tips to generate traffic to your blog. I would encourage you to create a list of “to dos” from her suggestions. For more details, be sure to check out her article, “19 Tips for Driving Traffic to Your Blog.”
Here are 6 suggestions:
- Make your target audience crystal clear. If you can’t clearly and narrowly define your audience, you won’t build significant traffic.
- Optimize your posts’ content for search. Identify and dominate a few key words that your target audience will most likely use to find you. Use these words consistently in your posts’ titles and copy.
- Knowledge is power. Get in the habit of checking your blog’s analytics frequently. Keep it simple, but know at least daily the number of unique visitors, page views, top posts, how people got to your blog, search terms and incoming links.
- Don’t be afraid to re-purpose older blog content through multiple social media channels. Posts that I’ve written a year ago are still pertinent and continue to generate traffic to my blog.
- One thing to not do that will impact traffic. Don’t sell! The moment you start to sell on your blog is when you will most likely LOSE your audience.
- Identify who your audience is in your post titles. This is especially helpful when you re-purpose your content on Twitter and an important part of SEO for your blog.
These are some of my ways. What do you do to make the most out of your blog? I’d like to hear from you.
If you like this post please, pass it on.
Here are some other posts that might be of interest:
5 Quick Tips to Promote your Posts
How do you Find Readers for your Blog
by tradesmeninsights | Apr 20, 2010 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
We’re all trying to keep ahead of the curve, and social media is one way of doing that. Lots of people are afraid of social as if it’s something scary. I think the unknown plays a big part in the uncertainty. You can break social so why not dive in and try. The water is just fine.
I read a post recently by a friend of mine and fellow blogger Nicky Jameson, 19 Things I’ve Learned About Social Media, and it made me start to think about what I’ve learned and here are my 5 observations:
- Don’t ignore social media – Just because you may not understand it, don’t look the other way. This is not a flash in the pan. It will affect all of us in one way or another so you’re better off facing it. There’s lot of good business potential out there.
- Social media isn’t a silver bullet – I’ve said this several times before, social media isn’t the answer, it’s just more tools you can use in your marketing tool box.
- Have a plan – If you’re going to do social media, then have a plan. What are you trying to accomplish and how does it fit into your other current marketing programs.
- Content is still king – if you’re going to do social media. You need to give something of value. That’s part of the program. The more you give, the more you are considered a thought leader in that category.
- Face-to-face – is still the best for contact. As humans, we need to interact and as I say, belly button to belly button is still the best in my book. Social media is one way to identify potentials and start building a relationship that hopefully one day will end in a face-to-face meeting.
These are my top 5. What are yours?
If you like this post, please pass it on.
Here are a few other posts that might be of interest:
3 Ways Tradespeople Can Use Social Media to Boost Credibility and Business.
Why Do People Ignore Social Media Metrics?
Social Media: Who Uses It and Why.
by tradesmeninsights | Apr 15, 2010 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
If you’re putting social in its own silo, you’re not going to have the impact you had hoped for. We need to realize that social media by itself really isn’t very useful if it’s not used in conjunction with other marketing tools. Integrated programs are the key to maximizing social media.
According to research by Unica, the proportion of marketers integrating their social campaigns with other channels varies widely depending on the tactic. Unica said in its report that the main ways marketers are integrating their social campaigns are in regard to timing, creative themes and branding.
What are you doing to integrate social into your marketing programs?
