by tradesmeninsights | Apr 13, 2010 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
Although everyone is focusing on social media, let’s not forget an old friend, e-mail marketing. Using social media as a partner, it will provide new avenues for engaging and sharing both current customers as well as prospects. Professional tradesmen are used to being contacted via e-mail, and more and more are getting into the social media arena. Let’s not let an opportunity go by to make your marketing message more impactful.
According to Debra Aho Williamson, eMarketer senior analyst and author of a new report, Maximizing the E-mail/Social Media Connection, “Even though people are spending more time using social media, they are not abandoning e-mail.” According to Williamson, marketers must integrate efforts to maximize both social media and e-mail marketing. Here are 4 items for consideration:
- Multiply the sharing opportunities by linking e-mail messaging with social media messaging.
- Provide a broader platform for brand advocates; encourage the best customers to share with friends via social media.
- Shift the control to the consumer by providing multiple avenues to interact with a company.
- Use e-mail metrics such as response rate and conversions to enhance social ROI.
This trend seems to be already catching on according to a recent survey by StrongMail that stated 40% of business executives are already integrating these two and consider it one of their most important initiatives for 2010.
How are you planning on using these two marketing tools in your business?
If you like what you’ve read, pass it on to a friend.
by tradesmeninsights | Apr 8, 2010 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Social Marketing, Twitter
In our world of B-to-B and especially the world of manufacturing, Twitter, of all the social media tools, is probably the most misunderstood and therefore the most under utilized.
75 million people visited Twitter in January alone, over 23 million were from the US. According to Twitter, over 50 million tweets are sent daily.
Twitter is being talked about everywhere. People are drawn to it because of the buzz of its popularity, but the majority of people don’t understand its potential.
My primary objective for using Twitter has been to increase traffic to my blog. Twitter is now the leading traffic generator for Tradesmeninsights.
There are hundreds of tools that have been developed to enhance Twitter’s usefulness for marketing. The tool that is most helpful to me and the one I use most often to generate new business is called Social Oomph.
These are some of the Social Oomph features that I like and use:
- Manage multiple accounts from one dashboard (our agency’s as well as client’s Twitter accounts)
- Manage an unlimited number of blogs
- Upload your agency’s blog posts and URLs from an Excel spread sheet, in bulk, to Social Oomph
- Pre-set the date/time range for each post in minutes
- Automatically shorten post URLs through Bit.ly and track clicks
- Automate – follow those who follow you in Twitter
- Automate – unfollow those who don’t follow you in Twitter
- Purge and filter your Twitter account’s DM box
- Small monthly fee that is month-to-month, cancellable at any time (more than pays for itself for the time that it saves)
- Junior level people/interns can be easily trained to use this tool on behalf of the marketing departments
- You can also schedule your company’s blog posts to Facebook, just keep the repurpose level to only a few per day
For Twitter to have real value from a new business perspective for manufacturers, you must have a clear objective and follow a simple formula for use.
To reach my objective to my blog’s traffic and exposing it to a new but targeted audience, I’ve followed Angela Maiers 70-20-10 Twitter Engagement Formula.
70 to 80% of my “Twitter time” is spent sharing helpful information for manufacturers on how they can use social media as part of their overall marketing strategy… I do this in two ways:
First, I share lots of information from my online reading that I think will be of help to my audience. I’m able to use some tools such as TwitThis that I’ve placed in my browser bar. When I come across a good article that I think will be of help, all I have to do is click on TwitThis and automatically post the article title and tiny URL into my Twitter account.
Secondly, I also share the content from my Tradesmeninsights blog. I now have over 180 of my own blog posts regarding ways manufacturers can use social media. I’m able to use Social Oomph to expose these posts to new audiences.
I can easily schedule the date, time and recurrence of each post. With the volume of posts that I now have, I can publish a different post on Twitter every hour, seven days a week twenty-four hours a day without repetition. Older posts, that are still useful, have new life. The best posts are often re-tweeted and exposed to new networks of people.
Your Company’s Blog Posts: Don’t make the mistake of thinking that if you’ve written it, everybody has read it.
Twitter is more than a fad. It is a valuable marketing tool. Twitter tools such as Social Oomph make it priceless for generating traffic and new business leads.
by tradesmeninsights | Apr 7, 2010 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
When you have lemons, make lemonade! I know most of the manufacturers that read me regularly pulled in their horns last year to ride out the uncertainty. There are a few, though, that have continued on and have made an impact on both the economy and their bottom line.
I’ve been trying to showcase some of these leaders over the past several months, and here is another one. Molex (Disclaimer: they are a client of ours), through its Woodhead brand, offers the broadest range of code-compliant electrical products designed to perform in harsh environments.
When the Government last year introduced the (ARRA) American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to focus on rebuilding roads, bridges and other infrastructures of the country, Molex came out with their own program, Rebuilding America Together. The target audiences were distributors and contractors in the commercial construction and utilities industries.
Their integrated plan included :
The good news is that they had the insight to do something when everything was tanking. The better news is it’s working. It created buzz at the distributor level and gave them something to talk about with the contractors. It gave the contractors incentives as well as fostering a theme of patriotism. It gave Molex increased sales.
That’s one more example of someone doing it right. I’d love to hear from you if you have other examples.
by tradesmeninsights | Mar 31, 2010 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
Unless you live under a rock, everyone knows about social media at least in broad terms. Social media holds a tremendous amount of potential for businesses looking to grow. Many companies, in an effort to get started, jump right in, and while that’s not the end of the world, I think if they really want social media to have a positive impact on their business, they should consider the following:
- Set clear goals – Too many people are ready, fire, aim! They are so interested in the “how” of social instead of the “why.” What are you trying to do, brand build, increase the number of leads, use as a customer service tool? Just like any other marketing exercise, you need to have a plan.
- Human capital – Once the goals are in writing, do you have the people power needed to accomplish the task?
- Content – Do we or can we produce enough “good” content to sustain a social media program?
- Current web site – Is it social media ready? I don’t mean putting up logos saying follow me on Twitter or Facebook. Is there a reason for customers or potentials to return to your site? Have you set up a forum or industry update button?
- Incorporate it throughout the buying process – Remember where these new leads came from (social) and that they expect the same type of access and interaction throughout the process. Besides, you as a marketer would probably like to know which leads you handed off to sales were actually converted into new business.
If you follow these five steps, you’ll be off on the right direction.
What things could you add to the list?
by tradesmeninsights | Mar 30, 2010 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
Webinars are a way to leverage the Internet and are becoming a more acceptable way of communicating to both existing as well as new customers. We use them to promote new products and services, as well as present industry events and overviews. Many of our clients also use them for training.
When doing webinars, make sure you capitalize on using e-mails to get your message out. Here are a few tips:
- Invitation – Make it easy for people to opt-in and link to register. Make sure you don’t forget the basics like date and time.
- KIS-Keep It Simple – Tell them what’s in it for them up front. Highlight the speaker(s) credentials.
- Testimonials – If you’ve done the webinar before, get a quote from an attendee that can be used in the invite.
- Send reminders – It usually takes several touches to get people to sign up. Change the subject line and first paragraph.
- Capture webinar – Turn it into a webcast on your site.
- Follow up – Make sure you send attendees a follow-up survey to see how you did. This is a great way to improve for the next time.
What are some things you do to make sure your webinars are a success?
by tradesmeninsights | Mar 25, 2010 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
From time to time I post some of the more popular posts to refresh the ideas for those who might have read them and for those who haven’t had a chance to look at some of the more popular ones. Enjoy.
- Many tradespeople feel they don’t really need to have anything to do with social media. Perhaps because their business comes mostly through referrals, or they don’t see immediate value in social media, or they feel it may take up too much time and they need to be out getting new business. And many tradespeople feel intimidated by social media. Read more...
- Would it surprise you to learn that the biggest gains in who’s using social media are among older users? According to a report in eMarketer, “Consumer Internet Barometer” U.S. Internet users who visited a social site in the second quarter of ‘09 rose 16% over last year. Females still lead males in usage and 70% of users were under the age of 35. The most popular sites in order were: Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter. Read more...
- Engagement marketing is developing a two-way conversation with a customer or prospect. Engagement happens when people look forward to hearing from you and find your communications meaningful and helpful. Engagement marketing creates a common purpose between a manufacturer and its customers. It’s not a “Push” or “Pull” strategy, rather a collaborative one. Read more…
- We all have limits on our time and those of us who have dived into social media have to find time in our schedules if we want these marketing tools to work. The key, like anything, is organization and setting priorities so you optimize your time spent. Read more…
- Whether you’re using traditional marketing tools or social media, one of your key objectives should be to become the thought leader in your market or category. Read more…
