Short videos are ideal for social media and for you to gain reach and shares.
As a manufacturer, are you capitalizing on this powerful tool to disperse your message? You don’t need a “Hollywood” production. As a matter of a fact, the ones done on a mobile phone would do just fine. We’ve done “man on the street” interviews with contractors at will-call counters and on job sites asking their opinions on tools and other products.
Did you know – Videos convey more info per minute than any other media and 65% of the public like to learn via videos.
In my opinion, you’re better off making a series of very short videos (keep each to one thought or idea). Ideally under 2 minutes is what I tell folks to shoot at.
Here are some thoughts on content.
Focus on a problem your customer might have from their perspective (what happened if the problem isn’t resolved?)
Provide tips to solve it.
Utilize the video medium to show examples or illustrate a solution. Here’s your chance to be creative.
Make sure they know your company has the solution to solve their problem.
Donna Moritz did a recent post in Social Media Examiner that talks about 6 ways to use short videos in social marketing. Here are some highlights:
How to video – solve a problem.
Highlight your skills – what better way to get your value proposition out there.
Showcase an event – trade show, association event or new product intro.
Go behind the scenes –give the viewer some insights of your company that they normally wouldn’t see.
She also outlines 10 tools you can use to create and edit short videos.
The bottom line is, use video in your marketing efforts.
I don’t know about you, but LinkedIn continues to be a top performer for me and my blog posts. The top referrer is search engines, but LinkedIn is a strong second and Twitter is third for getting the right eyes on my blog.
A recent article in eMarketer.com confirms the fact that among top social sites for B-to-B, LinkedIn remains on top for both usage and effectiveness.
I use LinkedIn exclusively to share my posts with not only the folks that linked to me, but to the numerous LinkedIn groups that I belong to. I’ve had clients who have great success in recruiting the right kind of talent using their paid job searches.
Are you using LinkedIn, and if so, are you having similar success?
Strategic or Tactical, which is more important? It takes both to ensure a comprehensive marketing program. Most of us have no problem doing tactics since we can list the tasks and check them off.
Strategic thinking is another matter. It really sets the tone from which the tactics are identified and then implemented.
Jason Falls from Social Media Explorer summed it up very simply on what the difference is.
Strategic thinking identifies who we are or who we want to be. What do we stand for?
Tactical identifies those things (what we do) in order to support our strategic thinking.
My biggest challenge is that I always tend to fall back on tactics because I can, in my own mind think that by checking off tasks, I’m accomplishing something. I guess I am, but it’s short-term.
The best way for me to make sense of both of them is that strategic is long-term and tactics are more short-term.
Do you have the same struggle with strategies like I do ?
I know we need both and we can’t have meaningful tactics until we have a strategy.
From a manufacturing point of view, it’s in your best interest to train contractors on the best way to install your product. It eliminates call backs and helps contractors sell more of your stuff. No surprise there, but with sales forces that are stretched thin, now they can only do so much training. Where do they focus their efforts – on the distributor’s sales force or on the end user?
The answer is use online training for both.
You can train distributor sales on new products, on not only features and benefits, but also on where/when they should be used. Several eLearning options out there can test them after to make sure they got the point.
You can train contractors on new products/processes and installation tips.
Online lets them take the course on their timeline, not yours.
Both distributors and contractors want to get the most out of both employees as well as opportunities, so you’re better off arming them with the right info.
According to the American Society of Training and Development, companies that spend $1,500 or more per employee average a profit margin 24% higher than those who do not invest in their employees.
Deloitte reports that 18% of all training is now on smartphones.
Cisco’s VNI Global IP traffic and service adoption forecasts that by 2018, 79% of all internet traffic will be videos.
Do you know that the average office worker checks their email 30 times an hour? Can you imagine what the stats are for contractors out in the field?
The point is that emails are very acceptable ways of communicating with each other. The key is to have relevant and timely info for your prospect.
Heidi Cohen gives us several reasons why email trumps social media:
Email provides directly measurable ROI – You know immediately how many opened and read your message.
Email is content format agnostic –It’s user-friendly and you can use text, images, videos, audio, PDFs.
Email can deliver both long and short content – Content can vary from a link to several pages in length.
Emails you can control delivery – Whether it’s now or delayed.
Emails can be read on anything – Smart phones, tablets, laptops, no apps required.
Emails build customer relationships – Once someone allows you to communicate with them, it represents a certain level of trust.
So since you have such a powerful tool, we need to make sure we’re using it correctly to get the best bang for the buck. eMarketer, in a recent article, stated that we all should get ready for more personalized emails and companies plan on spending more money to accomplish this.
These triggered and transactional emails can be part of a nurturing campaign. The key is getting the right message in the hands of the right people at the right time. You need to ask the right questions to see where they are in the sales funnel so you can address that immediate need.
If we use and target emails correctly, whether you’re going after a contractor or a plant manager, the result improves with the more segmenting you can do. So do your homework and take advantage of a great marketing tool.
Everyone today is so focused on Content Marketing that they may overlook an old standby, PR, that could help in getting that all-important content out there. Content marketing drives long-term thought leadership goals. PR can help you short-term to meeting these objectives. After all, both disciplines are working toward the same goals.
Here are a few reasons to use PR in conjunction with your content marketing program:
PR builds corporate credibility –Foster good relationships with key editors in your field and let them tell your story.
PR increases brand awareness – Use your new content to attract focused audiences and new leads.
PR makes your content team focus on your public – Instead of selling features and benefits, use fresh insights and angles on how others have solved similar problems. Be relevant and timely on issues.
