by tradesmeninsights | Apr 24, 2012 | Marketing Trends, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
B-to-B customers are doing more homework online when it pertains to buying well before they start the actual buying process. So what are you doing to take advantage of these “opportunity zones” to be successful? B-to-B marketers – are you prepared for a more educated buyer?
We all are facing the challenges of doing more things with sometimes fewer resources, so it stands to reason that what we do, do we want it to give us the best results. Where are you getting your leads and how are you qualifying them? I recently read an article by Dave Thomas on B2B Online Marketing that talks about the results of a recent nationwide survey from BtoB Magazine and Bizo that highlights marketers biggest challenges in 2012.
Among them were:
- Paid search came in as the second-ranked tool for marketing, followed by display advertising (35 percent);
- 60% of marketers claim their biggest challenge this year will be generating additional leads;
- 63% of marketers state that their marketing mix either falls short of sales demand or they are not entirely sure their mix is working;
- 56% note brand promotion as a major area of focus.
What I thought interesting was that their biggest challenge was that leads were falling short of sales demands. I guess does that mean that companies are forecasting growth and in order to attain it, they need more leads?
I guess the question I’d like to ask is are you experiencing these kinds of challenges, and if so, will you share with the rest of us?
by tradesmeninsights | Apr 11, 2012 | Marketing Trends, Traditional Marketing
A recent report by MarketingSherpa outlines the top priorities and challenges facing those of us that use this marketing tool. A free copy can be downloaded here.
This report re-emphasizes the fact that email marketing is not only alive, but is still an important part of the overall marketing programs of most companies.
Top 5 process priorities for B-to-B marketers include:
- Growing and retaining subscribers – 64%
- Delivering highly relevant content – 72%
- Achieving or increasing ROI – 39%
- Increasing email engagement metrics – 41%
- Integrating email with other marketing tactics – 30%
It makes sense that to grow and retain subscribers, you need to deliver good and meaningful content. Another important consideration is list size isn’t as important as the quality of the list. You should be interested in building lists of followers who are active and want to share information.
B-to-B marketers usually have longer sales cycles, so it’s important to engage and take your prospect through the various stages of the buying process. This is reflected in 70% of B-to-B companies identifying this as an area for improvement.
The top 5 barriers facing B-to-B email marketers include:
- Inadequate staffing – 53%
- Lack of an effective email marketing strategy – 37%
- Difficulty merging email lists with other systems – 36%
- Unclear or constantly changing objectives – 31%
- Inability to manufacture relevant content on a consistent basis – 31%
So tell me about your priorities and what your biggest challenges are with email marketing.
by tradesmeninsights | Mar 28, 2012 | Marketing Trends
I was invited to an industry roundtable event recently in conjunction with a regional trade show for the electrical industry, Electro Expo 2012 in Cleveland. The event was the brainchild of Rob Fisher from Madison Electric, which also hosted the event.
What was so unique about the event is that there were manufacturers, distributors, electrical contractors, electricians, building inspectors and even representatives from the IBEW and NAED there. Topics included industry landscape, building partnerships, media revolution, marketing best practices, emerging technologies and innovation and culture.
The event was two hours and the groups were broken up into tables with each disciple represented to discuss specific topics. At the end, someone from each table gave a summary of the issues and possible recommendations on solutions. A white paper will be issued and when it is, I’ll post a link.
It was a great event, and my compliments to Madison Electric for hosting it. Too bad other industries aren’t doing something similar to get all the stakeholders together to talk about common goals and ways to make doing business easier.
by tradesmeninsights | Mar 6, 2012 | Marketing Trends, Social Marketing
We all are getting into social media in some fashion. Some more active than others, but how are we doing and what do we think of this new media?
Penton Media just released a B-to-B Marketing study called, Truth from the Trenches that surveyed 3,000-plus folks like us.
What they found is very interesting. The study drives home some alarming points on how many of us are less than satisfied with the performance of our website, social, search marketing and sales conversion efforts. Here are a few of the highlights I found interesting:
- 81% of B2B marketers find online marketing moderately to extremely challenging.
- 77% said their websites are not effective at generating leads.
- 63% of them are either vaguely aware or not aware of what is being said about them online.
- 35% don’t think social media is critical for their business.
On the positive side:
- 60% have implemented a social media strategy or will in the next year.
- 90% are active on Facebook.
- 53% are active on Twitter.
So what do you think? Any of these hit home?
by tradesmeninsights | Feb 28, 2012 | Marketing Tools, Marketing Trends, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
We all know how busy contractors and the trades are. Most of their time is spent on the job site. They rely on their smartphones, and more and more are using tablets in the field. Mobile is not going away. Consider this stat:
77% of the world’s population (5.3 billion people) are mobile subscribers!
A recent post on Marketo, BtoB Marketing To Go: Why Mobile is Crucial to Your Lead Generation, highlights some interesting stats from a recent comScore study:
- 72.2 million people accessed social networking sites or blogs on their mobile devices.
- Almost 40 million U.S. mobile users access social media sites daily.
- Facebook,Twitter and LinkedIn increased their mobile audiences by more that 50% in 2011.
So what do you think the chances are that some of your target audience isn’t in the stats above? Mobile users are interacting with brands and you should not miss out on the opportunity to engage them.
If you like this post, you may want to read:
Is Mobile Marketing the Best Way to Reach the Professional Tradesman?
What’s Your Mobile Media Strategy for 2012?
by tradesmeninsights | Feb 23, 2012 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Marketing Trends, Social Marketing
Some of you may have already jumped into Google+. According to recent stats, as of January 2012, there are over 90 million users (Twitter has 100 million active users). To put this in perspective, they launched Google+ by invitation in June of 2011 and opened it up to the public in September of 2011. Google is positioning Google+ as their Facebook for B-to-B.
Google+ is a great content sharing platform, and building an audience on it may be one of the smartest things you do as a content marketer according to a recent post by Brian Clark on copyblogger, Why Google+ is an Inevitable Part of Your Content Marketing Strategy. Here are two highlights on why:
- Google+ is a part of Google – they do a good job integrating with Google docs, Chrome, Google Reader, Gmail and YouTube.
- Search – Google is the king of search and now they announced the Search, plus your world which merges personalized search with social search.
Brian also discusses concerns about Google having a stranglehold on the market and what we might expect moving forward.
The key for those of us who write content is to understand the language of our audience and make sure we reflect that in our content. Search will do the rest.
If you like this post, you might want to read:
Suggestions on How to Make Sense of Google+
Google+ and B-to-B: How to Get Started
