by tradesmeninsights | Feb 17, 2010 | Marketing Trends, Social Marketing
Even though social media will not replace search marketing, it is still a strong contender when it comes to both traffic and brand loyalty. According to Chris Crum, WebProNews recently covered a study from Chitika which found that Facebook was the most valuable social media tool for driving repeat readers to content sites. The study considered you a loyal user if you went to a site 4 or more times a week, and Facebook led the pack with 20% of all visitors. While the likes of Google will certainly outpace you in sheer numbers, Facebook’s popularity offers you the value added of them probably seeing your info on that page because of the frequency of them checking it. Chris’s insights and suggestions are worth the read.
by tradesmeninsights | Feb 4, 2010 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Trends, Social Marketing
According to recent surveys, small businesses are going to spend more time and effort on social in 2010. Most are aware of social media but are lacking in education of how to use to benefit their business. This appears to be the biggest stumbling block in them using social.
I can concur when talking to contractors…many do acknowledge social, but don’t have a clue on how to use it. The biggest reason for push back on using social media is that small businesses have the perception that their customers don’t use it. The second biggest reason is that they don’t have time or the staff to manage it. Both of these obstacles can be overcome if someone took the time to show them how they could use social as a way to generate leads.
If you’re a manufacturer, trade association or buying group, this could be a golden opportunity for you to set yourself apart and teach these small businesses, whether they be distributors or contractors, how to use this medium. In the long run, as leads are converted into sales, you’ll all benefit!
According to a small business marketing forecast for 2010 from Ad-ology, lead generation is the primary reason small businesses use social media. Also cited was it was a way to keep up with industry news and monitor on-line chatter. Facebook was the most beneficial followed by LinkedIn.
What can you do to get your company, buying group or trade association doing something to help generate new leads using social media? I’d be willing to help. I’ve done webinar’s, “Social Media 101” for trade associations and buying groups. Contact me if you’re interested at [email protected] .
by tradesmeninsights | Feb 3, 2010 | Marketing Trends, Social Marketing
I’ve always said that I believe small businesses have the advantage in social media. Two of the most important reasons are that small business owners are passionate about what they do and can react quicker than larger corporations when responding to something online. That’s the beauty of social media—its success is based on building relationships. The reader doesn’t care if you are from a big corporation or an entrepreneur as long as they get good info.
I recently read a post on business.com on social media marketing to small businesses, that documented some of my beliefs. The report that surveyed over 1700 people showed that the way decision makers react and use social media varies from B-to-C and B-to-B companies. You can gain some good insights into the evolution of business social media usages by looking across industries to see the different levels of involvement.
A free download of the 40 page report is available, “Engaging Small Business Decision Makers Through Social Media.”
Here are some highlights:
- Smaller businesses (under 9 employees) aren’t engaged in Social Media in any meaningful way.
- Industry type has a major impact on the number of social media resources used for businesses.
- Most popular social media resources for small businesses are webinars, podcasts, user reviews of product or services, and profiles of LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter.
- Speed and Convenience are two main reasons for using social media.
With the great growth rate of social media in general, can you imagine if all the small businesses started to embrace the technology what would happen? Most small businesses I come in contact with are contractors, and while some have started to embrace social, many either don’t understand it or don’t see the benefit in how it can help their business.
What kind of small business stories can you share on social media successes?
by tradesmeninsights | Jan 28, 2010 | Marketing Trends, Social Marketing
Kudos to the B-to-B marketers who have embraced social media. I recently read an article in eMarketer.com that I thought I’d share some highlights. Even though we are outnumbered and less experienced than our counterparts in B-to-C, we appear to be more active according to research from a 2009 benchmarking study from business.com.
Areas where we excel are in maintaining company-related profiles on social sites, microblogging and participating in 3rd party discussion sites.
The only areas where B-to-B lagged were on Facebook and MySpace. It was interesting to note that B-to-B users were more active in measuring things like web traffic, brand awareness and prospect lead quality and volume. Web traffic for both categories was the top metric .
Keep up the good work and let’s stay ahead of our counterparts in B-to-C.
by tradesmeninsights | Jan 26, 2010 | Marketing Trends, Traditional Marketing
As most of you know by now, our marketing company works primarily with manufacturers who sell to the contractor marketplace. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that the economy in 2009 wasn’t good to most contractors, especially those whose primary market was new construction.
To that end, we did phone interviews with 22 contractors across the country in the last quarter of 2009, primarily in the HVAC and plumbing markets, to get a better sense of how they are surviving and what’s on their minds. We chose these types of contractors because they not only do new construction, but also do service and replacement work which we thought would give us a better read on the consumer as a whole.
Here are some highlights:
- Contractor’s sales – Were off between 7 to 15%. Some were off as much as 25% and some (2) had actual sales increases in 2009.
- Commercial business – Started to come back late 3rd and early 4th quarters.
- Government stimulus package – Helped in increasing sales (more in HVAC than plumbing).
- Biggest concerns – Tight credit, finding qualified people and big government.
2010 – Most contractors are cautiously optimistic. They know they will have to work smarter in ’10, but believe the opportunities will be there from both new business as well as competitors going away.
A link to get a copy of the white paper will be sent to you when you sign up for my newsletter here.
by tradesmeninsights | Jan 21, 2010 | Marketing Trends, Social Marketing
Small businesses must have been listening when it came to PSEO. According to data from WebVisible, search advertising has sharply increased in Q3 of ’09. According to a recent post on eMarketer.com, small business search spending by smaller companies was up 91% year over year. The average number of key words purchased was also up.
Other highlights from the study showed spending shifts among the key search engines with Google losing about 5% and Bing gaining almost 3%. Bing brought the small business owner the highest click through rates than any search engine. (Not a bad stat since they’ve only been around since June of this year.) Most click throughs went to the advertiser’s Web site and the fastest growing conversion action was video viewing.
Vertical Response cites that 45% of small businesses planned to up their spending next year.
So what are your plans?
