by tradespeopleinsights | Jun 19, 2013 | Marketing Tools
Sonnhalter is deeply involved with the professional tradesmen. We recently updated our overview of the HVAC market. The purpose of the document is to give the reader a quick snapshot of the industry and its players for 2013.
Highlights include association and buying group contacts, training firms/certification organizations, franchisee organizations and consolidators, online resources, trade shows/meetings and media publications.
A free copy for download is available. Click here to sign up.
by tradespeopleinsights | Jun 18, 2013 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
Over the past several years, marketers have been focusing more of their efforts (both time and money) on social media.
Especially in the manufacturing B-to-B space, social certainly has a place to help set you up as an expert in your field of expertise, but it won’t replace more traditional ways of communicating like email. If you really want a tradesman to read something from you, which would you use, social media or email? I’d be willing to bet email.
Let’s face it, the life blood of your business (both existing and potential) lies in the quality of your database. The question is, how do you increase the size and quality of that database and what’s the best way to use it? By using traditional methods like trade shows, PR and direct mail along with social tools like YouTube, SlideShare, Facebook and Twitter, you can start identifying potential customers and start gathering email addresses for your database.
Think about this – if you go to sign up for a new social site, what’s one of the first things you have to give them? Your email! Even they know the best way to communicate is using this tool.
Consider some of these facts:
- The fact of the matter is folks respond better to emails than they do to social channels
- Email also lets you personalize your message
- They are checked more often than social sites
- It’s easier to sell through email than social sites
I listened to a podcast recently on socialmediaexaminer.com where they interviewed DJ Waldow the co-author of The Rebel’s Guide to Email Marketing. He shares his thoughts on how to use social to support your email activities. I’d recommend you take the time to listen.
by tradespeopleinsights | Jun 13, 2013 | Uncategorized
Each month we’ll be featuring a blog post from our friends at MAGNET (Manufacturing Advocacy & Growth Network). MAGNET’s mission is to support, educate and champion manufacturing in Ohio with the goal of transforming the region’s economy into a powerful, global player. You can visit MAGNET online at manufacturingsuccess.org.
This post originally appeared on MAGNET’s Manufacturing Success blog and is reposted with permission.
Determined Innovators Face Risk to Reap Rewards
Everyone wants an advantage.
Relative to their competitors, all businesses want to be seen by customers as the go-to provider.
My favorite race car driver, and boyhood hero, the late Mark Donohue was labeled as always having an “Unfair Advantage” by his competitors. However, if you read Donohue’s autobiography, it becomes clear that he was a member of a very innovative Penske team. They were always conceiving ways to go faster, testing them on the track and at times stretching the boundaries of the rule book. But there was also an underlying theme of hard work. They outworked most everyone else. Sweat equity, some might call it.
In industry, success through innovation is the same. Coming up with innovative ideas is hard work, getting them successfully to market is difficult and always risky.
The more innovative the product, the larger the uncertainty of success—but usually the higher the payoff. Managing this risk while fostering an atmosphere of innovation is a tricky balance to achieve.
Many companies have a formal process to achieve this balance. But sometimes these processes end up creating barriers that squelch innovation by requiring too much to be known at the early stages of development. Really innovative ideas are almost always those that we know the least about at the beginning.
Innovation Tip: Consider adapting a tried and true principle introduced by W. Edwards Deming to help overcome the early innovation jitters, the Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle. Assign a point person or small team to address key concerns and report each week. This lowers anxiety and keeps innovation moving.
To learn more, contact Robert Schmidt.
Click here to read the original post.
by tradespeopleinsights | Jun 12, 2013 | Uncategorized
Having a trained workforce is a major challenge in several of the industries that we work with. I wanted to share some highlights from a blog post by the NAED president (National Association of Electrical Distributors) answering the question: Why is training important?
Tom Naber, president of NAED, writes about training as:
- An opportunity to expand your employee’s knowledge base.
- An investment that provides benefits to both your company and your employee.
- An ongoing activity, not a one-time event.
Many associations, like NAED, provide resources that make having a well-trained workforce attainable and are usually the best place to start your process of training your staff.
To read Tom Naber’s post, “Why Is Training Important?” visit the NAED blog.
by tradespeopleinsights | Jun 11, 2013 | Traditional Marketing
I just got back from San Diego and the ISA Convention. For those not familiar, ISA is an association that consists of both manufacturers and distributors that sell into the industrial markets.
That market has had some tough times of recent years, but they seem to be bouncing back. But attendance didn’t reflect it. The manufacturers outnumbered the distributors 15 to 1. It’s a bad sign the first day of a show when you can throw a bowling ball down the aisle and not hit anyone.
What’s impressed me over the past several years is that they are not doing the same old same old. They try different things to get and keep the distributors and manufacturers engaged. But to have engagement, you need folks to engage. The manufacturers certainly showed up, but they can’t talk to themselves. What if we went back to having distributors in the booth?
With all the trade shows and meetings we all go to, it becomes difficult to sometimes justify the ROI on an event like this. Hats off to the ISA for at least trying. I don’t have the answer, but if this is a sign of what’s to come, the ISA won’t be around for long.
by tradespeopleinsights | Jun 6, 2013 | Public Relations
Today we have a post from Rachel Kerstetter, Sonnhalter’s PR Engineer.
Working in public relations gives me the opportunity to tell stories. I get to tell stories about company histories, professional successes, how products came into being, etc.
Stories are a powerful tool in getting messages across. I’ve been thinking about safety since June is National Safety Month and one powerful story stood out to me. Here’s the headline:
Laborer Dies in Trench Collapse and Lives to Tell the Tale
It compelled me to read further and it brought me to a more in-depth account of Eric Giguere’s story about how not focusing on safety cost him his life and the tough decisions that those around him had to make, which ultimately brought him back.
That article is here.
Basically his team had been working in an unsupported trench without incident for quite some time, then it unexpectedly collapsed and buried him. The people around him had to make tough decisions about how to dig him out and then administered CPR.
One of Eric’s statements about safety stuck with me: “I’m a guy who got comfortable doing things the wrong way.”
By not taking the proper safety precautions, they were saving time on the project. But the cost was great.
Eric’s story is powerful and carries more weight than statistics can. It’s not a horror story to scare people into following the rules rather, it’s a lesson in consequences for taking short cuts and an example of tough decisions, made quickly in a time of crisis.
