by tradesmeninsights | Mar 5, 2013 | Marketing Tips, Traditional Marketing
Manufacturers are trying different ways to get and stay in front of the professional tradesman, and your website is probably one of the first places they will look for info. Is it mobile friendly?
I recently read a post by one of my mentors, Michael Gass, on ways to test your site that I thought I’d share with you. Good info.
In preparation for new business opportunities, it is important that your company’s website be mobile ready.
The number of smartphones in use worldwide has now broken the 1 billion mark, according to Strategy Analytics. Only 15% of companies have a mobile optimized site even though Google estimates that there will be more Web traffic via mobile, than through PCs this year. According to a survey conducted for Compuware, 40% of users have turned to a competitor’s site after a bad mobile experience.
You’ll want prospects to have an easy experience learning about your agency or accessing your agency’s blog content via their mobile device.
Here’s a collection of best practices, white papers and case studies for your review and to help get you started:
There’s nothing like first hand experience so check out your company’s website on your mobile device. Sig Ueland, contributing editor for Practical Ecommerce, pulled together a list of 19 tools for testing your site’s mobile readiness. You can use any of these following 12 for free:
- Gomez
- MobiReady
- W3C mobileOK Checker
- GoMoMeter
- iPhone Tester
- iPad Peek
- Screenfly
- Mobile Phone Emulator
- The Responsinator
- Matt Kersley’s Responsive Design Testing
- Opera Mini Simulator
- iPhoney
You can make your agency’s website mobile ready until you can create the mobilized version of the site.
If you have a WordPress site, you can use plugins like MobilePress and Mippin which will automatically enable mobile users on your website to access a mobile version of it. Until the mobile version of Fuel Lines has been developed, I’m using another WordPress plugin called WPtouch to mobilize this site. There are also a number of online services such as Mobilize Today that will have your website ready for mobile in a matter of minutes.
Click on the following link for Sig’s complete list and description of each: 19 Tools to Test your Site for Mobile Devices
by tradesmeninsights | Feb 27, 2013 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Social Marketing
When developing new content whether it’s for your blog or website, one of your goals should be to capitalize as much as possible on maximizing your SEO. We all want to grab our fair share and by making a conscious effort to incorporate our key words in everything we do, we’ll have a better chance.
An article by Mike Murray in Content Marketing Institute caught my attention. Mike gives us some good pointers and lots of support sites (mostly free) that we can use to help increase SEO. He’s even created a short checklist for us to reference.
Here are some highlights:
- Have I overlooked any key words
- Do key words match your business or targets?
- New page development – make sure to incorporate your most strategic key words.
- Review your site’s analytics to see how people are currently getting there. Are you using some of those key words in your content?
- Are you including a call to action? Does the reader easily know what you want them to do?
- Look at an internal link strategy that cross links between pages.
- Plan your content with a calendar to ensure your key words/phrases are being written about on a regular basis.
Let’s all try to work smarter as we enter a new year.
by tradesmeninsights | Feb 26, 2013 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
In the B-to-B world, most sales are not immediate. The longer selling cycles for most industrial/contractor purchases involve more than one person and selling cycles can go from months to years.
So B-to-B marketers need to be patient. I believe Marketing should be the ones who nurture the leads through, and when ready, transition to sales to close the deal.
I think marketing, if the right processes are in place, is in a better position to move them through the process. Effective nurturing is a series of content-relevant info for each stage of the buying process.
Russ Hill from Ultimate Leads calls it the “Transition Zone.” It is the place in time where marketing hands off the lead they so carefully nurtured to sales to close the loop. But in order to do it successfully, you must have a process that everyone is in tune with, and sales needs to make sure to keep info on that lead current in your lead database so we know when a new customer has arrived, from where and what they bought.
B-to-B companies shouldn’t be worried about quantity but quality of leads. According to Albertson Performance Group, quality lead nurturing can lead to 70% more sales. According to them, nurturing will:
- decrease selling cycles
- increase profit margins
- lessen the competition
- decrease price pressure
- get more referrals
Nurturing is the right way to show ROI on marketing efforts.
by tradesmeninsights | Feb 20, 2013 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Traditional Marketing
One of the biggest challenges for Manufacturers is trying to identify both their customers as well as potentials. It may seem strange to you that most Manufacturers who sell through various distribution channels don’t know who their ultimate customers are.
Distributors as a rule are very protective of “their” customers. Unless you need them to register for a warranty, you need other ways to entice them to give up their contact info. Some of the ways Manufacturers generate names are through trade shows, end-user calls, traditional advertising/PR and social media. You can have customer loyalty and other value-added programs.
The challenge is once you have all of these contacts, what/how do you manage them? That’s where database marketing comes in. This tool can help you segment your audiences into customers, potentials, different markets or applications. Then you can target the message which will increase the potential of folks reading and reacting to it.
Your message to a current user of your product should talk more about applications/performance data while the message to a potential new customer might be more features/benefits of a product or an end-user testimonial from one of their peers.
Your end goal from a customer viewpoint is to build a relationship with them and communicate with them on a regular basis. This will help you in identifying other areas you might help them with, and the more you know about what they do, the better you can offer them ideal solutions to help them.
The bottom line is you’re communicating with them, helping them solve their problems – you are building a customer retention model. If Contractors know, like and trust you, not only will they continue to buy from you, but will become your advocates on the street. They also will be a great source of market intelligence.
Database marketing in my opinion is one of the most important tools in our marketing tool box.
If you like this article, you might want to read:
How Does your Marketing Department Hand Off Leads to Sales?
5 Ways For Manufacturers To Improve E-mail Marketing to Tradesmen
E-mail Marketing for Industrial Marketers: Common Mistakes to Avoid
by tradesmeninsights | Feb 19, 2013 | Marketing Tips, Traditional Marketing
Blah, Blah, Blah. Is this what people hear when you give your 30-second elevator pitch that explains why your firm is different?
Recently I had to identify and vet potential web developers for several major projects for a client. After doing so and narrowing the field to four, we lined up a day for them to present themselves so we could evaluate them at the end of the day while everything was fresh in our minds.
What surprised me is that three out of the four firms used words like synergy, cutting edge, optimize and best practices to describe their business side. What are best practices anyway? When it came to back-end software terms, most of us other than the IT people didn’t have a clue.
The point I’m trying to make is instead of trying to impress people with big words, talk to them like human beings. I wonder if people actually listen to what they’re saying. You just don’t have normal conversations with other folks talking like that.
You want to engage people and to do that you need to act human.
Getting back to my web project. It came down to two firms who differentiated themselves by not talking about themselves, but instead talking about the client’s issues and how they might be able to help. They interacted by acting human. The firm that eventually won the business was because the client felt at ease with them and liked the way they thought about how to solve the problem.
Ironically all four of these firms had the technical competency to do the job, but for some it got lost in the translation.
Think about that next time you’re on a new business pitch. Be yourself, be human. (more…)
by tradesmeninsights | Feb 13, 2013 | Uncategorized
We generate leads from more sources today than ever before. So is that the good news or the bad news? The key isn’t necessarily in the number of leads, but the quality. So how do you determine and define them? At the end of the day, all anyone cares about is the sale, right?
Unfortunately all leads aren’t created equal. Depending on the market you’re in, 60-75% of all leads aren’t ready to buy! Note I didn’t say wouldn’t, but not ready. That’s why email is an effective and cost efficient way of moving contractors through the funnel.
There are several thing you as a manufacturer need to consider:
- Some of your audience don’t know who you are.
- Some may know who you are but have never done business with you.
- If you’re introducing a new product that the industry has never had, there needs to be a learning curve in most cases before someone will try it.
- If your product is similar to something others already make and has industry acceptance, you have a chance of someone trying yours.
- For bigger, more complex sales, it takes longer to move the prospect through the sales funnel.
Let’s take an example of a contractor. I don’t care if he’s a general, plumbing, HVAC or landscaping contractor as their work lives pretty much run in parallel paths. If they are using day-to-day materials to do a job, they are more prone to try something from another manufacturer.
But if it’s a major piece of equipment like a diagnostic camera, snow plow or other major piece of equipment that they use on a regular basis, they need to consider options before buying. Now let’s consider a few things on a major piece of new equipment.
Chances are, if it’s a replacement for an existing piece that’s 5-7 years old or older, the technology probably has changed dramatically and they will need to go through several steps to get them far enough down the sales funnel to turn the lead over to sales.
Here are some steps he might take:
- Collect info on your product as well as competitive ones
- Review features and benefits
- Read customer testimonials on how well your product works
- Consider asking for a demo
So where in these steps do you think we should get the sales force involved? If you get them involved before the demo stage, you’re wasting their time. The first 3 steps can be handled via emails.
Remember, salesmen want the sale now and don’t have the patience to nurture the lead along. That’s why marketing should take the lead in identifying and taking them through the sales funnel before handing them off to sales, and email marketing is an ideal way to communicate with the contractor and professional tradesmen. Think about this. If we can hand off a lead that’s ready to buy, don’t you think the sales staff will start taking the marketing department seriously? One of my biggest challenges is to get sales and marketing to work together.
Does lead nurturing make sense to you? Would it surprise you to learn that up to 70% of companies don’t have lead nurturing processes in place. It amazes me that companies spend tons of money getting a lead and virtually nothing on nurturing it.
Here are some other posts you might find useful:
5 Tips on Improving Your Email Marketing to Professional Tradesmen
Email Marketing: How Are You Using it to Reach the Professional Tradesmen
