by tradesmeninsights | Feb 5, 2013 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
Many manufacturers have capital goods that have long selling cycles. Most I think would welcome ways to pull buyers forward in the sales process via lead nurturing.
I recently finished eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale by Ardath Albee that I would recommend you read. Her insights and strategies have been used by many major companies.
It’s an easy read and what I liked about it was it not only showed you what/how you need to do to engage the potential customer, but it also shows you a different way of looking at your company from the inside.
Even though prospects are more informed now than ever, so are their problems. They are looking for solutions not sales pitches. She shows you how to attract more prospects into your pipeline and then nurture them through the sales process (once you’ve figured it out). Instead of pushing what you have to sell, you need to be pushing the value you bring to the table. What you bring to the party must be relevant.
by tradesmeninsights | Jan 29, 2013 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
So you finally got in the social media game and you’re trying to make your mark. With all the clutter and noise out there, you need to differentiate yourself (branding) and engage your potential customers. Let’s work smart and not hard.
Here are 3 tips to help you break through the clutter:
- Be proactive – don’t just write posts. Locate where your potential customers hang out. Listen to what they’re saying about your company and products. What pain points are they talking about and how can you help them address those issues?
- Train your employees – Social is a new marketing tool and we can’t assume that they know what your focus is for social or what their responsibilities are. They all need to be on the same page and there should be guidelines set up so everyone knows what their roles should be, the processes that are in place, and if a crisis occurs, the steps necessary to address them.
- Develop a social media engagement schedule – if you have identified an audience like the professional tradesmen you need to know when they are active on social so you have a better opportunity to engage them. When you do, make sure someone who is knowledgeable on your product or service is available to answer their inquiries. Don’t let a low-level person who isn’t up to speed on your products be your spokesperson.
The bottom line for all of this is to drive more sales, and social media is just one more way of identifying and engaging new prospects.
by tradesmeninsights | Jan 23, 2013 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
Yeah, I know I’m a little late out of the gate with these, but I think some of these are worth rereading and some of you might have missed them the first time around.
- 5 Ways to Improve Construction Productivity
- What is Augmented Reality?
- Market Overviews
- Trends in Distribution and What it Means to the Distributor/Supplier Relationship
- Why Aren’t Young People Considering Blue Collar Jobs?
- 2012 Trends in Smartphones and Tablets
- How to Make Social Media Marketing More Effective: 10 Do’s and Don’t Tips
- Reaching Contractors by Mobile. Still not a Believer? See What Grainger is Doing.
- Here’s an Example of a Small Manufacturer who’s Leveraging Social Media
- LinkedIn: What Are Your Business Objectives?
by tradesmeninsights | Jan 22, 2013 | Uncategorized
For those of you who plan on attending the AHR Expo later this month in Dallas, we’ve created a guide to get you around the town during your free time and to entertain those important customers.
The guide includes recommendations from our friends who live and work in Dallas on the best restaurants, night life and sightseeing. We’ve even included phone numbers of taxi companies just in case you don’t want to drive.
We hope you have a great show and hope to see you either at the convention center or one of the establishments listed in the guide.
Click on the image above to get to the guide.
by tradesmeninsights | Jan 16, 2013 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
You may have some of the best content in the world, but if no one reads it, what’s the point? I recently read a post by Heidi Cohen, 13 Ways to Maximize Content Marketing Effectiveness that got me to thinking about getting back to the basics and making the effort of writing posts to pay off.
Here are some thoughts:
- Come up with a strong headline – we have less than 3 seconds to capture attention. Make your headline make the reader stop.
- Use images – a picture or graphic is worth its weight in gold. We are a visual society and the right image will help keep the reader on the page.
- Get to the point – now that you’ve captured their attention, dive into the meat of what you want to say at the beginning.
- You don’t have to have all the answers – link to relevant content. It reinforces the point that others share your point of view.
- Get them to react – we need to add a call-to-action or ask for comments to get the readers involved. If they share the same opinion on the subject, I’m sure they would have something to contribute to the conversation.
Those are my thoughts. I’d like to hear what you’re doing to get more readership.
If you like this post, you might like:
What Are You Doing to Ensure Your Content Marketing is Selling For You?
Is Content Marketing the New Branding?
How Are You Managing Your Content Marketing?
by tradesmeninsights | Jan 15, 2013 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
Now that the holidays are behind us and we’re all getting back to reality, I thought I’d share some thoughts on what we’re going to do to create better content this year. I was inspired by a post my friend Joe Pulizzi wrote, 42 Content Marketing Ideas for 2013. Thanks Joe for the inspiration!
Top 10 things I’m going to try to do this year to have better content:
- Less content will mean more impact – make content more meaningful.
- Find at least 3 other thought leaders in your company – build them into your plan.
- Develop a list of the top 100 questions coming from your customers – then write to them.
- Sit down with every salesperson and ask them what their customers biggest pain points are – then address them.
- Define your most targeted audience and consider doing a targeted print publication.
- Assign someone to slide share to figure out how we can get the most out of it.
- Make sure every content marketing landing page has only one call to action.
- Develop a series of stories for your industry on an aspect no one has covered before – what better way of becoming a thought leader.
- Double the number of email subscribers to your blog.
- Commission a piece of research that is important to your audience.
Those are going to be my goals for 2013; what are yours?
