by tradespeopleinsights | Jul 3, 2012 | Marketing Trends, Traditional Marketing
It’s been a few months now since Amazon announced its serious entry into the MRO market with Amazon Supply. The new service directly goes head to head with Grainger, Fastenal, McMaster Carr and MSC Direct.
If you already sell through any of these, what are your feelings about another player in the market?
More importantly, what about all those independent distributors in Hometown USA? I have to believe most of you get more sales from them (and more profits) than you do from the big boys. How do you think this will affect them?
Here are our three takeaways:
1) User Interface – which will challenge the current online transaction experience from established industrial suppliers/distributors; b-to-b commerce will be competing against a better and more established b-to-c customer experience standard
2) Price Transparency – which industry observers say will lead to reduction in pricing and margins
3) Expansion into Other Verticals – potential for Amazon Supply to expand beyond MRO into other vertical markets
What are your thoughts?
by tradespeopleinsights | Jul 2, 2012 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
For those of us who write blogs, we do it with the sole purpose of sharing insights and tips that hopefully make your job easier. Our biggest challenge once the killer content is written is to make sure as many eyes as possible see it. Professional tradesmen are always on the go, and I want to make sure they get what they want in short concise bits of information.
It’s true optimization is usually associated with search, but you can insure that your content performs well on social media platforms. I recently read a post by Heidi Cohen, 11 Tactics to Optimize Your Blog that I found very interesting and wanted to share some of the points she makes:
- Focus on just a few keyword phrases – prioritize them by the words you want to cover.
- Create great headlines – you need to catch their attention so they stop and smell the roses.
- Use good photos/graphics – It’s true a picture is worth a thousand words and it attracts readers.
- Make your posts easy to read – use headings and bullet points. It also helps search engines.
- Make content spreadable – RSS feeds, emails or social media.
Those are some thoughts. Care to add to the list?
by tradespeopleinsights | Jun 27, 2012 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Traditional Marketing
It should come as no surprise to anyone that smartphones and tablets are changing the way we all communicate and do business. This couldn’t be more true, especially for small businesses like contractors. These guys are “time starved” and are not sitting behind a computer all day. They are out taking care of business.
A recent survey by Cargo and Inc. Magazine in emarketer.com showed the vast majority (915) of U.S. small companies place importance on wireless communications and smartphones for their businesses. Tablets were not far behind at (64%). You can certainly bet that contractors of all kinds are on the top of this list.
So, if you’re not considering mobile as a key way to communicate with those professional tradesman, you should be.
Here’s a simple tip to get started: Adapt your mobile web presence for Apple OS-based devices (iPads make up 79% followed by Android devices at 39%).
by tradespeopleinsights | Jun 26, 2012 | Marketing Tools, Traditional Marketing
No matter what kind of promotion you’re doing, when going after the professional tradesmen, the bottom line is you want them to ask for more info and ultimately a sale. You can’t do that in an ad (print or digital) by itself. You need those that are interested in whatever it is you’re selling to go somewhere to get more info. Effective landing pages make it clear what visitor is going to do/get for the site.
A landing page is ideal for a next step in the lead process. A good landing page will target a particular audience using a unique page that allows visitors to download the appropriate content (you wouldn’t have the same offer for say a tradesman and for a design engineer). They also help you track and monitor activity by offers so you know what works and what doesn’t.
Landing pages help segment markets, capture leads and make it possible to monitor advertising effectiveness.
- By directing them to a specific page with an offer and the appropriate form to fill out, it makes it more likely that they will complete the form and convert to a lead.
- If your visitors decide to download your offer, why not invite them to share your content?
- Lead nurturing is a very important part of the process. 50% of those who respond aren’t ready to buy just yet.
- 78% of sales that start with a web inquiry get won by the first company that responds.
- By sending a follow-up thank you to those that downloaded material, you have the opportunity to offer them additional info and downloads, as well as asking them to share this with others via social media.
If you like this post, you might want to read:
Product Landing Pages: Tips on How to Improve their Performance
The Best Way to Reach Professional Tradesmen: Drip or Closed Loop Marketing?
by tradespeopleinsights | Jun 20, 2012 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
I bet for most of you it’s that you’re afraid you won’t be able to publish relevant content on a regular basis. I’m the first to admit starting a blog is a commitment, but one that’s well worth it.
Your blog can be the center of your social media plan where you can repurpose posts to your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts. We have found that consistent posts have helped us become the thought leader in marketing to the professional tradesman and have generated new clients from it.
Since content is usually the stumbling block to starting a blog, here are some suggestions on where and how you can get good content. You need to realize you don’t have to write everything. You need to be the “go-to” resource for your niche, so utilize other experts.
- Try to do one original post a week.
- Supplement other posts by sharing industry/association news with your insights.
- Set up a Google Reader account where you can send RSS feeds of people you want to read on a regular basis and repost their articles with commentary and insights from your point of view.
- Case studies and testimonials – Get your sales staff involved. These are great stories and it’s great when customers tell, in their own words, how you helped them solve a problem.
- Stats/surveys – folks love to get industry info or trends. Start your own survey and share the results. It’s a great way of getting a conversation going.
- Look internally – some of your best resources might just be down the hall. Talk with sales, customer service and engineering. They probably can give you more topics and issues to talk about than anyone else, and it’s relevant to your industry.
Those are some suggestions for getting great content, and don’t think you need to be the sole source of content. Make it a team effort.
by tradespeopleinsights | Jun 19, 2012 | Marketing Tips, Traditional Marketing
We’ve talked a lot about mobile and what it means to both manufacturers and distributors when trying to reach the professional tradesmen. For those who are still on the fence about mobile and where it’s going, here is some useful info.
I recently read a few articles in emarketer.com on mobile that brought up several good points. emarketer.com interviewed Geoff Robertson from Grainger on how they are using mobile in their sales process.
Here are some highlights:
- Over the past 12 months, Grainger has seen a 400% increase in mobile activity.
- Beyond the location and availability issues, Grainger is trying to help companies streamline their workflow by giving those who are requesting the parts to list them, and then those responsible for purchasing can sign off all using mobile technology.
- Over 50% of their users feel comfortable ordering over mobile devices.
- Google has an entirely separate algorithm for mobile device searches.
- Google reported that 1 in 7 searches are now done on mobile devices.
If you don’t have a mobile strategy in place, it should get on your radar screen soon or you’ll be missing lots of opportunities.
If you like this post, you might want to read:
Are You Targeting Emails for Your Mobile Marketing?
Why a Mobile Strategy is so Important to Reach the Professional Tradesmen
What’s Your Mobile Media Strategy for 2012?
It’s been a few months now since Amazon announced its serious entry into the MRO market with Amazon Supply. The new service directly goes head to head with Grainger, Fastenal, McMaster Carr and MSC Direct.