by tradesmeninsights | Apr 3, 2012 | Marketing Tips, Traditional Marketing
I’m sure you’ll answer yes, but are you talking with them or at them? We all assume that email or phone calls are the best way to communicate with your customers. I’m surprised when I ask our clients that question that it’s based on their assumptions on how their customers wanted to be contacted.
It’s interesting that we all want to build relationships and engage our customers, but if you think about it, you’re doing it on your terms not necessarily on theirs.
Here’s what I’d suggest. Have your customer service department contact your customer base and ask them how they want to be contacted (most of this can be done on regular inbound calls), for example, regarding new products or new training that’s available. You may be surprised at their answers.
For new products, they may want a one-on-one with their salesman, and for training, they may want to be contacted by email. They should touch most of your customers in a normal period of a month or so, and for those that are reached from inbound calls, start an outbound campaign to those that haven’t purchased for some time. It will give your customer service people a reason to reach out, and who knows, they might even sell something!
I’m assuming you’re working with some sort of CRM system that can be updated, and when new things come up that need to be shared, you have a better chance of getting that message out if you deliver it the preferred way the customer wants.
Give it a try and let me know how it works for you.
by tradesmeninsights | Mar 28, 2012 | Marketing Trends
I was invited to an industry roundtable event recently in conjunction with a regional trade show for the electrical industry, Electro Expo 2012 in Cleveland. The event was the brainchild of Rob Fisher from Madison Electric, which also hosted the event.
What was so unique about the event is that there were manufacturers, distributors, electrical contractors, electricians, building inspectors and even representatives from the IBEW and NAED there. Topics included industry landscape, building partnerships, media revolution, marketing best practices, emerging technologies and innovation and culture.
The event was two hours and the groups were broken up into tables with each disciple represented to discuss specific topics. At the end, someone from each table gave a summary of the issues and possible recommendations on solutions. A white paper will be issued and when it is, I’ll post a link.
It was a great event, and my compliments to Madison Electric for hosting it. Too bad other industries aren’t doing something similar to get all the stakeholders together to talk about common goals and ways to make doing business easier.
by tradesmeninsights | Mar 27, 2012 | Uncategorized
It’s ironic that every manufacturer or contractor that I talk to have plenty of work to do, but a limited number of qualified people to do it. Mike Rowe recently pointed out that young folks can make up to 100K a year working in a factory according to a recent article on CNN Money.com. The same holds true for other tradesmen like plumbers, electricians and HVAC contractors. These folks can make 60-80K a year, and they can’t ship those jobs across the pond.
These factory jobs aren’t low tech anymore, or are they in dingie old factories. These are high-tech, high-salary jobs running multi-million dollar manufacturing cells using the latest computer technology. Right Skills Now is a program that was started to get both technical schools and colleges to work together to train workforces. Its model can be started anywhere in the country and for various types of jobs.
If we want to have a resurrection of manufacturing jobs here, we need to start letting parents and kids know there are alternatives to a 4-year degree. If you’re a manufacturer or contractor, here are some grass-roots things you can do in your community to promote these kinds of jobs:
- At career days at your schools, volunteer to talk to the kids. Give them the benefits of the opportunities that are available. Make it fun, exciting and cool!
- Work with your trade associations and school guidance counselors to make sure they have the proper info to give to kids.
- Have an open house or career day event and bring local students to your place and show them the opportunities.
What things can you add to the list? We’re all in this together and we need to let young people know about these opportunities.
by tradesmeninsights | Mar 21, 2012 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
The job of marketing today isn’t to create new customers but to create passionate subscribers to our brand. Your community will take charge and social networking will continue to facilitate the power shift towards the consumer. Our challenges are to make a person stop, read, think and behave differently.
Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute and known as the Godfather of Content Marketing, describes it “as a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience with the objective of driving profitable actions.” Does that sound like something we should be doing?
Roper Public Affairs says that 80% of business decision makers prefer to get company info in a series of articles vs. advertisements. 70% say content marketing makes them feel closer to the sponsoring company, while 60% say company content helps them make better product decisions.
So how do we manage this thing called content management? I found a good book by Robert Rose and Joe Pulizzi called Managing Content Marketing that might be a helpful tool for your marketing team to read. They outline and focus on 5 areas:
- Understand YOU – What makes you different? You need to define this before writing content to support it.
- Understand THEM – Who and where are the communities you’re serving?
- What content can you provide to help build loyalty?
- Subscribers need to be fed, nurtured and unsubscribed when it’s time.
- Measure success.
Content marketing is a different way to get the same information in front of customers, and we all need help and tools to manage it better.
We did a webcast with Joe Pulizzi on content marketing that might be of interest to you. You can watch it here.
by tradesmeninsights | Mar 20, 2012 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Social Marketing
LinkedIn has always been one of my best sources of activity to my blog. It also allows me to network with others who have the same interest in groups that I join, and I can always count on input from those who are linked with me if I need something or a question answered.
That’s why it wasn’t a big surprise to me when a recent study by HubSpot said that LinkedIn generated the highest visitor to lead conversion rate of 2.74%, almost 3 times higher than both Twitter and Facebook.
I guess that shows me that the people who are on LinkedIn are there for business purposes and are looking to network. So here are some tips on how to leverage LinkedIn:
- Invest the time – develop and nurture your community. Don’t post something for the sake of posting. If you don’t have good content, wait until you do.
- Focus content on what’s working – if blog posts are getting the most traffic, concentrate on doing more of them. If webinars or podcasts create more activity, focus on them.
- Don’t forget lead generation content – call-to-action items need to be included in the mix so you’re continually inviting people to engage.
- Keep learning – don’t take any success for granted. Keep working to improve your content.
Those are some of my thoughts. What are you doing to take advantage of LinkedIn?
by tradesmeninsights | Mar 14, 2012 | Social Marketing
Facebook officially launched Timeline for brand pages on February 29th. The month of March is a transition period for pages to acclimate to the new layout and operation of Timeline. When March 30th comes around, all pages will be pushed to Timeline.
If your organization has a Facebook page there will be a lot of changes with the switch to Timeline, but there are four fairly easy things that you can do before March 30th to make the transition to Timeline smooth.
- Consider the Cover Picture – Cover photos are one of the most noticeable changes in Timeline. If you haven’t set up your cover photo by March 30th, your page will have a blank strip where the cover should be. Cover photo sizes are 851 pixels wide and 315 pixels tall. Images not in those dimensions can be repositioned for the look that you want for your page. Facebook has restricted what can appear in cover photos, so when you design yours, keep in mind that your image cannot feature price/purchase information, contact information, calls to action or references to Facebook actions (Like, Share, etc.). There’s more information here (https://www.facebook.com/page_guidelines.php).While you’re considering your cover photo, look at your profile image again and make sure that it will work with the cover you choose.
- Tell Your Story – Timeline gives pages the opportunity to tell the organization’s story. Even back before Facebook existed. Events can always be added to your Timeline later, but telling the basic story helps your fans know more about you. Some events that you may want to highlight include:
– When your organization was founded
– Important milestones (anniversaries, name changes, goals reached)
– Launches of new products or services
– Awards
- Take a Tour – Take the time to put your page in the preview mode that Facebook gives you. That will let you adjust to the admin panel and features before your Timeline is published. Find where things are and see how your information section looks. You may want to make some adjustments before you publish.
- Prepare for Change – There are a lot of changes that your page will experience. On the administrative side, you’ll need to make some decisions regarding some new features. One major change you’ll probably encounter is the feature that lets your fans message you. Previously, pages and their fans couldn’t private message on Facebook which lead many pages to answer questions and problems publically on the page or directing fans to email them.
Timeline gives you the option to tell your story and highlight the important parts. Many of the changes present opportunities to try new things with your brand.
We made the switch to Timeline last week, stop by and see what we did at www.facebook.com/SonnhalterB2T
More information on Timeline can be found here (https://www.facebook.com/help?faq=203955942973503)
I’m sure you’ll answer yes, but are you talking with them or at them? We all assume that email or phone calls are the best way to communicate with your customers. I’m surprised when I ask our clients that question that it’s based on their assumptions on how their customers wanted to be contacted.
