by tradesmeninsights | Feb 7, 2012 | Marketing Trends, Traditional Marketing
Moving forward in 2012, is mobile media going to be part of your overall marketing strategy?
According to a recent survey by the Association of Strategic Marketing (ASM), 2011 Trends in Mobile Marketing, 58% of respondents indicated that they were not using mobile marketing.
As a matter of fact, mobile seems to rank somewhere in the middle of overall marketing practices behind email (which ironically is number one) and SEO. The 42% that do use mobile in their marketing plans are optimizing their websites and emails and are beginning to use QR codes.
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The Mobile Marketing Trends Study was created to allow marketing folks to see what similar organizations were doing. Some highlights of mobile marketing goals include:
- Sales/revenue – 33%
- Product service info – 25%
- Customer retention – 15%
- Lead nurturing – 11%
- Customer opt-in – 10%
- Alert reminders – 6%
For those of us in the B-to-B space, and especially for those of us trying to reach the professional tradesman, mobile should be a part of your marketing plan.
Not sure where to start? The easiest place to start is to optimize your website for mobile. Secondly, consider sending mobile-optimized emails.
The key is to make a plan and do something, monitor the response and do something else. As I’ve said before, I don’t believe mobile is going away, and there are many opportunities to reach our target audiences.
by tradesmeninsights | Feb 2, 2012 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Trends, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
Today’s Internet-enabled customer has made it clear that they decide what content looks like and how it should be distributed. Content Marketing has emerged as the primary mode of engaging business prospects. This holds true especially in the technology sector where Eccolo Media, in the fall of 2011, released a report on the trends in marketing collateral. The survey, Eccolo Media 2011 B2B technology Collateral Survey Report is available free.
Customers expect that your collateral material will provide them with info they can use – not info on a particular product. Highlights of the survey include:
- Users are consuming more content, but from a greater number of resources.
- Social sharing buttons influence all type of content – 77% said if they had an easy way to share, they do.
- Collateral goes Mobile – 37% consume content on tablets or smartphones.
- Collateral goes interactive like embedded videos – 92% of users say it positively affected overall influence.
About the survey. This is the fourth year Eccolo Media has done it. They surveyed C-level executives and the survey represents 501 usable respondents.
One of the key take aways from this is that those of us who are developing content should be considering a library of suitable content for their marketing efforts.
by tradesmeninsights | Feb 1, 2012 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
One of the first rules of social media is to listen. Most of us get that when it comes to our outward activities and from groups that you belong to. But when it comes to listening to what people are saying about us, are we doing a good job? Jay Baer thinks we all could do better.
In a recent post, he points out that no matter what tools you’re using to monitor your activity, you may be missing the boat when it comes to key words that you are using to track activity. Jay points out that in social conversations, very rarely does your company name or trade names come up in conversation.
Rather, it’s more likely that people will be talking about a plumbing problem of their toilet leaking and are looking at ways to fix it. So if the key words that you are tracking are your company name and the trade name of the product that fixes the internal working of a toilet, you’d be out of luck.
Maybe you should be taking the list of key words you use in your SEO and incorporate them into your listening program. You should also include your competitors, suppliers, distribution outlets. Anything that revolves around your category.
Let me know how you make out.
by tradesmeninsights | Jan 31, 2012 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Social Marketing
Mobile media is here in a BIG way. Are you incorporating it into your marketing plans for 2012?
According to eMarketer, tablet users in the USA will reach almost 90 million by 2015. By 2015, there will be almost 150 million smartphone users.
So what can you do to dip your toe into the mobile market? I’d suggest you add a mobile component to an existing program and track the results.
Add a video via a QR code in an ad or on packaging that takes them to a helpful video. Do a mobile friendly landing page where they can easily find their closest dealer or store to buy.
Try something. Monitor the results and then try something else. This is the only way to get in since the choices are so overwhelming.
Here are a few other good reasons to incorporate mobile:
Integrating mobile marketing into your overall plans helps support every phase of the purchase cycle, based on data from eMarketer via Millward Brown-Dynamic Logic.
From a marketing perspective, it’s important to understand how and where consumers use their mobile phones. As smartphone penetration continues to increase, mobile phones are no longer just for talking. In fact, according to comScore, only one out of four owners use a phone solely for voice communications.
Mobile is here to stay so you should jump in sooner than later.
If you like this post, you might like:
Podcast: Why Manufacturers Should Be Using QR Codes
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Are You Considering Mobile Media as a Strategy to Reach Professional Tradesmen?
by tradesmeninsights | Jan 26, 2012 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
Social media and its marketing are very important, and how you execute can mean the difference between fair and great results. We all try to formulate best practices.
A recent article by Ashley Zeckman, 20 Social Media Marketing Do’s and Don’ts sparked some thoughts on my end of what we need to do and avoid in the world of social media.
Here are my thoughts and I would love to hear what you would add to the lists:
DO’S
- Interaction – Take the time to comment and interact. If you’re always trying to sell, sell, sell, it becomes hard to have a two-way conversation.
- Re-purpose content – If you have different audiences, slant the message to each one. Also use content on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook to drive traffic to your blog.
- Take advantage of SEO – Make sure what you do is searchable so it can be optimized.
- Have one voice – Someone has to be responsible both in delivering the message, but also in responding to comments.
- Test and measure – Make sure you have the tools in place to see what’s working best for you and your audience.
DON’TS
- Don’t ignore people – Especially negative comments. There’s nothing wrong with disagreeing, but do so in a polite way.
- Don’t use automated responses – It defeats the purpose of trying to start a meaningful dialog. When was the last time you tried to have a conversation with a robot?
- Don’t overcommit – Yes, you’ll find numerous accounts or groups that you should be in. If you can’t commit to utilizing a platform on a regular basis, what’s the point? More is not better.
- It’s not about you – Instead of telling them how great you are, ask them how you might help them solve a problem.
- What are you doing with all these relationships – You’ve spent lots of time and effort to engage prospects. What’s the plan to take it to the next level?
Let’s hear your ideas.
by tradesmeninsights | Jan 25, 2012 | Marketing Tips, Traditional Marketing
Are you using email newsletters to keep in touch with customers and prospects? If not, you should be considering it. They are relatively easy to do, especially if you do a blog.
Using a CRM service like Emma, Exact Target or Constant Contact it will give you access to templates to use for formatting, and more importantly, it will give you tracking data on who opened the email and where they spent time. The metrics will also tell you where and on what subjects people are attracted to. They also give you room for special messaging and links to appropriate sites.
Here are 4 reasons why you should consider a newsletter:
- Helps you stay in front of customers and potentials.
- Helps you establish thought leadership in your area of expertise.
- Helps identify potentials who sign up for and keep coming back to your newsletter. Maybe someone should call on them?
- Build a mailing list. Use it as one touch point to get your brand in front of your audience.
Frequency will depend on a few things. If you do a blog, I’d suggest you do it monthly and highlight the top 5 posts of the month. Most templates give you room for a customized message, like look for a new product launch coming next month or promotion of a webinar.
If you don’t do a blog, assembly of info for the newsletter may be a little more time-consuming and I would suggest doing it at least quarterly. You could assign responsibilities to various people within your company. Customer service, sales and marketing. The key is to give the reader relevent and timely info.
