by tradespeopleinsights | Oct 4, 2011 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
Anyone who does a blog on a regular basis know it’s a huge commitment. I try to do three posts a week and some weeks work (clients) gets in the way. But the show must go on and constistency is something I think every blogger should aspire to. So what do you do? If you’ve read other posts about blogs on this site, you know that I’m a big proponent of doing an editorial calendar and having a list of people who could help out with content.
If you’re a manufacturer, here are some tips on identifying helpers:
- Internal employees – Your editorial calender along with the topic categories you’ve decided to write on will help you identify possible contributors. Engineering, customer service and sales are three that come to mind.
- Suppliers and distributors – These folks certainly understand your product and have a motivation to spread the word. Distributors and suppliers can shed light on various other issues that are closer to and are industry related.
- Customers – They have first-hand knowledge of not only how your product solves their needs, but they can also talk about how important customer service or engineering support is.
- Industry experts – Every industry has several “experts.” Ask them to do a guest post on a pressing industry issue. They can offer their take on it and hopefully start a conversation on your site.
- Magazine editors – Editors from trade publications that cover your world are in the thick of industry issues and most would be happy to share their opinion either in writing a post or being interviewed for a podcast, for instance.
Those are some ideas of who you can tap to help out with content. Who have you been asking for help?
by tradespeopleinsights | Sep 29, 2011 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
I must confess that when it comes to promoting our Facebook page, we don’t do a good job. I guess in my case for the targeted audience we’re going after, I don’t know if this is the most effective place to do it. LinkedIn, Twitter and even Google+ probably are better venues for us.
But for those of you who are focusing on building your fan page, I came across a great article by Justin Wise in a recent post on Social Media Examiner that highlighted 20 ways to spread the word on your Facebook fan page by educating your readers. Here are the ones that stood out to me:
- Put the fan page URL in your email signature – imagine that with the number of emails you send on a daily basis what kind of potential reach you would have.
- Ask others in your company to do the same – put it in their email signature.
- Ask your Twitter followers to join your fan page.
- Put a widget on you website and blog – don’t assume that people know you have a fan page.
- Ask fans to post a link – if they are truly fans, they will post a link on their personal profile.
- Put a tag on your YouTube videos – great idea and a way to get people more engaged.
What are you doing to promote your fan page?
If you liked this post you might like:
How to get the most out of your B to B faceboook page
Tips on using Facebook as a good B to B marketing tool
by tradespeopleinsights | Sep 28, 2011 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
For those of you who have blogs, this will be of interest to you. We all (sometimes) are pressed for time and after writing and spell checking a post, we put it up there with the appropriate key words and let it fly.
I was reminded recently by a post by Heidi Cohen that we may be overlooking some ways to get that little extra out of each post. Her post, Does Your Content Marketing Contain These 12 Must-Have Components? had some good points we all should be using. Here are highlights of the top points that got my attention:
- Share this button – Makes sense to give your readers easy access to share your info. I normally add them at the end, but she suggests addding them up front. Good idea.
- Join email list – Seems like a “no brainer,” but if readers like what they see, they probably will want more. Give them a reason to sign up.
- RSS feed – Just another option for readers to follow you easily. It’s easy to install .
- Contact us functionality – If someone has the need to get a hold of you, give them an email address or phone number to call.
- Provide search on your site – Since your content may cause readers to want to find out more or may not answer all of their questions, allow them to seek more information.
- Supply links to related content – This is often not done. If you’ve written other posts that are relevant, why not have them at the bottom of the post for people to link to? Makes sense and it helps to keep them on your site while building your thought leadership.
These are just a few tips along with a good call to action that will help you get extra mileage out of each post. What are some things you’re doing to bolster readership?
If you liked this post you might like:
Is Your Brand Disconnecting on Social Media?
Manufacturers: 5 Reasons Content is King
3 Tips on How to Build Followers
by tradespeopleinsights | Sep 27, 2011 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
QR codes in the world of marketing are relatively new and as such a novelty. The problem is, if you don’t use them correctly, they can do more harm than good, and if you turn off your target audiences by a simple thing like not using a QR code correctly, what might it do to the rest of your relationship with them?
For those who might be interested, we have a Trends in Mobile Media white paper that can be downloaded that will give you a pretty good overview of what’s currently available.
I recently read an interesting post in Social Media Examiner by Jeff Korhan titled, 5 Steps to a Successful QR Code Marketing campaign. Here are some highlights:
- Plan a strategy – You need to understand your target audience, have clear objectives and offer useful and valuable incentives.
- Create quality codes and test them – You only get one chance to make a first impression. There are many QR codes out there, the most popular being QR codes and Microsoft (MS) Tags. Do your homework when choosing one and then make sure to test it several times before making it live for the rest of the world to see.
- Link your codes to mobile friendly or mobile optimized sites – One of the biggest mistakes is linking to a traditional size page that you want to be read on a mobile device. Make sure where you link is optimized for mobile.
- Track performance with management tools – QR codes and MS tags have reporting sytems built in. They currently don’t go very deep, but I think it’s just a matter of time until they do. There are several other developers showing up, but it’s too early in the game to rate or recommend any.
- Deliver value and a favorable experience – That’s what the user who clicks on the code will remember. Did you WOW them with a video, did you give them a discount on the product?
I’d love to hear how you’re using QR codes and how successful you’ve been.
by tradespeopleinsights | Sep 21, 2011 | Marketing Tips, Traditional Marketing
SEO is as important as the messages you’re trying to deliver. Today, we have a guest post from John Miller, President of Salient Software who’s been developing websites and SEO programs for the B-to-B space since the mid 90s. SEO rules change all the time (thanks to Google) and you need to continually keep up on the latest ways to stay ahead of the curve. John outlines some typical areas you need address. Enjoy.
People have been increasingly turning to the Internet to find what they need ever since Al Gore fostered the creation of the “information superhighway” in the earlier 90s.
While newspapers, magazines and yellow pages are disappearing, the number of websites has been increasing. In the early 90s, there were just a handful of websites, however, that number has now grown to 266,848,493 sites at last count (Dec 2010).
People are now carrying handheld computers disguised as phones, they carry tablet PCs, have the Internet piped into their TVs and DVD players and have desktop computers sitting at home.
People find content using Search Engines, using one or more of the 2000 search engines that currently exist. Google and Bing are the top players in the market today, followed by a number of general and specialty search engines that cater to narrow topics and vertical markets.
What does this mean to a website owner?
Start by spending less advertising dollars on traditional media, and then look to the Internet. Most businesses have websites which is a big leap from even 5 years ago, however, if someone is searching for the products and services you offer, will they find you?
Google and other search engines are very good at returning your website if someone knows the name of your business. They have made a special effort to assure you top billing when searching for businesses by name. If that’s all you need, then you don’t need to pay much attention to search, it is already working for you.
However, if you want people to find YOUR website when searching for your products and services, then chances are that search isn’t helping you at all.
In fact, it’s deliberately working against you. Google has built an empire ($175B market cap) by charging companies for top billing on search results.
It’s also true that any given a search for a generic product or service is likely to return in excess of 10 million web pages.
Given this back-drop, how can you get noticed?
Well, you can pay Google $.50-1.00 or more (depending on the popularity of key words and phrases) per click and have an ongoing tab that will cost you thousands each month. If you take that road, you will get your top billing in Google, but what about Bing, Yahoo, Altavista and the like? You will need to pay them too!
Or, you can choose Search Engine Optimization which modifies your site so your products and services have a much more likely chance of showing up in Page 1 – 3 of the search results.
What is Search Engine Optimization and How Does it Help?
No doubt you have noticed that some company websites frequently show up at the top in the “free” (called organic) search results much more often than other websites. This is no accident, someone spent a good deal of time and effort to make their company’s site rank higher with the search engines. This process is called “Search Engine Optimization” (SEO).
SEO is the way to bring the traffic and new customers to your website. If your site is not optimized for Search Engines, then those customers will go to someone else’s website. It’s a simple as that.
Here are the areas typically addressed for SEO:
- Keywords and key phrases – based on your products and services and based on what people are actually searching for, create a list of keywords and phrases that will lead people to your site. This list becomes your “Trophy” keywords and is then used for evaluation and updating everything else related to your site.
- Site structure and content – a single website page can only rank well for 1 or 2 Trophy words, hence, check the structure of the site to see if it complies or alter the structure to comply.
- Domain name – if the domain name echoes the product or service you are selling, it will raise your rank in Google and other search engines. You can have multiple domain names for a single website.
- Other Websites Linking to Yours? – the more links to your site, the better. Check to see who is linking to you, perhaps you can work out a deal with other website owners.
- Wiki and Blogs – have you noticed that Wiki entries often appear at the top of the free listings? Find Wiki entries that relate to your products and services and edit them – make sure you mention your own special “twist” and/or trade name. That will bring people to your site.
- Social media – make sure you are taking full advantage of Social Media, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and the like. The more your website is mentioned “elsewhere,” the higher your Google rank.
- Sitemap? – does your site have a sitemap? There are two kinds, an internal sitemap for search engines and one for “people.” Make sure you have both.
- Search Engine Submission – once changes have been made to your site, use a reliable submission service to submit your site to as many of the 2000 search engines as possible.
SEO is an expense, but costs less than the Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc., ads in the long run. A website is like a “garden,” you look at it frequently and “tend” it to remove weeds or replant crops. With SEO, you run reports to see how your site is ranking with respect to your Trophy words. Then, make adjustments to the site to enhance your ranking.
When was the last time you looked at your SEO?
