by tradespeopleinsights | Jul 6, 2011 | Social Marketing
If you do a blog, you know what kind of time commitment you have in order to keep those posts coming out on a regular basis.
There’s no reason you have to be the originator of all the content. Beyond having other associates within your firm write about their areas of expertise, you should consider getting some outside perspectives. As long as you set the parameters and let them know your objectives and target audiences, there should be no problems. Here are some reasons why you should consider them:
- Areas of expertise – Let’s face it, we al know something about everything, but it’s impossible to be an expert in everything. So why not ask the experts to contribute their thoughts.
- Different perspective – Even if you are an expert in the field, it’s good to get another point of view for your readers.
- Attract new readers – Guest bloggers have their own audiences, and by making sure you use their names in the keyword tags, they will attract new eyes to your site. Hopefully the guest blogger will promote it to their current followers.
- Reduces your content creation – Let’s face it, we all could use a break from the daily grind, so it’s a win-win for everyone.
Those are some reasons why I ask experts on the field to contribute. What are your reasons?
by tradespeopleinsights | Jul 5, 2011 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
In the B-to-B space and especially when it comes to the more traditional manufacturing sector, lots of marketers treat social the same as their other marketing efforts and wonder why it’s not working for them.
The truth is social is a long-term tactic while many of the traditional marketing efforts are focused on a stimulus/response model.
Here are some tips on how social media can be an effective marketing tool for you:
- Make your message conversational – I’m sure you can remember possibly a family member who was a great story teller. When they spoke, you hung on every word, got excited, laughed, but more importantly, you connected with that person and interacted with them. Most importantly, you remembered the story. Socia,l to be successful, needs to follow the storytelling path as opposed to the feature/benefit bullet points from a sales sheet. Let’s face it, there’s not much emotional response in sales sheet copy. Instead, tell a story of how this new left-handed widget made my life easier on a jobsite.
- Engaging your audience – You need great content, but you don’t want a one-way conversation. Be active on Twitter or make comments on forums or Facebook pages. Social is a two-way street.
- Networking – You need to build online networks again using LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. These are all good ways to spread the message. Every connection helps you reach out to new potentials.
- Keyword Search – One of the big benefits for social is that it’s trackable and indexable using keywords. You need to make sure they are in your titles and photo captions to insure pick up.
Those are some points from my view; what elements of social are you using to maximize your B-to-B efforts?
by tradespeopleinsights | Jun 29, 2011 | Marketing Tips, Traditional Marketing
When generating leads from various sources, how do you qualify them to see if they’re ready to buy? Not all leads are ready to buy, and it’s important to have a process in place to sort them out. According to Russ Hill from Ultimate Lead Systems:
- 67% of all leads are legitimate prospects.
- 34% have a need that must be satisfied in the next 6 months.
- 70% of those prospects didn’t know you made that product.
- It takes on average 5-6 sales calls to close a sale.
- 80% give up after the first call and 90% plus give up after the second call.
Doesn’t it make sense to have a process in place to monitor and track?
Most capital equipment purchases, for example, have a buying team in place to make recommendations. You need to identify them through your initial contact (or at least the job functions) so you know what areas you need to cover. We’ve found that a quick survey along with what they asked for can help you find out if they are in the information-gathering stage or the PO stage and you can act accordingly. If you know what other type of information they may want to see, or if a demonstration would be in order to better show them the product, that would help you prioritize your salesmen’s efforts.
As you can see in the following chart, people at different stages in the buying cycle need different things. Once you understand where they are in the process, then you can start asking the appropriate questions about budgets, timelines, etc.
What kind of process do you have in place to qualify leads?
by tradespeopleinsights | Jun 28, 2011 | Marketing Trends, Traditional Marketing
As the world grows more mobile, it’s inevitable that smartphones are and will become a more intricate part of our daily routine. It’s my contention that in our world of reaching the professional tradesmen these phones are being used on a regular basis.
I don’t have the data to back that up since there have been no formalized studies done specifically on this market segment. But if you make the assumption that what we do in our everyday lives rolls over to our work day routines, then a new study out by Google that looks at the purchasing habits of smartphone users in the U.S. may be of interest to you.
Chris Crum from Webpronews.com outlines the highlights of the study. Among them are these points that I find interesting:
- 89% of smartphone owners use their device throughout the day for a variety of activities.
- 82% notice ads on their phones and half of them take action.
- 95% of users have looked for local information
- 77% have contacted a business by either calling or visiting
What kinds of trends are you seeing out there?
by tradespeopleinsights | Jun 23, 2011 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
Some folks are still confused as to what to do to get the most out of your Facebook page. There are a few keys…one is content (targeted at your audience) and the other is a strong call-to-action. Incorporating these will help engage people and drive traffic back to your site.
I recently read a great article in Social Media B2B, by Jeffrey Cohen, 75 of the Best B2B Facebook Marketing Tips that’s a good a summary of things you need to do to be best in class. He gives you tips and sources. Here are my favorite points:
- Get people to LIKE your page
- Share lots of photos and ask your fans to also share
- Write posts that encourage sharing across the network
- Have a unique voice
- Diversify your content
- Post industry articles and blog posts fresh from your newsreader
- Make your like button easy to spot
- Encourage others to share your calls to action
If you like this post you may like:
Tips on Using Facebook as a Good Marketing Tool
Social Media for B-to-B Marketers
2011 Social Media Trends in the Industrial Sector
by tradespeopleinsights | Jun 22, 2011 | Uncategorized
There’s a lot of talk about manufacturing jobs continuing to go away in this country. But when I talk to manufacturers, one of the biggest issues they talk about domestically is finding qualified help. Apprentice programs for tool and die makers are shrinking due to lack of interest. Even factory production jobs aren’t menial labor jobs anymore. It takes skill and training to run CNC or other sophisticated machines.
The same is true with professional tradesmen in the contracting field. Talk to a plumbing or electrical contractor and they say the same thing. There aren’t enough young folks getting into those trades as well.
So what’s the problem? A good plumber or electrician can make a very good living and their jobs can’t be outsourced. I used to belong to a country club and next to doctors, contractors were the next biggest category of members! NJATC, IBEW and other trade associations and unions have training programs in place. Spokespeople like Mike Rowe has a passion to get more people into the trades. He’s even testified in Washington about the challenges that face us as a nation.
The same holds true in the manufacturing sector. There are good jobs for those that are trained properly. I know Skills for America’s Future and the Manufacturing Institute are trying to work with community colleges to develop successful programs so young folks can enter the workforce with skill sets necessary to get and keep a good job. Even President Obama is endorsing a manufacturing skills credentialing system and I hope it’s going to be more than window dressing.
The problem, in my opinion, is perception by young people that those kinds of jobs aren’t cool and they are low paying. Also most guidance counselors with most high schools are pointing everyone to college. Not everyone is 4-year college material. What young people don’t realize is that a plumber or journeyman electrician makes more than 4-year college graduates and they don’t have all those student loans to pay off.
Our challenge as an industry is to somehow mount a campaign to kids at an early age to show them that these kinds of jobs are cool and just as important, if not more so, than someone sitting behind a desk. Ideally, trade and manufacturing associations should come together and mount a public service campaign. Someone has to take the first step and we need someone visible enough to carry the message and credibility to the young folks.
I’d like to hear your thoughts on how we can secure the future for our kids.
