by tradespeopleinsights | Mar 10, 2010 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Social Marketing
Manufacturers are missing the boat if they are not incorporating videos into their Web sites. According to Forrester Research, videos properly submitted are 53 times more likely to generate first page Google rankings. You heard me right, 53 times more likely. Other advantages are that results appear in days because Google is pushing video to the top. This is a great opportunity for B-to-B marketers.
Benjamin Wayne in a recent post, Search Engine Success: Getting Video SEO Right, outlines what needs to be done in order to get that first page placement. The key is submitting videos and pages in parallel and successfully indexing for each individual search engine.
Search engines can’t find video content on their own, so you need to get your submissions right in order to capitalize on this. Because the video search engine is complex, Benjamin offers these questions to your video platform provider:
- Will you index both the permalink pages as well as the videos?
- Will the links point back to my site?
- How often will feeds be updated?
- In which search engines will the results appear?
- How do I track click-throughs?
If you do this right, you can get great results in a relatively short period of time. If you’re going to do it, you may as well do it right.
by tradespeopleinsights | Mar 9, 2010 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
Your company’s blog can become the “Gateway” to introduce your company and its products/services to prospective customers. Here are some best practice tips that will help you generate serious traffic to your blog:
- Post titles – Choose key phrases that you can dominate in Google by using them consistently.
- Posts need to be scannable – Tradesmen, like everyone else, will scan a post if the headline catches their attention to see if they should spend the time reading it. Highlight quotes, break up paragraphs, bold key phrases and use bullet points or numbered lists.
- Two kinds of posts – Original content and resources content. Try to do at least one original content a week. The balance can be resources you’ve found. You want your blog to be the “go-to” resource for info and that doesn’t mean it all has to be original.
- Lead with a benefit – Always provide a “benefit” or as I call it, a “golden nugget.” This helps engage the reader to continue on.
- Make your posts look good – You don’t have to be a graphic artist, but posts should look appealing to read. Try when possible to put in an interesting graphic.
- Engage your audience – Ask for feedback on what they are doing.
- Write from a position of expertise – Share info, but remember one of your primary objectives in doing a blog is to become known as a thought leader.
- Post on a regular basis – Do posts at least 3 times a week and ideally 5. You want to continually engage and inform your target audience. But don’t write for the sake of writing. Make sure there’s something of value to share.
What other ways are you making sure you get the most out of your posts?
by tradespeopleinsights | Mar 4, 2010 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Traditional Marketing
We’re all focused on generating more leads these days, but I find it ironic that most companies don’t do much with them once they get them. Simply fulfilling a request is not the answer, but yet many companies do just that. According to a recent survey of people who have requested info suggests that 80% of all sales are made on or after the third contact. The survey conducted by Marketing Best Practices, Inc. polled over 700 respondents with only 8% buying after the first call.
David Frey, the senior content editor of www.MarketingBestPractices.com and author of several marketing books advises, “An educated prospect is your best prospect, and if they haven’t become a customer it’s because you haven’t fully educated them on value of your product and developed a relationship of trust.”
Why do many businesses have a problem following up with their prospective customers? Mr. Frey explained, “The problem is not that small businesses don’t have the capacity to follow up with prospects, it’s that they don’t have the systems in place to do it well.” In his recent newsletter, “Follow-Up Marketing: How To Win More Sales With Less Effort,” Mr. Frey advised, “A good follow-up marketing system should have three attributes:
1. It should be systematic.
2. It should generate consistent, predictable results.
3. It should require minimal physical interaction to make it run.
This leads to a more pressing issue and that is, what is the difference between sales lead management and a CRM tool? According to Russ Hill, President of Ultimate Lead Systems:
Sales lead management is a sub-function within an overall CRM strategy. Traditional CRM programs like Salesforce.com, SalesLogix, ACT, Goldmine, Maximizer and others focus on the sales person entering and managing his own data and pushing it “up” to management.
Sales lead management starts with management generating and capturing leads from all sources, fulfilling information requests and delivering them to the sales channel and tracking follow-up and sales results to measure marketing return-on-investment.
Here are some other interesting facts:
INQUIRIES MEAN NEW BUSINESS!
67% of all inquiries are from legitimate prospects with real needs.
34% have current needs that must be satisfied within 6 months!
70% did not know the company made the product before seeing their ad
. . . making them NEW PROSPECTS!
A six year study* of nearly 60,000 inquiries conducted by Penton Media Company also found that:
43% of inquirers receive literature and information too late to be of use.
72% of inquirers are NEVER CONTACTED by a salesman.
25% of sales contacts are made at the inquirer’s request.
40% of inquirers purchase the advertised product, a competitive product or change their suppliers.
* NED Reader Action Reports
The key is to get a lead management system in place that can help your CRM convert those leads into sales.
by tradespeopleinsights | Mar 3, 2010 | Social Marketing, Twitter
People use Twitter for different reasons. From a B-to-B perspective, why do you? For those of us who are trying to use Twitter as a marketing tool, you normally have a reason for using it. Twitter is a conversational platform. What kinds of conversations are you having?
I read a post recently from Jason Falls (a social media guy who I admire), Four styles of marketing on Twitter, and thought he hit it right on the head. Here are highlights of the Twitter styles:
Twitter Marketing Styles
- Conversationalists – Want to use Twitter for business, but will participate in the daily conversations.
- Conversational Marketer – Participate but with a stated purpose. They remind you of their newsletter or link you back to their blog.
- The Salesman – Less conversational and more to the point of why they are here. These folks, even though they put sales first, still contribute good info and links to their followers.
- The Broadcaster – Self promotion is the only reason they are there. They don’t participate in conversations and don’t contribute to the group.
So the question arises, what kind of Twitterer are you?
by tradespeopleinsights | Mar 2, 2010 | Marketing Trends, Social Marketing
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you must know that social media, even in the B-to-B space, is gaining traction on a daily basis. Top marketers worldwide agree that digital will increase in 2010. A recent article in eMarketer, Engagement on social networks top priority for marketers, substantiated these trends.
81% of the brand executives surveyed expected an increase in digital projects in 2010. Social networks and applications were among their biggest priority.
B-to-B marketers are evaluating traditional media investments and are reallocating dollars to paid digital spending. Digital allows marketers to measure engagement whether it be time spent on a site, page views or click-through rates.
What are you doing to capitalize on the digital age? I’d love to hear from you.
by tradespeopleinsights | Feb 25, 2010 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
Trade associations, by design, are supposed to be the “official spokesperson” for their constituency. Most though have missed the opportunity to harness the power of the Internet and social media. This is especially true of the more conservative manufacturing-type groups.
One such group that has done a great job in using the Internet and the social media tools is The Precision Machined Products Association (PMPA). They have a blog (Speaking of Precision) and are active on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.
Miles Free, Director of Technology and Industry Research (also Chief Blogger) says: “Our members value the PMPA for the ability to network. Using our blog to provide thought leadership, technical resources, advocacy, another channel for communication, and recruitment helps us help our members and the industry stay connected. We use social media to help us provide connection, effective advocacy, and keep our members and the industry apprised of critical issues. At virtually no cost. For PMPA, social media is key to effective associating.”
Here are 5 reasons they are using social media :
- Thought leadership – They want to be known as the “Experts” in their space and their blog.
- Technical resource – To keep the industry updated on issues ranging from the latest OSHA requirements to new specs for a certain quality program, as well as to promote knowledge retention.
- Advocacy – All associations need representation in Government whether it’s national, state or local. Their position on issues are vital and social is a great place to rally the troops.
- Communicate with members – Most associations have several ways to touch their members, but blogs let them focus on one key subject and communicate with them on a regular basis, but in a different format that they are used to.
- Recruitment tool for new members – All associations are looking for new members, and this is a way for new potentials to see what they are doing and identify themselves as potential new members.
So, if you belong to an association and they aren’t using social media, tell them they are missing a great opportunity.
