by tradespeopleinsights | Apr 17, 2009 | Marketing Tips
Blogging – you have so much to say and you want to be sure someone out there will read all those golden nuggets of information. Promoting your blog should be no different than promoting a new product. Your marketing strategy should include both push and pull strategies.
For social media, the pull part of the equation includes:
- solid content
- sound SEO strategy
- select key words
- encouraging incoming links
Push strategies can include many things, but the most obvious is e-mail. A recent post by Dean Rieck, How to build your blog using good old e-mail outlines ways to drive people to your blog. Here are 5 highlights:
- Offer an RSS feed. Many people prefer a reader over e-mails. Dean suggests that if you offer a subscription to your blog by e-mail, many will take you up on it.
- Start an opt-in newsletter. This is a great way to build a list with people outside your blog. Remember if you start a newsletter, make sure your readers are getting value or they’ll opt-out as quick as they came in.
- Post a subscription box on your site. Sign-up boxes usually work better than links that take you to a sign-up log.
- Encourage subscriptions everywhere. Beyond your home page, put your subscription box everywhere. Most blogs have templates so each page can include one. Put on your web site, your Linkedin and Facebook accounts. Some even include it in their e-mail signature.
- Manage your list. This by far is one of the most important elements. The old saying “garbage in garbage out” applies in this case. I use Constant Contact, but there are others like Aweber and Icontact, to help manage my e-mail lists. Their fees are minimal for what you get and are an easy way to deliver and monitor your activity. You need an accurate list to promote special products, pricing or events.
by tradespeopleinsights | Apr 17, 2009 | Marketing Trends
Brands are no longer defined by marketers, but by the very people we hope to influence – our customers and potential customers.
B-to-B marketers have to embrace the new engagement marketing (social media) as a viable way to target and talk to both customers as well as prospects. This is about developing a two-way conversation between you and your prospect.
Think about it – it’s like dating. If on your first date all you do is talk about yourself and don’t let your date get a word in edgewise, where do you think this relationship is going?
Instead, if you talk less and ask questions about her and her interests, you’ll engage her in a conversation which might lead to other things based on what is learned by both sides.
Engagement marketing works the same way. You need to ask questions, listen and respond. Customers know they have choices and want to be treated as partners, not prospects.
As a B-to-B marketer, it is increasingly important to establish customer loyalty because without it, it becomes an issue all about price and that’s a road no one likes to go down.
Engagement marketing is about a process that invites, engages, nurtures and then consummates into a sale. Once you do get the sale, you must continue the dialog and turn that customer into an advocate.
by tradespeopleinsights | Apr 17, 2009 | Marketing Trends
B-to-B marketers looking for ways to reach the professional tradesmen on the go have a new tool to consider – mobile advertising.
Emarketer forecasts that advertisers will spend 3.3 BILLION on mobile ads by 2013 up from 648 million in ’08.
As consumers (both B-to-C and B-to-B) embrace mobile technologies at an ever-increasing rate, emarketer predicts that 2009 may actually be the point where advertisers start shifting attention to mobile.
The industry’s turning point started with the introduction of the Smartphone, then the iPhone. 3G led to faster connection speed and the rise of Internet browsing and WI-FI connectivity kept the ball rolling. 4G is due out this summer and who knows what the next advancement will be. The only thing we know for sure is that it’s coming.
by tradespeopleinsights | Apr 17, 2009 | Marketing Tips
I’m convinced that a blog is a very effective marketing tool for B-to-B marketers. It provides a genuine opportunity to build your company’s brand. But don’t think that if you just create a B-to-B blog you are assured of traffic.
Three things you will need to have a successful B-to-B blog:
- Focus on a niche/market. You can’t be all things to all people as no one would read it. Pick a specialty (or several) and give the audience relevant and meaningful content. Talk to them about ways you can help them solve problems. Keep the marketing copy out of it.
- Make a commitment. If you’re not going to work at this, then don’t bother starting one. The costs of doing a blog comes in the form of time. I’d say you would have to put in anywhere from an hour to two a day to do your blog justice. You need to have at least 3-4 posts a week and they have to be meaningful. That includes researching, writing and responding. You don’t have to be the writer of all posts, but you must be the quarterback.
- Use the social tools available. Use things like Google Reader to help you organize what you’re reading. Twitter and other social media platforms will also build awareness, allow you to repurpose content and generate additional traffic. Integrate social and traditional strategies to make more of an impact.
To have a successful B-to-B blog, you need to pick a niche or target audience and write to them. An example of this is my blog. We’re a B-to-B marketing firm (bet you there aren’t a lot of them around). Why would someone want to read my blog when they can pick up a current issue of BtoB Marketing magazine?
The folks that our agency is best suited to help are the manufacturers who want to sell something to those professional tradesmen. That’s why our blog is specifically targeted to them as a resource for how best to reach this particular target audience.
We may have a narrow niche, but that hasn’t narrowed our opportunities. The Tradesmen Insights blog has enhanced our new business opportunities, allowed us to build awareness, interest and appeal to a specific target audience. We don’t appeal to everyone, but those with who we do, it is a strong appeal.
by tradespeopleinsights | Apr 17, 2009 | Marketing Tips
In the B-to-B marketing world, most companies have specialties or niche markets that they serve.
In our case, most of our clients target the professional tradesman which makes our task a bit easier than others. To reach, for an example, Electrical Contractors or Electricians, there are very specific key words that would drive them to your site like IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers), side-cutters or power bender.
Key words and SEO have long been associated with web sites. But blogs are actually more SEO friendly and much easier to update from information from your analytics.
Twitter isn’t there yet, it’s only a matter of time and search will be one of its most important elements.
Consistently using key words that your target audience would use to find your company will generate significant online traffic.
Companies make the mistake of assuming that once the initial search for those key words and phrases are done, they won’t have to go through that again. This couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Key words and SEO have to be a part of a continual process of monitoring and updating.
Tools like Google search allows you to type in key words and phrases to see what kind of activity levels there are. Especially in this economy where everything is being measured, SEO/organic search engine marketing has proven itself to be a good ROI.
Here are 4 tips to consider when developing your key words:
- Understand your audience. Since you’re in the business of making stuff, i.e. for Electrical Contractors, you should know their slang and buzz words. You should also know what’s going on in the industry. Don’t focus on marketing terms, focus on what the contractor would be typing into Google to solve his problem.
- Keep it simple. Because you’re talking to a specific audience (electrical contractors), you don’t need 1000 key words. The rule of thumb for key words is to have one key phrase per page. Having 6 or 8 only confuses the search engines so they’re not able to determine the focus of the page.
- Evaluate your competition. There are few companies that don’t have some sort of competitors. Look at their site and blogs if they have them. See what key words/phrases they’re using.
- Treat key word searches as an ongoing process. At least once a quarter, take a good hard look at the metrics and make tweaks where necessary.
What tips can you share to help improve your SEO performance?
by tradespeopleinsights | Apr 17, 2009 | Marketing Tools
Your blog can actually help you hone your elevator pitch.
People want to quickly know 3 things before they decide to read, much less bookmark your blog:
- Who you are
- What you do
- Why you’re writing a blog
If any of you have ever been involved with a local business networking group like BNI, you’ll know what I’m talking about. At every BNI meeting, each person has to get up in front of the group and give a 30 second “elevator pitch” as to who you are, what you do and what you’re looking for.
Your elevator pitch should be no more that 150 words. If you’re like me, it will be very hard to put so much into so few words. My elevator pitch has helped me with 3 things:
- My marketing tag line
- My social media profiles in Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, E-mail signature
- I read it prior to writing each post and it keeps me focused and on track
Darren Rowse had a recent post where he outlines other reasons to develop a pitch and has pointers on how to write one. You can read his post at: Write an elevator pitch for your blog
Here’s my elevator pitch:
Sonnhalter is a B-to-B marketing communications firm to companies that target tradesmen in construction, industrial and MRO markets.
We understand how to reach tradesmen and can integrate custom marketing programs for our clients that are empowered by great ideas.
We make efficient use of our clients’ marketing budgets with the right combination of traditional and new media.
We also generate the best return on investment for our clients’ marketing budget. Our philosophy is, if you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.
A blog is also a great branding tool for your company, especially if you’re using it for your business. But I’ll save that subject for another post!
