by tradespeopleinsights | Feb 17, 2009 | Marketing Tools
As the economy softens, all of us are looking for opportunities to expand or protect our position in the marketplace. Researchers and analysts all indicate that digital spending will increase or at least remain the same for 2009.
Marketers are still spending advertising and marketing dollars online because this channel is extremely measurable and can be tied directly to return on investment. To maximize your investments, here are the top 5 ways to invest in your digital channel for 2009:
1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Outside of your own primary web site, Google is the next important to most companies. Making sure you rank high for the kind of content your target audience is searching for is critical to generating leads. Every search engine optimization (SEO) strategy begins with the basics: search engine-friendly site design and architecture, and the fundamentals of key word research and content development. Take your SEO strategy to the next level by implementing best practices and staying on top of emerging optimization tactics.
2. Paid Search (Search Engine Marketing)
Targeting key words and phrases for your marketing campaigns can pay off in both the short and long term and is a great complement to SEO. Search advertising with Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Live Search and other providers can be an efficient and effective way to advertise online. Starting with the fundamentals and advancing to expert tactics, you’ll learn how to build and optimize successful pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaigns. Engaging with a partner in your paid search campaigns can yield 40% or greater ROI.
3. Landing Page Optimization
A landing page is the page that appears when a potential customer clicks on an advertisement or a search-engine result link. The page will usually display content that is a logical extension of the advertisement or link, and that is optimized to feature specific key words or phrases for indexing by search engines. By optimizing your landing pages for SEO, paid search, and e-mail marketing, you can significantly increase conversion and lead capture rates.
4. Don’t Waste Leads
Stop wasting leads that aren’t sales-ready and start using lead nurturing to build relationships so that when they are ready to buy, you’re positioned to win. In a recession, new prospects are less likely to be looking to purchase right away — which means they are less likely to want to talk to a sales rep. Lead nurturing is even more critical in a recession to ensure you convert the precious dollars you spend acquiring prospects into revenue.
5. Engage Your Customers in a Relevant Dialogue
People are looking online for relevant content to their current problems. Start thinking of your web site in terms of what is and what is not relevant to your end-customers and identify and extract thought leadership in your organization. Thought leadership is found in people, not departments and roles. Most organizations have certain employees that always have ideas or are a step ahead of the organization. Incent those employees to come forward and start providing content through your web site to provide value for your customers.
by tradespeopleinsights | Jan 16, 2009 | Marketing Tips
The economic downturn can actually be a blessing in disguise. Marketing departments now have a chance to shine by showing how to work more effectively as well as to measure and account for their marketing decisions.
You don’t need a rocket scientist to tell you business is soft. The question is, given your resources and budget, how are you going to make your marketing work more effectively?
If we’re all truthful with ourselves, we’d have to admit that over the past 5 to 7 years, marketing budgets haven’t been scrutinized as much as they should have been. In today’s economy, those marketing budgets are in the crosshairs. Moving forward with the same-old, same-old is not an option.
Below are six ways you can make your marketing to tradesmen more effective:
1. Focus On What You Can Control
You can’t control what’s going on in Washington, the economy or most other market factors. However, you do have control over your marketing. Recognize where the demand is and go after it. Don’t be afraid to try something new.
2. Re-Evaluate Your Marketing Goals
Based on what’s happening with the economy, are your company’s marketing goals achievable? It may be time to re-state and re-prioritize your goals.
3. You Can’t Manage What You Can’t Measure
Take a hard look at the performance of your marketing plan. I know something like ad awareness is costly and hard to measure. But things like trade show leads, direct mail and online programs are measurable. Look hard and, if needed, reallocate and optimize your budget. You can’t afford underperforming programs.
4. Fish Where The Fish Are
You know who your customers and potential customers are. Make the most of your marketing investment and increase your visibility through targeted vehicles where your prospects will see your message and take action.
5. Integrated Marketing
We’ve always been advocates of tying your messages to various touch points for your customers. This synergistic method allows you a better bang for the buck! And don’t forget to bring the sales team up-to-speed as to what you’re doing. They’re an extension of your marketing efforts.
6. Focus On Quality
More is not necessarily better. The quality of your sales leads is far more important. If you adhere to the previous five suggestions, you will deliver better-quality leads, which will improve your bottom line and make everybody happy.
by tradespeopleinsights | Dec 18, 2008 | Marketing Trends
TRADESMEN INSIGHTS GOES MOBILE!
Mobile web is huge. There are over 2.8 billion handsets in circulation. Far more mobile devices than PCs. It’s a global phenomenon.
Beyond the numbers, there is vast potential of the mobile web by the way people use these devices:
They’re always on.
They’re always at hand.
They’re always personal, rarely shared.
No other marketing medium can say any of these things.
With the help of a great new service called MoFuse, founded by David Berube, Tradesmen Insights is now available in a mobile version.
MoFuse, or Mobile Fusion, is a web application that allows you to easily and instantly create a mobile version of your company’s blog or web site.
If your blog or web site has an RSS feed, they will use that as the main source of content for your new mobile site. This will allow you to create your mobile site using MoFuse and forget about updating it. All you have to do is keep posting to your blog!
You can also create static content pages. This gives you the ability to have pages like About the Blog, Contact, etc.
Users can customize almost every aspect of their mobile site. They can also upload their own custom logo or header image!
MoFuse will create a static link to your mobile site for you to share, it’ll look something like this: . You can put a link to your mobile site on your blog for your mobile visitors to click to be redirected to your mobile version. You can also use your own domain name.
Mobile Tradesmen Insights
