Marketing communications firm wins silver award in the “feature article” category for its article on the subject of water quality.
CLEVELAND – May 2019 – Sonnhalter, a communications firm marketing to the professional tradesman in the construction, industrial and MRO markets, received a silver award in the “feature article” category at the 16th Annual Public Relations Society of America’s (PRSA) Cleveland Rocks Awards competition.
Rosemarie Ascherl-Lenhard, PR foreman, Andrew Poulsen, PR technician, and Matt Sonnhalter, vision architect, of Sonnhalter accept the silver award for feature article category at the PRSA Rock Awards.
The feature article, “Go with the Flow: Best Practices for Maintaining Water Movement in Plumbing Systems,” was written in collaboration with Viega, a leading manufacturer of pipe fitting installation technology. In 2018, Sonnhalter targeted and reached out to a top trade publication in the plumbing industry and pitched a feature article on the subject of water quality. Once accepted, Sonnhalter interviewed and collaborated with Viega personnel to develop an article that focused on how to reduce the spreading of water system-related illnesses. The winning feature article outlined a number of best practices for maintaining water flow and temperature with the intention of informing plumbing system designers and installers of some of the new ways to combat the risk of waterborne diseases. (more…)
Information on plumbing market codes, standards and certifications, key trade shows, industry associations, buying groups, training providers, top distributors, industry publications, blogs, online forums and more.
At Sonnhalter, we pride ourselves on working only in the B2T, or Business-to-Tradesmen, industry. And that means not only being up to date on what our clients are doing, but with their industries as well.
To that end, we have developed comprehensive Market Overviews for relevant industries, and continually update them. Our latest update is for the Plumbing Market. Please feel free to download, review and share, and if you have any questions, contact us.
Sign up for our updated Sonnhalter Plumbing Market Overview here.
Running a successful marketing campaign requires a number of different tactics, not just one “silver bullet.” Join Matt Sonnhalter for a Marketing Minute and learn how your company can get the most results out of your marketing efforts by using an integrated campaign.
To view other videos from Sonnhalter, visit our YouTube channel here and let us know if there’s a B2T marketing topic you’d like us to cover.
For those of you who might be looking for ways to generate more awareness and conversations, generating new content may not be your only option. It makes sense to use other social media outlets as a way to get your existing messages out.
To achieve higher reader engagement you need to know your audience, their habits and pain points. Different social media outlets reach people differently. So whether you’re looking to repurpose existing data or convert outdated info, consider delivering them in smaller bite size pieces using alternative avenues.
Looking for ideas on how to do this? This article in Social Media Examiner, “19 Tools to Create Social Media Content,” shows you ways to repackage existing material and use other social media outlets to get the message out. They outline several ways and give examples of tools to use.
Here are some highlights that I think manufacturers could use in reaching the professional tradesman:
Present your business via video. Tell your story, not the corporate one, but the one that talks about ways to come up with solutions to help contractors do their jobs better.
Use infographics. They are 30 times more likely to be read than pure text. People like visuals and are more likely to share them.
Convert long form content into slides. Use existing presentations and break them up into smaller groups. You can use them as PowerPoint presentations or there are programs that will easily allow you to incorporate animation.
Use podcasts to share your voice. Podcasts are one of the fastest growing mediums for social media and it comes as no surprise. Interview contractors and talk about the newest technologies. I’m sure you can come up with a multitude of topics to cover.
This post originally appeared on INSIGHT2PROFIT.com
Welcome to INSIGHT2PROFIT’s 2019 Pricing Challenge! Each month we’ll discuss a common pricing challenge faced by businesses and provide some tips to help improve your profitability.
First up, let’s talk about price leaks. You’ve set your product pricing, but after considerations like discounts, freight costs, program allowances, rebates and payment terms, how much of that price actually reaches your bottom line? Today we’ll look at how just one factor – expedited orders – can dip into your profit margin and how you can quickly address that challenge.
Has this ever happened to you? Your customer calls and says they need their product in three days instead of the usual two weeks. You jump through hoops to make it happen – interrupt your production cycle, delay other customers’ orders, pay extra for freight, pay overtime – and you do it for free to keep your customer happy. You just offered your customer tremendous value; you should be getting paid for it. How might you go about making that happen?
First of all, ensure your customers have a clear understanding of what your standard lead time is. If they ask about expediting, and your production team says it’s feasible, let your customer know there will be an associated surcharge.
Based on our historical tracking of expedited order requests, one of two things will happen:
You’ll save money. When faced with a fee, about half of your customers will decide they don’t actually need the order that quickly and can deal with the regular lead time. You neither disrupted production nor incurred additional expenses to meet a need that wasn’t real.
You’ll make money. The other half of your customers will appreciate that you offer the option to expedite orders and will gladly pay the surcharge, because it’s a small price to pay for being able to meet their critical need.
What practices could you adjust to stop price leaks and have an immediate impact on your company’s profitability? Download our 50+ Most Common Price Leaks Infographic to identify other areas in which you might be leaving money on the table instead of putting it in your pocket.
Since the social media scene developed years ago, it’s become cluttered. There are accounts on all social platforms that sit, gathering dust for years. Do any of those accounts belong to you or your company?
Thanks to Marie Kondo’s recent popularity, we’ve become obsessed with decluttering and organizing, so we thought it might be a good time of the year for a little spring cleaning of your social media.
By now, most companies have several social media accounts that have been running for quite some time and even a few accounts that have shut down (Google+) or become less relevant as a social media platform (Flikr). It doesn’t take much time to conduct a quick audit of your social media platforms and get back on track, if you know what to do. Here are a few pointers to get you started. (more…)
