by tradespeopleinsights | Jan 17, 2019 | Market Overviews, Tradespeople Insights
Information on construction market trends, 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 Construction Market. Please feel free to download, review and share, and if you have any questions, contact us.
Sign up for our updated Sonnhalter Construction Market Overview here.
by tradespeopleinsights | Jan 11, 2019 | Marketing Trends, Tradespeople Insights
By Rosemarie Ascherl-Lenhard, PR Foreman
It’s a new year, and a perfect time to take a quick review of the past year. Before we start doing the same old thing, we should take a minute to make sure what we’re doing is getting us the results we want. We’re cleaning, purging and issuing new challenges in our personal lives, why not do it for our marketing lives? Makes sense, doesn’t it?
As we are making these evaluations, it doesn’t hurt to check on industry predictions that can help us adjust our strategies to respond and align with recent discoveries.
Heidi Cohen’s blog post makes 10 predictions for content marketing success in 2019 that we find valuable as we navigate the shifting landscape. Here are a few highlights:
- Content saturation continues to increase, which is raising the cost of content marketing necessary to break through and get acted upon. Instead of creating new content, improve and transform pre-vetted content and use content audits to keep content relevant and increase traffic.
- Customers expect more personalized content experiences. Segment your email and other communications to deliver targeted messages.
- Post sales experience increases in importance. While customers may buy from you once, if you don’t gain their trust, they won’t stay customers.
- Content formats continue to diversify. Due to the use of more devices and screens tailored to personal and environmentally relevant needs, content consumption patterns continue to change.
- Influencers including brands remain relevant for content creation and distribution. Work with micro-influencers who have deeper connections with their followers.
Heidi has more predictions and recommendations, but the idea is to take the time to evaluate what you did last year, so that you can improve on it this upcoming year.
Happy New Year! Let’s make 2019 a successful one.
by tradespeopleinsights | Dec 20, 2018 | Tradespeople Insights, Uncategorized
The Sonnhalter team will be taking some time off over the holidays. We hope that you enjoy this holiday season and time with your family and friends!
We’ll see you in 2019!
by tradespeopleinsights | Dec 12, 2018 | Marketing Tools, Tradespeople Insights
by Matt Sonnhalter, Vision Architect
Podcasts are a very popular medium today and rightfully so. Podcasts can add another dimension to your audience as they can hear the voice behind the words.
Alisa Meredith wrote a piece on HubSpot on why marketers should be using podcasting and shows you that getting started is relatively painless.
Jay Baer, in an episode on Social Media Examiner, said, “There’s something about bringing somebody inside your head through your ear holes that ties you to that person in a way that reading a blog post or reading a book or anything else just doesn’t.”
Using podcasts is a way of building brand awareness as well as loyalty. Podcasting gives busy contractors another way to get information (let’s face it, we all only have so much time to read), and with the auto industry’s smart dashboards, it is making it easier to listen to.
You can also upload your podcasts onto iTunes, which can give you access to more potential customers who are searching for info on key subjects by key words or phrases. Don’t be obsessed with the number of people who listen to your podcast, but instead, be more concerned on the quality of them.
There are several ways that you can use podcasts to get to the professional tradesmen. Here are a few to consider:
- You initiate them. You can talk about issues affecting the tradesmen and possible solutions they could consider.
- You can interview industry experts or association leaders that can talk about everything from legislative issues that might relate to your business in the future, or talk about things you can do now to improve your business.
- Be a guest on someone else’s podcast. There are bloggers out there that target the same types of audiences you do. Follow them for a while, and if you determine it would be a good fit, contact the blogger and ask if they would consider doing a podcast with you. You’ll need to lay out the reasons why you think you can contribute to their audience and propose several topics for discussions.Don’t know any bloggers? Go to iTunes and type in under podcasts some of the key words that you are associated with. You’d be surprised at the number of podcasts that already exist. Listen to a few and contact the originator.
Podcasts help set you apart and allow you to be known as not only an industry leader, but if you do your own podcasts and get guests to interview, it will also show that you are wired to the right people who can give a different view or experience that will help your listener. It’s a win-win for everyone.
by tradespeopleinsights | Nov 27, 2018 | Manufacturing, Tradespeople Insights
by Chris Ilcin, Account Superintendent
As members of the manufacturing community, we all have abundant anecdotal evidence of the Skills Gap. But as people involved in precision and “measure twice, cut once” careers, we also understand that when you measure something, you can work on it.
That’s why this new study from Deloitte is so welcome. They have taken a good, long, hard look at the industry in general, and applied solid numbers and reasoning to the looming crisis. Additionally, they have partnered with The Manufacturing Institute to work on filling the gap.
For the Executive Summary and links to the complete study, click here.
by tradespeopleinsights | Nov 15, 2018 | Social Marketing, Tradespeople Insights
By Andrew Poulsen, PR Technician
While companies big and small have utilized social media to engage with customers for a decade, it wasn’t until maybe five or six years ago that we saw a paradigm shift in how brands used their voices online. Instead of using social media as just another way to talk to the consumer, many chain restaurants, sports teams, and other national brands now choose to talk with the customer by using Twitter, Instagram and Facebook the same way we do. They do this by sharing the latest meme, riffing on a recent news headline or crafting a snarky reply to an overly hostile internet troll. By choosing to be funny and relatable online, brands that were once considered drab and unexciting (i.e. Denny’s, Wendy’s, Moon Pie, etc.), are going viral with their daily posts and have amassed millions of followers, countless news headlines and the attention of that highly coveted 18-24 demographic.
But is social media really just a free publicity gold rush that turns any company that puts up a few cat photos and clever hashtags into an overnight viral sensation? Well, not exactly. For newer companies trying to break into social media, immediately measuring your success against huge, established brands isn’t going to do you any good. If you’re a manufacturer of linear actuators or ball bearings trying to capture the hearts and minds of millennials, do you really think you can compete with the Baconator or a Grand Slam breakfast special?
Like any other marketing tactic, the ingredients for a successful social media campaign involve patience, research and setting realistic goals for your company. In order to prevent you from becoming discouraged in your social media efforts, here are just a few things to consider.
Do Your Homework
When creating a social media strategy, instead of obsessing over your competitors’ numbers in terms of followers, focus on their content. What are the types of posts that bring in the most engagement from their audience? How can you adapt those styles of posts to what you do? How can you do a better job of making that kind of content? While racking up “likes” may seem like the end goal, engagement is where companies really start to see results. An audience of 100 people who constantly share, comment and interact with your posts will mean much more to your overall reach and bottom line than 1,000 people who just like your page and never engage with your content. And fortunately, there are a ton of great social media analytic tools that can help you find the people that are most likely to be interested in the content you put out there. With free tools such as Facebook Business, you can see which posts are getting the most interaction and adjust your strategy to create more of that type of content. (more…)
