by tradespeopleinsights | Nov 16, 2016 | Marketing Tips, Tradespeople Insights
By John Sonnhalter, Rainmaker Journeyman, Sonnhalter
When trying to gain new contractors, “the ready, fire, aim” mentality doesn’t work. Neither does “a wing and prayer” method.
Developing new customers is entirely different from trying to sell more stuff to your existing ones. Marketing needs to work closely with sales in not only developing a message, but a plan on delivering it. You also need to take into consideration that a lot of new contractors won’t identify themselves until they’ve done some homework on your company.
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by tradespeopleinsights | Nov 9, 2016 | Marketing Tools, Marketing Trends, Social Marketing, Tips, Traditional Marketing
By John Sonnhalter, Rainmaker Journeyman, Sonnhalter
If you’re a manufacturer and you don’t have a blog, you should. Why? Because 4 out of 5 B-to-B marketers use blogs. B-to-B blogs aren’t new, but manufacturers are finding out that they are a good way of setting themselves apart from the competition, and according to the Content Marketing Institute, over 50% of marketers expect blogs to be critical in 2017.
Challenges of B-to-B Blogs
Even though marketers expect blogs to be critical in the coming year, most B-to-B bloggers have some challenges … here are 3 of them: (more…)
by tradespeopleinsights | Nov 8, 2016 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing, Tradespeople Insights
By John Sonnhalter, Rainmaker Journeyman, Sonnhalter
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 So whether you’re looking to repurpose existing data or convert outdated info, consider delivering them in smaller bite size pieces using alternative avenues.
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by Sonnhalter | Nov 2, 2016 | Social Marketing, Tradespeople Insights
By Chris Ilcin, Account Superintendent, Sonnhalter
How to Keep and Generate Business with Social Media
So, you’ve got a social media presence. Congrats, but if you’re just looking for likes, and pushing out press releases, all you’re doing is pushing out.
How do you also use Social Media to pull in potential customers? Utilize a two prong strategy.
Part One – Tell us How We Messed Up (more…)
by tradespeopleinsights | Nov 1, 2016 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Tradespeople Insights
By John Sonnhalter, Rainmaker Journeyman, Sonnhalter
Sales and marketing need to work closer together make the selling process better. Marketing departments that create great content but don’t share it with the sales force are missing opportunities. Yes, it’s important to get it out on the blog and other social media avenues but your sales force doesn’t always have access to or are aware of what’s up there.
Sales is looking for support in the selling cycle no matter how simple or complicated the sales funnel is. This chart from emarketer.com illustrates that point.

Well-produced and -managed marketing content sets up awareness, creates demand and enables sales. Here are some key takeaways on how marketing departments can use content for sales support: (more…)