by tradesmeninsights | Aug 23, 2016 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Social Marketing
By John Sonnhalter, Rainmaker Journeyman, Sonnhalter
Social media has been around long enough that by now you should have an idea of whether or not it’s working for you. Is it? Do you really know? Do you really care?
I guess the first question we should ask ourselves is why are we doing it? Hopefully it’s not because everyone else is. The next question would be which of the many social media options out there are you focusing on?
Let’s explore the first question – Why are you doing it?
- Are you really sold on it?
- How much of your promotional budget is set aside for social?
- Do you have a written strategy for social?
- Do you have some way of defining and measuring success?
If you’re really sold on it, you’d have a written plan and a dedicated person responsible for its implementation and success.
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by tradesmeninsights | Aug 17, 2016 | Uncategorized
This post originally appeared on INSIGHT2PROFIT.com
Achieving significant pricing gains can feel like a long, hard-fought battle. This makes it all the more satisfying when the numbers start to roll in, validating your efforts and proving without a doubt that profitability is attainable.
The thought of losing those gains may keep you up at night. What safeguards can you put in place to protect the gains you’ve achieved and prevent your company from sliding back into past poor pricing habits?
It all starts with building a confident sales force.
by tradesmeninsights | Aug 16, 2016 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Marketing Trends
By John Sonnhalter, Rainmaker Journeyman, Sonnhalter
I think we all can agree that content marketing is playing a vital role in everyone’s overall marketing plan. Everyone wants lead generation and engagement, and to get both, you have to give them good content!
In a September 2015 study by the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) and MarketingProfs, 76% of B2B marketers in North America said they expect to create more content in 2016 than they did in 2015.
Contractors and professional tradesman often don’t have time to read the latest trade publication or look at the magazines’ website on a regular basis and might miss your message. Chances are, unless you only make one product, their interest at any given time may be on another product.
When they do go looking for things, the first place most go to is the internet, and the chances are that they are looking for a solution just as much as they are looking for a specific product. That’s why search is so important in the big scheme of things, and what makes you go up in search – good meaningful content!
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by tradesmeninsights | Aug 10, 2016 | Marketing Tools, Marketing Trends
By John Sonnhalter, Rainmaker Journeyman, Sonnhalter
B to B trends tend to follow retail ones and here’s one more. I’ve been a big proponent of using emails as the best way to reach the professional contractors and tradesman and here are further reasons to consider this tactic.
A recent study by email on acid reported that email marketing is going to remain a top priority for companies in 2016. Though we could have predicted this was the case, nearly three out of four companies (71.8 percent) say they are planning to spend more time on email production and more than four out of five (86.7 percent) report that they will increase email marketing budgets this year.
A great email doesn’t mean anything if you don’t have a good list to send it to. That’s why building your own list is so important. You want to have an opted-in list so you can be assured your message gets by the firewalls and junk mail boxes.
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by tradesmeninsights | Aug 9, 2016 | Marketing Tips
Today we have a guest post from Russ Hill, Founder and CEO of Ultimate Lead Systems. 
With a couple of decades of experience helping companies with their B2B sales lead management and CRM programs, 6 Best Practices have revealed themselves that I would like to share. I’ve witnessed companies succeed and increase sales by diligently applying these practices. I’ve also seen organizations waste thousands of marketing dollars and lose thousands of dollars in sales opportunities by ignoring these practices. If you are serious about improving your sales and marketing ROI, these practices will lead you to some big wins.
1. Get your sales and marketing teams on the same page
First of all, Sales and Marketing need to re-think how they fundamentally interact. They frequently operate in their own “silos.” They need to learn how to support each other to release their inherent synergy to increase sales. Customers are rarely ready to sign a purchase order when reps first call. And reps are usually not present when the purchasing decision is made. Thus, today’s marketing programs need to nurture buyers throughout their buying process and notify the rep when a buyer is ready to engage. Marketers must send the right messages out at the right time that appeal to all of the buying influences. And the sales person must make multiple calls on the right people to further cultivate the relationship. It is a team selling approach. Everyone has a role and responsibility.
Industry research shows that buyers are 60% into their buying process before they engage your company or sales person, so it’s crucial to have sales and marketing working together.
by tradesmeninsights | Aug 3, 2016 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing, Uncategorized
By John Sonnhalter, Rainmaker Journeyman, Sonnhalter
Close to 70 million visitors a month, five times more traffic from business owners than Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn. SlideShare was purchased by LinkedIn a few years ago which allows both platforms to work seamlessly together, which is good news for you.
Why should you consider using it? Contractors like visuals and are wanting to learn more of how or why to do things a certain way.
It’s a great way to market your business, and showcase your expertise as an industry leader. Not only can you put up Power Point presentations and white papers, you can upload videos by using SlideSharepro and have a way to repurpose your webinars or online training options.
If you’re worried about sharing your information with the world, you can upload content that you can make available to select audiences (by invitation only).
The most important reason for using SlideShare is to generate leads. Peg Fitzpatrick wrote a great post on Social Media Examiner on ways to capitalize on getting leads.
She focuses on ways to collect emails from viewers, how to use links in slides, why you should add visual calls to action and lastly, why the description. It’s a good quick read. (more…)
