by tradesmeninsights | Oct 13, 2015 | Marketing Tips, Tradesmen Insights
By Chris Ilcin, Account Superintendent at Sonnhalter
Ask yourself and a few other people in your organization to name your top-selling product. If anyone answers with a product number, you’re doing it wrong. Don’t think like your catalog or even your current customers. Think like the customer you don’t have yet.
A potential customer doesn’t know you or your company and certainly hasn’t memorized your product numbers. They may not even know that they need your product yet.
All they know is that they have a problem, and they’re desperately looking for a solution.
Help them find it – and you.
Start by not thinking about what you make, but why you made it. What purpose does it serve? What niche it fills? Or, what issues it helps resolve?
Use the answers to those questions as the basis for white papers, success stories and as key words in press releases, websites and YouTube videos.
Put all that out there, and when a customer with an issue starts searching for an answer, your crumb trail of keywords will lead them to you. Make it so that where your marketing efforts don’t bring your product to a customer. Have their search bring them to you.
The best part about turning the tables like this is that it can be a refreshing change of perspective for your entire organization. It makes everyone get out of their silo and put themselves in a customer’s shoes. That can affect not only marketing and SEO, but also product development, customer service and morale.
by tradesmeninsights | Oct 7, 2015 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Marketing Trends, Tradesmen Insights
By John Sonnhalter, Rainmaker Journeyman at Sonnhalter
First of all, do you have a lead nurturing program? If the answer is no, you may want to consider one and here’s why.
In a recent article in eMarketer.com, there were some interesting findings in a study done by Demand Gen Report (DGR) in July of 2015
- Over 50% of U.S. B-to-B marketers said nurturing programs outperformed their counterparts from 10-30%.
- These leads outperformed others in moving through the sales funnel, and respondents reported a 10-30% increase in sales opportunities.
The key in lead nurturing is being able to define specific markets and subsequent messaging. You need to be relevant. Email was the most widely used tactic with over 94% using it.
Another interesting stat is that 42% of consumers will delete an email if it isn’t mobile friendly, so keep that in mind.
So do some of these stats resonate with what you’re doing?
If you like this post you may want to read:
Lead Nurturing: What Industrial Marketers Need to Know.
For Your Lead Nurturing Program-Where do you Find Good Content?
What’s the Difference Between Lead Nurturing and Follow-up Calls?
by tradesmeninsights | Oct 6, 2015 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Trends, Social Marketing, Tradesmen Insights
By John Sonnhalter, Rainmaker Journeyman at Sonnhalter
We live in a society that expects immediate gratification. This spills over into our business lives, and companies expect an immediate ROI on almost everything today — Content Marketing is no exception.
Some companies are putting more eggs in the content marketing basket and are expecting big results in a short period of time. The problem is, to build a loyal audience, it takes time. They need to get to know, like and trust you and that doesn’t happen overnight.
If you want immediate results, use traditional outbound tactics like direct mail to generate short-term activity.
Joe Pulizzi, Founder of Content Marketing Institute found in interviewing a number of entrepreneurs for his book, Content Inc., that it took at least 15 months to grow a loyal audience.
This is no surprise for those of us who have been doing this for some time. For those that are trying to get a content program going they need to do some ground work to let management what to expect and when to expect it.
Joe offers some suggestions on getting in the game while you try to build a case for the BIG push.
- Do a pilot program – choose a market category and put metrics like increases search engine ranking or number of leads that will demonstrate to the bean counters that it’s working.
- Fear Factor – analyze your competition and make the case that your company is losing web visibility.
- Find a sugar daddy – identify solutions to key pain points for your sales leaders and you may find that they not only will become your advocate, but may find funds short term to fund your efforts.
The bottom line is that it takes time, so be patient!
by tradesmeninsights | Sep 30, 2015 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Marketing Trends, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing, Uncategorized
By John Sonnhalter, Rainmaker Journeyman at Sonnhalter
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!
Heidi Cohen had an interesting article regarding advertising vs. content driven messages that had some good points for the B-to-B market.
B-to-B lags behind the consumer counterpart in doing research before they contact a manufacturer or distribution point. But even at 57%, you’d better have some skin in the game from a search perspective or you’re going to be left at the curb.
Razorfish found that:
- 50% of U.S. consumers will do anything to avoid ads
- 75+% of U.S. consumers hate hearing or seeing ads multiple times
- 65% of U.S. consumers use a DVR to skip ads
Those are some scary numbers, and even though they are consumer driven, remember that those same consumers may be buying your products at their workplace. So what’s the alternative?
- 86% of U.S. consumers value brands that are useful over those that have interesting advertising.
Translation: give your customers the info they need when they need it. Here are some tips:
- Leverage the social media platforms where your customers hang out.
- Supply product info for potentials to seek out.
- Tap into sources your customers trust, like trade associations.
- Make sure the info you give prospects enhances the product value.
- Skip the promotion and show them best practices when using your products.
- Re-promote your content. Once is not enough.
So the question is, how much effort are you using to create great content?
by tradesmeninsights | Sep 29, 2015 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools
By John Sonnhalter, Rainmaker Journeyman at Sonnhalter
When developing content, manufacturers may be concentrating on the wrong types, making the results less than desirable. Many focus on product brochures and slide presentations as they are easily available.
These may be low hanging fruit for development, but they’re also not delivering the results they want. According to a recent survey by the CMO Council, NetLine and Content ROI Center, brochures only delivered 9% great leads and slide presentations only 15%.
A recent article eMarketer.com talks about ways to improve performance on developing content.
Content pieces that weren’t “salesy” drew much better numbers. It’s not surprising that white papers, industry reports, videos and webcasts scored better.
This should serve as a wake-up call for all those manufacturers that are trying to make an impact on contractors and professional tradesmen. Get away from selling and start helping them solve their problems.
If you want to get noticed and build up your credibility, this is the way to do it. Chances are you already have many of the assets needed to do most of these tasks, from how-to videos to webinars talking about a specific topic. I know you’ve got the brain trusts inside your company to either create the white papers or do the videos; why not capitalize on their expertise?
We also need ways to measure the effectiveness of these tasks and try to link back leads to actual sales. Landing pages are a great way to start collecting data and nurturing campaigns will help them through the selling cycle.
Let’s face it, we all have limited time and budgets and we need to make the most out of both.
by tradesmeninsights | Sep 23, 2015 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
By John Sonnhalter, Rainmaker Journeyman at Sonnhalter
I have found that there’s no better way to position yourself as a credible source than by having a third party sing your praises. Most companies, if pleased with what you did or supplied, would be happy to not only give you a recommendation, but in some cases, a testimonial.
Here are five things to consider:
- Keep the requests to unique applications or markets. This helps you focus on something that sets you apart.
- Ask when the project is complete – when everything is fresh in everybody’s mind.
- Get proper clearances upfront – when dealing with bigger companies or unique situations, it’s smart to get an approval upfront and let the customer know what you want to accomplish and assure them that they will have final approval before it’s used. If you have a PR department or agency, they are used to vetting out potential before you waste time and resources.
- It’s best you control the writing. Most customers are not writers, they’re contractors. Besides, they aren’t aware of the big picture of what you’re ultimately trying to accomplish. Write an outline of what you want to accomplish and then let someone interview the contractor and write the story.
- Utilize info in multiple places – try to get it featured in a leading trade magazine. Post it on your website. Have a sell sheet made up for your salesmen to use. If you’re on social media, post it there with links back to your website. Here’s a good example of Viega that uses case studies very effectively.
Don’t miss out on one of the best ways of building credibility using a third party.
Don’t miss out on one of the best ways of building credibility using a third party.