For a major new purchase, do you think a contractor or tradesman just walks into a distributor and asks what’s new, and then just buys it? Of course not.
They hear or read about a new or better solution to help them do their job better and more efficient. They research what other tradesman think about the idea, either on forums or in person. They research it online and download information to help them. It’s at this point they may contact their local distributor or manufacturer to get more questions answered or ask for a product demo.
The point is, the contractor has done lots of research long before they identify themselves to you as a potential sale.
Marketing’s role is to make sure that the right information is in the right place for contractors, whether it’s in trade publication ads, testimonials, product reviews, customer ratings, PR or social media. The fact is, B2B customers are 60-90% the way through a purchasing decision before they contact you! Yikes.
These types of challenges require some sort of marketing automation tools to help you better reach and engage prospects. You need to determine what content they want, put it where they want it and understand the next steps in their process.
A new study published by The Content Marketing Institute identifies tactics that are working for manufacturing. The B-to-B sector has always been known to be slightly behind the curve when compared to consumer goods, but the manufacturing side is even farther behind.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that this sector is willing to try things, and this study shows that they are now identifying things that work and are focusing on improving them.
Beyond brand awareness, their primary concern is sales, and to get to sales, they need to generate leads. Ironically, even though they identify sales as the top goal, fewer than half use sales as a measure of content marketing success. One of the challenges is getting everyone on the same page as to who you are and what you want to accomplish. Mixed or multiple messages don’t work.
Manufacturers top 5 effective tactics are:
In-person events
Videos
Webinars/webcasts
Case studies
White papers
Manufacturers are presently working on:
Converting website visitors
Organizing content on website
Creating better, more engaging content
Better understanding their audiences and how/when they consume content
Finding more/better ways of repurposing content
So how do these results stack up with what you’re doing?
As a side note, this fall, Content Marketing World will have a whole day focused on the manufacturing sector and it’s worth attending. Great speakers and ideas.
As marketers, we’re all trying to do more with less which begs the question, when is enough enough? Or should the question be quality vs. quantity? I’m of the opinion that good content is better than more content and that we should be focusing on where it’s being targeted.The rule of thumb is your target audience needs to see your message at least 7 times before they believe it. That means you must have it on different venues to make sure you’re included. Heidi Cohen in a recent post talked about quality vs. quantity and how it’s affecting us all. These stats that only 38% marketers rate their content to be effective or very effective are disturbing. Especially for all the time and effort that you’re putting into it. Here are some more sobering facts from 2014 regarding more is less:
Brand-generated content by channel increased by 78%
Interactions per post per followers decreased by 60%
This might be a case of too much communications. We can’t stop, but we need to be more focused. It’s getting back to basics of:
Knowing your customer
Target content to meet your audience’s specific needs
Deliver it where they are looking
What kind of problems are you running into? Are these points resonating with what you’re experiencing?
SlideShare is probably the most overlooked social media tool.
Close to 70 million visitors a month second only to YouTube is nothing to sneeze at. 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? It’s a great way to market your business, 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 recently 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.
Heidi Cohen outlines 10 actionable marketing tactics to get the most out of leads.
Don’t miss out on this valuable tool that will help you not only become a thought leader, but generate leads at the same time.
Short videos are ideal for social media and for you to gain reach and shares.
As a manufacturer, are you capitalizing on this powerful tool to disperse your message? You don’t need a “Hollywood” production. As a matter of a fact, the ones done on a mobile phone would do just fine. We’ve done “man on the street” interviews with contractors at will-call counters and on job sites asking their opinions on tools and other products.
Did you know – Videos convey more info per minute than any other media and 65% of the public like to learn via videos.
In my opinion, you’re better off making a series of very short videos (keep each to one thought or idea). Ideally under 2 minutes is what I tell folks to shoot at.
Here are some thoughts on content.
Focus on a problem your customer might have from their perspective (what happened if the problem isn’t resolved?)
Provide tips to solve it.
Utilize the video medium to show examples or illustrate a solution. Here’s your chance to be creative.
Make sure they know your company has the solution to solve their problem.
Donna Moritz did a recent post in Social Media Examiner that talks about 6 ways to use short videos in social marketing. Here are some highlights:
How to video – solve a problem.
Highlight your skills – what better way to get your value proposition out there.
Showcase an event – trade show, association event or new product intro.
Go behind the scenes –give the viewer some insights of your company that they normally wouldn’t see.
She also outlines 10 tools you can use to create and edit short videos.
The bottom line is, use video in your marketing efforts.
I don’t know about you, but LinkedIn continues to be a top performer for me and my blog posts. The top referrer is search engines, but LinkedIn is a strong second and Twitter is third for getting the right eyes on my blog.
A recent article in eMarketer.com confirms the fact that among top social sites for B-to-B, LinkedIn remains on top for both usage and effectiveness.
I use LinkedIn exclusively to share my posts with not only the folks that linked to me, but to the numerous LinkedIn groups that I belong to. I’ve had clients who have great success in recruiting the right kind of talent using their paid job searches.
Are you using LinkedIn, and if so, are you having similar success?
Beyond brand awareness, their primary concern is sales, and to get to sales, they need to generate leads. Ironically, even though they identify sales as the top goal, fewer than half use sales as a measure of content marketing success. One of the challenges is getting everyone on the same page as to who you are and what you want to accomplish. Mixed or multiple messages don’t work.
These stats that only 38% marketers rate their content to be effective or very effective are disturbing. Especially for all the time and effort that you’re putting into it. Here are some more sobering facts from 2014 regarding more is less: