by tradesmeninsights | May 8, 2012 | Marketing Tools, Social Marketing
Do you know where your customers and prospects are spending their time online? Wouldn’t that be an important part of an overall social media strategy to find and engage them?
If trends continue, social networks will soon surpass internet portals like AOL and Yahoo!
I recently read an article by Phil Mershon in Social Media Examiner that highlighted five ways to use market research intelligence on how consumers behave on social media networks. Although the article is focused more on the consumer side of things, he brings out some points that us in the B-to-B world should take notice of.
Here are some highlights:
- Know where your customers spend their time – Over 21% of internet users spent their time on social networking sites. Do you know where your customers and prospects are spending their time? One way is to ask your current customer base where they find meaningful content.
- Develop content that is relevant to your reader – Content is king and if you want to stand out in the crowd, you need to become a good source for not only product info, but for industry issues. Remember, content isn’t about you but how you can help your customer or prospect.
- Take video seriously – Next to Google, YouTube is the most searched site. Video views have increased 43% and currently over 100 million videos are viewed daily. What are you doing to tell your story and points of differentiation?
- Consider the role of Mobile – 8% of all internet traffic comes from mobile devices. Make sure your website is mobile friendly and that content is easy to consume and respond to.
Using key words and investigating sources on the internet, you can find places where your customers and prospects are spending time. Get there and start engaging them.
If you like this post you may like:
Why a Mobile Strategy is so Important in Reaching the Professional Tradesmen
2012 Trends of Smartphones and Tablets
by tradesmeninsights | May 2, 2012 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
So what do you do when someone engages you on a social media platform? Hopefully you respond and give them the info they requested, answered their question or directed them somewhere to get an answer. But then what’s the next step? Hopefully you don’t turn them over to your sales force without first determining where they are in your sales funnel.
Does everyone within your organization understand your different stages in the selling cycle? Most sales funnels were set up for developing traditional leads. A question you must ask yourself is whether social media leads fit into your existing process and if so where? As a rule, social media leads take longer to convert because they are engaging you earlier in the process.
Nurturing social leads needs to be handled differently.This will include decision-making content designed to answer questions, overcome objections and provide opportunities that arise during the purchasing process.
I recently read a good post by Nichole Kelly in Social Media Examiner, 5 Tips for Moving Social Media Leads Into the Sales Funnel that I thought might be of interest to you. She makes useful points from understanding the sales funnel to optimizing the path to conversion and explains why social media leads need to be nurtured differently.
What do you think? Have you successfully converted social media fans and followers into revenue? Are you still trying to figure out how to do this?
by tradesmeninsights | Apr 25, 2012 | Marketing Tools, Social Marketing
This month marks three years since I started blogging on Tradesmeninsights.com. With over 500 posts in the system and over 500 followers who are signed up for my monthly newsletter, I thought I’d reflect a bit on what’s come out of all my efforts over the past three years.
If you’re doing a blog or thinking about starting one, make sure you identify the objectives and expectations at the onset.
Our objective when starting the blog was to talk to those interested in reaching the professional tradesmen and ways you could do that. We also wanted to help educate our target audience (manufacturers) on ways they could integrate social media tools into their marketing mix since most of them were very traditional on how they approach things and didn’t like change.
I can remember back in the mid 90s when websites were the big thing and how even back then manufacturers were the last group to come to the party. For those of you who have been around long enough, you will remember those days. Can you image a business today without a website?
To become a thought leader in marketing to the professional tradesmen was our primary goal. We knew that if folks like you (by the way, if you’re a regular, thanks for sticking around) got benefit out of my babblings, we would eventually connect and might even do some business.
We have established dialogs with several folks and have been fortunate to start doing business with several of them. It’s gratifying to be at a trade association meeting or shows and be introduced to people who know who we are because of the blog. And oh, by the way, we are getting business from our blog which was one of our other objectives.
If you do a blog, make sure you have clear objectives and an audience that wants to learn more.
by tradesmeninsights | Apr 24, 2012 | Marketing Trends, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
B-to-B customers are doing more homework online when it pertains to buying well before they start the actual buying process. So what are you doing to take advantage of these “opportunity zones” to be successful? B-to-B marketers – are you prepared for a more educated buyer?
We all are facing the challenges of doing more things with sometimes fewer resources, so it stands to reason that what we do, do we want it to give us the best results. Where are you getting your leads and how are you qualifying them? I recently read an article by Dave Thomas on B2B Online Marketing that talks about the results of a recent nationwide survey from BtoB Magazine and Bizo that highlights marketers biggest challenges in 2012.
Among them were:
- Paid search came in as the second-ranked tool for marketing, followed by display advertising (35 percent);
- 60% of marketers claim their biggest challenge this year will be generating additional leads;
- 63% of marketers state that their marketing mix either falls short of sales demand or they are not entirely sure their mix is working;
- 56% note brand promotion as a major area of focus.
What I thought interesting was that their biggest challenge was that leads were falling short of sales demands. I guess does that mean that companies are forecasting growth and in order to attain it, they need more leads?
I guess the question I’d like to ask is are you experiencing these kinds of challenges, and if so, will you share with the rest of us?
by tradesmeninsights | Apr 18, 2012 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
Now that most companies are back on the offensive and are actively spending more money on marketing, I thought I would ask you where are you getting the best results?
I know the big focus and conversations over the last few years have been on social. Have you jumped in yet, and if so, what kind of results are you getting? What about traditional things like print ads in trade journals and direct mail? Is anyone gaining traction with these?
So to answer my own question, we’re finding in our self promotion that both traditional as well as social media are playing important roles in new business development
A few years ago, we added social media to our marketing mix with this blog. It’s been a major commitment by us to do 2-3 posts a week, but our strategy is paying off. We not only have clients following us, but also potentials who are looking at going after the professional tradesmen.
The blog increases our visibility and also visits to our website. We’ve had a run on inquiries over the last 6 months from folks who have been following us and like what we’re saying. From the market overviews to Podcasts with industry leaders, they have recognized that we specialize in a niche market they are trying to reach and have come to us for help. What’s nice about these new business opportunities is that we’re not competing for the business.
All of our new business isn’t coming from social. We’ve had a print campaign going for the last three years in the leading trade journals where we put a false cover on the copies that go to potential advertisers in those markets. This too has brought us several new business opportunities.
So what’s working for you?
by tradesmeninsights | Apr 10, 2012 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
Reading Will Fuel Your Writing for New Business
Google Reader will save time and allow you to consistently share and create appealing content that will be of primary interest to your target audience.
Social media is a great tool for new business, but it is the creation and curation of content that will provide success. Creating content is difficult. If you are going to write effectively, you must read and your reading will fuel your writing.
Constantly using search engines to find your resources is not only a huge waste of time, but you can easily get distracted. How often have you started a search for something in particular and 1-1/2 hours later, you can’t even recall what you were looking for?
The key to creating good content is to have a simple system that brings an organized approach to your online reading.
One of the most effective time management tools for an online reading program is an RSS Feed. There are a number of RSS Readers to choose from. My personal preference is Google Reader.
Once you have clearly identified your audience, Google Reader can help to organize your resources around their interests. You can be sure you are on the same page as your audience, reading what they are reading, discovering their trade publications, information and research from their associations, etc. You can also glean important information from sources that are not specifically relevant to your audience.
Here’s a sampling of what Google Reader will help you do:
- Stay up to date with the very latest materials.
- Comb quickly through online resources from hundreds of source sites in a single place.
- Easily share your reading to your followers in Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Pinterest.
- Keep materials organized by creating folders and tags. Just like with email, folders help you easily find what you are looking for. It is far better than managing your email inbox.
- Quickly spot trends.
- Monitor your competitors or your client’s competitors. Know what they are writing and sharing.
- Create a consistent system that allows you to stay updated by reading the latest information from target audience’s industry publications, associations, even their competitors.
- Use it for Google Alerts. You will want to have a lot more alerts being created for specific type material than you would have coming into your email inbox.
- When online resource sites don’t pan out, easily drop them from your feed.
- Use the share settings to share your favorite blog posts and articles directly to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+ and other social media channels.
I have established the mornings as my daily reading time. Google Reader is set as the Home Page for my browser. It is the first thing I open each day. My readings are gathered from resources all over the internet and organized into a central location. It becomes my own personalized Continuing Education program.
If you read feeds on the iPhone or iPad, I recommend using Reeder, a nice app that can be used for that purpose. You will be able to view your feeds in “stacks” based on the folders that you have assigned to them.
Reader for iPhone: iTunes $2.99
Reader for iPad: iTunes $4.99
How are you researching for good content?
