by tradesmeninsights | Feb 15, 2011 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing, Uncategorized
A recent survey of business people by Forbes in October of 2010 cited that a majority (60%) would watch a video before reading text on the same web page. 75% of executives said they watched work-related videos on business sites at least once a week with more than half doing the same on YouTube.
The study shows that video can be a highly effective tool in getting your message across.
So the question is, are you utilizing video to help you sell on the web?
If you like this post, you may like:
Make Videos Part of your Direct Marketing Plans to Professional Tradesmen.
Online Video Marketing: a Great Way to Educate Professional Tradesmen
by tradesmeninsights | Feb 10, 2011 | Marketing Trends, Social Marketing
Social media is beginning to make an impact on businesses, and a friend of mine, Michael Gass, shared with me a recent study by SmartBrief that recently surveyed 6,000 of their readers on how they use social media in a business environment.
To effectively use social media for business development, it is important to know who is using social media, how they are using it, what social media channels are being used, what goals are being pursued and tactics deployed that are providing measurable results. The State of Social Media for Business 2010 report, released at the beginning of 2011, provides information on the biggest trends and challenges.
Here are eight select themes and data points from the survey (purchase the full brief for more in-depth details):
- Most companies surveyed have adopted social media in the past 18 months. About half of the companies in the sample have been using social media for only the past year, with nearly 20% starting in the past 13 to 18 months.
- Companies are focusing their energies on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and blogs. The concentration on “the big 5” hints at companies being able to find their customers on these sites. With lower awareness and/or usage of other sites, including platforms such as Flickr with large numbers of users, companies might be missing out on more niche groups.
- It takes time for companies to incorporate social media effectively. More than 25% of companies with two-plus years of social media activity state that those tools and platforms have been fully integrated into their companies’ business models. In addition, more than 50% have a well-developed or fully developed social- media strategy, which is further evidenced by the use of multiple platforms.
- Brand building is currently the primary purpose for business social-media usage. Despite the primary goals of increasing brand awareness and building communities for customers and fans, the majority of companies surveyed use social media to broadcast information instead of creating two-way conversations.
- Communications, advertising and marketing agencies are the leading adopters of social media. Communications and PR agencies recognized the potential behind social media earlier than most industries. Likewise, advertising and marketing firms have realized the potential of identifying and reaching target audiences relatively early as compared with other industries. Despite their early presence in social media, communications and PR firms are not the chosen source of advice or consultation on social media for companies.
- Lack of management support and confidentiality concerns are atop the list of obstacles to social-media adoption. One-third of the respondents note they are not decision makers. Combined with the 14.7% citing management resistance, this indicates an overall lack of management support. In addition, 33.1% cite confidentiality issues as a primary obstacle. Taken together with the prohibition of social-network use at work, the data show that many companies are concerned about how their staff would use these sites.
- Less than 15% of the businesses using social media are measuring return-on-investment. Connecting social media efforts to bottom-line results is a skill that escapes most businesses that are using social media. Over 33% of the businesses in the sample are not measuring return on investment at all. Among those innovators who are measuring social media, most focus on usage and incoming traffic but not traditional business metrics.
- While 60% of respondents say their companies are using social media, there is low confidence in their social-media strategies. Companies are critical of their social-media strategies, with only 14.2% describing their strategies as “very effective” and only 7.3% describing them as “very revenue generating” on average.
These are a few of the report highlights of where businesses are in their social-media usage, confidence and measurement. The full State of Social Media for Business 2010 is available for sale from SmartBrief: http://www.smartbrief.com/research/ and includes:
- 145 pages
- 213 charts and graphs
- 6 data cuts
- Key indicators of social-media integration
- Comparative data based on company size and industry focus
- Benchmarks to assess where your company is on the social-media adoption curve
- An introduction by social-media expert and SmartBrief on Social Media Advisory Board member, Olivier Blanchard
by tradesmeninsights | Feb 9, 2011 | Marketing Trends, Social Marketing
My blog is an integral part of our total overall marketing program. We use it as the hub of our lead activity and think most B-to-B companies should be blogging as part of their overall marketing efforts. To that point, there’s a new white paper out authored by Tony Karrer and Tom Pick that asks industry leaders (and mine) their thoughts.
Blogging is often viewed as the core component of a B2B social media marketing strategy, and other than discussion forums, it’s the most mature component of social media. Facebook, Twitter and even newer tools like Quora may be sexier and get more attention, but blogs are the workhorses essential to making social media marketing work. Research from HubSpot shows that small businesses with blogs have twice as many Twitter followers as those who don’t. Increased search engine visibility, targeted traffic and enhanced brand image are just a few of the benefits of business blogging.
So what’s next for B2B blogging? What trends are likely to emerge in the coming year? To answer those questions, the founders of the B2B Marketing Zone asked 22 of the most influential b2b marketing and PR bloggers—including Roxanne Darling, Jay Baer, Ardath Albee, Erik Qualman and Chris Abraham—for their prognostications. You can get the whole story in B2B Blogging Trends in 2011, a free (and no registration required) white paper from Aggregage (the software that powers the BMZ site). Among the findings:
- If you don’t have a blog yet, 2011 is the year to start one. As less than half of all B2B companies currently have blogs, there’s still an opportunity to stand out and establish thought leadership in your niche. If your company doesn’t have a blog, you’re not a laggard…quite yet. But time is running out to grab the best intellectual spots of turf on the B2B blogging landscape.
- Blogging helps a company demonstrate expertise, it’s ideal for search, and as Blake Landau points out, “As push marketing becomes less effective, blogs become more important.”
- Blogs are not islands; as pointed out above, they are the central point to social marketing efforts. Blogging is most effective when integrated with other communications efforts including PR and email marketing.
- Although there is still opportunity to get started with a business blog, it’s crucial to do it right. Jay Baer predicts an “explosion of bad B2B blogs” in the coming year as companies scramble to embrace the medium, but many fail to do it well. To stand out and achieve business success with a blog, it’s critical to focus narrowly on the information needs of your customers and prospects, as Kristin Zhivago and Harry Hoover both note.
There’s much more. Again, you can download the complete Aggregage white paper on B2B Blogging Trends in 2011 here.
by tradesmeninsights | Feb 8, 2011 | Marketing Tools, Social Marketing, Uncategorized
Life as a marketing person isn’t as simple as it once was. With the arrival of social media, new expectations from your boss and new buying processes, where do you turn? Marketo recently released their new e-book, The Marketing Manifesto which outlines ways you can get quality leads and keep your ears on your entire market.
Highlights include:
- Exposing your beliefs – what’s your company’s passion?
- Value proposition – why should I believe in you?
- Think beyond digital – integrated engagements are the ones that last.
It also identifies 6 B-to-B weapons including content marketing, testing, analytics, lead nurturing, search and community.
It’s a good read.
by tradesmeninsights | Feb 2, 2011 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
You need great content to keep your readers coming back. And you need to shake it up a bit by using things like a YouTube video or Podcast of you interviewing someone of relevance to your industry.
People like a good news story, and an interview format fits the ticket just fine. Imagine if you could interview an industry expert, the president of a major trade association, or the executive director of one of the leading buying groups in your market segment. Wouldn’t you think your customers would like to hear what they are thinking and saying? Wouldn’t it be nice if you could get an industry scoop”?
I recently read an article by Ryan Malone in SocialMediaExaminer.com titled: 11 Ways to Improve Your Posts with Interviews that I thought was very interesting. The 5 top questions I got out of the article were:
- What are the 3 biggest benefits to your target audience and why?
- What are the top questions asked by your customers?
- If you had a list of best kept secrets (resources like websites, books, coaches), who would you recommend and why?
- What tips can you recommend that you’d only share with a close friend?
- Looking out 3-5 years, beyond the obvious trends, what do you think will be a game changer?
Have you had success using interviewing? If so, I’d like to hear from you.
If you like this post please pass it onto a friend.
by tradesmeninsights | Feb 1, 2011 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
Sales and marketing departments usually don’t do a good job communicating with each other, and when you add in a new tool (social media), there is even a bigger disconnect. Salepeople often have little exposure and experience with social and tend to shy away from it.
The reality is social media can open up conversations with both existing customers as well as new ones, and bottom line is if the sales department would realize the potential. I recently read a post by Karlie Justus, More Ways to Connect B2B Sales Teams with Social Media that got me thinking. Here are some thoughts from me on how Karlie’s ideas would be relavant to our market in bridging the gap between Marketing and Sales.
- Create Social Media Updates – Show the salesforce what’s in it for them. Ways to engage customers and potentials.It could be just what’s needed to start a conversation. Explain to them why you’re doing a blog and what kinds of things you’re posting on Facebook and Twitter.
- Show Them How Important it is For Them to Be Involved – If they understand what marketing is trying to do for them, they can help you build customer/prospect lists from things like their weekly call reports. Who knows better what types of things a customer wants other than the sales person? They can tell you what types of products they’re looking at, what market they are in, and a host of other valuable marketing insights that we wouldn’t have otherwise. Make them more comfortable by giving them a handout with talking points on the back that they can share with customers. They can ask them to start reading your blog, go to your forum to talk to other customers. You can even get them talking about LinkedIn and get them connected with each other. Once they understand the potential power of social, they will be one of your best resources for data.
- Educate the Sales Team with Hands-On Training – Give them practical and personal examples and once they are more comfortable with it offer to help them set up their own pages. Don’t expect total buy in. You don’t normally get that with anything you introduce. But if you can get half the salesforce to embrace and understand the benefits of social, then you’ve won a battle.
- Track Leads and Give Them Monthly Updates – Hopefully you have some sort of CRM in place to track traditional leads like trade shows, PR and print ads. Add social as another line item so the salesforce can see what kind of activities social is generating. Give them monthly updates (high level) of what social is doing for the company. Ask them what they might want to see. Do they want to see blog visitors by geographic location? Would they like to know which pages on your website are getting the most hits from Social?
These are some ideas that might help you engage sales in the social media scene. I’d love to hear success stories from the field. Care to share?
