by tradesmeninsights | Nov 12, 2013 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
B2B prospects tend to be well on their way through the buying process before they even identify a company. Don’t you want to be one of those they contact?
In the 3 years that I’ve been doing a blog, I’ve seen more and more interest and yes, business that has originated because of what folks read on my blog. In many cases, by the time they identified themselves, we’re already talking strategy and have won the business. It’s a nice position to be in.
I recently read a post by Heidi Cohen, How to Make Your B2B Blog Your Content Marketing Tool that outlines 10 steps that will help you get there.
Here are some key takeaways:
- Understand your audience.
- Do an editorial calendar that ties in with your other promotional activities/events.
- Optimize content for findability via search engines.
- Distribute content by building regular readership either by RSS or e-newsletters.
- Use other social platforms to promote your content.
Blogs are time-consuming to do,but if you’re going to do it, then do it right. It’s a great way to stay in front of prospects on an ongoing basis, builds your credibility in the space you’re in and ultimately generates new business.
If you like this post, you may want to read:
Blogs that Reach the Professional Tradesman
by tradesmeninsights | Nov 5, 2013 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Trends, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
As we start planning for 2014, ask yourself this question:
When was the last time you took a hard look at where your marketing budget is going?
B-to-B budgets, while on the mend from the last few years, are not growing at the same rate as the tasks we are being asked to do. We all are creatures of habit and tend to go and support things that we’ve used in the past and have been successful.
Do this simple exercise. Pull out a spread sheet from 3 years ago where you have all your line items. I’ll bet you didn’t have things like lead nurturing, responsive websites, mobile apps, mobile marketing or content marketing as part of your radar a few years ago.
Yes, over the past few years you may have dabbled in a new tactic, but have you done enough to see if there has been any impact on your brand? I’m not saying you should abandon your current tactics, just make sure you’re not missing any opportunities that might help you sell more. You go to the doctor for your annual visit, don’t you? Why not put your marketing budget through the same type of process?
You may even want to get someone outside your organization who is familiar with your markets to review line items and make suggestions as to what you might want to try or include moving forward.
By using an outsider, you’re not worrying about someone trying to sell you something, and for some reason, outside consultants somehow get the ear of the C suite easier than you or I would.
Good luck in your planning process and at least set aside a portion of your budget to try new things.
by tradesmeninsights | Oct 30, 2013 | Marketing Trends, Traditional Marketing
Recently, Christopher Hosford, the East Coast Bureau Chief for BtoB Magazine, held a virtual roundtable discussion with some industry leaders about the future of email and where it’s heading. Here are some highlights from my perspective:
- Gmail – has moved to a tabbed format that is raising issues about open and read rates.
- Dynamic content – the wave of the future is to segment communications around real-time, behavioral-based messages.
- Mobile has an incredible impact on how people read their emails. 43% of all emails are opened on a smart phone.
- Automation tools are not a silver bullet – it’s the size and frequency that counts.
- Triggered email around events, time or a behavior-based activity.
- For B-to-B marketers, site visits or time spent on a site is more important, so you need good content to keep them coming back, especially for those in long selling cycles.
Their conclusion is that the future of email is bright because it builds on all these new ways of engagement and marketing perspectives.
You can read the entire interview here.
by tradesmeninsights | Oct 23, 2013 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Marketing Trends, Traditional Marketing
I think everyone realizes by now that mobile is the fastest growing segment of the business. While the biggest impact is on the retail markets, B-to-B usage continues to grow. So should you have an app? The answer to that is, will your app give value and help your targeted user with practical things? If yes, then you’d better get rolling.
comScore data shows that 63% of mobile commerce happens via a smartphone. Don’t take these retail numbers for granted. From a B-to-B perspective, giants like Amazon are leading the way in this category. That means that a consumer can buy a book as easily as a hydraulic fitting using a smartphone.
So the questions you have to ask yourself are this: do I have a mobile website, and if I do, is it optimized for smartphones and tablets? If not, you need to get a responsive designed site sooner than later. But just because you’ve built an app doesn’t mean people will come.
I recently read a post by Heidi Cohen, 21 Ways to Promote Your Mobile App that gives you quick ideas on how to promote. Here are some highlights:
- Promote your app on your website
- Promote your app on your mobile site
- Get your app in iOS and Android app stores
- Use it in self promotion from emails to QR codes in print and digital ads
- Promote it on your business cards and email signature
Let’s not waste an opportunity.
If you like this post, you may want to read:
Mobile Marketing to the Professional Tradesman – What are you Doing?
Things to Consider When Using Mobile to Reach the Professional Tradesman.
Is Your Website Mobile Ready for the Professional Tradesman?
by tradesmeninsights | Oct 22, 2013 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Traditional Marketing
Hopefully we all are using landing pages to both identify and segment new business leads. But are we just dumping content or are we using creative ways to cross sell, up sell to convert leads into sales? ioninteractive.com has a white paper that gives creative ways to maximize the use of landing pages to distribute your content marketing gems.
They bring home the fact that there is a fair exchange for content. In other words, is the perceived value of what they are getting worth giving up some contact info to you?
They cover ways to maximize content on your blogs, white papers, webinars, slide decks and infographics. Some highlights include:
- Blogs – give them a reason to do something else once they are on your blog. Give them something of value for free if they sign up. Give them a reason to sign into your database for future info (get them in the nurturing cycle).
- White Papers – most are gated which might restrict the number of sign-ins. Test a non-gated version, but put some call to actions within the paper for comparison chart, industry study, etc. that they would have to register in order to download. See which one generates more. The ungated will certainly bring in more numbers, but most of us are looking for quality not quantity so you’ll have to evaluate what might work best for you. You might want to also concert doing some teaser-type ads/emails that would include a top 10 list with a link to the white paper.
- Webinars – after the fact, what are you doing with the recorded version? Are you promoting it with links to either the webcast itself or to the companion slides? Are you including social links for them to share? Test a gated vs. ungated model to see which one generates more interest.
- Slides – utilize SlideShare to post the slides with links to the actual webinar (gated). Again, include social links for sharing.
- Infographics – visual always gets attention. Make sure there are several links to social, QR code and subscribe button so they have options of both staying in touch as well as sharing.
Their white paper is easy to read and gives you great ideas on how to get more from existing content. You can download it here.
by tradesmeninsights | Oct 8, 2013 | Marketing Tips, Traditional Marketing
You’ve worked so hard to close that big account and now that you have, your job is done, right? Maybe your job is, but it should be handed off to someone else to continue to nurture it.
Lets face it, new business is hard to develop and you’ve got a lot invested in both time, talent and promotional dollars to bring the new customer through the doors. Don’t you want to keep them?
Attracting new customers may be the easier of the task. The key lies in being able to keep them engaged and buying from you. Take off your selling hat and think about giving them value they can use in their job. This could be anything from a tip on how to do a process more effectively to sharing industry concerns. You might even want to give them a survey to keep them engaged and find out profile info at the same time.
Granted there are several ways to do that, among them using email. I recently read an article by Kevin Gao, in MarketingProfs, Email best practices for developing and maintaining crucial customer relationships by effectively using email.
Kevin outlines ways you can develop a marketing plan using emails to get the most out of them.
He addresses his 6 life cycle stages of a customer and gives examples of things we all can do leverage each stage.
- Prospects – Not-yet customers that need to learn more about your products/services and be persuaded to consider us.
- New Customer – Once you have them, you need to start developing and nurturing a relationship with them.
- Active customer – Make them feel welcome. Thank them for the business.
- Repeat customers – They have already bought into the concept that you and your products are good. Don’t overwhelm them. Keep in communication with them, but make sure they are spaced out and when you do communicate with them you give them something of value.
- Lapsed customers – Find out why they aren’t ordering and put a plan together to start up a regular communication with them.
- Inactive or abandoned customers – Should be broken into those who should not be contacted and those that might be persuaded to come back.
Do you have a plan in place to maintain key customers?
