by tradesmeninsights | Nov 18, 2010 | Marketing Tools, Traditional Marketing
Are you looking for a repeatable way to provide training to your customers so your sales people can focus on selling?
Explore options for online training, best practices, what not to do and how you can launch a course in under a week. The presenter, Lisa Bordeaux from Bluevolt, a leading online training source for suppliers, distributors and end users, will be our presenter.
Join us to learn more about how manufacturers are developing product training courses that educate people on their products and building product experts in the field.
Our research shows that Distributor sales people recommend products to customers 2-5 times per day. They recommend what they know and most of the products they sell they have never seen in application. Learn how others are bringing those products to life online and making it easier to educate and market to the channel with partners, buying groups, customers and others.
Details:
Tuesday, December 7th, 2-3 PM EST. Registration is closed.
by tradesmeninsights | Nov 17, 2010 | Marketing Tools, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
If you are, there’s a new association that started in 2009 (good timing isn’t it) that deals with the construction industry and best practices to market to them. It’s called Construction Marketing Association (CMA) and they are out of Chicago. I’ve joined it as I think it’s important for those of us that play in this market can get together with our peers and look at what’s working and what’s not.
The founder, Neil Brown, has been in the construction industry on both the client and agency side for the past 15 years. Neil’s vision is to support marketers with a broad range of resources from monthly webinars, e-newsletters, blog, databanks and a network of professionals you can talk with on a regular basis. Neil is trying to start regional chapters as well, and I’ve agreed to head up NE Ohio.
The CMA is a start-up operation, but I think it has legs. The bottom line is in order for anything to be successful, it needs people to join and interact. Individual memberships are $169/year and there are corporate rates for 5 or more.
Take a look at their site and consider joining. I know there are some great marketing minds out there with a vast amount of experience in this channel. Won’t you share your knowledge?
by tradesmeninsights | Nov 10, 2010 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
When was the last time you and your IT department willingly collaborated on a project? The truth is, probably never.
The reality is in today’s environment, the customer is taking control of the engagement, and marketing’s challenge is how to get to the customer faster and more efficiently (customer-centric). Customers are turning away from companies who can’t provide the experience, channel of engagement and immediate service they need.
The CMO Council recently did a study sponsored by Accenture called Driving Revenue Through Customer Relevance, that outlines ways CMOs and CIOs can achieve Agile Intelligent Marketing together.
Now marketers may not be known to be the sharpest pencil in the box, but we do have a good sense of what the customer’s needs are (and all needs are not the same), while IT is usually all B/W.
According to the report,”CMOs must take a greater ownership of the customer experience and assume a leadership role in embracing digital marketing practices, data-driven strategies and new marketing process integration platforms across their organizations.” Technology now underpins and shapes the entire customer experience. IT departments need to take strides to be a stategic enabler rather than an operational cog.
The reality is working with or without IT, marketers are doing tactical things with e-mails,website analytics, lead generation, etc. with the ever-increasing pressure of ROI on marketing dollars no matter where they are spent. Beyond the spend, you need to look at what’s really the end game? It’s to get a new customer or make an existing one happy.
The moral of the story is for Marketing and IT to play nice. Remember, your pay checks come from the same account and together you can make a better impact for the company.
by tradesmeninsights | Nov 9, 2010 | Marketing Trends, Traditional Marketing
Everyone is talking about ROI especially when it deals with social media. What I would like to know is what/how are you currently dealing with what I call Traditional leads from ads (print and electronic), trade shows and websites?
Can you take a few minutes to answer our survey? Click here to take the survey. We’ll be happy to share the results.
by tradesmeninsights | Nov 1, 2010 | Marketing Tools, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
We’re taking a poll to see how B-to-B marketers are currently tracking leads (all kinds). It’s a short survey (7 questions), and if you want to get a copy of the results, there’s a place for your e-mail at the end of the survey; we’ll be happy to share the results.
To take the survey click here.
Share with your business associates. The more info we gather, the more meaningful the results.
by tradesmeninsights | Oct 27, 2010 | Marketing Trends, Traditional Marketing
American manufacturers continue to wrestle with the question – Does American-made make a difference? I think it does if you have a product that has some value added and it’s not considered a commodity. According to a recent by Harris Interactive, made in America does boost purchase appeal. Not surprising, the over-35-year-old set is the strongest demo. Older American and midwesterners are the biggest supporters.
Here are answers to the question: When you see an ad emphasizing “Made in America,” are you…
What are your thoughts on made in America? Does it make a difference?
Explore options for online training, best practices, what not to do and how you can launch a course in under a week. The presenter, Lisa Bordeaux from Bluevolt, a leading online training source for suppliers, distributors and end users, will be our presenter.
