By John Sonnhalter, Rainmaker Journeyman, Sonnhalter
As manufacturers we all know how important keeping in contact with our customers is. Email is one of the easiest and most effective way to do that and unfortunately for those of you who sell through a distribution process it’s hard to get the ultimate end user’s nameno less try to start a relationship with them.
That’s why it’s important to begin building your own database of both current and potential contractors. If you’re fortunate enough to make products that require a warranty card that certainly is a place to start. Other outbound marketing activities should include incentives for contractors to give up their contact info so you can start a dialog with them.
Give them something of value that would help them in their everyday activities, such as:
mobile app
some sort of calculator to help them estimate projects
Do you know that the average office worker checks their email 30 times an hour? Can you imagine what the stats are for contractors out in the field?
The point is that emails are very acceptable ways of communicating with each other. The key is to have relevant and timely info for your prospect.
Heidi Cohen gives us several reasons why email trumps social media:
Email provides directly measurable ROI – You know immediately how many opened and read your message.
Email is content format agnostic –It’s user-friendly and you can use text, images, videos, audio, PDFs.
Email can deliver both long and short content – Content can vary from a link to several pages in length.
You can control delivery of emails – Whether it’s now or delayed.
Emails can be read on anything – Smart phones, tablets, laptops, no apps required.
Emails build customer relationships – Once someone allows you to communicate with them, it represents a certain level of trust.
With all the marketing trends and new things over the last several years, email still seems to be the “workhorse” for most people’s marketing efforts. Recent research from Gigaom reports that over 75% of smart phone users check their emails on their phones. What I find remarkable, if you look at the chart below, 5 years ago paid search, SEO and digital ads would have been at the top of the list. Oh, how the more things change, the more they remain the same.
So what are you doing to grow your own email list?
By John Sonnhalter, Rainmaker Journeyman, Sonnhalter
I know we all know “CONTENT IS KING” and we focus on putting out good stuff. But we should be just as focused on building the list to whom we’ll be sending all this valuable info. There are so many sources for gathering data from trade shows, PR and leads from advertising. We need to formulate a plan to separate them by market, industry or other criteria so specific targeted messages can be sent with a strong call to action.
Organically grown lists will give you better delivery and open rates. They will also help your conversion rates since the prospects are more likely to open email. With folks being inundated with emails this will become an even more important factor.
It’s a fact that if you have an engaged database of subscribers, you have a captive audience, not only for them to read, but to share. I read a post on problogger.net by James Penn entitled, 10 Ways to Get More Email Subscribers For Your Blog that I thought brought home some key points.
Among them are:
Use multiple opt-in forms – have 3-4 in your newsletter template. The more you have, the better the chances of them signing up.
Offer a freebie for signing up – Give them a report, industry trends or white paper for signing up.
Use your most popular posts – They will continue to bring in traffic.
Create special reports on industry issues – Use already existing content to create.
Ask readers to join your email list – What better way to get people on board.
These are some great tips. What are you doing to increase your email lists?
By John Sonnhalter, Rainmaker Journeyman at Sonnhalter
Your potential audience doesn’t want quantity, they want quality. So if you’re trying to generate more content quicker just for the sake of having it, don’t waste your time. You need to accelerate demand, not noise.
The best way to connect with your audience is to determine what kind of content they want. In other words, what motivates buyer behavior and how do they get information? If you know these, you can build the correct content architecture.
What motivates buyer’s behavior? You need to have a deeper understanding of how a buyer thinks and then what do we need to say to get him over to our side.
How do they get their information? What type of content do they prefer and where do they go to get it?
Building a content architecture – Once you have an answer to the above questions, then you can map out a plan to get to them with the right info at the right time.
Content Marketing’s main purpose is to drive specific business outcomes. So the buyers aren’t looking for more info, just the right info. He points to a 2014 ANNUITAS survey where less than 3% of those responsible for content marketing activities were happy with their outcomes. Here’s another scary fact from Sirius Decisions — that 70-80% of all content is never used!
These are not good numbers to take to the C-Suite to get more funding. If you can’t achieve positive and measurable results that can be tied to sales revenues, you really don’t have a content strategy at all.
By John Sonnhalter, Rainmaker Journeyman, Sonnhalter
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. Below is an example of one of a series of videos we have done.
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.
We’ve been hearing for years that print is “dead” and digital media reigns. However for B2T, print is still and important medium.
Join Matt Sonnhalter in the next installment of our Marketing Minute series to find out more about why you shouldn’t call time of death of print advertising.
To view other videos from Sonnhalter, visit our YouTube channel here and let us know if there’s a B2T marketing topic you’d like us to cover.
By John Sonnhalter, Rainmaker Journeyman, Sonnhalter
Everybody wants answers, especially to problems, and they expect your customer service department to be on 24/7. This is especially true in the B to C market.
I recently had trouble with a wine cooler that was one month out of warranty and quit. Needless to say, I wasn’t a happy camper and I let the manufacturer know on their website over a weekend. To my surprise, I got an answer within a few hours and they are working with upper management to solve my issue. Now they may just be blowing smoke and we’ll see, but their responsiveness made me cool down a bit.
I ran across a study recently in emarketer.com “How to win at customer service,” that claimed most people just want their questions answered.
Here are some highlights:
81% of those surveyed just wanted their questions answered
89% feel more positive about brands that give good customer service
46% tell their friends and family about a quick response time
So what does all this mean to the manufacturing sector? Well the bar isn’t raised too high and we certainly don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
Here are some tips on how to serve the professional tradesman:
Keep your customer service department open on business days from 7 AM to 5 PM EST. If the contractors are having issues, you need to be available when they are working.
Staff your customer service department with experienced people who can answer questions, troubleshoot a problem or forward them onto someone who can.
