by tradesmeninsights | Sep 2, 2015 | Marketing Tools, Marketing Trends, Traditional Marketing
By John Sonnhalter, Rainmaker Journeyman at Sonnhalter
I have a running conversation with clients about which is better, a traditional direct mail program or an e-blast. It’s a tough question to answer and I’m not too sure there is only one answer. There are challenges for using both methods and we have seen it become more and more difficult to get emails delivered even if we use opt-in lists from trade publications and have them send it out under their name.
I think that when reaching out to our target market, the professional tradesman, you have just as good, if not better of a chance, of reaching them with traditional snail mail.
We recently did a sampling program for a client who wanted to focus more on the electronic side of things and wanted to use more, if not most, in this media. They assumed that direct mail was a thing of the past and was too costly (neither of which are true). We convinced them to give both a try and the results were surprising.
The direct mail portion of the program outperformed, on average, 3-to-1 over the e-blasts. We used the same criteria for both lists and sent both within 2 weeks of each other. We’re doing a second test using the same message and list parameters and it will be interesting to see if it still holds true.
We’ve all used both of these marketing tools. My question to you is…have you found one tool better than the other in reaching contractors or the professional tradesman?
by tradesmeninsights | Sep 1, 2015 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
By John Sonnhalter, Rainmaker Journeyman at Sonnhalter
Testimonials are one of the best ways to validate your products/services, especially if it’s from a contractor. Don’t be afraid to ask as most are more than willing to participate. Once you get them, make sure to repurpose them in several areas. Put it on your website; if you have a blog, do a post. If you’re on social media, share a link. Do project profile sheets that your salesman and distributors can use in the field.
Third-party validation is a powerful tool for new business. Testimonials help to eliminate skepticism, provide credibility and trust. If done correctly, it’s one of the easiest and most effective ways of creating appeal with potential contractors.
Here are some tips for creating and using testimonials:
- Don’t be generic. Specific, detailed testimonials are much stronger than those that are general and vague.
- Prospects are more likely to believe testimonials that are attributed to a specific person and company than those that hide their identify. I’ve found that most happy clients are glad to provide a written recommendation and are willing to have their name attributed to the testimonial.
- Provide testimonials on your firm’s website, your online brochure. They should be used anywhere and everywhere on your site. Not just on a testimonial page. Also include them in other materials used to promote your company. The more places potential clients can see them, the better.
- Develop a consistent process to solicit testimonials from your satisfied clients. The best time to ask is immediately after you have done business with them.
- An easy way to request a recommendation is through LinkedIn. You can ask your connections to write a recommendation of your work that you can display on your profile, and with their permission, you can add it to other materials used to publicize your company. LinkedIn is also a great place to give testimonials in order to get testimonials.
- Whenever you receive a great letter or e-mail from a client, be sure to ask them if you can use their comments as a recommendation.
- Adding pictures to testimonials can significantly increase interest and raise their CTR.
- Providing a link to the site of the person who wrote the testimonial can bring additional credibility.
- Don’t neglect to create some select video testimonials. These are much more personal and powerful than just written copy.
- Good testimonials are filled with benefits. That’s what prospective clients are really looking for, how your services benefit them.
- When asking for testimonials, give your clients clear instructions on what you need. Make them as specific as possible.
- I’ve found that setting up a Google Alert to receive daily emails of who is talking about your company is a way to discover additional testimonials.
If you aren’t using testimonials, you’re missing out on a simple, but great tool for new business.
Do you have any additional tips to share? Please add them in to the comment section below.
by tradesmeninsights | Aug 25, 2015 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Trends, Traditional Marketing
By John Sonnhalter, Rainmaker Journeyman, Sonnhalter
We’re all focused on generating more leads these days, but I find it ironic that most companies don’t do much with them once they get them. Simply fulfilling a request is not the answer, but yet many companies do just that. According to a survey of people who have requested info suggests that 80% of all sales are made on or after the third contact. The survey polled over 700 respondents with only 8% buying after the first call.
David Frey, the senior content editor and author of several marketing books advises, “An educated prospect is your best prospect, and if they haven’t become a customer, it’s because you haven’t fully educated them on the value of your product and developed a relationship of trust.” Why do many businesses have a problem following up with their prospective customers? Mr. Frey explained, “The problem is not that small businesses don’t have the capacity to follow-up with prospects, it’s that they don’t have the systems in place to do it well.”
In his recent newsletter, “Follow-Up Marketing: How To Win More Sales With Less Effort,” Mr. Frey advised, “A good follow-up marketing system should have three attributes:
- It should be systematic.
- It should generate consistent, predictable results.
- It should require minimal physical interaction to make it run.
This leads to a more pressing issue and that is, what is the difference between sales lead management and a CRM tool? According to Russ Hill, President of Ultimate Lead Systems: Sales lead management is a sub-function within an overall CRM strategy. Traditional CRM programs like Salesforce.com, SalesLogix, ACT, Goldmine, Maximizer and others focus on the sales person entering and managing his own data and pushing it “up” to management.
Sales lead management starts with management generating and capturing leads from all sources, fulfilling information requests and delivering them to the sales channel and tracking follow-up and sales results to measure marketing return-on-investment.
Here are some other interesting facts:
INQUIRIES MEAN NEW BUSINESS!
- 67% of all inquiries are from legitimate prospects with real needs.
- 34% have current needs that must be satisfied within 6 months!
- 70% did not know the company made the product before seeing their ad … making them NEW PROSPECTS!
A six-year study* of nearly 60,000 inquiries conducted by Penton Media Company also found that:
- 43% of inquirers receive literature and information too late to be of use.
- 72% of inquirers are NEVER CONTACTED by a salesman.
- 25% of sales contacts are made at the inquirer’s request.
- 40% of inquirers purchase the advertised product, a competitive product or change their suppliers.
* NED Reader Action Reports
The key is to get a lead management system in place that can help your CRM convert those leads into sales.
by tradesmeninsights | Aug 18, 2015 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
By John Sonnhalter, Rainmaker Journeyman at Sonnhalter
Video is a powerful tool. Consumers view more than 8 billion videos a day on YouTube and Facebook. That alone should tell you something – that people like videos. Why should you use short videos to attract the professional tradesman? Show how to solve a problem or demo a new tool or application.
Although there’s no specific research for the B-to-B sector, and more specifically to the professional tradesman, I think it would be safe to assume that these folks like to watch them as well. Here are 12 tips for effective tradesman videos. By using testimonials and showing how a product is used, videos also help move prospects through the sales process.
A recent study was done by Animoto of 1,000 consumers on how they interact with and feel about companies who use videos. Here are some highlights:
- 25% of consumers lose interest in a company if they don’t use video.
- Email open rates can increase by up to 50% if video is included.
- 75% believe a video describing a service is important.
- 80% believe a demo video is helpful.
How are you using video to help you sell?
by tradesmeninsights | Jul 28, 2015 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
By John Sonnhalter, Rainmaker Journeyman at Sonnhalter
Landing pages are microsites where prospects go when they click-through a link.
Hopefully, as part of your strategy to move prospects along the selling cycle, you are using landing pages in order to deliver on what you promised. It’s also a great way to track responses and gather contact info. It could also be a way of losing a potential customer.
Here are some tips that might help results:
- Keep it simple – Deliver on what you promised to get them there in the first place.
- It’s not about you – How can you help them with a problem that got them there in the first place.
- This is not an ad – They’re not looking for a sales pitch, but answers to specific questions.
- Powerful content – Keep it relevant. Don’t focus on key words. Instead, make what you say useful and valuable.
Landing pages focus the visitor on the next step in the process.
All too often, folks want to talk about 5 different things and give them additional links. It won’t work. Just ask yourself – why did they click on a call-to-action that got them here? Then deliver what you promised.
If you want to learn more, you might want to read:
Are you Using Landing Pages?
Product Landing Pages: Tips on How to Improve Performance
by tradesmeninsights | Jul 22, 2015 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Traditional Marketing
By John Sonnhalter, Rainmaker Journeyman at Sonnhalter
To keep our sanity in trying to keep up with and engage potential customers, it makes sense to use some sort of marketing automation tools to help the process. And there are plenty of options out there: Marketo and Hubspot being two of the better known.
We all know nurturing improves lead quality and moves them through the famous sales funnel. The problem is most sales funnels aren’t simple straight lines.
Here’s the reality – the typical sales funnel isn’t as straight forward as we’d like to think especially in the B-to-B world. The Forrester graphic below is probably more accurate.
The challenge for me is determining messaging for each level to get them to the next step. We need to make them as personal and to the point as possible, but you can’t have 20 different e-mails.
Depending on what you’re selling (engineered product), the selling cycle is longer, and in many cases, there are multiple decision makers, all of which have different hot buttons. How do you handle them? Ideally you want to send leads to sales that are sales ready.
Here are some tips:
- Try to identify where they are in the sales funnel so you don’t lose them on messages that are already past.
- Give them something to download that will help them in their job (i.e. calculator, configurator, relevant case study).
- Make them aware that CAD files are available for downloading.
- Try to initiate a question that will want them to talk with one of your application engineers.
What are you doing to better qualify leads before sending them to sales?
