by tradesmeninsights | Jan 28, 2015 | Social Marketing
Today we have a guest post from Carli Evilsiver, Marketing Coordinator at WTWH Media.
Social media marketing is becoming common across all types of industries, but some B2B companies are still hesitant to jump on the social media bandwagon. B2B companies have many reasons for believing they should not be on social media, but they are misinformed. Keep reading to find out why.
Photo courtesy of Carli Evilsiver, WTWH Media
I’m not sure how to do it: Companies might avoid social media because they do not understand it. They are sometimes intimidated by social media marketing because it is new, changes every day and can be difficult to create a strategy for social media.
Solution: Companies should research social media platforms, learn the basics and determine which platforms would be a good fit for their company. A common mistake is joining every platform. Not only is doing so a lot of work – as social media needs to be updated regularly – but the audience may not be there. Prospective manufacturing customers, for instance, probably are not on Instagram. Companies can also seek out social media training.
I don’t have time: Possibly the most common and valid reason a company isn’t on social media is the inability to devote time to another task. Social media marketing uses time and energy to set up and maintain.
Solution: Marketers who have too much to do and too little time should consider outsourcing their B2B social media marketing. Outsourcing social media is a great option for companies who want to be on social media but don’t know how to begin or don’t have enough time. By handing over the responsibilities to a professional social media manager, companies can rest assured that their social media channels will be updated daily in the correct format. An added benefit of outsourcing social media is the analysis and measurement that an experienced professional can provide.
There is no ROI: Any time resources are invested in a project, a boss will want to know what their Return On Investment is. It can be difficult to determine the effectiveness of social media marketing and unfortunately some companies think there is no ROI from social media.
Solution: Every social media strategy should include specific goals and a way to measure success. Tracking likes, follows and re-tweets is just the beginning. Other ways to measure success include website clicks, downloads and other measurable actions originating from social media.
Social Media is only for B2C: A common misconception is that social media marketing is effective only for companies marketing to the end-user. They might believe social media marketing is just for fun, creative and sexy industries, or that their clients aren’t on social media. Many B2B companies set up a LinkedIn and think the other social media platforms wouldn’t work for their company.
Solution: Marketers should recognize that if social media is used correctly it is effective for B2B. Success on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter requires companies to share interesting and relevant content. A mistake many companies make is sharing only promotional content. They should be engaging in conversations and sharing based on their audiences’ interests.
I don’t have anything to post: Another reason companies avoid setting up shop on social media is the worry they don’t have anything to say. Companies don’t always realize the amount of content they have already that could easily be shared on social media.
Solution: Companies should follow an 80/20 rule when posting on social media. Only 20% of content should be directly related to the company while 80% should be industry-related news. Social media is a great platform to promote a company’s brand, share blog posts or send out press releases. While marketers should take advantage of the opportunity to promote their company they need to remember that the audience will get bored of sales pitches. Try sharing a funny blog post or a great article about something going on in the industry. The re-tweets and likes received will expand reach and could lead to more followers.
by tradesmeninsights | Oct 2, 2013 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
We’ve talked many times about the importance of having a mobile strategy when wanting to reach the professional contractors. Their office is a jobsite and they need to be and stay connected. Mobile is changing the way we reach these important people.
A recent article by Bob Oord in marketingprofs outlines the explosion in this market and ways we can maximize our efforts there. An amazing stat is that their usage has doubled in just 1 year! The integration of mobile apps with CRM and business intelligence has changed user expectations.
TOP MOBILE TACTICS TO CONSIDER:
- Responsive website – so it can be read on any device
- Mobile-friendly campaigns – optimize landing pages.
- Mobile advertising – can be tailored by location, time and device so take advantage of them.
- Mobile email – make sure your HTML can be read properly on these devices.
- Mobile apps – apps let you secure a prominent presence on your customer’s device.
Please note that a recent report by Forrester, “Don’t Confuse Tablet And Mobile Marketing,” a B2B marketer needs to differentiate between smart phones and tablets. Smart phones have a much smaller screen for content experiences and is used “on the go,” while tablets are used more at home and in the office offering rich content opportunities.
If you liked this article, you might want to read:
Mobile Marketing to the Professional Tradesman: What are you Doing?
Why Mobile Marketing is Important for the Professional Tradesman.
by tradesmeninsights | Sep 26, 2013 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Trends
Today we have a guest blog post from Rosemarie Ascherl, PR Foreman at Sonnhalter, discussing content marketing. Content marketing should be part of all B2B [and B2T] business’s overall marketing strategy.
Earlier this month I had the opportunity to attend a fabulous week of learning and motivation when I attended the 2013 Content Marketing World Summit at the Cleveland Convention Center.
Content marketing’s purpose is to attract and retain customers by consistently creating and curating relevant and valuable content with the intention of changing or enhancing consumer behavior. It is an ongoing process that is best integrated into your overall marketing strategy, and it focuses on owning media, not renting it.
While the term content marketing has become popular in recent years, content marketing is a marketing technique that marketers have been using all along. Top B2B content marketing strategies are social media, articles on a business’s website, eNewsletters, case studies, videos and articles on other websites.
While there were many important takeaways from the conference, a couple stood out:
Content marketing needs a strategy
Before you dive into producing your content, you need to have a content marketing strategy. You need to establish your goals and mission, define your audience and establish your process. Content needs to be planned around a clearly outlined purpose. You need to establish the why behind your content strategy before you can begin to put together the how and the where.
Content marketing must be relevant
To establish authority and gain trust with your audience, your content must be valuable and relevant to them. This relevant industry information should provide insight or entertain them. Content must fulfill a need, be interesting and unique.
How can you create something meaningful for both your brand and your audience? Understand your customers, and try to find ways to solve their problems. Give them content that addresses their needs. Remember that it’s not about you—it’s about them. Ultimately, providing this type of content allows a company to steadily build rapport with its demographic and develop a loyal following.
If you find this post interesting, you may be interested in the following:
Manufacturers: What are you trying to accomplish with your content marketing?
Why do you use content marketing – Do you think it’s for branding or for selling?
by tradesmeninsights | May 16, 2013 | Uncategorized
Today we have a guest blog post from Lisa Murton Beets director of CMI Books, from the Content Marketing Institute.
The Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs recently published research on B2B and B2C Content Marketing in our 2013 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends reports. While the findings give us insight into how B2B and B2C marketers are managing content marketing, we were still curious about the state of content marketing in specific key industries, and how content efforts in vertical markets were differing from those of their peers in other industries.
We decided to first look at marketers who work for B2B manufacturing organizations in North America. This group has adopted content marketing at a slightly higher rate (94 percent) than their North American B2B peers across all industries (91 percent).
Let’s take a look at some of the similarities and differences:
Manufacturing marketers have similar goals for content marketing
Marketers in the manufacturing industry have the same top three objectives for content marketing as their peers across all B2B industries: brand awareness, lead generation, and customer acquisition. However, manufacturing marketers place less emphasis on thought leadership (47 percent versus 64 percent) and website traffic (47 percent versus 60 percent) as organizational goals, which indicates a disconnect, as they also cite website traffic as the primary way they measure content effectiveness. This fundamental disconnect between goals and measurement was present with B2B manufacturers when CMI surveyed them two years ago, but it has shown some improvement.
Manufacturing marketers use video and print magazines more often
Manufacturing marketers cite video as their top content marketing tactic (it was ranked seventh by this group two years ago). Their overall use of tactics is fairly similar to that of the overall population of marketers; however, they place far less emphasis on blogs (54 percent versus 77 percent), which makes sense considering that this industry does not put strong emphasis on web traffic and thought leadership as objectives for content marketing, two areas where blogs can have significant impact.
Manufacturing marketers use print magazines at nearly twice the rate of their peers (60 percent versus 31 percent). However, only 11 percent of self-reported “best-in-class” B2B manufacturing marketers rank print magazines as “effective” or “very effective,” indicating that traditional media companies still have a stronghold on B2B manufacturers, who have traditionally used paid advertising in trade magazines to reach their audiences.
Manufacturing marketers prefer Facebook and YouTube
While their B2B content marketing peers use an average of five social media platforms, manufacturing industry B2B marketers report an average use of three.
Yet, manufacturing industry marketers use YouTube more frequently than the general population of marketers do. This makes sense, considering they rank video as their top content marketing tactic. Their use of Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter has risen over the last two years, yet they are somewhat behind in their adoption of Google+, Pinterest, SlideShare, and other “newer” social media options, so it will be interesting to see if they grow in these areas over the next year.
Manufacturing marketers outsource content more often
Compared with the overall content marketing population, manufacturing marketers outsource content more often: 57 percent versus 43 percent. This could be because they rely more heavily on printed material, which often requires outside assistance. Given their increased usage of video, compared to other marketers, it is likely that they are outsourcing video creation as well.
Manufacturing marketers spend less
When compared with their peers across all B2B industries, marketers in manufacturing dedicate significantly less of their total marketing budgets to content marketing (22 percent versus 33 percent). However, 53 percent of manufacturing marketers say they are going to increase their content marketing spend over the next 12 months (31 percent say they will keep spending at the same level).
Manufacturing marketers struggle with effectiveness
Like their peers, marketers for the manufacturing industry report that producing enough content is their biggest challenge. One challenge they cite more often than their B2B peers is the inability to measure content effectiveness (55 percent versus 33 percent). And they’re not only challenged with measuring content effectiveness, many are not even sure if their overall efforts are effective. We know this because only 21 percent of B2B manufacturers rank their organization as “effective” or “very effective.” On the other hand, 36 percent of B2B marketers across all industries rank themselves as “effective” or “very effective.”
On the flip side, 32 percent of manufacturing marketers rank their organizations as “not very” or “not at all” effective, compared with 17 percent of their B2B peers. This shows a need for content marketing education and improvement in the manufacturing vertical.
A brief look at the manufacturing demographic
While it is noteworthy to understand how marketers in the manufacturing industry are managing content marketing tools and tactics, it’s also important to understand how demographics may play a role in these research findings. Here are a few notes about the demographics of this research:
- Out of a total 1,416 B2B North America respondents, 88 respondents identified themselves as working in the B2B manufacturing industry.
- About 40 percent of the B2B manufacturing respondents work for companies with 1,000 or more employees (16 percent of that figure is for companies employing more than 10,000, so these results could also reflect what larger companies are doing).
Do you work in manufacturing? Are these trends consistent with what you are seeing?
For more insight on the state of content marketing in the manufacturing industry, register to attend the Manufacturing Summit at Content Marketing World in September 2013. And if you are looking for more content marketing research? Check out our third annual B2B Content Marketing: 2013 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends and first annual B2C Content Marketing: 2013 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends studies.
Cover image via Bigstock
The post originally appeared on ContentMarketingInstitute.com and is reposted with permission. You can view the original post here.
by Sonnhalter | Oct 9, 2012 | News, Press Release
BEREA, Ohio – October 2012 – The Viega ProPress® for stainless product launch received a B2 Award of Excellence from the Business Marketing Association in the Multi-Channel Lead Generation category.
The B2 Awards are an international business-to-business marketing and communications contest that recognizes excellence among top agencies and corporate marketers. Sonnhalter, a communication firm marketing to the professional tradesman in the construction, industrial and MRO markets, enters award-worthy work, such as the Viega ProPress for stainless product launch, in marketing communication contests.
Viega ProPress for stainless steel is a pipe-joining system that uses press fittings to make air- and water-tight connections in the piping. The system is comprised of stainless steel pipe, valves and fittings in sizes up to 4 inches and makes secure connections in as few as seven seconds compared to more than an hour for some traditional pipe joining methods. For the product launch, Sonnhalter and Viega created a plan for promoting the system as the future in pipe joining and developed several elements including print and electronic communication in trade publications, brochures, direct mail, a micro site and a comprehensive public relations plan.
“We were thrilled to receive the B2 Award of Excellence,” said Adina Barnes, director of market intelligence for Viega. “We’re proud to be recognized amongst the ranks of so many excellent campaigns.”
“We enjoyed working on this campaign,” said Matt Sonnhalter, vision architect at Sonnhalter. “Not only was it a fun project, the results of the product launch proved that it was award-winning caliber.”
A panel of senior-level marketers judged more than 800 entries for the 2012 B2 Awards and selected the Viega ProPress for stainless product launch to receive an Award of Excellence.
About Viega
Founded in 1899, Viega manufactures and distributes the highest quality plumbing, heating and pipe joining products in the world. With innovative systems like copper and stainless ProPress®, ProRadiant™ and PureFlow®, Viega is the global leader in residential, commercial and industrial piping applications. www.viega.com
About Sonnhalter
Established in 1976, Sonnhalter is the leading B2T marketing communications firm to companies that target professional tradesmen in construction, industrial and MRO markets. Sonnhalter’s brand identity highlights its expertise in marketing to the professional tradesmen. Its tagline, “Not Afraid To Get Our Hands Dirty,” promotes the employees’ willingness to roll up their sleeves and dig deep into clients’ businesses, also, it refers to the market it targets: the tradesmen who work with – and dirty – their hands every day. Sonnhalter developed the acronym “B2T,” which stands for “business-to-tradesmen” to capture the essence of its specialty. In 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012, Sonnhalter was named one of BtoB Magazine’s Top Agencies. For more information, visit the company website at www.Sonnhalter.com or visit the company blog at www.TradesmenInsights.com.
About The B2 Awards
The Business Marketing Association’s B2 Awards recognize the work business marketers and agencies do to engage employees, sales forces, channel partners, government and consumers. Each year, hundreds of entries are judged by a panel of senior corporate marketers and B2B agency executives on the successful balance of style and results.
