by Sonnhalter | Aug 22, 2017 | Marketing Tips, Tradesmen Insights
By John Sonnhalter, Rainmaker Journeyman, Sonnhalter
Content marketing should be a vital part of your strategy to reach and engage contractors and professional tradesmen and move them through the sales funnel. Manufacturers are always focused on leads and will use things like traditional e-books and white papers. Not all activity will result in conversions. We should consider building brand awareness.
Here are five tactics to consider:
- Blog posts.You may already be doing a blog and if you’re not you should consider it. It helps set you up as an industry expert and helps move prospects through the know, like and trust phase of the journey. Include a strong call to action that will hopefully engage the reader to go somewhere or do something. (more…)
by Sonnhalter | Jun 6, 2017 | Social Marketing, Tradesmen Insights
By John Sonnhalter, Rainmaker Journeyman, Sonnhalter
If not, it’s important to know WHY.
Most manufacturers finally got on board with social media back in 2010. They created their company blog, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram accounts and jumped in.
70% of marketers reported that social media marketing delivers poor or average return on investment.
Many manufacturers thought that by merely having a social media presence, it would give them social media credibility. But they’re learning it takes more than a social media presence to produce new business opportunities.
I recently saw a post from my mentor on the social media scene, Michael Gass. Here are some things you need to review and possibly revisit your social media strategy and implementation:
Here are 11 reasons why social media doesn’t lead to new business:
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by tradesmeninsights | Apr 18, 2017 | Marketing Tips
By John Sonnhalter, Rainmaker Journeyman, Sonnhalter
I think we all can agree that content marketing is playing a vital role in everyone’s overall marketing plans. Everyone wants lead generation and engagement, and to get both, you have to provide good content!
Many manufacturers focus more on their brand than trying to help solve their customers’ problems. Don’t focus on selling. Focus on solving. And more is not better. Give them good content not a lot of content.
According to recent article in Content marketing institute: (more…)
by tradesmeninsights | Apr 11, 2017 | Tradesmen Insights
By John Sonnhalter, Rainmaker Journeyman, Sonnhalter
Contractors (HVAC, Plumbing, Electrical) have some serious challenges moving forward.
The Average contractor is 50+, most aren’t tech savvy, and they’ve been doing things the same way forever (chasing paper work orders). As Boomers leave the workforce at a rate of 1 every 8 seconds, a shortage of middle management will become apparent. Boomers dominate technical jobs, with the exception of IT.
I learned a long time ago if you got into business, among your priorities were: grow your business, make a profit and have an exit strategy.
To grow your business, you need to hire and train good people. And who’s going to train the millennials? The boomers! The boomers have the intellectual capital (work experience) that needs to be transferred to the younger generations. Your pool of talent will come from the 18-34 age group and they look at things a bit differently than their older counterparts.
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by tradesmeninsights | Mar 28, 2017 | Marketing Trends, Tradesmen Insights
By John Sonnhalter, Rainmaker Journeyman, Sonnhalter
No matter what you’re selling, it’s a relatively simple process. You have something that I want, we get together and make a deal. I’ve been in business for over 40 years and the selling process/cycle has apparently changed, or has it?
We used to call on contractors, see what they needed, and hopefully was able to help them out by selling them something. All of this was done on a Human Level. We interacted with them, got to know their families and what they liked to do when they weren’t working. Instead of trying to sell them something, we listened. I called it belly button to belly button selling.
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