Why Manufacturers Should Use Blogs as a Brand Building Tool to Reach the Professional Tradesmen

February 9, 2010

Manufacturers are missing an opportunity to build brand awareness and thought leadership if they don’t consider using a blog as part of their marketing mix. Contractors, plant engineers and maintenance workers are looking at ways to solve problems and learn quick tips on how to do their jobs better.

In a recent post on eMarketer, Bloggers and (personal) brand building, they cited a poll done by Technorati on the state of the blogosphere 2009 that showed that:

  • Over 70% of those polled talked about products or brands on their blog.
  • Nearly 60% said they were better known in their industry because of their blog.
  • 63% had converted prospects to customers.
  • 56% have seen their blog bring their company recognition as a thought leader.

Ways that Their Blog Has Helped Their Business According to Bloggers Worldwide, by Type of Blogger, September 2009 (% of respondents)

So why aren’t you considering a blog for your business to reach your audience?

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Lead Generation: Top Business Benefit for Small Businesses Using Social Media

February 4, 2010

According to recent surveys, small businesses are going to spend more time and effort on social in 2010. Most are aware of social media but are lacking in education of how to use to benefit their business. This appears to be the biggest stumbling block in them using social.

I can concur when talking to contractors…many do acknowledge social, but don’t have a clue on how to use it. The biggest reason for push back on using social media is that small businesses have the perception that their customers don’t use it. The second biggest reason is that they don’t have time or the staff to manage it. Both of these obstacles can be overcome if someone took the time to show them how they could use social as a way to generate leads.

If you’re a manufacturer, trade association or buying group, this could be a golden opportunity for you to set yourself apart and teach these small businesses, whether they be distributors or contractors, how to use this medium. In the long run, as leads are converted into sales, you’ll all benefit!

According to a small business marketing forecast for 2010 from Ad-ology, lead generation is the primary reason small businesses use social media. Also cited was it was a way to keep up with industry news and monitor on-line chatter. Facebook was the most beneficial followed by LinkedIn.

Ways in Which Social Networking Is Beneficial to US Small Businesses, November 2009 (% of respondents)

What can you do to get your company, buying group or  trade association doing something to help generate new leads using social media? I’d be willing to help. I’ve done webinar’s, “Social Media 101″  for trade associations and buying groups. Contact me if you’re interested at jsonnhalter@sonnhalter.com .

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Small Businesses Have Social Media Marketing Advantage

February 3, 2010

I’ve always said that I believe small businesses have the advantage in social media. Two of the most important reasons are that small business owners are passionate about what they do and can react quicker than larger corporations when responding to something online. That’s the beauty of social media—its success is based on building relationships. The reader doesn’t care if you are from a big corporation or an entrepreneur as long as they get good info.

I recently read a post on business.com on social media marketing to small businesses, that documented some of my beliefs. The report that surveyed over 1700 people showed that the way decision makers react and use social media varies from B-to-C and B-to-B companies. You can gain some good insights into the evolution of business social media usages by looking  across  industries to see the different levels of involvement.

A free download of the 40 page report is available, “Engaging Small Business Decision Makers Through Social Media.”

Here are some highlights:

  • Smaller businesses (under 9 employees) aren’t engaged in Social Media in any meaningful way.
  • Industry type has a major impact on the number of social media resources used for businesses.
  • Most popular social media resources for small businesses are webinars, podcasts, user reviews of product or services, and profiles of LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter.
  • Speed and Convenience are two main reasons for using social media.

With the great growth rate of social media in general, can you imagine if all the small businesses started to embrace the technology what would happen? Most small businesses I come in contact with are contractors, and while some have started to embrace social, many either don’t understand it or don’t see the benefit in how it can help their business.

What kind of small business stories can you share on social media successes?

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How Can We Promote Blue Collar Careers?

February 2, 2010

My target audience is manufacturers who want to sell stuff to contractors and professional tradesmen.

Any of us who have been around this industry (no matter what field) know that the biggest challenge facing contractors is lack of qualified people. So long term if the professional tradesman goes away or certainly doesn’t keep up the current need, who are we going to sell our stuff to?According to The KiplingerLetter, there’s not a labor shortage but a dearth of talent.The Baby boomers who represent about 40% of the current work force is in the process of retiring. How are we going to replace these educated and skilled workers?

A friend of mine by the name of S.A. Habib writes a blog called Blue Collar Branding where he addresses several of these issues. He brought to my attention a recent interview on the Fox News Network of Joe Lamacchia who recently wrote a book named, Blue Collar and Proud of it.

High schools do a poor job letting kids know they have options other than going to college. I think manufacturers should step up to the plate, either individually or together with their trade associations, to start a grass roots campaign at the high school level to insure we have enough tradesmen moving forward, for everyone’s best interest. Kids should know that these jobs are in high demand, pay very well and won’t be shipped off shore.

What are some ways you think we could spread the message?

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B-to-B Marketers Outpace B-to-C Among Leading Social Media Initiatives

January 28, 2010

Kudos to the B-to-B marketers who have embraced social media. I recently read an article in eMarketer.com that I thought I’d share some highlights. Even though we are outnumbered and less experienced than our counterparts in B-to-C, we appear to be more active according to research from a 2009 benchmarking study from business.com.

Areas where we excel are in maintaining company-related profiles on social sites, microblogging and participating in 3rd party discussion sites.

Leading Social Media Initiatives Among B2B and B2C Companies in North America, September 2009 (% of respondents)

The only areas where B-to-B lagged were on Facebook and MySpace. It was interesting to note that B-to-B users were more active in measuring things like web traffic, brand awareness and prospect lead quality and volume. Web traffic for both categories was the top metric .

Keep up the good work and let’s stay ahead of our counterparts in B-to-C.

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5 Things An E-Mail Marketer Should Avoid when Targeting the Professional Tradesman

January 27, 2010

Sometimes we take things for granted and can tend to become complacent when using tools like e-mail marketing. We think we know it all since we’ve been doing it for so long, but we may have lost sight of what made e-mail so successful in the past.

A recent post by Curtis Jackson, What are the top 10 e-mail marketing mistakes, got me thinking that we should all evaluate the processes we have in place regarding e-mails. Here are my 5 top things to avoid:

  1. No Strategy - When you first started using e-mails, didn’t you have a written strategy of what you wanted to accomplish and how you were going to measure it? How are you doing?
  2. List updates - When was the last time you updated your list? Have your open rates been increasing or decreasing? How about undeliverables? That brings us to the next point.
  3. Ignoring metrics - If you’re actively doing e-mail marketing, you have to be using some tool like Constant Contact to help you manage your programs. They have metric tools built in to see how successful the actual e-mail was (both in content and delivery).
  4. Missing an opportunity in your top line message - Chances are your message will be viewed in a preview pane. Make sure your top line message includes a link to a web-based version.
  5. Timing - Tuesday at 10 a.m. may not be the most opportune time to reach your audience. Test out different combinations to see what works best for your audience.

Those are my thoughts. What are you doing to ensure you are getting the most out of your e-mail marketing?

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2009: A Retrospective from Contractors and An Early Outlook For 2010

January 26, 2010

As most of you know by now, our marketing company works primarily with manufacturers who sell to the contractor marketplace. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that the economy in 2009 wasn’t good to most contractors, especially those whose primary market was new construction.

To that end, we did phone interviews with 22 contractors across the country in the last quarter of 2009, primarily in the HVAC and plumbing markets, to get a better sense of how they are surviving and what’s on their minds. We chose these types of contractors because they not only do new construction, but also do service and replacement work which we thought would give us a better read on the consumer as a whole.

Here are some highlights:

  • Contractor’s sales – Were off between 7 to 15%. Some were off as much as 25% and some (2) had actual sales increases in 2009.
  • Commercial business - Started to come back late 3rd and early 4th quarters.
  • Government stimulus package – Helped in increasing sales (more in HVAC than plumbing).
  • Biggest concerns - Tight credit, finding qualified people and big government.

2010 – Most contractors are cautiously optimistic. They know they will have to work smarter in ‘10, but believe the opportunities will be there from both new business as well as competitors going away.

A link to get a copy of the white paper will be sent to you when you sign up for my newsletter here. If you’re already signed up, just update your profile information to include the Contractor White Paper mailing list.

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Search Marketing Must Be Working For Small Businesses

January 21, 2010

Small businesses must have been listening when it came to PSEO. According to data from WebVisible, search advertising has sharply increased in Q3 of ‘09. According to a recent post on eMarketer.com, small business search spending by smaller companies was up 91% year over year. The average number of key words purchased was also up.

Average US Small Business Search Advertising Spending and Number of Keywords Used in Campaign, Q3 2008-Q3 2009

Other highlights from the study showed spending shifts among the key search engines with Google losing about 5% and Bing gaining almost 3%. Bing brought the small business owner the highest click through rates than any search engine. (Not a bad stat since they’ve only been around since June of this year.) Most click throughs went to the advertiser’s Web site and the fastest growing conversion action was video viewing.

Vertical Response cites that 45% of small businesses planned to up their spending next year.

So what are your plans?

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B-to-B Marketers: Put The “Why” Before The “How” In Social Media

January 20, 2010

When it comes to social media, many marketers first concern is on “How” are we going to use social before the “Why.” They should really first consider the “who” are we trying to connect with and “What” do we bring to the party. Although marketing, most of the time, takes the lead in social media, it really involves the whole company starting with those that touch the customers – sales, customer service and tech support are a few that come quickly to mind. Marketing can’t create a spin campaign and push it out to customers. Social isn’t about you, it’s about the customer and what they want and need.

Valeria Maltoni in a recent post, Developing a B2B Content Strategy: Starts With the Who, outlines issues that marketing should consider when developing a social strategy. She notes that to stay ahead you need to adapt and evolve using your experience and expertise to serve your customers. It’s a good read.

What are you doing to get better connected with your audience?

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Dynamics Have Changed Over The Years and B-to-B Marketers Need To Adapt

January 19, 2010

For those of us who I will call “Seasoned Veterans” (been in the B-to-B world for more than 15 years), we’ve seen major changes in they way people get info and go through a buying process. Those who are successful today are the ones who have adapted and embraced the changes as they have come along. Let me explain the evolution.

Before the Internet: Product info wasn’t easily accessible, and the only way you could get info is to talk to a salesman. The salesman controlled the buying process and in many cases, they weren’t trusted. It was a one-way conversation where the salesman was doing most of the talking.

Introduction of the Internet: Now customers were able to go on web sites (yours and your competitors) and investigate what was out there to make a better informed decision. They found what they were looking for by going to this new tool, e.g. Google, that allowed them to search by using key words and phrases. Some sites even told you where you could actually buy the product. More advanced sites “in the day” even let you buy the product online. The role of traditional sales was changing. With the introduction of e-mail, people could now ask more questions and make more informed decisions. Marketers had to create content for the web with webinars and white papers trying to convince prospects to buy. The playing field now was more even where the customer had more options and control over the process.

Introduction of Social Media: More and more information is available now, and it’s not necessarily from your web site. People now access LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to see what’s been said about your product or ask questions of their peer group on which products are better and why. There are blogs, forums and online communities where you can go and get an honest answer (recommendation) from another consumer. You’ll notice I haven’t mentioned anything about the company sales force being engaged to this point. With social media now on the scene, buyers take control of the buying process and as a result, don’t engage a salesman until they are much farther down the sales cycle.

For those who still aren’t convinced  Business.com recent Social media best practice:Question and Answer forum report  interviewed over 1400 individuals of which 69% currently work at a business that uses social media.The chart below indicates what social can do for you.

So what does this mean to us old timers?

  • It means times are changing.
  • It means that the consumer is now driving the bus.
  • It means if you don’t jump on in some fashion, the bus will leave without you.
  • It means we all have to change.

We as humans don’t necessarily like change. It makes us get out of our comfort zone. Social media is just another way we can do our jobs better. It can be a place to follow market trends, monitor brand sentiment, network and even identify unhappy customers. Don’t be afraid of it and don’t be overwhelmed. Start somewhere, go slow, ask for help. As marketers, we need to adapt.

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