Podcast: Why Manufacturers Should Be Using QR Codes

October 18, 2011

I recently spoke with Scott Chapin from Circle 44 Mobile, a division of DigiKnow who is a strategic partner of ours, on how and why manufacturers should be using QR codes in their everyday marketing efforts.

Scott covers not only why they should use them, but gives some practical advice and best practices for those thinking of using them. If your end users are mobile, and most professional tradesmen are, then you need to listen to this informative interview.

Click here to listen.

If you like this post you may like:

What are you Doing to Insure a Successful QR Code Campaign?

Manufacturers: Are you Taking Advantage of QR Codes?

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What Are You Doing to Reach the Young Professional Tradesmen?

September 6, 2011

I know one of the biggest challenges for manufacturers that we represent is getting to the young entrants in the trades. They know how to get to the old guys, they’ve been doing it for years and know that traditional things like trade ads and direct mail programs are effective tools to reach them.

But when you talk to these folks on how they plan on reaching the future generations of tradesmen, they are definitely puzzled as they know the traditional methods are probably not the best way to connect with them. They think of social media as one possible avenue to connect with these young people, but often neglect the mobile devices.

While that may not be surprising that young people are active in mobile devices, what might surprise you is that the baby boomers are also active in mobile, but just a different kind. Consider this: 91 million U.S. consumers use the internet through mobile devices at least once a month and that number continues to rise (Affinity reports that more than 24 million millennials plan on purchasing smart phones in the next 6 months).

Generation of US Consumers Most Likely to Own a Smartphone, Tablet or Ereader, 2011

So the question is:

  • Do you have a mobile strategy in place to reach your young targeted audiences?
  • Do you have a mobile friendly website?
  • Are you planning smart phone apps?
  • What’s your plan to start collecting e-mail addresses and mobile phone numbers for future marketing programs?

Mobile will play an important part in communicating with the younger tradesmen. What’s your plan?

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Relax…It’s Labor Day

September 5, 2011

 

Happy Labor Day! We need to take time to say thanks to all the tradesmen that we come into contact with on a regular basis. What would we do without the electricians, plumbers, HVAC professionals? How would our factories run smoothly without all the MRO professionals out there?

Sonnhalter salutes America’s professional tradesmen and laborers on this very special holiday. Our working force built this country. And it’s because of each and every American’s labors that we enjoy the freedoms we have today.

At Sonnhalter, we earn our own living by marketing to professional tradesmen in industries like yours…from construction to industrial to MRO. To show our appreciation for such hard-working individuals, we offer a tip of the hardhat and our sincere thanks.

However you celebrate your Labor Day, enjoy it. You’ve certainly earned it.

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Smartphone Users: What Are They Using Them For?

June 28, 2011

As the world grows more mobile, it’s inevitable that smartphones are and will become a more intricate part of our daily routine. It’s my contention that in our world of reaching the professional tradesmen these phones are being used on a regular basis.

I don’t have the data to back that up since there have been no formalized studies done specifically on this market segment. But if you make the assumption that what we do in our everyday lives rolls over to our work day routines, then a new study out by Google that looks at the purchasing habits of smartphone users in the U.S. may be of interest to you.

Chris Crum from Webpronews.com outlines the highlights of the study. Among them are these points that I find interesting:

  • 89% of smartphone owners use their device throughout the day for a variety of activities.
  • 82% notice ads on their phones and half of them take action.
  • 77% use them for search.
  • 95% of users have looked for local information
  • 77% have contacted a business by either calling or visiting

What kinds of trends are you seeing out there?

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Posted by tradesmeninsights

10 Tips to Ensure a Successful Webinar Targeted at the Professional Tradesmen

May 26, 2011

We have used webinars successfully for several years now to promote new services and to share industry information and trends. They are a great tool to get the message out to many people at one time, and then you have the ability to archive them for people to come and view at their leisure.

Webinars are effective, and to get the most bang for your buck, you really need to cross the T’s and dot the I’s. There’s a lot that goes into a successful webinar starting with the topic itself. You need to give the professional tradesmen something they can take and make their own.

Andrew Spoeth from Marketo recently had an interesting post, How to Manage Successful Webinars: A Checklist that has several good points that you may want to look at.

I’m going to outline  my top 10 tips on ways to improve your webinars:

  1. Build a great landing page - Clearly state your value proposition up front so the reader can see what’s in it for him.
  2. Set the time for the webinar outside of normal business hours - Let’s face it, these contractors have to make a living and they have crews to supervise. Consider doing a webinar later in the day, say around 4 PM. That way a contractor may have some of his tradesmen also sit in on the session. It’s better to inconvenience you than your customer.
  3. Registration form - Make it easy and don’t ask 20 questions in order for them to sign up.
  4. Give them an option of getting a copy of the slides without attending the actual webinar - In the world of contractors, shit happens and they may not be able to attend. This will get you their contact info for further follow-up.
  5. Use Social media – Both in the actual sign-up form so they can invite their friends, but also use it to promote the event.
  6. Promote - You need to build a schedule and build a good series of reasons why these tradesmen need to attend.
  7. Get your sales force and distributors involved - Have them pass out postcard size flyers when making calls and talk it up. If a distributor does a monthly newsletter or has a site, have him put it on there as a co-sponsor. You do all the work and he shares in the credit.
  8. Practice, practice, practice - Try to keep the presentation 20-30 minutes long and allow time for questions even though they may be via e-mail.
  9. Design a follow-up e-mail- Have yourself graded on the topic, how it was presented and what they might like as future  topics.
  10. Get those names out to your sales force and distribution network for follow-up – Everyone should have at least had a phone message within a week.

Those are my thoughts. The key to a successful webinar is good planning.

If you like this post, you may want to read:

Webinars: Tips on How to Promote using E-mail.

Why Webinars are a Good Marketing Tool to Reach the Tradesman

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Posted by tradesmeninsights

5 Tips on Improving Your Email Marketing to Professional Tradesmen

May 19, 2011

Email marketing is still a very good B-to-B business tactic. But like anything else, you’re always fighting for the attention of the professional tradesmen. Contractor’s inboxes are just as loaded as the rest of ours, so what do we need to do to get him to open ours?

Here are 5 tips to consider:

  1. Identify yourself – If they don’t know you, they probably won’t open it.
  2. Attention-getting subject line - Keep it short and benefit oriented.
  3. Provide relevant copy - What’s in it for me?
  4. Keep your copy focused and short - Get to the point; use bold headlines and give them a call to action.
  5. Build a good list – Use your existing customer lists but also ask your sales force for a list of its prospects and don’t be afraid to rent  a reputable list.

Those are some of my tips. What’s working for you?

If you like this post, you might also like:

5 Tips to Improve Your B-to-B Direct Marketing Efforts.

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Mobile Marketing to the Professional Tradesman: What Are You Waiting For?

May 17, 2011

The professional tradesmen don’t go anywhere without their cell phones, and there’s a good chance that those phones are smartphones (50% of Americans will own a smartphone by the end of 2011). They depend on them everyday on the jobsite. So are you missing an opportunity?

I recently read a post by Heidi Cohen, 6 Must-Do Mobile Marketing Tactics that outlined some things for you to consider if you’re contemplating getting into mobile apps. Here are some highlights as they would apply to the professional tradesmen:

  • Understand your goals - You need to determine your strategy and how it fits into your existing marketing plan.
  • Know your market - Beyond identifying your audience, you need to figure out what kinds of things would be most useful for a contractor of a jobsite.
  • Mobile websites - Make sure your existing website is formatted for mobile. Make sure the content you do have there is applicable to the contractor’s ”on the go” needs. Make fields larger, make sure you have your logo and encourage action.
  • Mobile search - Beyond your normal optimization, combine with mobile CTR. Don’t forget to to include local content like where the closest distributor of your products are.
  • Mobile e-mails - Since e-mails are the most used application, why not develop an e-mail plan specifically for mobile? If your sales guys are demoing a new product at a local Depot, let them know about it and offer them a discount coupon for stopping by.

These are just some ideas on how to capitalize on mobile. If you’ve got an existing mobile program going on, I’d like to hear what you’re doing.

If you like this post you might like:

Mobile Marketing for B-to-B: Change in the Air(waves)

56 Mobile Marketing Facts

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Company Blog: What Can You Expect From Them?

May 3, 2011

Blogs can play an important part in your overall marketing plan. By integrating them with other marketing tools like e-newsletters, other social sites and your existing website, as well as offline activities, you can enhance your efforts and results.

I have found that we are getting more activity as far as page views on our blog than our website.What’s more important is that I have regular readers who view my posts via RSS feeds and everyday, new readers find the site through key word searches.

We have also gained insights into our readers, and by their responses, we know what they want to hear more about. We even use surveys and polls to help us get answers directly from the readers as to what is important to them. We can look at monthly results to see which topics are having more traction than others.

Our long-term plan is to gain the readers’ trust and become their go-to resource when it comes to marketing to the professional tradesmen. By being informative, creative and reliable in what we say, and the examples we give, we build trust with our readers.

Ultimately, we want to gain new business opportunities, and a blog helps you do that. We recently won a few pieces of new business from companies that were following us on our blog. Many are virtual clients who feel comfortable doing business with us even though they never met us in person  because they like what we said on our blog.

These are a few things you should expect from a company blog. We use it as a marketing centerpiece that we position our other activities around.

I’d like to hear some of your success stories around your blog successes.

If you like this post, you might like:

B-to-B Blogs Can Help Increase Marketing Efforts to the Professional Tradesmen.

2011-Trends in B-to-B Blogging.

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Posted by tradesmeninsights

Mobile Apps: Are You Thinking About Them to Reach the Professional Tradesmen?

January 4, 2011

Professional tradesman, for the most part, do more field work so they have a mobile office. And let’s face it, most manufacturer’s biggest challenge is how do I connect with them? The smartphone is coming more and more into play, so if your company doesn’t have an app, you may be missing an opportunity. According to Nielsen, as of the 3rd quarter of ’10 – 28% of mobile phones are smartphones with 41% of recent acquirers moving in that direction.

recent-mobile-acquires

So what does that mean? It shows the trend is going strong for smartphones and we’d better be ready to capitalize on this tool. I know what you’re thinking, that most of the users are under the age of 35, and you would be correct. Isn’t that a targeted segment of the tradesman audience that you, as a manufacturer, are trying to come to grips with on how are you going to get your message to them? This would be one way to reach them. As a matter of a fact, the majority of smartphone users are under 45 years of age.

50 percent of Android owners are under the age of 35 – Apple has the most smartphone users under the age of 44.

smartphone-by-age

I’m curious as to how many of you currently have a mobile App or are planning one in the near future?

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QR Codes: Are Manufacturers Missing an Opportunity? Part 1

November 23, 2010

B-to-B Marketers need to take advantage of every marketing tool, especially if your target market is the professional tradesman. Most of these folks are on the move and depend on their cell phone, not only to stay in touch, but to get valuable info that will help them do their job. One tool for mobile smart phones that probably is overlooked is the QR code.

More and more these days, we are seeing the use of QR codes in the consumer market. But QR codes are fairly new to arrive in the business-to-business sector. Since we see these as a great way to build a bridge between print and online presence, we thought we would take the guesswork out of these strange little codes.

Today Aylie Fifer, Relationship Architect at Sonnhalter will hopefully take some of the mystery out of this potential marketing tool with this 2-part guest post:

What are QR codes?

A QR Code is a matrix code (or two-dimensional bar code) created by Japanese corporation Denso-Wave in 1994. The “QR” is derived from “Quick Response,” as the creator intended the code to allow its contents to be decoded at high speed.

This 2D bar code that stores URL information (or other information) so that when scanned with a smart phone reader (using the mobile’s camera), it directs you to a specific URL (or other location such as a video, a v-card, etc.)

These are very, very popular in Japan and are starting to catch on it the U.S., but mostly in the CPG market right now – we are starting to see it enter into the business-to-business world. 

Here is a site to show you how QR codes work (you have to have a phone that has a QR reader on it or download an app):

http://www.google.com/help/maps/favoriteplaces/business/barcode.html 

The creation of QR codes:

Usually synonymous with mass production, the quick response (QR) bar code was originally created by Japanese company Denso-Wave to keep inventory. However, because QR codes allow for more data than the standard 10-digit bar code, and because scanning requires less effort than typing a URL, the QR code has taken a turn for the personal. Denso has the patent to the QR code but as of yet, has not chosen to enforce it.

Denso-Wave website:  http://www.denso-wave.com/qrcode/index-e.html

From Bar Code to QR Code – from the website http://www.denso-wave.com/qrcode/aboutqr-e.html

Bar codes have become widely popular because of their reading speed, accuracy, and superior functionality characteristics. As bar codes become popular and their convenience universally recognized, the market began to call for codes capable of storing more information, more character types, and that could be printed in a smaller space.

As a result, various efforts were made to increase the amount of information stored by bar codes, such as increasing the number of bar code digits or laying out multiple bar codes.

However, these improvements also caused problems such as enlarging the bar code area, complicating reading operations, and increasing printing cost.

2D Code emerged in response to these needs and problems:

2D Code is also progressing from the stacked bar code method (that stacks bar codes), to the increased information density matrix method.

About QR codes:

QR Code is a kind of 2-D (two-dimensional) symbology developed by Denso Wave (a division of Dens Corporation at the time) and released in 1994 with the primary aim of being a symbol that is easily interpreted by scanner equipment.

QR Code (2D Code) contains information in both the vertical and horizontal directions, whereas a bar code contains data in one direction only. QR Code holds a considerably greater volume of information than a bar code. Thus allowing for more sophisticated information to be encoded than just numbers such as a web link or a vcard.

Tomorrow we will talk about the difference between Microsoft tags and traditional QR codes.

While there are many different variations of QR codes such as Microsoft tags or Shotcodes, the premise is the same – a quick-reading code that takes you to more information. In our next post, we will discuss what Microsoft tags are and how they compare to traditional QR codes.

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Posted by tradesmeninsights

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