Totally Incorrect » sales

Social Media in Manufacturing

David — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 13:40:47 +0000

How can social media be integrated into a marketing plan for a manufacturing company that sells to other manufacturing companies? This post has been on my to-do list for a long time. When you bear in mind that I’m a social media enthusiast and a marketing manager for a manufacturing company, you’d think it would be easy. I should be the perfect person to use social media to market to my clients, most of whom are manufacturers themselves. Just write about what I do during the day and the post should be finished right?

Needless to say, it isn’t that simple so consequently this post has lived in draft form for way too long, waiting inspiration.

Wow, this morning that inspiration might just have arrived. It was delivered to my Google Reader by that Guru of Corporate blogging, Mack Collier. Strangely, the story isn’t even new, it has been there for the best part of a month. It is called Your Boss Doesn’t Care About “The Conversation” and you can read it at Mack’s site here.

The story is about how a well intentioned, social media aware marketing dude is trying to get the boss to agree to get into social media and blogging in particular. To quote Mack, when the naive pimply faced marketing kid is asked what is in it for the company to start a blog, he replies “Blogging is a conversation, and right now we aren’t a part of it. We need to start a blog so we can join the conversation.”

Needless to say, the boss of Mr. Pimple Face isn’t too impressed with this reasoning. Her mission is to grow the business, get more qualified leads, build market share, awareness and all the other things a marketing group is supposed to do. Having a “conversation” usually isn’t included in the business plan.

Mack goes on to point out, that if Marketing Guy has any chance of selling his social media ideas to his boss, he needs to clearly show how the business will benefit. How building a blog, Facebook page, Twitter presence etc., will result in more leads, more sales, happier clients.

Right, so back to my post and my problem. How can social media become part of the marketing plan when there really isn’t much in the way of conversation in the first place? Is it a lost cause?

First of all, why no conversation? There are obviously various reasons for this. I wrote about one of the big ones in my post Social Media and the IT Guy A lot of businesses control where the employees can go on-line and social media sites are often blocked.

In addition, most of the people who represent my potential customer base are pretty busy and are not hanging around on Twitter or Facebook at work. Those that did have time for this sort of thing have probably been downsized already.

So that was our dilemma when we decided we wanted to add an inbound component to our largely outbound marketing program. We did all the traditional things; mailings, telemarketing, tradeshows, a quarterly newsletter etc. We also had a decent website and played around with Adwords a bit to drive traffic there.

Looking around and talking to people in the business, it seemed that our competitors and other people in our business were in much the same situation. Sure a few companies had blogs and some even had people using Twitter (most of the Twitter users were just Tweeting company stuff so not very interesting). The only exception I found was Carl Brown from SimplyRFID. Carl is active & entertaining on Twitter and has an interesting company blog focusing on his RFID business.

So when we wanted to balance our marketing to bring more inbound ideas, there was not an existing model we could use to get started.

One thing I had learned from my photography business was that Google likes blogs. For UniqueDay Events, our blog outperforms our static website every month in terms of Google search results.

So a blog seemed to be a good idea and I happened to have one kicking around. RFIDNews.net was an old project of mine that wasn’t even on-line any longer. No problem, I registered the domain LabelingNews.com, invested in a new template from great WordPress guy Brian Gardner and the Winco ID quarterly newsletter was now on-line.

We thought we had some pretty good stories to tell on Labeling News, but of course good content does nothing of no-one reads it. We therefore focused on getting our stories to rank well with Google, indeed the posts on the site are often written with Google in mind.

Why is this important? Well for us, we know that we are not going to be driving people to Labeling News via Twitter or Facebook (we do have a presence on these as well as other social media networks, but as already mentioned our customers are generally not active there) so we needed something else.

The something else was that we know our clients have problems and they have questions. When I come across a problem, my first reaction is to type the question into Google and look for possible solutions. I don’t look at the sponsored ads (on all my personal PCs I use Adblock so never see any Google ads anyway), just the organic ones. My strategy depends on me not being the only person who works this way.

So my tactic here is to try and write stories that address specific problems our clients might have. I also try to get inside their heads as to how they would search for information. By keeping an eye on Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools I can see how this is working. On the whole I’m reasonably pleased, I’d rate the results about B- (Not bad but room for improvement).

The other key metric is how often we get a direct contact from Labeling News or how often the phone rings. We make a point of asking new contacts how they found us and Labeling News is high on the list.

One thing I would like to see is more interaction in the post comments. I’m not sure this will happen though – as I mentioned already, our potential clients are not usually that engaged with social media. Instead they find us if they have a problem, get the answer (which often involves making a purchase from us) and move on.

So our Labeling News site is the centerpiece of our social media marketing. We support this with our presence in Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, send monthly targeted outbound emails (with links to specific landing pages), hold regular technology seminars, attend tradeshows. We have not allowed the economic situation to slow down our programs – indeed we see doing a better marketing job as being the solution to getting through the tough times and being in good shape as things recover.

It is still early days for social media in our industry, but I believe it’s important to start building a presence now.

If you are involved in a manufacturing company, does social media play a part in your job? Where do you turn to find reliable solutions to problems?

Preserved Machinery Photo by John Spooner http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnspooner/ / CC BY 2.0

Balanced Marketing – HubSpot

David — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 11:08:27 +0000

If you’ve read any of my marketing posts, you’ll know that I’m a huge believer that successful marketing today calls for a balance of traditional and new techniques – a blending of outbound and inbound marketing. Here at Totally Incorrect, I want to create an occasional series of stories that feature businesses that I believe have gotten it right.

HubSpot is a start-up business in Cambridge, MA that has developed a system for managing inbound marketing. In their own words: “HubSpot is an inbound marketing system that helps your business get found on the Internet by the right prospects and convert more of those prospects into leads and paying customers.”

Sounds good – inbound marketing is trendy right now and there are plenty of marketing managers looking for ways of integrating inbound marketing into their plans. This article is about how HubSpot sets about this.

Just a quick disclaimer, I’m not affiliated with HubSpot in any way and I’m not a customer at this time. I am a member of the Pro Marketers Group at Linkedin, which I believe was started by HubSpot.

OK, let’s get going. First of all, like most companies, HubSpot has a built a presence at Google. I did a quick Google search on “Internet marketing” and quickly found the two results you see here – one organic (I expected to see HubSpot higher on the page than I did, to be honest) and one in Sponsored Results. Note that the AdWords one is attempting to entice the viewer to click on the ad with the promise of getting something for free. Personally, I’d normally only see the organic Google result – for this story, I went to the trouble of disabling adBlock just to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Normally, I’m pretty much ad-free. I also have huge doubts as to the real effectiveness of pay=per-click advertising, but that’s for a future story.

I also seem to remember reading that HubSpot buys banner ads at certain marketing sites such as marketingprofs. Because of my trusty adBlock I’ve never seen them and an unprotected visit to marketingprofs this morning revealed no HupSpot banners.

So HubSpot has done a bit of SEO work on their site and bought some Google clicks and maybe banners – good things to do, but pretty conventional. Where HubSpot sets itself apart is in the way the company and its employees have embraced Social Media marketing.

Where ever you go in the Social Media world you are going to come across HubSpot people – Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin – there they are. HubSpot does things the way I like to see it as well – a corporate account which consistently promotes the company image and individual accounts where the employees bring there own personalities to the mix.

As I already mentioned, I’m a member of the Pro Marketers group on Linkedin which is a HubSpot group. It is nicely done so that, other than the subtle branding, it works as a resource for the members – not as an ad for HubSpot.

In my opinion, good useful content is the key for successful Social Media marketing and this is the area where HubSpot stands out. The folks at the company have clearly spent a lot of time putting together some great content, all designed to be helpful to the their target customers. As a Sales and Marketing Manager with a small company, I fit the profile of a potential client and I must confess that I use the resources that HubSpot provides quite often.

I have the feed for the HubSpot Marketing Blog in Google Reader so it is one of the blogs I read every day. I’ve also taken advantage of some of the webinars on marketing topics that are provided.

To be honest, the resources that HubSpot makes freely available are better than many that I’ve paid for in the past and I would recommend anyone with an interest in modern marketing techniques to check them out.

One very novel aspect that the company produces is a weekly video podcast – www.hubspot.tv.

The podcast is pretty nicely done (although I find one of the presenters a bit irritating) and each weeks show is archived at iTunes – just go to iTunes and search on HubSpot.

So this is all very well, but how does it help to sell the company’s software?

Well first of all, the whole point of inbound marketing to to get people to your site that are likely to have an interest in what your business does. In the case of HubSpot, if you engage one of their people at Twitter, click on one of their “Free Marketing eBook” ads, watch their video podcast, you either have no life whatsoever or are involved in marketing.

Let’s assume that most visitors are interested in marketing (the no-lifers won’t stay long anyway). When you click on most of the inbound links to HubSpot you are going to arrive at one of their landing pages (another must have) and you will often have to provide some information about yourself before you are allowed to get to the webinar, white paper, marketing kit you want.

When I went through this process, I wasn’t too happy with the number of fields I had to fill in. While I don’t have an issue with providing basic info for something I want – these guys form just goes on and on. I always just play and check off the biggest numbers for employees, $$ in sales etc. Make me fill in dumb forms – you’ll get dumb info back! (There’s that anti-social twist again!)

Anyway, if you get to the end of the sign-up form; two things happen.

First you get the content which is always of the highest quality and very useful.

Next, you get out of the inbound marketing phase of engagement and into a more traditional sales cycle.

The first thing you can expect is an email thanking you for your interest and wanting to show you more about the HubSpot software. I’m pretty sure this email is automatically generated via their Salesforce.com installation. No worries though – the message is nicely put together.

You can also be confident of a follow up call (or calls) from an Inbound Marketing Consultant – HubSpot speak for inside sales person.

I would describe the followup from the HubSpot sales team as politely persistent – just what I’d expect from my own sales guys to be honest.

So far, I’ve not taken that next step – to learn more about the HubSpot system and to find out if it would appropriate for our business. Just a matter of time though.

HubSpot is a perfect example of how a Marketing 2.0 business can use a mix of traditional and contemporary marketing and sales techniques to come with a balanced marketing solution. The fact I’m discussing it shows that it works!

I must remember to reactivate adBlock now – seen enough ads for one day thank you!

Update: AAARRRGGGGGG!!!!! – I forgot to reactivate adBlock and came across this HubSpot ad on a blog

I won’t let that happen again!

Are trade shows still relevent?

David — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 02:09:49 +0000

There is a great post over at Labeling News on the role of trade shows in today’s marketing world. Here it is in full:

Tradeshows – Should YOU Go?
by Linda of Labeling News

You may have read about the upcoming area tradeshows featured in Labeling News, but in this slow economy, should you bother investing the time and money to attend one of these shows?

Manufacturing a quality product, understanding your customers, and excellent customer service are all key business ingredients. But to maintain success and grow, you must also understand the changes and advancements in the technologies that can improve your processes right now. Emerging trends, different approaches, and the latest products and processes are on display at a trade show and will help you change or improve your manufacturing capabilities.

Visiting a trade show like the upcoming Electronics New England and Eastec gives you access to many new things that are happening in your industry. New products and services are on display, industry leaders are there to talk to, and ideas are there to inspire you. Making contact with suppliers, learning about new products, and attending seminars can help you plan effective strategies for your future.

To make the most of your trade show experience, be sure to plan ahead. There will be lots to see and not enough time to see it all. So sign up early. Make reservations for workshops or lectures that will give you the knowledge you need for your job responsibilities, and learn how the future is shaping up for your industry.

Take the time to talk to suppliers. As scary as that may be sometimes when they greet you in the aisle, this may lead ou to some important insights on improving your manufacturing processes. Besides finding out about a new product or service, you can get ideas about how small changes might mean big improvements to your bottom line.
Networking is another benefit of getting out of the office. You might find contacts who can offer new business opportunities. This may be a vendor or someone who attends the same seminar track.
Tradeshows are a valuable way to learn about what is changing in your industry, and gives you the knowledge to use these changes to remain competitive and strong.

Not everyone can afford a day out of the office. So look for shows in your area. When we go to a tradeshow, we always have our list in hand, who we want to see, and what we need to learn or solve and that helps make the experience worthwhile.

So if you are in manufacturing, we hope you will join us at one of the upcoming shows. Learn more here

I left this response on the site:
I believe the role of trade shows has changed in recent years. I’m old enough, even though I don’t look it to remember the days before Al Gore invented the Internet. Back then, tradeshows were an important event – the time when new products would be introduced.

Today, there is so much information available on-line to everyone, that there is no need to travel to a show to find out what is new in your industry.

I believe there are two things that contribute to trade shows still being relevant.

The first is that sometimes we tend to forget that doing business is still a people thing. It is important to meet clients, potential clients, vendors and competitors (yes over the years I’ve always had good relationships with my competitors) face to face. There is really no substitute for this and I always enjoy trade shows and seminars for this reason.

The other factor is that the on-line experience can never replace the “touch & feel” of actually seeing real solutions.

So I would encourage potential clients to do a lot of on-line research, check forums and find out what other companies are doing to solve similar problems to yours. But still make time for tradeshows and seminars to keep the personal touch in your business relationships and see real solutions first hand.

Cheers!
David

See the original post here

Fair Trade – is it really fair?