In this week’s Tactics Thursday video, I share some of our best media relations tips and tricks.
Media Do’s
Media Don’ts
The most common phrase since the beginning of the pandemic and the use of video meetings such as Zoom is “You’re on Mute!”
You’re excited to contribute to the conversation, it’s your 6th video call of the day, and all people see is our lips moving and hands waving. Then you hear it, someone informs you that your microphone is not on, “doh!”.
Comic relief famous internet in-person conference call spoof
Throughout this global crisis, companies have had to make tough choices. Do we forge ahead or tighten our belts? Do we protect our employees and assets at the expense of future growth (and maybe our very survival)? Sales and marketing almost always take a budget hit during a recession which seems counterproductive. Companies develop products and services and selling and marketing those products is part of the fabric of any business. Without sales and marketing, there simply is no business. My favorite saying is “Nothing happens until somebody sells something.” Contract manufacturers do not build without an order and raw materials are not requested without a production need. So the question begs, why stop promoting your company?
In May 2020 as I am writing this article, unemployment had surged to 14.7%, and 20.5 million jobs were lost. Salespeople and marketers need to be sensitive and empathetic to their customers and prospects during this uncertain time in our economy. One of the partner companies we’re proud to be associated with is HubSpot. See how they approached this crisis.
Recently, I was speaking to a sales representative in my network, one of the few still on the road visiting and working with customers, and he mentioned he’s seeing signs posted “Absolutely No Sales Calls.” While the safety of our people should be the number one priority, what are business development people to do if they cannot sell? As doors open, will the signs come down? If not, how will they market and create deeper relations with customers? Fortunately, there’s inbound marketing. Our free eBook on the subject can be found at this link. Professionally and compassionately, you need to come off mute.
Inbound marketing is a business methodology that attracts customers by creating valuable content and experiences tailored to them. While outbound marketing interrupts your audience with content they don’t want, inbound marketing forms connections they’re looking for and solves problems they already have.
So how do you move beyond definition and theory and create meaningful campaigns? Allison Miller recently wrote: How to Discover Content Ideas Right Under Your Nose
It is the questions your prospects ask, it is the new concept R & D is talking about in company meetings, it is the case study on the great job your team did on a particularly challenging project. You have the content, you just need to develop it into a format that allows salespeople to sell and marketing people to market…enter the writers.
Keeping your brand relevant and authentic is the topic covered in the entreprenuer.com article Best Practices for Marketing During and After CODID-19 by Andrew Reid, CEO of Rival Technologies. This is a playbook on balancing caring with sales growth.
How will you “come off mute?” Drop us a comment below. And, if you need help, we’re only a Zoom away.
What is content?
How to develop content ideas?
For your typical interview, you should have a strategy for these five steps: 1) Know their audience, 2) Research the reporter and their history, 3) Have your facts straight, 4) know your desired outcome, and 5) Have your art ready.
First, are you familiar with the publication? You need to know who they consider their audience and if there is a fit with the content you hope to convey. Research their website, peruse past issues and look at their media kit. The editorial calendar is of particular interest. These are the “big rock” issues they will be covering editorially. If you can align with a proposed topic, you will be doing yourself and the reporter a huge service. Second, get to know the reporter.
Read articles they have written. Pay attention to tone, depth of technical expertise, and look for any bias the reporter may have, especially if that could either help or hurt your cause. By demonstrating your familiarity with both
the publication’s editorial direction and the reporter’s work, you are also showing you have respect for their organization.
Now that you have your facts and message points ready for your interview, know exactly what you want to get out of this interview opportunity. It’s perfectly acceptable to ask the reporter how their story will be used. Is this a feature on your company or are you being included in a larger piece?
Is this a sidebar to a separate story or simply a product mention with a photo and caption? Whether you are meeting in person or over the phone, make sure you know the facts about your organization. While you cannot anticipate every question, you should know your content cold. If you are not the expert, either get briefed by one prior or better yet, have them participate in the interview. Knowing your facts and developing key message points are not always the same thing. Your message points are fact-based content that you want to highlight. One tactic you can use is to request questions ahead of your interview. You have to be tactful here and be prepared for no. But, if you get the questions ahead of time, do not squander this opportunity to prepare.
Lastly, have graphics in the form of charts, photos or infographics ready and in the proper format. When you reviewed the publication, you already made note of the “art” they publish to support their content. Make sure your supporting graphics are ready to be emailed or uploaded. If this is a print publication, they will undoubtedly want the highest resolution photos or graphics you can provide. A jpeg will usually NOT work. We have seen time and time again our client’s interview featured simply because we had the best and most readily available supporting graphics. Just as important, relax. You are prepared and ready for this opportunity. And, if you string a few of these together, you will certainly be viewed as an industry expert.
It was easy before virus-interruptus to just plow through prospecting. Sure we sent emails and viewed LinkedIn profiles but did we really get to know our contacts at a personal level? Did we see the human smiling back at you in their profile picture or just click through to see how large the company is or where they are located? When you visited their offices and factories, you did not meet their dogs, see the art in their living room, or watch their kids searching for a snack in the kitchen while you zoomed.
In our new normal, we’re seeing each other with less of the armor of business and more of what makes us human; and that’s a good thing. Remember these experiences and cherish this time. I know that is strange to say, but this is the silver lining. For me, having my college sophomore twins home has led to the most consecutive family dinners since they were toddlers. Share your silver linings and your frustrations with your human prospects and you will certainly discover the person behind the lead.
So, turning 55 in a quarantine birthday was unique. In all the sadness and struggles it was uplifting to have a special day with family and friends. And, if you know my family, we make a habit of including the local news media. Watch me get totally surprised:
Rob Felber birthday surprise, Fox8
https://www.facebook.com/Fox8NewsCleveland/videos/1192163104448329/
Remember when having a dog barking or the kids making noise in the background was so unprofessional? It took the world being put on pause to realize what we were missing – the human connection. Share – laugh – cry, but remember, We’re all in this together. We will be better humans having this experience. Who will you connect with on a new level this week?
My chief barking officer
I would love to hear your stories. Share below in the comments. Here’s to getting to know you better!
Inbound marketing is one of the most buzzed-about topics among manufacturers. Many manufacturing companies have implemented successful inbound marketing strategies, which are bringing them more qualified leads and giving them better insight into their prospects and customers. However, for as many manufacturers that have successfully implemented inbound, there are just as many who have dropped the ball and made some major marketing blunders. Keep reading to learn the top inbound marketing mistakes manufacturers make and my top tips on how you can avoid these pitfalls at your manufacturing company.
The beautiful thing about inbound is that it ties sales and marketing together. With an inbound m
arketing platform, such as HubSpot, you can track your prospects and their behavior. In one, easy-to-view command center, you can look at prospects and customers individually and see what emails they’ve opened and clicked, where they’ve been on your website and what content they’ve downloaded.
When integrating an inbound strategy, it is necessary to get sales onboard. By integrating CRM with an inbound platform, sales managers get a “360” view of who the prospect is and receives a valuable insight on that individual’s needs, wants, and goals. That way, when a sales rep reaches out to a prospect, he or she is equipped with solutions tailored to that prospect. When sales are disconnected from inbound, you will not see optimal ROI from your marketing efforts.
2. Eliminating Traditional PR & Marketing Tactics from Their Strategy
Inbound marketing allows manufacturers to track just about everything from website visitors to leads and sales. We’ve seen a lot of manufacturers dropping the ball on public relations thinking that inbound marketing is replacing the need for the name recognition and eyeballs publicity delivers. However, PR & traditional marketing (editorial, advertising, direct mail, etc.) have an important place in an inbound strategy. How you may ask? The first step in the inbound marketing process is to attract.
By exhibiting at a trade show, being featured in an industry publication, or by advertising in the right magazine, you are enhancing your brand. Going to a notable industry trade show or having a case study of yours featured in a respected industry publication is a great way to intrigue prospects and attract them to your website! Read my blog “Why Manufacturers Still Need Traditional PR & Marketing in a Digital World” for more information on the importance of inbound.
3. Underestimating the Power of Social
Many manufacturers are not tapping into the power of social media. If social isn’t integrated into your inbound marketing plan, you are missing out. You can write all the relevant content you want, but you still need to distribute that content. Social provides just the right mix of channels to broadcast your message. Let’s face it: we’re living and breathing in a social media driven world. More and more people are getting their news from Twitter instead of television news outlets and making connections on LinkedIn instead of cold calling or email introductions. If you read Rob’s blog on social selling, you’ll understand the impact social has on the sales process and how easily social selling incorporates into the manufacturing sales process.
This week’s Tactics Thursday video is all about how to make a strong content strategy through the process of content mapping. You’ve heard it before: content is king—and the way to create relevant, consistent content is by creating a content map. Content marketing is not a short-term campaign. Just like the manufacturing sales cycle, it is a long-term strategy to attract, convert, close and retain customers. Below, learn my best practices for creating a content map that will ensure your content strategy doesn’t fall to the wayside!
Are you currently utilizing pay-per-click ads in your marketing strategy? Are you seeing little lead conversion or ROI from your efforts? Creating an excellent pay-per-click ad is about more than writing snappy copy. It’s a mix of creativity and data-driven science that focuses on the right keywords, the right budget, the right pay per click rate, and engaging copy that answers your audience’s search questions. Below, you’ll learn the foundation of paid search—the difference between pay-per-click and paid social ads, how to find who to target and keywords, what offers to get the best lead conversion, and more.
The two types of paid ads we primarily use for our business-to-business manufacturing clients:
Google/Bing pay-per-click: Advertisers pay to display brief advertisements, service offerings, product listings, video content, and generate mobile application installs within the Google or Bing ad network to web users. For example, if a contact search “lathe cut gaskets” or “food-grade gaskets”, our lathe cut gaskets manufacturing client will most likely come up in the search.
Paid social ads:
LinkedIn ads can help your business reach a powerful audience of professionals. Not only are LinkedIn members influential, but they also have two times the buying power of the average web crowd.
To create a sound pay-per-click strategy, it is essential that you take the time to identify your ideal customers. This process is called creating buyer personas. Buyer personas help manufacturers identify their best prospects. The profile of your best prospect and how they buy is the buyer’s’ journey.
Semi-fictional representations of your ideal customer based on select educated speculation and real data about customer demographics, behavior patterns, motivations, and goals.
A well-organized PPC campaign will include a number of different types of keywords such as:
Once you’ve established PPC keywords as your base to start with, you need to be able to put them to use in an organized way that optimizes your time and money investment. Proper keyword grouping allows you to stay organized so that you can target your customers more successfully, thereby improving quality score and reducing cost.
Check out this great HubSpot article on How to do keyword research for more great tips
Increasing PPC Conversion Through Great Content Offers:
A great way to increase conversion on your paid ads is by offering a great piece of content. Your prospects are much more likely to fill out your forms if they are getting something valuable in return. Our clients have seen great success by offering the following pieces of content in their pay-per-click ads.
We see you there, cutting and pasting between spreadsheets, call reports, quotations and old RFQ’s. You’re diligently trying to market your manufacturing firm in the new virtual world. It all was somewhat manageable until we were all ripped from out cushy offices with docking stations and multiple monitors. Now, we’re struggling with our single-screen laptops, switching tabs so often even our pets cannot even follow our communication attempts. Woof!
Do you have access to your information about your customers and prospects? Now is the best time to revamp your approach and get everyone from sales and customer services to production and executive leadership on the same page.
What can you do with a free CRM?
HubSpot CRM is free at this link. Here’s what you can do on the FREE CRM:
We’re a big fan of HubSpot. As a partner agency we develop strategy and execute advanced marketing and public relations tactics such as automated email and lead generation campaigns for manufacturers. Here’s what our clients say.
What if you need more power? Do you have content to actually “feed the machine” to generate the website and lead traffic you desire? Yes, that’s what we can do for you as an inbound marketing agency. Need help? Let us know. We’re happy to jump on a Zoom – by now I am SURE, you’re an expert video meeting professional.
Check out these past articles to see more about what your manufacturing company can do with a coordinated and targeted inbound marketing program.
Happy Tactics Thursday! Like each and every one of you, we are adjusting to our ‘new normal’ amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. While the Coronavirus has shifted the way that we operate our businesses and daily lives, there could be a silver lining in this for manufacturers. Now is an excellent time to revamp recruitment strategies to fill open positions. There have been massive layoffs in entertainment, restaurants, small business and even manufacturing companies over the last 2 weeks. The Department of Labor reported that 3.28 million people in the United States have filed for unemployment benefits. There is a pool of great talent out there that are eager to find new positions and ready to work hard. Learn what we are doing to help our manufacturing clients market their open positions in this week’s Tactics Thursday video!