I’m often asked by industrial manufacturing businesses if there is any benefit to them using social media. The short answer is yes, the longer answer is…

Well, for a start – are you sure? It’s still early days for social media in the industrial manufacturing sector, so your customers may not have a Business Page yet, although many do, but are you sure they don’t use Facebook or Twitter on a personal basis?

In the UK there are 30 million people on Facebook, around 12 million on Twitter, with 8 million using LinkedIn and I find it hard to believe that your customers don’t account for some of these huge numbers …

However, if I’m wrong, does it really matter? Every post on social media is indexed by search engines, so as long as you use your keywords, you have a chance of a search engine finding that tweet or update when a potential customer is searching for a product. Isn’t that reason enough?

Written by: Lesley Whiteman, Social Media Manager, ID-Marketing

I think there are many companies who have got to this point, and it’s probably the worst reason to get involved with social media.

Let’s press the pause button and consider …

• Your business goals
• How will social media help you achieve them?
• What does success look like?
• What’s your strategy to get there?

If you’re struggling to answer any of these questions, then do give us a call and we can help through the process.

Once you’ve answered these questions then it’s time to implement, but do keep referring back to keep yourself on track with your strategy.

Written by: Lesley Whiteman, Social Media Manager, ID-Marketing

People often ask me this, and the answer is simple. Yes, you want to broadcast some messages relevant to your product or service, as this will increase your search engine rankings, but you need to mix it in with some run of the mill chitter chatter too. It’s called social media, so it’s important we keep it social.

Join in with other people’s conversations, answer questions and re-tweet others who have posted something of interest. Make general day to day comments; the kind of mundane conversations you’d have with the person standing next to you in the supermarket queue.

Don’t over-think Twitter – it’s just a conversation. For most people you can just tweet what pops into your head. People will forgive your spelling mistakes and bad grammar – as long as that isn’t a part of your service, e.g. if you’re a copy writer your tweets need to show your talent. If you manufacture widgets, the fact that you’ve missed a comma or mis-spelt a word really isn’t the end of the World.

Written by: Lesley Whiteman, Social Media Manager, ID-Marketing

I think it’s fair to say that industrial manufacturing companies haven’t yet jumped, en masse, into the social media arena. Some are using it and it’s working very nicely for them, but I think a lot of companies are still sceptical and are sitting on the side lines, watching, a bit like many did when the internet boom first started over 10 years ago.  As with the internet, it was the early adopters who had massive success, which leaves you in a unique position now. Get involved, set the standard and reap the rewards, or spend years wishing you’d got involved at the outset.

Google makes a fortune from its “pay per click” advertising, because most people who use the internet use Google to find what they want. I’m sure that’s no surprise to you. But did you know that Facebook gets more page views per month than Google, and Twitter isn’t far behind?

The role of internet marketers is to increase traffic to their client’s website.  So if several of the world’s most visited websites are already allowing people to use their sites freely to guide people to specific websites, why wouldn’t you take advantage of it?

Google now recognise Tweets in their organic results – and high up, too. There are hundreds of thousands of Twitter profiles showing on page 1 of Google for valuable keyword terms. Google also allows Facebook profiles and commercial “pages” to rank as well.

In short, these social media sites are SEO friendly, they love fresh content and allow you to post virtually anything you want at any time.  Social media and SEO work well together, like strawberries and cream. Either are fine on their own, but put them together and something magical happens!

I recently read a report from Global Spec entitled “Social Media Use in the Industrial Sector” which stated that industrial professionals are still largely passive users of social media, preferring to read and watch content, versus creating and sharing content; nonetheless they’re involved, and perhaps, you should be too.

Written by: Lesley Whiteman, Social Media Manager, ID-Marketing

LinkedIn has made cold calling a thing of the past for many of us – at least it should have. Unfortunately I suspect many people build their connections and then… well, nothing. LinkedIn is about as useful as a chocolate teapot if you only connect with people you already know – OK, maybe not a chocolate teapot, but certainly one with a dribbly spout. There are other teapots out there that do the job better if you just want to chat to people you know!

The search functions on LinkedIn are great for pinpointing the kind of people you want to do business with. Here’s a how to for you…

1. First you need to log in – see, not so hard, is it?

2. Go to the search bar and type in the search you want. Maybe you represent a packaging company and you want to make contact with company buyers. So you type in buyer and hit enter.

3. On the next page, down the left hand side you’ll see a whole host of search criteria designed to narrow your search. Some of this is only accessible if you pay, but the basic version is certainly good enough. I would suggest you refine your search to 2^nd connections, as you want to meet people that you don’t yet know. Other refinements are down to what makes sense for your business – location and industry I would suggest makes sense for our sales rep.

4. For me, this search comes up with 803 results. Now I can work my way through and decide who is my best match, in terms of their role, and our products. When I’ve found someone who I’d like to talk to I can click on our shared connection and request an introduction. I could do that, or I could make contact with our shared connection to find out all I can about my potential client – are they the decision maker, are they on the lookout for a new supplier, what interests do they have… the usual stuff, and of course, are they willing to introduce me. This then makes it more of a referral instead of a shot in the dark.

It’s this last part that turns a list of names into a rich source of potential clients, information and referrals. Much nicer than driving to an industrial estate and knocking on everyone’s door in the rain, to see if they buy packaging, yes, I was guilty of that many moons ago. I’ve also taken my local phone book, picked a page at random and started a (fruitless) exercise of offering financial services to whoever answered the phone. I guess these ways still work, but Linked In offers a much better way; far more in keeping with the digital age we live in, faster, sleeker and more efficient – go on, give it a go.

Written by: Lesley Whiteman, Social Media Manager, ID-Marketing

So – if we are to “out market” the competition it makes sense to consider “what is Marketing?” – indeed I often get asked something similar. Although just as often people struggling to understand will tell me their own limited idea couched as ” well of course Marketing is …….” usually followed by “telesales”, “e-marketing”, “advertising”, “promotion”, “content marketing”, “sales promotion”, – now of course “social media” and even on one occassion “constantly repeating the corporate message ” or otherwise some similar quite specific technique that they have picked up from the marketeers toolbox.

Perhaps because I came into Marketing in the early 70′s when Marketing was developing as a philosophy of business I see all of these aspects and more as part of Marketing. A good definition I have heard is that “Marketing is everything that a company does that does not involve personal contact with the customer.”

However for me I would say that Marketing is an approach that encompasses everything a company does based on an understanding of the market and how the company can best opperate within the market.

So that far from leaving Sales people out in the cold I would say that Sales is part of Marketing and even the way that corporate finances are derived form part of the corporate Marketing philosophy. So promotion and sales and finance can be seen simply as ways of working to achieve the company’s overall marketing objectives.

This approach enables one to balance all the company resources, inputs and outgoings, so as to optimise performance – connecting the marketplace to financial results.

To Grandiose for an SME? Well little acorns and all that – we can start by considering where to put promotional spend – into a new product that has already had a lot of effort behind it or into re-enlivening a moribund cash cow?

Would your resources be better in stock or an exhibition? Staff morale or a new machine? Interest on a loan or investing in enquiries? Which will enable you to best surf the waves of the Marketplace and to optimise your financial results long term?

So to Out Market the Competition we first have to think differently – about how to connect our resources with our markets. This is not always possible within a small very pressured environment and in my experience industrial SMEs are run by either from an engineering or a sales perspective – which generally brings a specific focus and timescale – a Marketing approach tends to be wider and longer term – this added perspective can be extremely advantageous in developing a strategy to take  a company forward over the long term. It focuses on growth in good times and out-marketing the competition in the down times. You may not need a marketing dept full time but you are likely to need access to one.

As a first step to “out Market the competition” contact us at ID-Marketing

One of our clients expressed the view recently that “it’s always the right time to out-market the competition” – something we forget at our peril. And interestingly he has proved it with outstanding growth over recent years – partly of course with the support of our activities. In the down times we go for market share and prepare the ground for better times. Then in the good times we work hard to maximise our growth.

We should remind ourselves that the choice of possible marketing approaches has never been better or cheaper to execute:
- PR
- online directories
- Social Media
- e-marketing
- Advertising
- Exhibitions

- and we come back to another saying that bears remembering – ie “work smarter not harder”.

Whatever the socio-economic climate it really is “always the right time to out market the competition” – talk to us to see how.

I recently had a rush of blood to the brain and got my act together with some scripts and a video camera – the results can be viewed on our website - subjects and content are taken from the seminars which we ran this year and which will be available in 2012 – register your interest here without commitment and we will send you information on next year’s program.

On Nov 4th – the day before Guy Fawkes day we will be running our last free Industrial PR and Social Media seminar. These 2011 seminars have been a great success with those attending taking away new information and ideas to enhance their businesses – so we have decided that next year we will charge – probably £200 per head and that means Nov 4th will be the last opportunity to attend for free.

Testemonials include:

“We found the session interesting and thoroughly thought provoking. Whilst I believe our company’s marketing effort is comprehensive, the session certainly opened our eyes to more possibilities especially in the field of digital marketing. We look forward to engaging with Ian and his team to realise the full potential of our efforts.”

“Possibly the best three hours training I have had in a very long time. Helped to focus on what can be done free or at reasonable cost, how to get the maximum benefit from minimum effort and convinced a sceptic of the need to use social media.”

“The seminar was conducted in a very relaxed style with plenty of time and encouragement for questions. Being a comparative novice in some of the subject matter I was delighted to learn new things and have to restrain my enthusiasm to experiment with what I have been shown but hope to put it to good use very soon. The small group enabled networking opportunities and an open forum to learn from each other. The venue choice was excellent and refreshments most appreciated. I had a thoroughly enjoyable and educational day, thank you.”

“Thank you for an incredibly useful and informative day! We have already begun to brainstorm how we can incorporate your advice into our overall marketing plan. The information that we gained from this seminar is invaluable and I would highly recommend it!”

Click here to register for your place at the Nov 4th free seminar and learn about Industrial PR and Social Media.

I am often amused by people’s fascination with getting themselves on page one of organic searches – as an agency we have never tried to achieve this – rather it has beeen a pleasant and surprising side effect of what we consider as “just doing the job right”.

To the point where we have clients with from 100 to over 200 keyword searches that we check 3 monthly and find them on page 1 of organic searches for anything from 50 to 100 of them. It is quite a buzz to put in an industry relevant search term and find our client on page one 5 times - the client is pleased too!

There seems to be confusion over what is important and what we are trying to achieve – yes it is great to get your own website high up the listings – but there are a number of other considerations:

1. 3rd party listings gained through PR, Content Marketing and Social Media will get listed much more easily and more quickly because the directories and journals are more valued than a single manufacturers site – and their listing for you will still take people to you. Such listings will also keep out your competition. We frequently find our clients listings appearing on page 1  a number of times eg 3, 4 or 5 times for a single search string. These listings seem to get picked up very quickly and to stay relevant for many months.

2. Your blog is likely to get higher value than your website if you are keeping it active – not only does a blog get picked up quickly it can be quite a stable listing.

3. Your website can get up the listings supported by the value accrued from your total activity and traffic. Once there it is usually quite stable if you maintain your online activity.