by Fronetics | Oct 1, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Current Events, Logistics, Marketing, Strategy, Supply Chain, Talent
Considering instituting a work from home policy for your business? Ask yourself these three questions first.
As the supply chain becomes increasingly digital, many employers may be considering implementing a work from home policy. After all, we know one way to attract millennial talent is to allow for this kind of flexibility.
But before you make the decision to open the door to a work from home arrangement, consider these three questions.
3 questions to ask before implementing a work from home policy
1. Are your employees organized and self-motivated?
Ask any employee who works remotely, and they’re very likely to tell you that working from home makes them happier and more productive. And they aren’t necessarily wrong. There’s certainly evidence to suggest that with today’s technology, there’s essentially no downside to working from home, and it does often enhance productivity.
But working from home isn’t for everyone. Writing for the Harvard Business Review, marketing strategist and Duke University Professor Dorrie Clark suggests that workers considering a work-from-home arrangement first take a moment to introspect and understand how they work best.
According to author Natalie Sisson, “If you’re good at managing your own time, and you’re productive and have discipline, you’ll be able to do work from anywhere. But if you need to be in one place, and you need to go into an office, or need to be surrounded by the same people all the time, it probably won’t work for you.”
2. Is there a wealth of local talent?
One of the less-often-considered factors when businesses consider remote work arrangements is actually an important potential benefit for employers. Not every location has a tremendous amount of local talent, but that doesn’t have to limit your business. If you’re in an area where finding qualified employees is a challenge, making remote options available can be a big resource — essentially, the world is your oyster!
[bctt tweet=”Not every location has a tremendous amount of local talent, but that doesn’t have to limit your business. If you’re in an area where finding qualified employees is a challenge, making remote options available can be a big resource.” username=”Fronetics”]
Consider having remote hires come onsite for training, team-building, or orientation, and make sure they’re equipped to meet the requirements of their positions. Once that initial foundation is laid, and expectations are clear, they can work from anywhere in the world — and save you the office space.
3. How much collaboration is required?
Are you considering remote work options for positions that require extensive collaboration with other employees? If so, it’s not necessarily a deal-breaker, but it does require some additional forethought.
With the technology available today, remote collaboration should theoretically be a piece of cake. But it’s important that everyone be on the same page about expectations. If remote workers are needed in a scheduled daily meeting, for example, it’s important that that expectation be made clear from the outset.
It’s also crucial to make sure that remote workers are given the resources they need to collaborate with their colleagues, and that they have a good understanding of the technology they’ll be using.
Work from home arrangements can be beneficial for employees and employers alike. But it’s important to consider all the variables to ensure that it’s the right thing for your business.
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by Fronetics | Sep 25, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Strategy, Supply Chain
Armed with high-quality, substantive content, sales teams can use inbound marketing to close deals and boost sales. Here’s the content they need to advance purchasing decisions.
Aligning sales and marketing teams is not a new concept, but one that many companies don’t follow. Think about it: the ultimate goal in business is increased revenue from sales growth! In order to achieve this goal, it’s best to focus on what the buyers’ needs are at the individual stages of the buying process and to provide content to help them move along the sales funnel.
You’re asking yourself, “How do I do that?” Easy, start combining your sales and marketing efforts to maximize what each department does best. When done correctly, content marketing can support sales goals, making it easier to generate leads and helping the sales team close business.
Valuable and relevant content is not a sales pitch but can help the sales process. Arm your sales team with content that communicates valuable information to prospects so that they have the knowledge to make more informed decisions.
[bctt tweet=”Arm your sales team with content that communicates valuable information to prospects so that they have the knowledge to make more informed decisions.” username=”Fronetics”]
Moreover, concentrate on creating the kinds of content your target audience seeks, and distribute it through the platforms on which they seek it. How-to videos on YouTube? Thought leadership on LinkedIn? Optimize the material you distribute for each channel and use your sales team to further distribute your content.
But what kinds of content does your sales team need in order to close deals? Here to discuss our top suggestions is Frank Cavallaro, CEO and Founder of Fronetics.
Video: what content sales needs in order to close deals
Takeaway: teamwork is key
Sales and marketing teams that are aligned perform better. According to State of Inbound 2018’s latest survey, sales teams closely aligned with their marketing counterparts ranked the quality of marketing-sourced leads much higher than those that were rarely aligned or misaligned. That shows that when marketing and sales work together, everyone gets more of what they’re looking for — namely, leads and sales!
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by Fronetics | Sep 24, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Current Events, Logistics, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy, Supply Chain
A new generation of buyers, digital natives, is shaking up the B2B purchasing landscape. Is your business ready to meet them online?
Digital natives, who now make up the majority of the B2B purchasing landscape, have completely changed how vendors need to market and sell to buyers.
[bctt tweet=”Digital natives, who now make up the majority of the B2B purchasing landscape, have completely changed how vendors need to market and sell to buyers.” username=”Fronetics”]
In fact, according to a study of millennial buyers by Merit, some 73% of 20 to 35 year olds are involved in product or service purchase decision-making at their companies. Not only that, about half of all B2B product researchers are digital natives — and the number is rising by the year, according to a Google/Millward Brown digital survey of buyers.
It goes without saying that the B2B purchasing landscape is going through a radical shift. Here are 6 ways that digital natives have changed B2B purchasing — and how companies have to respond.
6 ways digital natives are changing B2B purchasing
1. Product searches begin with a generic web search.
This means that companies now have to focus on SEO and producing informative content. First impressions are everything in B2B markets, and when it comes to digital natives, your first impression is conveyed through every piece of content you produce and distribute online.
2. They bypass sales people.
So companies should aim to switch from primarily outbound marketing to inbound marketing. This doesn’t mean that salespeople are going to be out of jobs. But it does mean that sales and marketing need to work together in new ways.
3. Online search, vendors’ websites, and peer/colleague reviews are their most important sources of information.
It’s time to place focus on SEO, website development, social media, influencer marketing, and B2B review sites. Again, your reputation depends on your online content. Are you establishing your brand as a trusted source of information?
4. They prefer short bursts of information, often in visual formats.
Not only that, they find phone calls tedious and disruptive. Companies need to be strategic about the type and format of any content they distribute. Emails and websites should be mobile-friendly, and visual formats like infographics are a highly effective way to present dense information.
5. Social media is a preferred source.
These digital natives are relying on social media for information on brands, products, and services. How does your social media presence stack up?
6. They know what they want by the time a salesperson enters the process.
This new generation of buyers already has a clear idea of the value they expect from a vendor by the time they’re ready to move down the sales funnel. So vendors need to deliver on the promises made by their content.
How is your company accommodating the research and purchasing habits of digital natives?
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by Fronetics | Sep 18, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Current Events, Logistics, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy, Supply Chain
Ask yourself these five questions before you dive headfirst into an influencer marketing campaign to set you on the right path.
We’ve been writing a lot lately about influencer marketing and how it can work for the supply chain. These campaigns can be extremely effective — but getting the most bang for your buck requires a strategic approach from the outset.
Before you start an influencer marketing campaign, ask yourself these 5 questions.
5 questions to ask before starting an influencer marketing campaign
1. Why do I want to use influencers?
According to Natasha Lekwa, influencer marketing and social media editor at Snapchat, it’s important to “make sure you have a clear idea why you want to use influencers.” Answers might include boosting brand awareness, gaining followers, or increasing sales, to name a few. But each of these answers will lead you to a different strategy.
Being fully and deliberately aware of why you’re embarking on a campaign will help you set key performance indicators, determine your audience, and “envision what success will look like at the end of the campaign.” You’ll also be able to choose strategically the best platform to use, based on your content and target demographic.
2. Who are my influencers?
It may seem obvious, but you’d be surprised how often businesses dive into an influencer marketing campaign without having fully identified key influencers in their sector.
Lekwa suggest using hashtags to search Instagram for appropriate influencers and advises not just focusing on the obvious influencers in your industry. In fact, exploring influencers in other related industries can help expand your reach.
3. Who are my micro-influencers?
[bctt tweet=”Micro-influencers can give you a much higher ROI than big stars, and audience engagement tends to get higher as social niches get narrower.” username=”Fronetics”]
So you’ve identified your major influencers. Now you can start thinking about your “micro-influencers,” those with 10K to 100K followers. “Micro-influencers can give you a much higher ROI than big stars, and audience engagement tends to get higher as social niches get narrower,” Lekwa says. And since engagement is the name of the game when it comes to any kind of social media marketing, micro-influencers can be enormously valuable.
4. What are your terms?
Since influencers tend to be content creators at heart, they often have plenty of great ideas. But it’s important that your goals are transparent and aligned.
“It’s important to be on the same page,” says Lekwa. “Having a clear contract that spells out what each side will execute will help manage expectations for both your team and for the influencer.” In fact, Lekwa points out that influencers generally appreciate having guidelines and “the big conceptual themes of a campaign handed to them.”
5. What is my own value?
Approaching influencers can be intimidating. As Forbes writer Andrey Slivka points out, “As you might expect from people who get deluged with free stuff, influencers can be hard to impress.” This means you need to be clear and specific when you approach them about what you have to offer.
“Especially with micro-influencers, who are building their brands, what you offer doesn’t always have to be monetary,” Lekwa says. Often, brands can offer influencers exposure, the prestige of having their own brand associated with a larger business, or the resources to improve their content production.
Influencer marketing can be daunting at first, but it’s a powerful tool of the supply chain. If you lay the right foundation, an influencer marketing campaign has the potential to expand your brand’s reach exponentially.
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by Fronetics | Sep 17, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy, Supply Chain
Today’s B2B buyers are mostly digital natives who get the majority of their purchasing information from online searches, vendor websites, and peer recommendations.
From a content marketing perspective, knowing where your buyers get their information is critical to an effective strategy. So what are most important sources of information for today’s B2B buyers? 20 years ago, you might have named things like product info sheets or sales reps. But not anymore.
B2B buying has completely evolved, thanks in large part to the increasing percentage of digital natives who now make up the B2B purchasing landscape.
Is your content marketing strategy meeting buyers where they are? Here are the three most important sources of information for B2B buyers.
3 top sources of information for B2B buyers
1. Online search
Not only is an online search the first move for 62% of B2B buyers, 94% of buyers report using online research at some point during the purchasing process. And this isn’t a surprise, when you consider that, according to a study of millennial buyers by Merit, “some 73% of 20 to 35 year olds are involved in product or service purchase decision-making at their companies.”
[bctt tweet=”Not only is an online search the first move for 62% of B2B buyers, 94% of buyers report using online research at some point during the purchasing process.” username=”Fronetics”]
So what does this mean for your business? Gone are the days when a simply thinking about keyword rankings was enough to boost your SEO. In our four-part series on writing for SEO, we address how search engines and the search landscape have changed over the past several years. Improving your search ranking can seem like a complex process, but in the end it all boils down to one thing: quality content, presented in a clear and compelling manner.
2. Vendor websites
So buyers conduct their online search. And if you’ve done your content marketing homework, they find your business. How does your website stack up?
According to Bain’s global customer insights chief Eric Almquist, by the time they reach your website, buyers “will have already formed a strong opinion about many aspects of the value expected from a vendor.” For this reason, your website should “provide a wealth of information on these types of value, with details on where… products have been successful.”
Your website should be one of your primary assets. If you don’t give visitors plenty of easy, attractive opportunities to convert on your website, content marketing won’t generate leads for you. Your content should be organized and clear, presented with the goal of helping your potential customers. And opportunities for conversion should be everywhere.
3. Peers and colleagues
As digital natives step into purchasing roles in the supply chain, they’ve “brought their consumer habits to the B2B world,” says Almquist. This means that a big part of the purchasing process involves review sites, where purchasers seek the opinion of their peers and colleagues. “Reviews will tell the buyer how a vendor performs on many ease-of-doing-business elements long before the buyer has actual experience with that vendor.”
This aspect of content marketing can seem daunting for many businesses because of the perception that what’s on these sites is completely out of your control. But with the right strategy in place, review sites are actually a big opportunity for your business.
For a start, vendors “should encourage customers who are advocates of the company to provide reviews on relevant sites.” It’s also important to take an active role on these sites, responding to customer reviews — even the occasionally inevitable bad ones.
Says Almquist, “First impressions matter as much as ever in B2B markets. Today though, that first look comes through websites, user forums, and quick case studies, not flesh-and-blood sales pitches.”
With a well-thought-out, data driven content marketing strategy, you’ll be ready to meet digital natives where they are.
What sources of information for B2B buyers do you focus on?
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by Fronetics | Sep 12, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Strategy, Supply Chain
Here are the top three resources digital natives are using to research solutions and how your B2B business can prepare to meet them online.
Knowing where your buyers do research when making purchasing decisions is crucial to any marketing strategy. Digital natives, a new generation of younger buyers, have completely revolutionized the purchasing landscape for B2B vendors. Their biggest resource? The world wide web.
[bctt tweet=”73% of employees ages 20-35 years old are involved in product or service purchase decision-making at their company. In fact, one-third reported they are the sole decision maker for their department.” username=”Fronetics”]
A study of millennial buyers by Merit found that 73% of employees ages 20-35 years old are involved in product or service purchase decision-making at their company. In fact, one-third reported they are the sole decision maker for their department.
What does this mean for B2B marketers?
These younger, and typically more technologically advanced, buyers expect they can find the information they need about your brand online through an organic search. Your company needs to have any and all content available at the push of a button.
But the work doesn’t stop there. Once a buyer finds your brand, you hope they make the leap to visit your website, meaning your site needs to be one of your most appealing assets. If you don’t give visitors plenty of easy, attractive opportunities to convert on your website, content marketing won’t generate leads for you.
But online searches and vendor website aren’t the only resources digital natives are using to make purchasing decisions. This younger generation also relies heavily on recommendations from peers and colleagues.
Like recommendations from friends and family in their personal lives, the opinion of other buyers becomes very important. A big part of the purchasing process involves B2B review sites, where purchasers seek the opinion of their peers and colleagues.
Here’s Elizabeth Hines, creative/editorial director at Fronetics, to discuss the top resources for B2B buyers and how you can be prepared to meet them online.
Video: top 3 resources for B2B buyers
Final thoughts
Though the purchasing landscape has changed over the past decade, B2B marketers have the tools to get in front of the right buyers. These tools including knowing what resources buyers are using and how to use these assets to your advantage. With a documented strategy and high-quality, informative content, you’ll be ready to meet digital natives where they are.
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