by Fronetics | Sep 17, 2014 | Blog, Marketing, Strategy, Supply Chain
At Fronetics we work with companies within the supply chain and logistics industries to reach their business and marketing goals. We work with our clients to identify and execute strategies that produce results.
As discussed in a previous post, too often I see companies who have invested time and money into developing a B2B inbound marketing strategy and have fallen flat. Reasons include: a lack of strategy and commitment; not targeting the ideal customer; not publishing content consistently; not creating quality content; and being too focused on sales.
Is your current marketing strategy working? Does your website attract and engage? Does your website generate leads? Does your company generate leads via social media?
How many times did you answer “I don’t know,” or “no?” Be honest.
We are offering a free marketing assessment. The assessment includes a discussion focused on your current goals and challenges, an evaluation of the competitive landscape, and actionable strategies to help you grow your business.
Don’t worry, there is no fine print and there are no obligations.
by Fronetics | Sep 16, 2014 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy, Supply Chain
I work with companies from the supply chain and logistics industries to identify and execute strategies that will grow their business. Too often I see companies who have invested time and money into developing a B2B inbound marketing strategy and have fallen flat. Here are six reasons why inbound marketing strategies tend to fail:
The ideal customer is not being targeted
A successful inbound marketing strategy will attract and engage the “right people” – ideal customers. It is therefore essential that time is taken to understand who the ideal customer is, the needs of the customer, and the customer’s pain points. Your company’s website, social media presence, and email communications, should speak to your ideal customer.
Content is not published consistently
A common pitfall is establishing a blog, but only publishing content on a sporadic basis. To establish your company as an industry leader and gain leads, you need to publish content on a consistent basis. For example, your company needs to commit to publishing blog content every Tuesday.
Content is not quality content
All content is not equal. If you want your inbound marketing efforts to succeed, your content needs to be quality content. Your content should be well-researched, sourced, and edited. Grammatical errors and misspellings are inexcusable.
More isn’t always better
It is easy to sign up for a social media account. I’ve seen many companies who have decided to jump into social media feet first and have established many social media accounts, only to become overwhelmed. If you want your inbound marketing strategy to succeed, it is more important to be active on one social network than inactive on five.
Lack of strategy and commitment
A 2014 study of B2B marketers found that companies that have a strategy in place are more likely to consider their efforts effective than companies that do not have a stated strategy in place. Companies that do not have a strategy in place, and who do not have someone in charge of the strategy tend to fail.
A focus on sales
Content that informs and educates attracts and engages. Content that is “salesy” not only fails to attract and engage, it turns customers away.
Is your inbound marketing strategy falling flat? Assess your strategy – honestly. Has your company fallen prey to these common pitfalls?
by Fronetics | Sep 4, 2014 | Blog, Marketing, Supply Chain
The temptation is obvious: You want to use your business blog to proclaim the virtues of your excellent products. You throw around words like “unique,” “outstanding,” “robust,” and “industry-leading.”
Perhaps you even add a blinking “Buy Now!” button at the end, convinced your reader simply can’t resist hitting it.
There is only one problem: Your sales pitch made your prospective customer tune out long before they reached the last paragraph.
Imagine the following scenario: You enter a car dealership and are greeted by an enthusiastic sales agent, grinning ear to ear. He launches into his pitch about mega sales and the best deal of the century. Any question from you is brushed aside as he has more to say about the car model that he has decided you must have. Turned off by his sales strategy, you make a quick exit.
Or think of another example: A sales representative from a company whose website you browsed a few days ago follows up with a call and leaves a voice mail. The message is friendly. She does her best not to sound pushy. She introduces her “leading” company, which offers “a wide range of services” and a “one-stop-shop” for all your needs. By the time she reaches, “I look forward to meeting you,” you’re still ready to hit the delete button. Again, the voice mail was loaded with sales lingo.
As strange as it may sound, being “salesy” is bad for business. HubSpot, a marketing consulting service and software developer, goes as far as calling it one of the “7 Deadly Sins of Inbound Marketing.”
It reads:
Sin 3: Gluttony – Don’t be gluttonous and stuff your content with information about your company products. Focus on solving problems and helping your customers and community first and not jamming your product pitch down their throats.
Let’s go back to the two examples above and transfer the line of thought to your blog. Rather than forcing your products on your prospective customers, take time to answer their questions. You are there for them. They may be in the beginning of their buyer’s journey and far from ready to sign off on a brand new car. Perhaps they entered that dealership to browse, to check out the view behind the steering wheel.
And what if that voice mail had been phrased differently? What if the sales representative had spent a moment talking about what your browsing history said about the problems you’re seeking solutions to and presented some real-life proof of how her company could help? Basically, she would have been more effective showing how her company can deliver value to you. The same goes for your blog.
Here’s what you should do:
- Stay informative and educational.
- Demonstrate market expertise.
- Sound like a business peer.
- Focus on topics and questions of crucial importance to your target audience.
The bottom line: If you want to make a sale, stop selling.
by Fronetics | Sep 3, 2014 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing, Supply Chain
Before personal computers became ubiquitous, my family’s desktop computer served as our sole connection to the digital world. It wasn’t uncommon for someone to rush through dinner so they could be the first to claim their spot in front of it for the evening. On any given night you could find my mom scouring the web for new dinner recipes, my dad waiting his turn to research ways to improve his golf swing, and my sister bemoaning her wait to explore something decidedly less practical. Regardless of subject matter, though, each one of them sought the same thing – information.
Many years later, that same unbridled access to information has shaped a new environment. Companies are taking note and are reexamining the way they target and interact with consumers. As marketers, we are well aware that this new landscape, driven by changes in buyer behavior, looks far different than it did before. What’s less apparent though, is how we should develop our marketing strategy to reflect these changes.
By leveraging advances in technology and using what we know about current buyer behaviors, we can begin to think about implementing an information-driven marketing strategy. That is, empowering buyers through thoughtful content curation and publication.
So, how can your company start putting some of these ideas into practice? Well, here are the basics.
You need a content strategy.
In a marketing environment where direct messages are being largely ignored by consumers, it’s essential that companies provide real, meaningful value through the materials they publish. Just like my family, consumers are seeking to be educated. Gleanster Research found that 50% of leads are qualified, but not yet ready to buy. However, the odds are that someday they will be, and the content they’re reading today will inform their decision to look to you – or not.
Publish and align your content thoughtfully.
Identify when and where your prospects are most likely to want or access your expert content. What kind of content will attract visitors, convert leads, close customers, and delight promoters? Where will they likely look for this information? Aim to deliver relevant content to the right people in the right places, at the right time. Consider that a recent study by Forrester found that a full 85% of business decision-makers said at least one social media channel is very important in the consideration of business technology purchase decisions. It’s not just simply good business for your company to align content correctly – it’s essential.
Consider the Buyer’s Journey.
Gone are the glory days of the Sales Funnel. Enter the buyer’s journey. This (relatively) new concept suggests that buyers follow a linear path as they move through the sales process: first the awareness stage, then the consideration stage, and finally the decision stage. Each of these stages in the buyer’s journey necessitates corresponding content. Want to raise awareness of your brand and attract visitors? Try offering a free eBook that addresses a key pain point of your ideal buyer. Looking to close that almost-there sale? Propose a free trial. By considering the journey of your buyer, you are more likely to provide relevant content at the precise moment your buyer needs it.
Considering the characteristics of this new environment, it’s very unlikely that our prospects come to us completely uninformed. With more knowledgeable buyers, businesses must stay one step ahead. Implementing an information-driven marketing strategy gives us an attainable and inclusive way of achieving that.
by Fronetics | Sep 2, 2014 | Blog, Content Marketing, Data/Analytics, Marketing, Supply Chain
To grow your B2B business you need to take a comprehensive data driven approach to marketing. Metrics enable you to measure success, drive strategy, and demonstrate the ROI of your marketing efforts.
What metrics should you track?
Given that your objective is to attract, acquire, and retain customers, the most effective metrics to track are those where the unit of focus is the prospect, lead, or customer. These include the following:
Visits
Visits capture the number of visitors to your company’s website in a given period of time. In addition to tracking the total number of visits, it is also important to track visits by source. That is, how visitors come to your website. Sources typically include direct traffic, organic search, referrals, social media, and email marketing.
Reach
Reach is the number of people who can be reached through your marketing channels (e.g. LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook). This metric is a good indicator of how well the content you are publishing attracts new people to your network, and how well the content engages people within your network. In addition to tracking your company’s total reach (the total number of people you can reach across all channels), you should also track reach by channel.
Leads
Leads are one of the strongest indicators of ROI. By tracking leads by source, you can identify where your marketing efforts are most effective, areas where you can improve, and areas you could eliminate from your strategy.
Customers
Customers are also a strong indicator of ROI. Like leads, customers should be tracked by source.
Conversion rates
Conversion rates measure the percentage of people who are moving from one marketing stage to the next. An increase in your conversion rates implies an improvement in the quality of your content and/or traffic. You should track the visit-to-lead conversion rate (How many of your website visitors are becoming new leads?) as well as the lead-to-customer conversion rate (Are you generating sales-ready leads?).
Ranking
Ranking matters. The top listing in Google’s organic search results receives 33 percent of the traffic compared to 18 percent in the second position. Two metrics you can track are your domain authority and your marketing grade.
Domain authority is a score ranging from 1 to 100 that represents how well a website will perform in a search engine ranking. The lower the score – the less likely it will be found. Marketing grade is a holistic measure of a site’s online presence as measured by HubSpot’s Marketing Grader on a scale of 0-100. A higher score is better.
How to track metrics for success
Having an established database to capture your marketing metrics is critical to success. We created a template that you can download and use to track your metrics, measure success, and drive strategy. One of the great features about this template is that it generates graphs that can be used in your reports and presentations.
