Are you a Marketer, Sales Leader or Owner of a Print Company that is interested in sharing your knowledge and skills with the greater print community?
We’re starting a series of content where we interview people like you in the print industry to get the best advice, tips and tricks on how you market your company.
If you would like to be interviewed for an upcoming article please fill out the form below and we’ll contact you with information and next steps!
One of the most common pieces of advice I give to businesses, firms and professionals who commit to marketing is that you must put in the work every day. Success comes from consistent output that builds up over time which in turn delivers more and more opportunity as it grows.
An inspiration for me personally is an individual and coach by the name of Ben Newman who travels the country working with businesses, sports teams and financial teams to move them forward strategically as it relates to the team and their organizational development strategy.
One of the common phrases he uses is that “Champions Create Distance on Fridays” and I’ve always loved that because of how strong of a message it is.
When most professionals check out on Friday, those who succeed are still going hard.
Why Am I Sharing This?
Really just as a piece of personal inspiration that hopefully will resonate with you.
At Acumen we use philosophies like this to make our work strong and deliver good results that really does set us apart.
If You Are Looking to Focus on Getting More Leads & Sales or Have Questions, Call Us at 866-357-7422
B2B companies ask us often “Does Social Media Work for B2B?” and in our experience that question is being asked because there is a presupposition that is doesn’t work for B2B markets. But as with any answer we give here on the Acumen blog it really depends. What does it depend on? What does “Work” mean for you as a B2B company?
If you simply ask Does Social Media Work for B2B Businesses then the answer is Yes!
If you ask will social media increase sales for my B2B company, then the answer isn’t so simple.
What are Your Social Media Goals?
Are you trying to primarily increase brand awareness, increase engagement, generate leads, increase sales? While you may want to say ALL of those things, the hard truth is that you aren’t going to be able to easily accomplish that if you are medium to smaller size B2B company. So focusing on one will allow you to more easily generate the results you are looking for.
Speaking of company size, we’ll discuss that a little later in the post, so keep reading!
Each goal has a different tactic that you would apply within social media to achieve success.
Awareness for example would be doing things to get in front of your prospective buyer over, and over, and over, and over, etc. This way they know that you exist, know who you are, and what you do.
But if you are trying to increase sales then you’ll be posting a lot more direct response content related to selling a product.
The content you post cannot be in conflict with your goal on social media.
Make Social Media Work for B2B
For most medium sized to small B2B companies you need to be posting at least 3 times per week with a mix of consideration focused content and direct sales posts.
This will generate more leads overall but at the same time mildly accomplish increasing brand awareness.
Why Can’t I Do “All the Social Media Things”?
We think you know the answer to that. Bandwidth and Return on Investment (ROI).
You likely don’t have the resources to put into it and there is a point of diminishing return on the social media effort. But how do I grow then you may say? Our answer is to leverage social but grow your customer base in other more efficient ways such as SEO, direct sales and advertising (which you can do on social by the way, which is different then using organic non-paid social media).
Huge B2B brands can pull this off but they didn’t build their business on the back of social media. Social becomes most effective once your brand has reached a significant customer base that can be leveraged to make your social media do real work for you.
If You Are Looking to Focus on Getting More Leads & Sales or Have Questions, Call Us at 866-357-7422
There is nothing new about blogging, but still the question for some remains… “Are Blogs Important?”, “How Important Are Blogs?”, “Should I Write Blogs For My Company?”, etc.
These questions are asked across all industries. B2B, Private Equity, Finance, Commercial Printing, Industrial, Construction, etc.
And to be honest they are really good questions because how would someone actually know if blogs are important or not? If you don’t know how to measure their effectiveness or you’ve never heard anyone explain why blogs are important then their really is no way you should know or believe they are.
Are Blogs Important?
Yes!
In the video above we go in detail showing you why they are important, how they are important and what you can do to capture value from your blog posts.
The reason that blogs are so important is because they answer questions. Nearly every search in Google is someone seeking to gain an answer to a question and it’s even more specific for industries in the B2B space, Finance, Print, Industrial and Contracting industries.
If a buyer, customer, investor or potential partner searching for something they need an answer to and your company has a solution that is the answer to their question then you want to be found, need to be found and will close more sales, deals, investment and partnerships if you create blog posts that answer their questions.
Other Benefits of Blogging
They drive qualified traffic to your website
You can share them on social media
You can send out your blogs in email
Blogs attract links back to your website
They build trust with buyers, it shows your active
They build authority for you as an expert
And the list could go on
If You Are Looking to Focus on Getting More Leads & Deal Flow from Blog Posts or Have Questions, Call Us at 866-357-7422
When it comes to Digital Marketing a whopping 93% of marketers say that one of the biggest pain points for their company is closing the leads that come in. This is a common struggle across all industries. This unfortunate reality is due to the fact that leads must be nurtured. Even those leads that are asking for details or a quote need to be followed up on regularly until they either buy or say no.
How Can You Make Closing New Leads Easier?
In the video above we go into detail on a tool that can help you close more customers, deals, buyers, investors, etc. by acting on a simple measured behavior.
The tool is called Streak (streak.com), which will allow you to see exactly when a person is viewing / reading your email. If you send out a follow up request, proposal, prospectus or some other material that you’d like to engage on with this lead then reaching back out the moment they are thinking of you will make that happen almost 100% of the time.
The strategy we’re sharing is that when you get an alert that someone is reading your email, immediately reply back to them on that same email asking if they’ve had a chance to review the materials you shared or if they have time to talk with you about their business, goals, etc. Nearly 100% of the time you will get a response, connect with them at that moment or book the next meeting.
It’s that simple!
We hope this helps in your journey to closing more leads & deals!
If You Are Looking to Focus on Getting More Leads & Deal Flow or Have Questions, Call Us at 866-357-7422
