Tactical Internet Marketing Solutions
Why do You Need Internet Marketing Solutions to Grow your Revenue Stream?
“We have worked with “B” for a number of years. She is very intuitive concerning our needs and limitations as a small business. Her word is her bond, and her effective sales approach is to squeeze out the maximum effectiveness for us, - whether we use it effectively, - or not. She and her associates worked hard, with us, to produce an expanded new website that we feel is EXCEPTIONAL, and is producing great results in this time of economic distress. BRAVO !!”
Dave Martin, President,
Allied Window Inc.
www.alliedwindow.com
June 2009
Most small- to mid-sized companies tend to regard sales and marketing as "sprinkles on the cupcake." I have news for you. Marketing and Sales ARE the cupcake. They are the front end of the cash flow process. And we want to compress the order-to-cash process, don't we?
With current staff wearing multiple hats, these all important sales and marketing efforts tend to be:
- Poorly understood
- Sporadic, unfocused and unmeasured
- Misaligned or not aligned at all with sales efforts
The current economy will result in a new small- to mid-sized business model paradigm. This new model will not permit you to throw marketing and sales dollars "spaghetti" against the wall and hope that it sticks.
- If you don’t have time to read your mail, why do you feel sending out mailings to current and prospective customers is good use of your marketing and sales dollars?
- If you don’t read your email, or delete it when your Inbox gets overloaded, why should your customers or prospects be compelled to read your message?
- If you jump on the Internet marketing bandwagon and “buy yourself a program”, perhaps simply based on price point, how can you realize a return on investment?
- If you don’t track traffic to your website, how can you understand what current and prospective customers are/are not doing once they land on your website?
Hey… do you even have a website?
In an Outsell-ThomasNet study done in 2008, 9 out of 10 buyers spent 25% of their work week searching online for products and services. 55% of industrial products and services sourced online were also purchased online.
Do You Know Who Your Customers Are?
Ask yourself the following questions:
- Who are my current customers?
- Who do I want for my customers?
- Where are these customers going for information on the Internet?
If you don’t know the answers to these questions, and are not constantly redefining your knowledge, you are only becoming more proficient at Ready-Fire-Aim business development. Using your company size (sole practitioner or small to mid-sized company) is not a feasible, or viable, excuse for not knowing this information.
Where are your Customers looking for Information on the Internet?
Make sure you are “there” even if it’s gradually. Growing your presence on the Internet rewards people for Googling your company name as well as your name. Yes, most folks use Google like the phone book. However, if folks know what they need then establishing a presence on optimized, industry-related search sites will get your name out to a new set of potential customers.
And let’s face it, prospective and current customers, recruiters, HR staff (even from your own company) are Googling you, by name, as well. The Internet hides nothing. So make sure that your company name, information, brand and your personal brand provide positive reinforcement for the vendor selection process.
Rules of Engagement for the Internet
- Get a Plan. If you need guidelines for getting a personal, professional, and business development Plan, look at the Training and Consulting section of my website. First and foremost: have a plan.
- If you don’t already have a website, develop one. If you need criteria for best practices, look at the Social Media section of my website.
- Develop reasonable, feasible and affordable strategic goals and objectives. Then divide them into tactical Internet marketing solutions.
- Make sure you communicate your strategies to everyone in your organization. Constantly. An effective Internet marketing strategy starts with effective communication, collaboration and understanding by your internal customers: your staff.
- Track results, refine your definition of who your markets are and measure your results. If these factors sound like Six Sigma DMAIC principles, well, they are. Give measurement of your Internet website tracking metrics the same attention you give to measuring internal production process improvement. - Really!
Keep this simple rule of thumb in mind for Internet (and any other) marketing to your target audiences - whether you know who they are or not:
You want to be Where they are When they are looking for information and deliver Strong and Consistent Messages about your Capabilities, Products and Services. With many companies hiring consultants who work before and after your business has opened or closed, the Internet and your website provide 24/7/365 representation of your products, services and capabilities.
Why ThomasNet.com?
When you have a limited budget, do you want to fish on the Internet with a pole or fish with a net? Think about it.
Most small- to mid-sized companies have a limited budget for marketing and sales, if they have any budget at all. That’s why most companies feel so crippled in their options for Internet marketing.
The reason I recommend ThomasNet.com as a great starting point for internet marketing is that ThomasNet.com offers the breadth and depth of product and service offerings to the broadest and highest level of decision makers in the industrial arena. Now that’s a mouthful. However, if your company has only one choice, a well-crafted internet marketing program on ThomasNet.com really gets your company “out there” and quickly with measurable ROI.
When I work with my clients on business processes and practices that impact their revenue stream, we have to start somewhere with a tangible, focused Internet marketing solution. These tools are a tremendous fulcrum for small- and mid-sized industrial manufacturers, distributors and service companies. If you have limited resources for business development in the industrial and manufacturing arena, and you have to start somewhere, I recommend ThomasNet.
ThomasNet offers a focused competitive directory for their advertisers at www.ThomasNet.com. They also offer website development, possibly the best proprietary advanced web and catalog solutions which boost Internet presence for your company, the opportunity for posting press releases to 800,000 engineers per month at http://news.thomasnet.com and ad word and branding campaigns. In addition they have a global reach, and are constantly developing new ways of reaching industrial audiences.