I have – whisper it – nearly 800 unread emails in my inbox.
I know, it’s terrible. I seriously need to de-clutter. But how did it get to this?
Well, part of the problem is something I’m sure you’re familiar with: emails that aren’t exactly spam, but that you’re just not that fussed about opening. Maybe you subscribed to some newsletter once but you rarely have time to read it. Maybe you bought a product five years ago as a one-off purchase and now the company sends you offers every five minutes and won’t take the hint. Maybe you handed over a business card at a conference and an over-zealous marketer added you to their mailing list without your permission.
Whatever the reasons, we are all overloaded with emails every day that we don’t really want. And that makes cutting through the noise and delivering a genuinely effective email campaign a very tricky art. Especially when you’re dealing with folks in the geospatial industry who tend to have very little time and very little tolerance to b&%%$^&@!
So what can you do to improve your chances of success? Here are a few essential tips to get you going!
How many times have you handed over your email address to get access to a particular piece of content, or to sign up for a certain set up updates, only to get spammed with stuff you never wanted?
This is a sure fire way to wind people up – and that’s counterproductive. If you ask potential clients to hand over their email, tell them exactly what you’re going to use it for, and stick to that! If you want to email them about anything else, ask. And if, for example, you say you’re going to contact them weekly, contact them weekly – not daily, not monthly, not a couple of times a year when you remember. Consistency is key.
Oh, and for the love of God, never give or sell their email addresses on to anyone else unless they have absolutely given you permission.
Don’t bombard people with emails. Don’t be overly pushy or aggressive. Always try to think about what they want from you, and what would create genuine value for them, rather than what you want. Respect their choices if, for example, they agree to receive your newsletter but not your product updates. Give them an opt-out if they don’t want to get emails anymore.
As Nathan Hangan, co-founder of Virtuous Giant and Ignition Desk, puts it:
“People are inundated with interruption, pitches, and advertisements everywhere they look, and though you might think yours is special, there’s a high probability that to the reader, it looks the same as the rest. This is why it’s important to remember where you are, and use your good manners as a result.
Getting into someone’s inbox is like being invited to their home for dinner. If they ask you to take your shoes off, you respectfully do so …you’re in their house.”
When you’re running any kind of B2B marketing campaign it’s important to remember that people just don’t have time to waste.
Loooonnnnnng emails, dense paragraphs, tiny fonts, no images… these are all things that make people take one look at what you’ve sent and go “Euugh, I’ll read that later” – and then never look at it again.
Try to keep things short and to the point. Use short sentences, headings and pictures to break up what you have to say and make it easy to skim and take in. If you’re bringing their attention to very involved report, study, blog post or so on, don’t put the whole thing in the body of the email. Just include the first bit or a short description with a link out to your website or wherever the rest is hosted. Plus, this means you’re driving traffic to your website, making it more likely that potential customers will read more of your content or take a look at your products of their own accord.
Never send emails for the sake of it. Once someone’s opened a dull or useless email from you once, they’re much more likely to leave the next one languishing in their inbox.
Every email you send should have a clear point to it. Are you answering a burning question your target audience has that will help them to do their job better? Are you letting them know of a new product or service you offer? Are you inviting them to a webinar about key trends in their sector?
Whatever your goal, make sure you have a clear call to action to match.
A/B Testing is a really handy way to make sure you’re always having the greatest possible impact.
This works by letting you come up with two different options, such as subject lines for your email or types of call to action. Half your clients see one version, half see the other. You can then compare which one gets the most people clicking and use this to hone your copy next time!
It’s a trap that a lot of companies fall into, but it won’t get you any brownie points with customers. Don’t only contact your email list when you want to sell them something!
The idea is that you should constantly be making yourself useful and valuable, so that they look forward to hearing from you. That way, you can slip in a great offer or move the conversation forward when it’s appropriate – you don’t look like you’re always after their money!
Not everyone on your email list wants the same thing from you, and that makes segmentation essential.
For example, if you sell remote sensing equipment to a broad range of customers, you may have an NGO client who is concerned with environmental monitoring in order to respond quickly in a humanitarian crisis, and another energy client that is primarily interested in keeping an eye on pipeline integrity and getting people in there fast if any damage occurs.
At times, these interests will overlap – but often, they won’t. It makes much more sense to send two sets of emails where you’ve adapted your language to the end client, or to make sure you separate out the emails you send them, than to risk alienating both clients by emailing them with something that seems irrelevant to their needs.
As the smart cookies over at Benchmark explain:
“Most failed email marketing campaigns didn’t work because the sender treated every email recipient the same.
Gather as much data as you can, from geographic location to customer buying habits. Study that data and divide your list accordingly. If you have a group of people who love one type of service you offer and another group that couldn’t care less, strategize accordingly.”
You can’t know whether your campaign is working if you don’t have a way to measure success! Two of the most straightforward ways to do this is tracking your Open Rate (OR) and your Click Through Open Rate (CTOR), which is when you compare the number of people who open your email with the number of people who then clicked through to where you wanted them to go next.
Measuring this can take a bit of thought. John Rampton has this great piece of advice in Forbes:
“Your open/send ratio will hopefully be high if you have a good opt-in list of segmented people. What’s successful? It depends on industry and campaign. Rather than looking for someone else’s benchmark, start looking at where you are today, and create a goal to move it up 5% using best practices.
“Success should be measured when your CTOR is above your OR. This means a high percentage of the people who opened your email converted. Google analytics can aid with measuring conversions on your website, if set up properly, to get a better idea of the whole funnel. But for people just starting out it could be a little complicated and take time and effort to design. MailChimp is one platform that connects e-commerce shopping carts and does the tracking in their reporting, an excellent feature for an entrepreneur.
“No marketing play should be implemented without measuring success, including email marketing.”
Really, it comes down to one thing. Before you click send, ask yourself: if I were my potential customer, would I REALLY want to receive this email? If the answer is no, take a step back and have a think about what you can do that will really add value or catch your ideal client’s eye.
Ready to have a chat with an expert about your next email campaign? Give me a call on +447789901537 | Skype: elaine_ebtm | Email: elaine @ elaineball.co.uk
You’ve seen the Wizard of Oz, right? Well, just in case it’s been a while, here’s a recap:
Dorothy finds herself plonked in a strange, unfamiliar land where she picks up some equally clueless friends. They make a long and difficult journey to find a revered and supposedly all-powerful figure who can sort all their problems for them, and give them the skills and character traits they’ve always felt they lacked. Only, when they get there, they realise that the wizard isn’t all powerful after all – it’s all an elaborate performance. And it turns out that they already had everything they needed to achieve their goals. They just didn’t know how to use them.
Feeling Overwhelmed?
You start out feeling totally at a loss, like you’ve been thrown into a world you don’t really get. You and your colleagues are preoccupied by the things you feel you don’t have, rather than what you do. When you look for a marketing partner or agency, what you’re really looking for is some all-knowing, infallible expert who can click their fingers and hand you a ready-made solution on a plate.
Instead, you learn the hard way that the tools you need to make your marketing campaign work have to come from within your own company. A great marketing agency will help you coax out those strengths and spot the ways that your team can contribute effectively to your strategy – but they can’t wave a magic wand, and they can’t take over and do everything for you. That’s not how it works.
This can be a bittersweet pill to swallow. No one is ever thrilled to find out that the solution to their problem is hard work and careful planning. But there aren’t any shortcuts here, I’m afraid.
Teasing out your team’s talents
The first step is to recognise that your success hinges on your ability to create compelling content that genuinely adds value for your audience. That means publishing blog posts and eBooks, creating videos, recording podcasts or making content in any other format that educates and/or entertains. It means offering up knowledge and insights that are going to help potential clients solve problems, increase their understanding of their subject, or make their working lives easier.
The second step is recognising that no one is better placed than your own team to develop that kind of content.
Think about it. You guys are the ones that really know your stuff. You have deep-level technical expertise. You know where your industry is headed. You know how to get the most out of your products and services. You know what approaches, ideas and technologies would help your clients to serve their own customers better. So why not share this knowledge with them?
The third step is figuring out how to draw out these ideas and information from your team.
Here’s some top advice from Michael Gerard, CEO of Curata, which has done a TON of research into effective content marketing strategies for B2B and tech companies:
“Identify the location of pockets of insight and content to help with your content development process: The best situation is to identify the individuals that are passionate about the topics that are part of your content marketing strategy, and where these individuals’ MBOs (managed business objectives) align with the objectives of your content marketing program. You may be surprised at the amount of content that already exists across your organization, and simply needs to be repurposed.
Look for help within product marketing if you’re a technology company. IDC research indicates that 19% of marketing staff within technology companies are product and solution marketers; and that translates into a lot of marketers that are highly motivated to help build content within your organization to increase sales of the products that they represent.”
In other words, if you want your team to get on board with your content marketing plans from the word go. And you need to make it clear how this is going to directly benefit them, too.
Sales People
Let’s start with the people on the frontline of your business: your sales team. Ask your sales and business development colleagues what kinds of materials would help them to pitch products to customers. What are some of the most common questions and concerns that clients put forward, which you could cover in a blog post? What fields are most of your customers working in – and what are they going to use your products and services to achieve? Could you publish an eBook that specifically deals with this purpose/sector?
For example, let’s say you’re a remote sensing company and you pitch your services both to oil companies and to organisations dealing with disaster response.
Each of these types of clients are going to want essentially the same thing – a reliable way of mapping an area to analyse risks and to track developments on the ground. But the way they approach this will be very different.
In this situation, wouldn’t it be super handy for your team to have one eBook that’s about best practices for using satellite imagery for pipeline planning and management, and a second eBook that repurposes much of the same content and technical explanations, but explains this in the context of containing the impact of natural disasters like floods or forest fires, mobilising emergency services and so on.
Having in-depth, expert knowledge like this at their fingertips could seriously help your team to close a sale – and that will make them much more excited about putting in the effort to help you produce the content.
Tech Support Teams
Or take your tech support teams. Which issues are they contacted about most often? Are there any problems that affect a lot of clients, but are super easy to fix once you know how? If so, creating a series of “how to” videos troubleshooting common problems means you’d be providing something incredibly valuable to your clients while easing your team’s workload at the same time.
Bear in mind, though, that you need to make a distinction between the best people to contribute ideas and the best people to make them happen.
R&D
You might be lucky enough to have an R&D expert who also has a natural talent for writing, or a sales director who comes across brilliantly on screen. If you do, then fantastic – the more people see their faces and hear their voices, the more engaged they’ll feel with what you do.
Most of the time, though, you’ll need someone who has a flair for this stuff to take that raw material and polish the edges. Whether that’s an internal marketing person or an outsider, pick someone who understands your industry and can hone and shape your content to make it as engaging and compelling as you possibly can.
The trick is to keep your colleagues’ voices and ideas intact, but to edit what they give you to make it really jump off the page or screen.
Remember that content marketing is an ongoing project. Encourage your team to fire over ideas on a regular basis. Take the time to really listen. Keep honing and building on these ideas. When customers comment or ask questions about the content you’ve put out on social media, ask your team members to reply, deepening the relationship and giving them ideas for the next blog post, video or so on.
And lastly, always, always credit individual team members for the work they’ve put in, thank them and congratulate them on great content. Let them know when a particular post has had a ton of clicks. Pass on great feedback.
[ctt template=”5″ link=”OQo1f” via=”no” ]Content Marketing is an ongoing project. @Eballball #Geospatial #Marketing[/ctt]
If you want to keep the ideas flowing, you’ll need your team to stay excited about the role they play in your content marketing strategy. That means making it clear to them that their input is valuable – and totally valued by you.
Imagine you walk into the exhibition at GEO Business 2017 this May and you see two stands in front of you advertising aerial photography and photogrammetry services.
As it happens, these are exactly the services your company needs at the moment. And on the face of it, they seem to be offering pretty much the same things. So: which one are you most likely to trust?
Now imagine that one of the stands has some banners set up with pictures of the products they use, and a couple of people who have been hired for the day milling around to hand out leaflets and take your details to follow up later.
There don’t seem to be many people at the stand and by the time you get a call from a salesperson a week later, you can’t really remember much about what they do.
The other stand has screens set up with demos showing you how the products work, the quality of the images you get from the drones, and exactly how the different elements are pulled together to create 3D models.
The artwork on the stand has quotes from testimonials by a bunch of companies you recognise from your sector. There’s a bit of a buzz around the stand and when you come over, you’re introduced to senior people from the company who can tell you all about the technical development of the products and some of the large-scale projects they’ve worked on that sound like yours.
They note down your details and email you a few days later with links to some of the case studies on the company blog they were telling you about. You have a look through the blog and the website, learn a bit more about what they do and see that their R&D team post regular, in-depth tutorials explaining how to get the most out of their equipment.
The next day, the Sales Director sends you a LinkedIn contact request and invites you to join an aerial photogrammetry group that they’re members of on the site, which posts about new developments in the industry and different ways of using the tech.
Then, they follow up with a phone call to see if you’d like to meet in person.
So: let me ask you that same question again: which of these companies are you most likely to trust?
I think the answer’s pretty obvious, right?
Okay, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist (or a GIS-Mapping-Tech one at that) to figure out that having your top people meet potential customers face to face will help you to develop client relationships faster. We all know that people buy from people, after all.
Neither does it take a genius to know that getting a bit of a buzz around what you do will encourage others in your industry to trust you.
And it makes sense to demo your tech to clients so they get a clear idea of how it works and how great it is if you want to convince them to buy it.
But here’s the thing: it’s not just in ‘real life’ that you need to do these things. And that’s what many B2B companies often forget.
You can’t always meet new clients at industry events where you can wow them with an amazing first impression. And it’s not realistic to have your management team dedicate hours and hours of their valuable time to every single lead before they know if it’s even going to go anywhere.
The trick is to recreate these all-important, early-stage, trust-building tactics online… without losing any of their impact.
Let’s have a look at how that’s done.
First up, you need to find a way to build a personal connection with clients.
Yeah, yeah, don’t roll your eyes: this isn’t new age marketing jargon, it’s just a fact. Your customers are much more likely to buy from you if they feel like they know you. They’re much more likely to remember what you do if they feel like they’ve had a direct conversation with an actual person.
There are a couple of simple ways you can start doing this. First, have an up-to-date About Us page that doesn’t just state what you do, but gives an interesting overview of how your company came to be, what your goals are and what you stand for as a team. Include photos and a short bio of your team. Atlantic Geomatics have an awesome ‘About Us’ page.
As marketing expert Jayson DeMeyers sums up in this excellent Inc article:
“Once prospective customers have a certain level of interest in your products or services, many will want to know more about your business and company culture. Essentially, they want to know who they’re potentially doing business with.
It’s smart to include any awards you’ve received, major accomplishments, and organizations of which you’re a part. Adding some images of team members along with brief biographies can further develop trust by humanizing your brand. The tone is also important. You need to consider the industry context, but let’s revisit our earlier observation: People do business with those they like, know, and trust. It’s much easier to like, know, and trust a person behind the brand, rather than a brand itself. Wherever possible, allow prospects to see the people that power your brand.”
Hearing how great you are from someone other than your company is really important, too.
Let’s hear from Jayson DeMers again (this time, writing in Forbes):
“People trust other people, but sometimes a face isn’t enough to convey authority and trust. According to a recent survey, 39 percent of online users regularly consult online reviews before buying anything, and another 49 percent of people do so occasionally. That’s a whopping 88 percent of people who consult reviews before buying on at least an occasional basis. Reviews and testimonials, as long as they’re genuine, are an instant way to win trust. Be sure to include some in your ads, landing pages, and social media feeds.”
Finally, remember that consistency is key. Once you’ve made a great first impression, you can’t afford to drop the ball.
That means putting out regular, up-to-date, high-quality content on your blog and social media pages.
It means answering every comment and question you get over social media fast and following up with useful links, recommendations and other comments to move the conversation along and build relationships.
And, most importantly, it means recognising that you don’t have a separate ‘online’ and ‘offline’ brand.
At least, your customers don’t see it that way. For them, they’re talking to you, whether they’re on your website, speaking to you in person or commenting on a Facebook post.
You need to make sure you’re being the same person in every single interaction, no matter how you’re communicating – a person that’s approachable, professional and an expert voice in your field. Do this, and you can’t fail to build trust.
Want to have a no-strings chat about building your brand presence and building relationships with your clients online? Give me a call on +77825517850 Skype: elaine_ebtm or Twitter: @Eballball
Who do you listen to in the geospatial universe? And more importantly, WHY do you listen to them?
Perhaps you get your industry news and insights from people like Anusuya Datta, Executive Editor of Geospatial World? After all, she’s an expert with years of experience writing about the sector, so she must know her stuff, right?
Or maybe you follow heads of world-leading companies, for example Hexagon President Juergen Dold or Trimble Senior VP Bryn Fosburgh. These guys are out there in the trenches, dealing with the problems that face your industry every day. They must be able to teach you a thing or two!
Or perhaps you’re keen to hear from some of the up and coming voices in your field – younger entrepreneurs who are shaping the next generation of innovators in the geo-space? People like, say, Christine Gayron, President of Gayron de Bruin Land Surveying and Engineering, Altavian’s CEO John Perry, and Serene Ho, the influential 3D digital tech researcher at the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Spatial Data Infrastructures and Land Administration… all of whom featured in this year’s xyHt “40 Under 40” to watch in geospatial? Can’t hurt to see what they have to say!
Maybe you follow these people because you saw them featured in an article. Or heard them speak at an event. Or simply read a blog post by them that someone in your industry shared, and that resonated with you.
Just seeing these people given a platform, just hearing them asked for their opinion, just seeing them publicly described as an authoritative voice might well have been enough for you to start considering them an important player in your industry.
Simply by virtue of their visibility, you and many or your peers, competitors and clients now have that little bit of extra respect for them. They’ve earned that little bit more trust from potential customers. Their reputation has been enhanced that little bit more.
And that’s the kind of kudos that can quickly generate more and more sales for the companies they work for.
But what about YOU?
(Yes, YOU!)
Why aren’t people in your industry looking up what you have to say on a particular issue? Why aren’t you (or your CEO) being asked to speak at industry events? Why doesn’t your company get contacted or comment when a relevant story breaks in your industry?
Because you don’t have enough expertise?
Because you aren’t important enough in your industry?
Because you don’t have a useful point to contribute to the conversation?
What I’m about to tell you might come as a bit of a shock. But once you know the secret, it will all sound pretty obvious.
Do you want to know how journalists find experts to comment in an article?
More often than not, they Google around to see who is already out there, putting their head above the parapet… and getting their name in print. They see who has been quoted before and try to chase their contact details. They put out a #JournoRequest on Twitter and Facebook or they submit a question to sites like Help a Reporter Out (HARO). They are running to crazily tight deadlines, and they gratefully accept input from any knowledgeable source who can lend a sense of authority to their story.
That’s the big secret. That’s how it’s done.
No one in media has the time and resources to figure out which one single person is best placed in the industry to predict what will happen or comment on a development. They aren’t going to spend months checking out your credentials for a single line in one of the three articles they’re writing that needs to go up by 5pm on a Friday afternoon.
What does this mean for you? It means that, if you’re willing to take the initiative, you don’t have to wait around for someone else to decide you’re an expert.
You can potentially save a journalist a lot of time, and do wonders for the reputation of you and your business, by jumping the gun, putting yourself out there, and making yourself indispensable.
Sure, that means contacting journalists and responding to shout-outs for sources. But it also means not waiting for permission to start producing content of your own.
Once you realise that the first person to decide you’re a potential thought leader has to be you, it’s time to start making content that will educate, influence and inspire!
Draw up a list of topics that people in your field need to know more about and that you are well placed to help them with. Figuring out where your expertise and your customers’ interests overlap is half the battle!
As Michael Brenner, Head of Strategy for NewsCred, advises in this Entrepreneur article:
“Identify a topic that is closely associated with your brand. Are you an authority on that topic. A simple Google search can help you answer that question. Often we find that brands are not just competing with their direct competitors. You are competing with everyone. Anyone who publishes content in your space is competing for mind share and authority.
You also need to identify the questions your customers are asking. Identify them all, make a list and prioritize them. Answer those questions across multiple formats and multiple channels in a way that adds value to your audience. Start with the most important and work your way down the list. Seek to be the best answer to those questions.
Finally, create your thought leadership content in an engaging way. Viral cat videos and listicles are great, but you shouldn’t dismiss any content types that your audience might be interested in. You need to educate them, but we are all human and none of us mind a little humour. Use lots of examples, facts and quotes. I love the idea of interviewing customers to create content or curating content from other sources while adding your own perspective.”
Now you’re ready to start blogging! Set up your own, or publish articles on LinkedIn and Medium. Tweet. Post on Facebook. If you’re confident on camera or audio, consider creating videos or recording a podcast, too.
[ctt template=”5″ link=”82Mt3″ via=”no” ]Create your #thoughtleadership #content in an engaging way @BrennerMichael[/ctt]
Another super-effective approach is to contact publications in your industry and offer to write guest posts and articles. This helps you reach more people, get more exposure for your ideas and your business… and consolidates you as a leading voice in your field!
Here’s where it gets interesting.
Once you’ve been named as an expert once or twice, the ball just keeps on rolling. Other journalists may well reach out to you for comment. You find yourself on the radar of researchers compiling “one to watch” lists. You might even start getting contacted to speak at events.
Because that’s the great thing about thought leadership. You have to start by blowing your own trumpet, but if you play it well enough, you’ll soon have a whole band gathering up to support you – and then you’re the one calling the tune.
Scroll through your Facebook or Instagram feed and what do you see? Video clips. Animations. Mini-documentaries. Awareness-raising videos. Sales and demo videos. Everywhere.
Click on a link to a news article or blog post in just about any field and as likely as not, there’ll be a short video to go with it, pulling together the key points, setting the scene or offering up extra interview footage.
And what about advertising?
You’ve no doubt noticed that half the banner and sidebar ads you get on websites have slowly turned into videos that autoplay as you scroll past or tick along quietly hoping to catch your eye so that you switch on the sound.
Video is everywhere. It’s slowly coming to dominate the whole internet.
A couple of years ago, Cisco predicted that 69% of all consumer internet traffic will be video-based by 2017 and it’s starting to look like they were right! There has been an epic shift towards video in all facets of the online experience, and a lot of marketers are now saying that video is the future of content marketing.
In fact, 96% of B2B companies use video in some capacity as part of their marketing efforts.
Why?
Because, in a word, it works.
(Okay, two words. Don’t be picky.)
Because of that 96%, nearly three-quarters report a positive ROI on their video marketing.
Those are some pretty good odds, wouldn’t you say?
People respond far better to video than to any other medium. It keeps their attention much more effectively than massive great chunks of text. It pulls them into the story you’re trying to put across. It’s memorable.
What’s more, in a B2B context it tends to work best with text, complementing rather than replacing your existing marketing efforts.
It can be embedded into blog posts, social media updates like LinkedIn statuses and Facebook posts, PowerPoint decks and even online Books, making it an awesome way to add interest to static content.
By focussing on super-short explainers and teaser videos, you can provide what we marketing boffs call “snackable” content – quick, easy-to-digest nuggets that hook your interest and encourage you to seek out more in depth information, without putting you off by taking up too much of your time at the outset. (Quick Tip: It’s best to keep videos super short, as drop-off rates spike after the first 3 minutes.)
Get it right, and this is an incredibly powerful way to put your message across and kickstart a sales conversation with a potential new customer!
But what does this mean for us geospatialers? After all, of all the B2B focussed companies out there, geospatial tech companies are perhaps the most firmly rooted in that shrinking 4% that haven’t made the leap to the moving image yet.
What could video possibly offer businesses in your field?
In fact, the geospatial sector is totally, absolutely, 100% perfect for using video to nurture leads and generate sales.
There are a couple of reasons for this.
Firstly, let’s look at the kinds of video that actually works best in B2B marketing: tutorials, product demos and industry interviews.
After all, what do your clients need to know before they buy your product? They need to know that it’s going to do what you say it’s going to do. They need to feel comfortable that they are going to be able to use it, and to use it for the purpose they have in mind with minimal hassle.
They need to know that you aren’t going to go quiet the minute they’ve made the purchase – that you’ll be on hand to help them out if they get stuck, or if things don’t go to plan.
What better way to put these fears to bed than with clear, easy-to-follow demos and tutorials? What better way to highlight your fantastic customer service and aftercare than with thoughtful free material to make their jobs easier further down the line? And what better way to inspire people to use your product than with slick footage showing just the full capacity of what it can do?
Want to see what I mean?
Video from 3D Robotics YouTube Channel
Take a look at the YouTube channel of 3D Robotics, renowned as one of the best commercial drone producers in the world.
This team has a real flair for building excitement with cool on-the-ground (or, in their case, in-the-air) marketing videos showing their drones in action.
But they also understand that a slick advert isn’t enough to win over discerning B2B customers. And that’s why they also provide a video series called Solo Flight School, which gives in-depth, practical guides to using different features of their drones, installing new software updates, making sure you’re using the product safely, and many other essential areas their customers need to know about.
What’s more, 3D Robotics clearly understands that its customer base is split between geospatial companies and the film industry. More importantly, the marketing team appreciate that they need to match their videos to the needs and tastes of these different segments.
You can see this in the fact that they make a clear distinction between the cinematic style of this “behind the scenes” video about working with Hollywood director Michael Bay, and this detailed, straight-to-the-point, tech-heavy webinar explaining how UAVs (drones) are changing the surveying industry, and how they stack up against traditional surveying and LiDAR.
Okay, these guys have an obvious advantage – they specialise in video equipment, so it’s hardly a stretch of their expertise to start making videos for their own purposes. Whereas your company has no history of video production. How could you possibly compete?
Well hold your horses for just a moment there. Before you go giving yourself all kinds of excuses to turn your back on the single most powerful marketing medium in the world, take a look at this webinar video, also from 3DR.
What is this video doing? It’s explaining, in depth, how the company won the pitch to collect data for a major engineering project, which will use its Site Scan technology to create a design surface in Autodesk.
Does it use flashy visuals and high production levels? Nope. It’s simply a PowerPoint presentation accompanied by the less-than-crystal-clear voiceover captured during the webinar. There is absolutely nothing about this video that takes industry-insider expertise. There’s nothing here that you couldn’t do yourself, with the most basic software on your computer at work.
What’s more, it breaks a ton of other rules that normally impact on a video’s success.
For a start, it’s 45 minutes long – less snackable content than a heavy three course meal! What’s more, it takes the form of a long, loosely structured conversation, instead of the tightly scripted videos that tend to work best.
And yet, how many views does this video have?
At time of writing, just shy of 2,300.
And you can bet your life that those 2,300 aren’t casual viewers lost down a YouTube clickhole of procrastination. These are your tribe. These are people with a vested interest in how UAV technology fits into the geospatial space. These are people with massive engineering projects looking for proof that drones will work for them.
These are the people that 3DR want to attract. Heck, these are your competitors.
Of course, that’s no reason to lower the bar. It makes sense to make every effort to produce great video, to keep things short and interesting, and to think hard about crafting the perfect message for your audience.
But the point is, you don’t have to be Spielberg to create video that will push forward sales in the geospatial sector. You don’t have to have a multimillion pound budget. With a bit of thought, you don’t even have to have proper camera equipment!
And if you can attract nearly two and a half thousand quality leads with a video that is far from perfect, think what you could do with a little effort, a few resources and sprinkling of some marketing magic.
Your audience are hungry for video, guys. If you want to boost sales, you’d best start rustling up some snacks!
Has this piqued your interest? Want to have a chat about how video could work for your geospatial business? Give me a call on +447825517850 or Skype: ebtm_elaine or email elaine @ elaineball.co.uk
Okay, I know this sounds crazy, but…
(Wait for it…)
Sometimes, just having a very limited marketing budget to work with can actually be a godsend.
No really, I’m serious!
I know what you’re thinking: But Elaine, this is your profession! Aren’t you supposed to be persuading me to hand over as much money as possible, so you can work your magic?
Well, no, actually. That’s the last thing I want you to do. In fact, I don’t want you to start setting aside some crazy huge budget. At least not until both of us are sure we know exactly what you want from a campaign, what success looks like and what works for your organisation. In other words, until you completely understand why it is you’re pouring money into a marketing idea.
And to be sure of something like that, you need to do a helluva lot of trial and error.
Here’s the thing: when you have a lot of money and no real idea of where you’re headed, it’s so, so easy to squander that money. I can name a few companies right now who do this on a monthly basis! It’s like food shopping when you’re starving and you’ve just been paid. You throw everything in the trolley. You’re not thinking about the cost, or how you’ll use it, or whether it goes with the ingredients you already have, or whether you know how best to cook it. Your impulses take over, and in it goes.
By the end of the month, chances are, half of it is still sitting in the fridge or is past its sell-by date, and you’re standing there scratching your head and wondering how you could ever have spent so much money on all this stuff!
On the other hand, when you know a couple of great recipes inside out, and you’re comfortable enough around a frying pan to improvise a bit with what you have to hand, you can go to the supermarket with just a little money in your pocket and pick out what you need to make something that will really work.
Sure, you might need to stretch that money as far as it will go. Sure, you won’t be able to get the real fancy-schmantzy stuff today. And sure, you’ll probably spend a lot more time counting your pennies, pouring over the options and thinking hard about what you can realistically make.
But when you’ve done that – when you’ve come up with creative, resourceful ways to make what you need, well, on a teeny tiny budget, when you’ve made the dishes, you’ve tweaked the recipes and you’ve made a mental note of what worked and what you could add next time to make this a ton more delicious, you can go back into the shop next time with twice as much money and know exactly how to make a knockout dish.
Okay, I know, enough with the metaphor. (What can I say? I watched too many festive baking programs this year and now have Mary Berry’s voice in my head!)
But the point stands: figure out how to whip up the best possible marketing campaign with the simplest ingredients and whatever you already have at hand, and you’ll be in a MUCH better position to maximise your ROI when you have some serious money to spend.
But what does that actually mean? What ingredients should be in your super-tight-budget marketing staple cupboard?
[ctt template=”8″ link=”66rVZ” via=”no” ]The key is to focus on the skills and knowledge you have in house. @Eballball #Geospatial #Marketing #TechnicalMarketing[/ctt]
The key is to focus on the skills and knowledge you have in house.
Think carefully about what it is your team has to offer. What expertise can they provide that will help you create content of real value for your audience?
[ctt template=”8″ link=”If2Ht” via=”no” ]”Great #marketing really is about fixing your customers problem, not your products!” Shelly Nooner, Director Marketing @TrimbleCorpNews[/ctt]
Put another way, what specific problems and pain points are your customers or potential customers experiencing that your team knows how to help fix?
Draw up a list of questions related to your field that you can see your customer base Googling. Depending on where you fit in the Geospatial industry, this could be anything from improving statistical analysis when using Big Data for mapping through to increasing pitching skills for government tenders. It doesn’t have to be directly related to what you sell, but rather – you’re trying to show that you add value for customers, not write advertising copy.
Next, work out which of these questions and problems your in-house team has the skillset to answer and solve.
Chances are, you have a lot of techie-minded geeky types who are super passionate about the latest development in geospatial technologies and methodologies, which is AWESOME. Your audience is crying out for that kind of deep-level advice and expertise!
Now you’ve worked out what you’re going to do, it’s time to come up with a marketing plan and content calendar.
No matter how little you have to work with, if you don’t make a plan, you WILL end up wasting time and money. I promise you that. Yet for some reason, companies in the B2B sector are shockingly bad at organising themselves. Even though it’s one of the biggest predictors of a successful marketing campaign, just 37% of B2B companies have any kind of documented strategy. Making a plan will immediately put you ahead of the competition – without spending a penny.
Draw up a clear roadmap of what kind of content you’re going to release, and when. List the titles of blog posts, videos and so on, the dates you will publish them – and stick to it! Running out of momentum, or being inconsistent and patchy about how you release content/communicate with your audience will kill your campaign dead.
Focus on creating good stuff that people want to read, sharing it on free-to-use platforms and nurturing conversations with your readers and viewers. The more interaction, the better – you may be keeping your budget to a minimum, but be prepared to invest time to make it work!
Right, so those are the raw ingredients you already have sitting around waiting to be used.
What you probably don’t have, though, is the bit that brings it all together: someone in-house who knows how to take those raw ingredients and make them look irresistible to your customer base.
In marketing, presentation is crucial. You need to know how to get your tone of voice to hit the right balance between authoritative and engaging, You need to know how to arrange your content so that people see it, want it, and are persuaded to come back for a second helping and another course. You need to have a sense of how different strands of marketing work together,
That’s where a little expert consultancy comes in super-handy.
Someone to take your blog post drafts and turn them into compelling copy. Someone who can tell you exactly where your clients are getting their content online, so that you can save a ton of time and make sure you’re tracking them down in the right places. Someone with a keen eye for ways to cut through all the noise and talk straight to your ideal customer base.
If you don’t have much money to spend, this is exactly where you need to direct it. Not on huge, fancy, glossy, one-off campaigns; but on someone who can take your raw material and guide you through the process of making it work on the free platforms and networking sites you already have available. Who can show you how to hone your skills and approach for more and more successful marketing in the years ahead!
Before we get started, I’d like to tell you a little story.
Way back in 1955, when TVs were just starting to gain a little bit of popularity in the UK, a smart young advertising executive called Brian Palmer had a brave idea.
He wanted to specialise in a new type of advertising: television advertising.
At the time, this suggestion was pretty out there. Only 100,000 people in Britain even had a television, for a start. There had never been an advert on UK TV. Film production, including for adverts, was enormously expensive and time consuming compared to print alternatives.
To make things worse, many influential people in the country condemned the whole idea of advertising this way as damaging to society, by making people want things they couldn’t afford!
Taken together, this didn’t paint a hugely compelling picture. Brands were nervous about attracting criticism if they were the first to try out TV adverts, and few advertisers would dream of risking their reputation on such a huge gamble.
But Palmer had a hunch. He went to his boss and told him his idea.
And what did his boss say?
“Brian, You’re mad. TV will never be a major medium.”
So Palmer left his job at Y&R, lined up Unilever as a major client and, when ITV announced its flagship advertising slot that year, he created what would become the first ever advert shown on UK TV, for Gibbs S&R Toothpaste.
Despite the tiny viewer figures, sales began to rise straightaway – and soon everyone else was rushing to get their ads on TV. That year alone, ITV made £2.4 million from advertising – a pretty impressive figure back then, and a number that has steadily grown year on year to £1.7 billion.
Fast forward 60 years, and TV is still a major medium for advertisers. Despite a major recession and the rise of digital, ad spend in the UK continues to soar year on year, hitting a record £5.27 billion in 2015.
Because today’s B2B marketers are often stuck in precisely Brian Palmer’s position – only this time, it isn’t TV advertising they’re trying to sell the idea of. It’s social media.
I bet you’ve been told that it isn’t right for your business. That it’s not professional enough. That your clients don’t use it. That it won’t earn you leads or drive up sales. That it’s a fad.
That no one else in your industry is doing it.
Sound familiar?
You’re not alone. These are common misconceptions across the whole B2B sector.
But don’t get disheartened. You aren’t going crazy, you really are onto something here. Social media marketing has proven power to boost B2B brands – and, in fact, it’s the dryer, tech heavy brands with no traditional background in the medium that can often make the wildest gains as a result.
That makes the geospatial industry one of the best placed to reap the benefits of social media marketing. If you can convince your boss to give you a chance to show it, the rewards are huge.
So, without further ado, here are my top tips for getting management on board with marketing on the world’s biggest social media network: Facebook.
1. Ease In with LinkedIn
Jumping straight in with Facebook can be a little bit too much for some companies, especially if you’ve never tried social media marketing before.
If you’re experiencing a wall of resistance, it might be better to start by playing it safe with a business-focussed platform like LinkedIn. Sit your management team down and show them the kind of relevant niche groups that exist on the site.
For example, here’s a list of 15 essential LinkedIn groups for geomatics sector companies, including those targeted at application developers, GIS us in the mining industry, networking opportunities for geospatial professionals and location-specific groups for the GIS market (in this case, Canada).
If you work in GIS, each and every one of these represents a hub of potential customers for your products. By joining these groups, you enter directly into conversations and begin to build links with your ideal target market – giving you access to people that it could otherwise take years to develop relationships with!
Explain to your boss that this not only provides incredible insights into what your customers are talking about, what they prioritise and what they might need from you, it also gives you a chance to demonstrate your expertise and begin to influence these conversations, earning clients’ trust and generating leads.
Once you have them on board with LinkedIn, you can then a) start to demonstrate which of these companies also have a Facebook presence and b) point out how many members of the groups you’ve made inroads with are also active on Facebook. By doing so, you prove that Facebook is an equally potential-rich source of conversations with clients… and can expand your reach across to this medium, too.
At the end of the day, your management team will reject the idea of using Facebook for one reason: ROI. They’re worried it will be an expensive mistake. And that means that your job is to demonstrate why this is actually the most cost effective way of generating leads… and sales.
Stick to the hard facts. Show them research by marketing experts like Hubspot, who have found that 52% of marketers have generated leads from Facebook (and that includes all the ones who have no idea what they’re doing!) and that the cost per lead (CPL) is dramatically lower when you use social media marketing than any other medium.
Explain that this will not involve a huge outlay of costs. In fact, you don’t have to start with paid Facebook advertising at all, but rather by using the free tools at your disposal to tap into existing communities and get people interacting with your brand.
After all, when more than 7 in 10 adults use Facebook, it’s overwhelmingly likely that a considerable chunk of geospatialers do to. This is where your potential clients increasingly spend their time, get their news and get information about brands they are interested in, so it makes sense to target conversations to them there.
Explain to your CEO that your strategy is not to take money away from conventional marketing drives but rather to widen your net without increasing your budget. Once you’ve begun to build relationships and gauge how best to communicate with clients and leads, you can start to invest actual cash – but for now, it’s a free experiment with almost no risk. What do they have to lose?
[ctt template=”5″ link=”pqe_B” via=”no” ]52% of #B2B #marketers have generated leads from #Facebook #GeospatialGeek #Geospatial[/ctt]
“But none of our competitors are on Facebook!”
This is the reason that so, so many conventional companies in the geospatial sector give to explain why they aren’t taking the plunge. What they don’t realise is that this is precisely why they should be on Facebook!
Just like those first few companies to stick their head above the parapet and try TV advertising in the 50s, geospatialers who are brave enough to experiment with social media are entering a market that’s so uncrowded they can do the digital equivalent of swanning straight up to their dream customer and shaking them by the hand.
So long as you’re smart about how you approach them – you aren’t spammy, you don’t overtly advertise, you’re helpful and conversational – Facebook is an absolute gift.
The fact that no one else is doing it gives you an enormous head start. Every insightful piece of content you provide is novel and interesting.
Want to learn more about how Facebook can help you generate leads in the geospatial sector? Give me a call on +447825517850! (PS: thats me and my faithful neddie Finn, done in SketchUp by Elly Ball – cool ah!)
Yes, that was the first thing I heard someone shout out to me when I walked into Intergeo 2016, from Daniel from Intergeo no less. Remember when I told you about the branded underwear we gave away at Geobusiness back in May? Looks like that marketing push is still going strong!
Following on from that brief interlude (see what I did there?), the 2016 event was an absolute cracker.
Elly and Elaine Ball
And meanwhile, of course, Elly, Sarah, Amanda and I have been busying away behind the scenes, scouring conferences like Content Marketing World and Social Media Marketing World for fresh new ideas to take our campaigns to the next level.
Joe Pulizzi of Content Marketing World and Elaine Ball
That means that we were armed with some pretty hot marketing insights. Insights we’d added, of course, to the years of geospatial knowhow, we sold everything from laser scanning equipment to mine surveyors, through to handheld laser distance meters to foresters.
Oh, and we also ran a fun little competition this year called #turquoiseladies that involved distributing 250 postcards to different exhibitors around the world and getting them to post a creative photo, tagging us in the process, to start a conversation and get people showing off what they do.
Aidan Mercer, Bentley Systems, Caroline Hobden, Geobusiness, Joanna Blain and Elaine Ball
Geoslam rocking it!
It was a pretty excellent opportunity to strike up a CHAT with potential partners and clients, too – the perfect way to break the ice. That said, while we received a positive response and had a great time interacting with fellow geospatialers, we only had a small handful of uptakers! mmmmmmm …… something that has intrigued me and got my brain wondering if people are worried about entering into fun stuff or a fear from a legal standpoint or just didn’t have time. Something I will certainly keep my eyeballs on… (maybe a topic for the next blog post?)
Turquoise Ladies Campaign
However the winner out of a dozen entries was:
Cooper Copter – “WINNERS” chosen by Atlantic Geomatics, England, UK
Rolling on…..
And with our marketing consultant hats on (ooh, check out your fancy schmantzy job title, I hear you cry!) we were on the hunt for opportunities to apply smart marketing strategies to the geospatial world.
(Of course, all these areas are up for debate and I would love to hear some chatter from you lot …!)
Roosevelt Rogers, VP Sales & Marketing at Laser Technology Inc with Elly and Elaine Ball
It was awesome to see geospatial companies being creative and different. Laser Technology (LTI) in particular excelled in this area, with strong, coherent branding running through everything (including their red T-shirts and fluffy toys!) as well as eye-catching ploys like iPad giveaways. I know some of you are a teensy bit cynical about this stuff, but in a conference where most companies have copycat branding and zero visual personality, anything that adds a touch of excitement will draw a crowd, and that means drawing a crowd away from your direct competition.
Z+F’s Amazing Stand at Intergeo 2016
Special mention to Z+F who really should win an award for their INCREDIBLE stand. Despite running a very traditional business, the wonderful CEO Christoph Froehlich let his Marketing Director (and sister) loose to come up with something spectacular this year, and she certainly didn’t disappoint. The team built an entire German-style chalet, complete with log burner, chandeliers and reindeer antlers. It was beautiful, but most importantly, it wowed everyone that walked in the door, drew people like a magnet and certainly meant they stayed top of mind… especially the sight of some of the team in clogs and Lederhosen 😉
Lots of food for thought… and presents a major challenge for competitors to find ways to connect with customers and ensure they don’t get left behind. This is especially important given that a number of Asian manufacturers really took the spotlight with the size and professionalism of their stands. This marked a huuuuge difference in their own marketing since last year. On the whole, Asian geospatialers are getting very savvy when it comes to marketing, so our fellow non-Asian companies had better watch out! Don’t forget that it’s not just your direct competitors’ products and pricing that’s a threat, it’s also how they present themselves. Just look at the sleek marketing coming from companies like Samsung: these guys know what works.
Friend or Foe to some Geospatial Companies
On which note, there is still some worrying resistance from some in the industry about using some of the most effective marketing tools at their fingertips. One German drone company told us they refuse to use social media because, and I quote, “our customers would laugh at us”. I’ve talked about this at length in previous posts, but the fact remains that, like everyone else, your customers live a fair chunk of their lives on social media and if you aren’t starting conversations with them there, you are seriously missing a trick. Yes, if you go about it the wrong way it can strike an odd note, but the skill is finding a way to communicate through social media that makes sense and offers value. It’s the message, not the medium, that counts.
Networking at Intergeo
In particular, I noticed more collaboration vs direct selling. I wasn’t the only one picking up on it, either – several people made the same comment! Seems to me that this is a big shift away from years of actually doing business on stands and it shows how events like this are changing their place in the buyer’s journey, with conferences becoming more about relationship building and making an impact than making a sale.
I’m a keen exhibitor and regular visitor to focused events like these. However, I’d love to hear more about it from your perspective. Are shows like these worth the huge financial cost? Any little gems that worked differently for you in the past vs now? And if you were at Intergeo 2016, what were your impressions?
So there you have it: Intergeo 2016 in a nutshell. But what did you think of the event and the trends we saw in geospatial marketing this year? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
We talk a lot about the “buying process” or the “buyer’s journey” in Geospatial. You know, the specific set of steps that your customer takes to get from total stranger to happy customer. The “touchpoints” they make with your brand. How your selling strategy intersects with their buying cycles and blah blah blah.
Or, in reality: what series of steps YOU will take to pester someone into eventually buying your stuff.
Sometimes I wonder if certain tech companies in this industry think their customers are a load of SHEEP.
You can dress it up with whatever jargon you want, but at the end of the day, you can’t just herd people from point to point and hope that by the end they’ll munch on whatever you put under their noses.
And if your “buying process” is about what you want from a customer, not what they most logically want or need from you at this point, it’s not so much a case of guiding them along the path as making them feel a bit hassled and frustrated, or thinking “Aargh! Not another sales call!”.
Because if you’re being super smart about your Geospatial buying process, your customer never feels like they’re getting a sales call they’d rather avoid.
Instead, they feel like you’re anticipating exactly what they need from you – you’re on their side, you’re here to help, and they are getting the best deal out of the exchange.
Sound like black magic to you?
In fact, it’s simply about good old common sense, with a smattering of creativity and a sprinkling of commitment thrown in.
Let me explain.
[ctt template=”4″ link=”s5UGy” via=”no” ]Focus on what your customers want – and give it to them. #geospatial #marketing #ContentMarketing #geospatialgeek[/ctt]
Focus on what your customers want – and give it to them.
Imagine, if you will, the situation from a potential customer’s point of view.
They have a specific problem they are trying to tackle. Perhaps they’re helping a client to monitor how a contaminated water source is impacting on the local human population – for example, they need to analyse georeferenced data on diseases in the area. This isn’t something they’ve tried to do before and they are still trying to figure out if they are going about it in the right way.
They are scouring the web for information and advice to check that they are approaching the problem in the right way.
Let’s say that you specialise in GIS tools or provide the survey that provides the perfect solution to this particular problem.
All you need is to make sure you’ve optimised your website and stuffed it with the right keywords and then you wait for them to come to your site, capture their contact details, call them and start your sales pitch, right?
WRONG.
You’re thinking about what YOU want out of this exchange.
Your customer doesn’t want a sales call.
They don’t want to browse your products.
They don’t want to buy anything at all.
… Yet
Right now, what this person wants is a straightforward, expert answer to the problem they are searching for.
What they would absolutely love is a detailed blog post breaking down the biggest considerations and potential pitfalls they should take into account when they start to look at disease data that’s been georeferenced to a specific area.
What they would absolutely love is to find a blog post like that, read it to the bottom and then see a link offering them a free eBook that expands on these ideas, giving an in-depth masterclass in using GIS data for public health projects.
Only then, when they’ve managed to get their head around how that works, are they ready to start thinking about what technology or tools they’d need to invest in to get their project off the ground. Does that mean it’s time for the hard sell?
Probably not.
Because what they would really appreciate right now isn’t a sales call from one specific competitor. It’s a breakdown of what features they need to look out for and how this relates to the problem at hand.
In fact, what they’d really, really appreciate at this moment is a series of short demo videos showing them exactly how to approach a problem like theirs using a relevant GIS analysis tool.
And if the company who gave them the free eBook stepped in and said “Hey, do you guys want to take a look at these how-to videos? I feel like they might help answer your questions,” that would be very welcome indeed.
And if that same company was to come back to them a few days later and say, “By the way, if you want, we can come by your office and show you how it all works in person” or “Hey, we’re heading to this expo in your town next week, so if you found that video handy and you want to ask our surveyors any questions about it, I’d love to see you there,” that might be a very welcome next step indeed.
In other words, the point of mapping the buyer’s journey, or the geospatial buying process, or whatever you want to call it, is this:
[ctt template=”4″ link=”bJsAS” via=”no” ]Help your customers on their terms (not yours). #Geospatial #GeospatialGeek #ContentMarketing[/ctt]
What does that mean in practice? It means asking yourself (or your clients) what kind of information and resources they would find most useful and then creating free content that fulfils that need.
It means being generous to clients, demonstrating your expertise and building a rapport so that when they ARE ready to part with their cash, they are handing it to you and not to a competitor.
Of course, designing this process right takes a ton of planning. In fact, having a proper content marketing strategy is the biggest thing that separates a highly successful campaign from a floundering one.
As the eternally wise Neil Patel, co-founder of KISSmetrics and online marketing whizz kid extraordinaire, sums it up:
“Just as a football team doesn’t storm out onto the field without a thorough game plan, you don’t want to haphazardly produce content without first devising a strategy.”
Because ultimately, it doesn’t matter how fast you can run, how skilled you are with the ball or how impressive each individual flourish is on the pitch. Yes, it’s important that people know that you’re the player they should put their money on. But even more importantly, you need a clear idea of how you’re going to pass the ball and the sequence it’s going to take to get it all the way to the other end of the pitch and score your team a goal.
This means that, as well as creating amazing content your customers will love, you need to remember that each piece of content is linked.
You need to end each one with a call to action that builds your relationship a little bit further. That gives you a good reason to take their contact details. That gives you a chance to nurture that lead.
This way, your interactions with your clients don’t become a tug-of-war, where they really want to take one path and you’re trying to strong-arm them into taking another. Instead, you’re walking with them along a journey that makes sense to them – but you end up at a destination that’s great for both of you.
Want to have a chat about how content marketing could drive forward the geospatial buying process in your field? Give me a call on +44 (0)7825517850 to talk it through!
Remember when the I Heart NY design first came out? Way back in the 70s? Yeah, this one:
Back then, this simple design was the height of cool. It was sleek, bold and totally iconic. It made designer Milton Glaser a household name. Go to New York today and you’ll still see it plastered over a bazillion t-shirts, mugs, fridge magnets – you name it. People love that design. It will forever be associated with the Big Apple.
You know what’s not – and has never been – cool?
I Heart London mugs. I Heart Rome t-shirts. I Heart Geospatial anything at all.
Why?
Because it’s cringey. It’s a cheap imitation. It takes no thought or creativity or originality whatsoever.
In fact, it’s worse than that. It’s taking something that everyone associates with one famous thing and doing a shameless copy-and-paste job instead of inventing something new.
In other words, it’s announcing to the world that someone else came up with a better idea than you, and the best you can offer is an imitation of it. But, I hear you cry, what in the world does I Heart NY have to do with my Geospatial brand?
This:
When you pick up any geospatial industry magazine and take a look at the ads, you’ll notice that everyone’s producing the same old dross. This “safe marketing” is really shorthand for “safe and boring”. And it results in people passing you by.
More often than not, marketing in the geospatial sector is the B2B tech equivalent of putting I Heart Surveying on a mouse mat. Every company uses the same language. The same jargon. The same design layout. The same offers. The same *&^%$#@ features. The same channels and techniques.
Why? Because too many companies are nervous that they’ll get it wrong. They’re scared that if they try something different, they’ll lose their credibility and their customers.
So they look at what their competitors are doing and say, “Ah-ha! So that’s how you’re supposed to do geospatial marketing” – and they copy it as closely as they can. And then along comes the next brand in the industry, who look at what their peers are doing and they also say, “Well no one’s marketing any other way, so I guess that’s what works,” and they copy it, too.
And so on and so on, until everyone out there is doing exactly the same %^&*.
Now, I’m sure you can see the flaw in this plan. Marketing is about standing out from the crowd, and you can’t exactly stand out if you’ve all chosen to wear the same uniform!
[ctt template=”4″ link=”8LKbs” via=”yes” ]#Marketing is about standing out from the crowd #geospatial @EBTMarketing[/ctt]
One of my favourite marketing brains on this subject is Marianne Cantwell, an ex-management consultant who now helps people create a free range career that suits their personalities and lifestyles, building on their strengths instead of imitating other people’s.
As Marianne explains, many people decide to set up their own companies because they want to do things their own way. They know they can do it better, they have a great idea, they’re full of passion… but then they panic. They see someone else doing well, who is presenting or marketing themselves in a totally different way and they think they must be doing it wrong, so they strip out all the stuff that makes them unique and adopt a cookie cutter approach.
And, of course, it doesn’t work. Because if you look and sound exactly like someone who is already out there – especially someone who is more established – why on earth would a potential customer choose you?
Companies of all sizes do this, but it’s a particular problem for B2B tech companies of all stripes, because they are so terrified of sounding too casual or unprofessional. This is especially true in the very reserved ‘survey’ Industry!
But here’s the thing:
Professional doesn’t mean bland. It means dependable.
Professional doesn’t mean boring. It means sounding like you know your stuff.
Professional doesn’t mean aloof. It means connecting with your customers and winning their trust.
… And professional certainly doesn’t mean blending into the background. It means defining a genuine USP and then making sure that this is what your customers know you for.
Okay, that’s the pep talk over. What does all this look like in practice?
How do you stand out in the crowd? Give yourself that all-important edge over your competitors? And how do you do it in a way that’s consistent with your brand?
Here’s some tip-top advice from multi-award winning marketing guru Kate Hardcastle:
“You need to have a reputation – you need to be proud of that – you need to be able to tell your story, and you need to make sure that the customer of that product can really understand that. The easiest starting point when you’ve got a blank sheet of paper is really to think about: what does our customer want and how can we deliver that in the best and most exciting and engaging way?”
How do you find out what your customers really want from you? Simple: Ask them.
“There might be some really obvious things, there might be some things that take research. Research all the time. Ask all of your customers, past and present, how are we doing? Is the message getting across? What’s working for you? What’s not working for you?”
In other words, find out what your customers like the most about what you do and then make this your selling point.
For example, maybe the thing people love is your awesome customer service – the way your friendly staff have a knack for talking people through their options, helping them fix problems or demonstrating new opportunities in a way that doesn’t bamboozle them but doesn’t patronise them either. Brilliant! Why don’t you release a series of troubleshooting YouTube videos, send out weekly tips to your email list, and make your support page super-prominent on your website?
Or perhaps you’re a team of super-nerds who are obsessive about every nuance of the technology – and your customers love being able to geek out with you over what your products can do? Awesome! Publish under-the-hood and how-to blog posts that get right into granular detail. Re-tweet and post links to the most exciting developments in your industry. Film yourself taking new tech out for a spin. Maybe even interview some of the most important people in R&D in your line of work and publish this on your company blog.
Whatever your niche is, run with it. And once you know what it is your customers want, talk to them in their language. Cut out all the unnecessary jargon or icky sales-speak from your website, your social media pages, your emails and any materials you use to sell. If you’re excited and enthusiastic about what you do, show that in the way you write and talk about your products. Let your brand voice and personality shine through and you’ll build a far better rapport with customers.
Here’s the thing: people respect you because you provide something valuable. They respect you because you sell a product or a service that fixes a problem they have. They respect you because it’s obvious from what you say and do that you’re an expert on the topic.
[ctt template=”4″ link=”EZe3g” via=”yes” ]People respect you because you provide something valuable. #Geospatial @EBTMarketing[/ctt]
They don’t respect you more simply because you’ve sprayed the correct-sounding marketing phrases all over your website, or because you are dressed in a cookie-cutter suit and have successfully squashed your personality out of your pitch. You might not surprise anyone by towing the line and making sure you resemble everyone else in your industry, but they certainly won’t remember you either.
So be brave. Figure out who you are as a brand, get out there and own it.
Ready to embark on your very own voyage of discovery? Give us a call today on +447825517850 or SKYPE me elaine_ebtm to talk about how we can help you find your brand mojo.